The Book of Margery Kempe (34 page)

‘Remember, Lord, the woman who was taken in adultery and brought before you, and as you drove away all her enemies from her as she stood alone by you, so truly you may drive away all my enemies from me, both bodily and spiritual, so that I may stand alone by you, and make my soul dead to all the joys of this world, and alive and greedy for high contemplation in God.

‘Remember, Lord, Lazarus who lay four days dead in his grave, and as I have been in that holy place where your body was alive and dead and crucified for man's sin, and where Lazarus was raised from death to life, as surely Lord, if any man or woman be dead in this hour through mortal sin, if any prayer may help them, hear my prayers for them and make them live without end.

‘I thank you, Lord, for all those sins that you have kept me from, which I have not done, and I thank you, Lord, for all the sorrow that you have given me for those that I have done, for these graces, and for all other graces that are needful to me and to all creatures on earth.

‘And for all those who have faith and trust, or shall have faith and trust, in my prayers until the world's end, such grace as they desire, spiritual or bodily, to the profit of their souls, I pray you, Lord, grant them, for the abundance of your mercy. Amen.'

1
.   The MS was edited by S. B. Meech and H. E. Allen in
The Book of Margery Kempe
(Early English Text Society, O.S. 212, 1940), and modernized by W. Butler-Bowdon in
The Book of Margery Kempe
(London, 1936). The MS – which is an early copy, but not the original dictated by Margery – was acquired by the British Library in 1980, and is now B.L. Add. MS 61823.

2
.   See James Hogg, ‘Mount Grace Charterhouse and Late Medieval English Spirituality',
Analecta Cartusiana
, 82 (1980), 1-53; M. Sargent, ‘The Transmission by the English Carthusians of Some Late Medieval Spiritual Writings',
Journal of Ecclesiastical History
, 27 (1976), 225-40; E. M. Thompson,
The Carthusian Order in England
(London, 1930).

3
.   See further, J. A. F. Thomson, The Later Lollards 1414-1520 (Oxford, 1965); N. P. Tanner (ed.),
Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich
1428-31 (London, 1977); Anne Hudson (ed.),
Selections from English Wyclifflte Writings
(Cambridge, 1978); M. D. Lambert, Medieval Heresy (London, 1977).

4
.   See E. Colledge and J. Walsh (eds.),
A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich
(Toronto, 1978), Introduction, pp. 33-8.

5
.   For the background, see J. Sumption,
Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion
(London, 1975); R. C. Finucane,
Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England
(London, 1977); C. K. Zacher,
Curiosity and Pilgrimage
(Baltimore, 19 76); D. R. Howard,
Writers and Pilgrims: Medieval Pilgrimage Narratives and their Posterity
(Berkeley, 1980).

6
.   See Felix Fabri,
Book of the Wanderings of Felix Fabri,
tr. A. Stewart (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1892); John Poloner,
Description of the Holy Land,
tr. A. Stewart (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1894);
Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff,
tr. M. Letts (Hakluyt Society, 1946); William Wey,
Itineraries to Jerusalem,
1458 (Roxburghe Club, 1857); Seigneur d'Anglure,
Le Saint Voyage de Jherusalem,
1395, ed. F. Bonnardot and A. Longnon (S.A.T.F., Paris, 1878);
Le voyatge d'oultremer en Jherusalem de Nompar, seigneur de Caumont,
ed. P. S. Noble (Medium Aevum Monographs, N.S. vii, Oxford, 1975).

7
.   See E. Underhill (ed.),
The Scale of Perfection
(London, 1923), and J. E.
Milosh,
The Scale of Perfection and the English Mystical Tradition
(Madison, 1966).

8
.   See M. Deanesly (ed.),
The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole
(Manchester, 1915); C. Wolters (tr.),
The Fire of Love
(Penguin, 1972); H. E. Allen,
Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle Hermit of Hampole and Materials for His Biography
(New York, 1927).

9
.   See P. Hodgson (ed.),
The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises
(Salzburg, 1982).

10
. See H. E. Allen (ed.),
English Writings of Richard Rolle
(Oxford, 1931).

