Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe | |
---|---|
Born | Margery Brunham c. 1373 Bishop's Lynn, England |
Died | After 1438 |
Occupation | Christian mystic |
Language | English |
Notable works | The Book of Margery Kempe |
Margery Kempe (c. 1373 – after 1438) was an English
Early life and family
She was born Margery Burnham or Brunham around 1373 in
Life
Part of a series on |
Christian mysticism |
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No records remain of any formal education that Kempe may have received. As an adult, a priest read to her "works of religious devotion" in English, which suggests that she might have been unable to read them herself, although she seems to have learned various texts by heart.
Kempe was an orthodox Catholic and, like other medieval mystics, believed that she was summoned to a "greater intimacy with Christ" as a result of multiple visions and experiences she had as an adult.
In Kempe's vision, Christ reassured her that he had forgiven her sins. "He gave her several commands: to call him her love, to stop wearing the hair shirt, to give up eating meat, to take the Eucharist every Sunday, to pray the rosary only until six o'clock, to be still and speak to him in thought"; he also promised her that he would "give her victory over her enemies, give her the ability to answer all clerks, and that [He] will be with her and never forsake her, and to help her and never be parted from her".[2] Kempe did not join a religious order, but carried out "her life of devotion, prayer, and tears in public".[2] Her visions provoked her public displays of loud wailing, sobbing, and writhing which frightened and annoyed both clergy and laypeople. At one point in her life, she was imprisoned by the clergy and town officials and threatened with the possibility of rape;[4] however, she does not record being sexually assaulted.[2] Finally, during the 1420s she dictated her Book, known today as The Book of Margery Kempe, which illustrates her visions, mystical and religious experiences, as well as her "temptations to lechery, her travels, and her trial for heresy".[7] Kempe's book is commonly considered to be the first autobiography written in the English language.[7]
Kempe was tried for heresy multiple times but never convicted; she mentions with pride her ability to deny the accusations of Lollardy with which she was faced.[8] Possible reasons for her arrests include her preaching (which was forbidden to women), her wearing of all white as a married woman (i.e. impersonating a nun), or her apparent belief that she could pray for the souls of those in purgatory and tell whether or not someone was damned, in a manner similar to the concept of the intercession of saints. Kempe was also accused of preaching without Church approval as her public speeches skirted a thin line between making statements about her personal faith and professing to teach scripture. During an inquiry into her heresy she was thought to be possessed by a devil for quoting the scripture, and reminded of the prohibition against women preachers in 1 Timothy.[9][10] Kempe proved to be something of a nuisance in the communities where she resided, as her frantic wailing and extreme emotional responses seemed to imply a superior connection to God that some other lay people saw as diminishing their own, or inappropriately privileged above the relationship between God and the clergy.[11]
Spiritual autobiography
Nearly everything that is known of Kempe's life comes from her spiritual autobiography known as the Book. In the early 1430s, despite her illiteracy, Kempe decided to record her spiritual life. In the preface to the book, she describes how she employed as a scribe an Englishman who had lived in Germany, but he died before the work was completed and what he had written was unintelligible to others. This may possibly have been John Kempe, her eldest son.[3] She then persuaded a local priest, who may have been her confessor Robert Springold, to begin rewriting on 23 July 1436, and on 28 April 1438 he started work on an additional section covering the years 1431–4.[3][12]
The narrative of Kempe's Book begins with the difficult birth of her first child. After describing the demonic torment and Christic apparition that followed, Kempe undertook two domestic businesses: a brewery and a
Sometime around 1413, Kempe visited the female mystic and anchoress Julian of Norwich at her cell in Norwich. According to her own account, Kempe visited Julian and stayed for several days. She was especially eager to obtain Julian's approval for her visions of and conversations with God.[14] The text reports that Julian approved of Kempe's revelations and gave Kempe reassurance that her religiosity was genuine.[15] However, Julian did instruct and caution Kempe to "measure these experiences according to the worship they accrue to God and the profit to her fellow Christians."[16] Julian also confirmed that Kempe's tears were physical evidence of the Holy Spirit in soul.[16] Kempe also received affirmation of her gifts of tears by way of approving comparison to a continental holy woman. In chapter 62, Kempe describes an encounter with a friar who was relentless in his accusation for her incessant tears. The friar admitted to having read of Marie of Oignies and recognised that Kempe's tears were also a result of similar authentic devotion.[17] During this time, Kempe's spiritual confessor was Richard Caister, the Vicar of St Stephen's Church, Norwich, who was buried in the church in 1420.[18] Kempe prayed at Caister's burial place for the healing of a priest; after the priest was healed, Caister's burial place became a shrine for pilgrimage.[19]
In 1438, the year her book is known to have been completed, a "Margueria Kempe", who may well have been Margery Kempe, was admitted to the Trinity Guild of Lynn.[12] It is not known whether this is the same woman, however, and it is unknown when or where after this date Kempe died.
