Margery Kempe ( – after 1438) was an English Catholic mystic, known for writing through dictation The Book of Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language. Her book chronicles her domestic tribulations, her extensive pilgrimages to holy sites in Europe and the Holy Land, as well as her mystical conversations with God. She is honoured in the Anglican Communion, but has not been canonised as a Catholic saint.
Early life and family She was born Margery Burnham or Brunham around 1373 in Bishop's Lynn (now King's Lynn), Norfolk, England. Her father, John Brunham, was a merchant in Lynn, mayor of the town and Member of Parliament. The first record of her Brunham family is a mention of her grandfather, Ralph de Brunham, in 1320 in the Red Register of Lynn. By 1340, he had joined the Parliament of Lynn. Kempe's kinsman Robert Brunham, possibly her brother, became a Member of Parliament for Lynn in 1402 and 1417.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.
Life
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 appears to have been taught the Pater Noster (the Lord's Prayer), Ave Maria, the Ten Commandments, and other "virtues, vices, and articles of faith".
At around twenty years of age, Margery married John Kempe, who became a town official in 1394. They had at least fourteen children. A letter survives from Gdańsk which identifies the name of her eldest son as John and gives a reason for his visit to Lynn in 1431.
Kempe, 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. After the birth of her first child, Kempe went through a period of crisis for nearly eight months,Torn, Alison. "Medieval Mysticism Or Psychosis?." Psychologist 24.10 (2011): 788–790. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 8 October 2013. which may perhaps have been an episode of postpartum psychosis. During her illness, Kempe claimed to have envisioned numerous devils and demons attacking her and commanding her to "forsake her faith, her family, and her friends". She claims that they even encouraged her to commit suicide. She also had a vision of Jesus Christ in the form of a man who asked her, "Daughter, why have you forsaken me, and I never forsook you?".
Kempe affirms that she had visitations and conversations with Jesus, Mary, and other religious figures, and that she had visions of being an active participant during the birth and crucifixion of Christ. These visions and hallucinations physically affected her bodily senses, causing her to hear sounds and smell unknown, strange odours. She reported hearing a heavenly melody that made her weep and want to live a chaste life. According to Beal, "Margery found other ways to express the intensity of her devotion to God. She prayed for a chaste marriage, went to confession two or three times a day, prayed early and often each day in church, wore a hair shirt, and willingly suffered whatever negative responses her community expressed in response to her extreme forms of devotion".
An explanation for bearing this scrutiny from others was her conversation held with the mystic Julian of Norwich, whom she travelled to meet. At the end of their conversation, Julian of Norwich implores that "the more shame she [Kempe] elicits, the more merit she gains in the eyes of the Lord". Kempe was also known throughout her community for her constant weeping as she begged Christ for mercy and forgiveness.
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". Kempe did not join a religious order, but carried out "her life of devotion, prayer, and tears in public".
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. However, she does not record being sexually assaulted. 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".Drabble, Margaret. "Margery Kempe." The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 552. Print. Kempe's book is commonly considered to be the first autobiography written in the English language.
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. 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. 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.
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 an Englishman as a scribe. He 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. She then persuaded a local priest, who may have been her confessor Robert Springold, to begin rewriting on 23 July 1436. On 28 April 1438, he started work on an additional section covering the years 1431–4.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).
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 grain mill, both common home-based businesses for medieval women. Both failed after a short period of time. Although she tried to be more devout, she was tempted by sexual pleasures and social jealousy for some years. Eventually turning away from her worldly work, Kempe dedicated herself completely to the spiritual calling that she felt her earlier vision required.
In the summer of 1413, striving to live a life of commitment to God, Kempe negotiated a chaste marriage with her husband. Although chapter 15 of The Book of Margery Kempe describes her decision to lead a celibate life, chapter 21 mentions that she is pregnant once again. It has been speculated that Kempe gives birth to a child, her last, during her pilgrimage; she later relates that she brought a child with her when she returned to England. It is unclear whether the child was conceived before the Kempes began their celibacy, or in a momentary lapse after it.
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. The text reports that Julian approved of Kempe's revelations and gave Kempe reassurance that her religiosity was genuine. However, Julian instructed and cautioned Kempe to "measure these experiences according to the worship they accrue to God and the profit to her fellow Christians." Julian also confirmed that Kempe's tears were physical evidence of the Holy Spirit in soul. 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. 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. 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.
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. It is not known whether this is the same woman, 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.Bale, Anthony. "Richard Salthouse of Norwich and the scribe of The Book of Margery Kempe". Chaucer Review, 52 (2017): 173–87. The manuscript contains annotations by four different writers. 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.Fredell, Joel. "Design and Authorship in the Book of Margery Kempe". Journal of the Early Book Society, 12 (2009): 1–34. 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'.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).