11
. See
Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century (MS. Ital.
115,
Paris Bibl. Nat),
ed. and tr. I. Ragusa and R. B. Green (Princeton, 1961); also E. Salter, ‘Nicholas Love's
Myrrour of the Blessed Lyfofjesu Christ', Anakcta Cartusiana,
10 (1974)-

12
. See C. Kirchberger (ed.),
The Goad of Love
(London, 1952), and H. Kane (ed.),
The Prickynge of Love
(Salzburg, 1983).

13
. Such works of Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293-1381) as
Die Geestelike Bruloht
(‘The Spiritual Espousals') and
Van den Blinckenden Steen
were available in England. See J. Bazire and E. Colledge (eds.),
The Chastising of God's Children and The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God
(Oxford, 1957); Suso's
Horologium Sapientiae
was translated, cf. C. Horstmann (ed.), ‘
Orologium Sapientiae
or
The Seven Poyntes of Trewe Wisdom,
aus MS Douce 114',
Anglia
10 (1888), 323-89; see also R. Lovatt, ‘The Imitation of Christ in Late Medieval England',
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society,
5th ser., 18 (1968), 97ff.

14
. See a Middle English version, W. P. Cumming (ed.),
The Revelations of St Birgitta
(E.E.T.S., O.S. 178, 1929); also, J. Jorgensen,
Saint Bridget of Sweden,
2 vols. (London, 1954).

15
. See Jacques de Vitry's
Vita Maria Oigniacensis,
in
Acta Sanctorum,
25 (1867), 542-72.

16
. See further B. M. Bolton, ‘Mulieres sanctae', in
Studies in Church History,
10 (1973), 77-95, and ‘
Vitae Matrum: A
Further Aspect of the
Frauenfrage',
in
Medieval Women,
ed. D. Baker (Oxford, 1978), PP- 253-73. See also E. W. McDonnell,
The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture
(New Brunswick, 1954); M. Goodich, ‘Contours of Female Piety in Later Medieval Hagiography',
Church History,
50 (1981), 20-32.

17
. See C. Horstmann (ed.), ‘Prosalegenden: Die Legenden des ms. Douce
114',
Anglia,
8 (1885), 102-96; cf. also P. S. Jolliffe, ‘Two Middle English Tracts on the Contemplative Life',
Medieval Studies,
37 (1975). 85-121.

18
. Her
Dialogo della divina provvidenza
exists in a fifteenth-century English version; see P. Hodgson and G. M. Liegey (eds.),
The Orcherd of Syon
(E.E.T.S., O.S. 258, 1966). See also P. Hodgson, The Orcherd of Syon
and the English Mystical Tradition
(London, 1964).

19
. St Mechthild of Hackeborn,
The Booke of Gostlye Grace,
ed. T. A. Halligan (Toronto, 1979); cf. C. W. Bynum,
Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
(Berkeley, 1982).

20
. See M. Doiron (ed.), ‘Margarete Porete,
The Mirror of Simple Souls,
A Middle English Translation; with an Appendix: The Glosses by “M.N.” and Richard Methley to the “Mirror” by E. Colledge and R. Guarnieri',
Archivio italianoper la storia della pietà,
5 (1968). See also R. E. Lerner,
The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages
(Berkeley, 1972).

21
. See P. Doncoeur (ed.),
Le livre de la Bienheureuse Angèle de Foligno
(Paris, 1926).

22
. See H. Westpfahl (ed.),
Vita Dorothea Montoviensis Magistri Johannis Marienwerder
(Cologne, 1964); also the article by H. Westpfahl in the
Dictionnaire de Spiritualité,
Vol. 3, cols. 1664-8 (Paris, 1957). Dorothea was canonized in 1976.

23
. R. Pascal,
Design and Truth in Autobiography
(Cambridge, Mass., 1960); Mary G. Mason, ‘The Other Voice: Autobiographies of Women Writers', in
Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical,
ed. J. Olney (Princeton, 1980), pp. 207-35.