Later influence
The manuscript was copied, probably shortly before 1450, by someone who signed himself Salthows on the bottom portion of the final page. This scribe has been shown to be the Norwich monk Richard Salthouse.[20] The manuscript contains annotations by four hands. The first page of the manuscript contains the rubric "Liber Montis Gracie. This boke is of Mountegrace," making certain that some of the annotations are the work of monks associated with the important Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire. Although the four readers largely concerned themselves with correcting mistakes or emending the manuscript for clarity, there are also remarks about the Book's substance and some images which reflect Kempe's themes and images.[21] A recipe, added to the final folio of the manuscript by a late 14th- or early 15th-century reader of the Book, possibly at the cathedral priory in Norwich, provides more evidence of its readership and has been determined to be for medicinal sweets, or digestives, called 'dragges'.[22]
Kempe's book was essentially lost for centuries, being known only from excerpts published by Wynkyn de Worde in around 1501, and by Henry Pepwell in 1521. However, in 1934 a manuscript (now British Library Add MS 61823, the only surviving manuscript of Kempe's Book) was found in the private library of the Butler-Bowdon family, and then consulted by Hope Emily Allen.[12] It has since been reprinted and translated in numerous editions.
Significance
Part of Kempe's significance lies in the autobiographical nature of her book; it is the best insight available of a female middle-class experience in the Middle Ages. Kempe is unusual compared to contemporaneous holy women, such as Julian of Norwich, because she was not a nun. Although Kempe has sometimes been depicted as an "oddity" or a "madwoman", recent[when?] scholarship on vernacular theologies and popular practices of piety suggests she was not as odd as she might appear.[citation needed][23] Her Book is revealed as a carefully constructed spiritual and social commentary. Some have suggested that it was written as fiction to explore the aspects of the society in which she lived in a believable way. The suggestion that Kempe wrote her book as a work of fiction is said to be supported by the fact that she speaks of herself as "this creature" throughout the text, dissociating her from her work.[24]
Her autobiography begins with "the onset of her spiritual quest, her recovery from the ghostly aftermath of her first child-bearing".[25] There is no firm evidence that Kempe could read or write, but Leyser notes that her religious culture was certainly informed by texts. She had such works read to her, including the Incendium Amoris by Richard Rolle; Walter Hilton has been cited as another possible influence on Kempe. Among other books that Kempe had read to her were, repeatedly, the Revelations of Bridget of Sweden. Her own pilgrimages were related to those of that married saint, who had had eight children.
Kempe and her Book are significant because they express the tension in late medieval England between institutional orthodoxy and increasingly public modes of religious dissent, especially those of the
In the 15th century, a pamphlet was published that represented Kempe as an anchoress and stripped from her "Book" any potential heterodoxical thought or dissenting behaviour. That made some later scholars believe that she was a vowed religious holy woman like Julian of Norwich, and they were surprised to encounter the psychologically and spiritually complex woman revealed in the original text of the "Book".[27]
Mysticism
During the 14th century, the task of interpreting the Bible and God through the written word was nominally restricted to men, specifically ordained priests. Because of this restriction, women mystics often expressed their experience of God differently – through the senses and the body – especially in the late Middle Ages.[28] Mystics directly experienced God in three classical ways: first, bodily visions, meaning to be aware with one's senses – sight, sound, or others; second, ghostly visions, such as spiritual visions and sayings directly imparted to the soul; and lastly, intellectual enlightenment, where one's mind came into a new understanding of God.[29] Margery Kempe's style of mysticism was very participatory, judging by the fact that, along with her visions, she also had specific actions that she would complete as a way of devoting herself to God. Namely, Kempe wept frequently as a way of showing her religiosity. There was also another, perhaps more important, purpose associated with her weeping; that is, she could "win many souls from him [the Devil] with your weeping".[6]
Pilgrimages
Kempe was motivated to make a pilgrimage by hearing or reading the English translation of
First Great Pilgrimage, 1413–1415
In 1413, soon after her father's death, Kempe left her husband to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Kempe's voyage from Venice to Jerusalem is not a large part of her story overall. It is thought that she passed through
After she visited the Holy Land, Kempe returned to Italy and stayed in Assisi before going to Rome.
Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, 1417–1418
In 1417, Kempe set off again on pilgrimage to
She visited important sites and religious figures in England, including Philip Repyngdon (the Bishop of Lincoln), Henry Chichele, and Thomas Arundel (both Archbishops of Canterbury). During the 1420s Kempe lived apart from her husband. When he fell ill, however, she returned to Lynn to be his nursemaid. Their son, who lived in Germany, also returned to Lynn with his wife. However, both her son and husband died in 1431.[36]
Pilgrimage to Prussia, 1433–1434
The last section of Kempe's book deals with a journey, beginning in April 1433, aiming to travel to Danzig with her daughter-in-law.[37] From Danzig, Kempe visited the Holy Blood of Wilsnack relic. She then travelled to Aachen, and returned to Lynn via Calais, Canterbury and London (where she visited Syon Abbey).
Veneration
Margery Kempe is
Memorial
In 2018 the Mayor of King's Lynn, Nick Daubney, unveiled a bench commemorating Kempe in the Saturday Market Place.[40] The bench was designed by local furniture-maker, Toby Winteringham, and sponsored by the King's Lynn Civic Society.[41]
There is a Margery Kempe Society, founded in 2018 by Laura Kalas of Swansea University and Laura Varnam of University College, Oxford, whose aim is the support and promotion of the scholarship, study and teaching of The Book of Margery Kempe.[42]
In 2020, a statue in honour of Kempe was erected at the entrance of a medieval bridge in Oroso in Northern Spain, on the pilgrimage trail she would have followed to Santiago de Compostela.[43]
Dramatic depictions
Kempe's life and her Book have been the subject of several dramatic portrayals:
Modern editions
- — (n.d.). Fredell, Joel W. (ed.). The Book of Margery Kempe: A Facsimile and Documentary Edition (Online ed.). Southeastern Louisiana University.
- — (1940). Meech, Sanford Brown (ed.). The Book of Margery Kempe. Early English Text Society original series. Vol. 212. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 16747549. Prefatory note by Hope Emily Allen.
- — (1944). Butler-Bowdon, W. (ed.). The Book of Margery Kempe: Fourteen Hundred & Thirty-Six. New York: Devin-Adair. With an introduction by R.W. Chambers.
- — (1986). The Book of Margery Kempe. Translated by Windeatt, Barry. Penguin.
- — (1995). The Book of Margery Kempe: A New Translation. Translated by Triggs, Tony D. Burns & Oats.
- — (1996). Staley, Lynn (ed.). The Book of Margery Kempe. Teaching Association for Medieval Studies Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications. Republished online as — (n.d.). Staley, Lynn (ed.). The Book of Margery Kempe. Teaching Association for Medieval Studies Middle English Texts Series. Rossell Hope Robbins Library at University of Rochester.
- — (1998). The Book of Margery Kempe. Translated by Skinner, John. Image Books/Doubleday.
- — (2001). The Book of Margery Kempe: A New Translation, Contexts and Criticism. Translated by Staley, Lynn. New York: Norton.
- — (2015). The Book of Margery Kempe. Oxford World's Classics. Translated by ISBN 978-0-19-151015-1.
Fictionalised treatment
- Perigrinor, Ffiona (2021). Reluctant Pilgrim: The Lost Book of Margery Kempe's Maidservant. Anglepoise Books. ISBN 978-1916309951.
- Mackenzie, Victoria (2023). For thy great pain have mercy on my little pain. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5266-4788-7.
- MacKenzie, Victoria (Broadcast 30 March 2024). For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain. BBC Radio 4, Drama on 4.[47]
References
- ^ Goodman, Anthony. Margery Kempe and Her World.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Beal, Jane. "Margery Kempe." British Writers: Supplement 12. Ed. Jay Parini. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007. Scribner Writers Series. n.pag. Web. 23 October 2013.
- ^ S2CID 162448256.
- ^ a b c Torn, Alison. "Medieval Mysticism Or Psychosis?." Psychologist 24.10 (2011): 788–790. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 8 October 2013.
- S2CID 45847065. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9780140432510.
- ^ a b Drabble, Margaret. "Margery Kempe." The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 552. Print.
- ISBN 9780521887915.
- ^ 1 Timothy 2:12–14
- ^ Gasse, Roseanne (1 January 1996). "Margery Kempe and Lollardy". Magistra. Archived from the original on 30 August 2017. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
- S2CID 144212727.
- ^ a b c Felicity Riddy, 'Kempe, Margery (b. c.1373, d. in or after 1438)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009).
- S2CID 162242251.
- ^ Julian of Norwich (1996). Revelation of Love. Translated by John Skinner. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
- ^ Hirsh, John C. (1989). The Revelations of Margery Kempe: Paramystical Practices in Late Medieval England. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
- ^ a b Lochrie, Karma (1991). Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- ^ Spearing, Elizabeth (2002). Medieval Writings on Female Spirituality. New York: Penguin Books. p. 244.
- ^ "St Stephen's Norwich: The Story of Richard Caister". Retrieved 13 January 2022.
- ^ "St Stephen's Norwich: The Story of Richard Caister". Retrieved 13 January 2022.
- ^ Bale, Anthony. "Richard Salthouse of Norwich and the scribe of The Book of Margery Kempe". Chaucer Review, 52 (2017): 173–87.
- ^ Fredell, Joel. "Design and Authorship in the Book of Margery Kempe". Journal of the Early Book Society, 12 (2009): 1–34.
- ^ Laura Kalas Williams, "The Swetenesse of Confection: A Recipe for Spiritual Health in London", British Library, Add MS 61823, The Book of Margery Kempe, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Volume 40, 2018, pp. 155-190; and Laura Kalas, Margery Kempe's Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation and the Life-Course (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2020).
- S2CID 159698158– via JSTOR.
- OCLC 228059813.
- ISBN 978-1-84217-098-4.
- ISBN 9781843840305.
- ^ Crofton, Melissa (2013). "From medieval mystic to early modern anchoress: Rewriting the book of Margery Kempe". The Journal of the Early Book Society. 16: 89–110. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
- ^ Roman, Christopher (2005). Domestic Mysticism in Margery Kempe and Dame Julian on Norwich: The Transformation of Christian Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.
- ^ Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Love. Trans. John Skinner. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1996.
- ^ Watt, Diane, "Faith in the Landscape: Overseas Pilgrimages in the Book of Margery Kempe".
- ^ Webb, Diana. Medieval European Pilgrimage
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Kempe, Margery (c. 1373 – c. 1440 )." British Writers: Supplement 12. Ed. Jay Parini. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007. 167–183. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 October 2013.
- ^ "Mount Joy: the view from Palestine". 21 January 2014. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
- ^ Prudence Allen The Concept of Woman: The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250–1500 2006 Page 469 "In one of her first public interrogations, Margery defended herself against the Mayor of Leicester who had arrested her, saying, "You, you're a cheap whore, a lying Lollard, and you have an evil effect on others—so I'm going to have you put in."
- ^ "The Book of Margery Kempe: Book I, Part I | Robbins Library Digital Projects". d.lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
- ^ Phillips, Kim. "Margery Kempe and The Ages of Woman", in A Companion to The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. John Arnold and Kathleen Lewis. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer. 2004. 17–34.
- ^ Phillips, Kim. "Margery Kempe and the ages of Woman." A Companion to The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. John Arnold and Katherine Lewis. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer. 2004. 17–34.
- ^ "The Calendar". The Church of England. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-64065-235-4.
- ^ "Lynn News 31 July 2018: New bench remembering historic King's Lynn writer unveiled". 31 July 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- ^ "Lynn News 31 July 2018: New bench remembering historic King's Lynn writer unveiled". 31 July 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- ^ "The Margery Kempe Society". Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- ^ Hussain, Sarah (15 March 2021). "Statue of Norfolk-born medieval mystic erected in Spain". Eastern Daily Press. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
- ^ "Time Out 12 July 2018: The Saintliness of Margery Kempe". 12 July 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- ^ "Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. 6 August 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
- ^ "Sex and the Sacristy". www.bookforum.com. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
- ^ MacKenzie, Victoria (30 March 2024). "BBC Radio 4, Drama on 4, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
Further reading
- Kalas, Laura; Varnam, Laura, eds. (2021). Encountering The Book of Margery Kempe. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-4661-8.
- Arnold, John; Lewis, Katherine, eds. (2010). A Companion to The Book of Margery Kempe. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 978-1843842149.
- Atkinson, Clarissa (1983). Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and The World of Margery Kempe. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801415217.
- Castagna, Valentina Re-reading Margery Kempe in the 21st Century, New York: Peter Lang, 2011.
- Cholmeley, Katharine Margery Kempe, Genius and Mystic, New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1947.
- Goodman, Anthony (2002). Margery Kempe and her World. Longman. ISBN 0582368081.
- Kalas, Laura (2020). Margery Kempe's Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation and the Life-Course, D.S. Brewer. D. S. Brewer. ISBN 978-1843845546.
- Krug, Rebecca (2017). Margery Kempe and the Lonely Reader. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1501705335.
- Lochrie, Karma (1991). Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812215575.
- McEntire, Sandra Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays, New York: Garland, 1992.
- Mitchell, Marea The Book of Margery Kempe: Scholarship, Community, and Criticism, New York: Peter Lang, 2005.
- Staley, Lynn (May 2004). Margery Kempe's Dissenting Fictions. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0271025794.
- Yoshikawa, Naoe Kukita (2007). Margery Kempe's Meditations. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0708319109.
External links
- British Library MS Add. 61823: The Margery Kempe Manuscript
- Middle English Text of The Book of Margery Kempe
- Mapping Margery Kempe, a site including the full text of her book with explanations
- Maps of Margery Kempe's pilgrimages, "Aspects of the High Middle Ages," University of Edinburgh School of Divinity
- The Book of Margery Kempe at Google Books
- The Soul a City: Margery and Julian
- In Our Time podcast: Margery Kempe and English Mysticism