24
. In S. Medcalf (ed.),
The Later Middle Ages
(London, 1981), a modern diagnosis of Margery by Dr Anthony Ryle is recorded (pp. 114-15), and is here reproduced by kind permission:

As is so often the case, she revealed a great deal of herself in her opening statement; partly in giving the account of her puerperal breakdown following her first child, which seems to have been psychotic in nature; but more so by revealing her discontent with those who had attempted to help her at this time, and this became recurrent throughout her account.

Prior to her puerperal breakdown, she was already preoccupied with some secret guilt, and it seems certain, from the evidence later in the story, that this guilt was sexual in nature; thus, she is continually
preoccupied with the bad thoughts of others, and even in her sixties, when travelling, was worried that she might be the victim of rape; and, on one occasion, fairly late in life, seems to have had a brief recurrence of a psychotic period lasting a week or two, in which she was deluded and possibly hallucinated about the sexuality of the males surrounding her. Given, therefore, that this preoccupation was probably persistent, whether conscious or unconscious, a great deal of her subsequent behaviour can be seen as some form of defence against this. The defence she has chosen is one which, within the culture, was clearly the most powerful one, namely the assumption of a direct and special link with God. I feel this was a spurious claim, because her main concern, despite the attempts at visionary writing, would seem to be with the view others held of her as a person of particular religious capacity.

Her claims to the special relationship were made manifest through conspicuous activities, like dressing in white, weeping copiously and persistently, howling, grovelling on the floor, etc. Those around her, in general, are unimpressed by these various behaviours but, in her own system, their failure to acknowledge her claim was one more proof of its lightness because she could convert their rejection to a persecution, which she bore for Christ's sake. This system seems to have been, therefore, coherent and largely impenetrable, and she received enough reward from it to maintain her in a reasonable equilibrium but, I imagine, at considerable cost to those around her for most of her life.

I don't think that there is any evidence of a continuing psychotic process at work here. The most satisfactory description would be of a hysterical personality organization; her behaviours served as a constant source of attention and, in her own terms, of confirmation from others around her.

1
.   Margery consistently refers to herself in the third person throughout her
Book.

2
.   Literally ‘how homely our Lord was in her soul'; also a frequent idea in Julian of Norwich: cf. ‘in us is his homeliest home'
(Revelations of Divine Love,
tr. C. Wolters, Penguin, 1966, chapter 67).

3
.   
Margery's word is ‘Dewchlond', an inclusive term for the German-speaking lands, and usually including the Low Countries.

1
.   The Carmelite, Alan of Lynn; see chapter 9.

2
.   i.e. 23 July.

1
.   In Book II, chapter 5, which probably records events in 1433, Margery describes herself as about sixty years of age, which suggests she was born c. 1373 and married c. 1393. Margery begins abruptly at marriage and first childbirth and passes over her childhood, unlike many biographies of saintly women that Margery would have known, where the saint evinces signs of exceptional devotion from an early age.

2
.   Square brackets indicate additions by medieval annotators of the Mount Grace MS. Margery at first seems to conceal the identity of her home town and indicates it by the letter ‘N'. Later, the town is openly named.

3
.   The nature of this unconfessed sin is never revealed by Margery. Some past sexual sin has been suggested, or some connection with William Sawtre, the first Lollard to be burnt for his beliefs in 1401, who was a priest in Lynn for some time before 1399.

4
.   i.e. confessed. Auricular confession was deemed essential.

5
.   In her
Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe
(Cornell, 1983), p. 209, Clarissa W. Atkinson suggests Margery is here suffering from ‘postpartum psychosis', a much more severe condition than common post-natal depression and sometimes involving delirium.

1
.   Probably referring to the
crespine,
fashionable female head-dress of gold wire and mesh, sometimes shaped into the elaborate ‘horns' frequently attacked by contemporary preachers. In head-dress and clothes Margery follows latest fashion.

2
.   i.e. her madness.

1
.   Melody is a traditional accompaniment of mystical experience; see Richard Rolle,
The Fire of Love,
tr. C. Wolters (Penguin, 1972), chapters 33, 34.

2
.   Margery here acquires three persistent features of her subsequent life: her weeping, her continual thinking and irrepressible talking of heaven, and her wish for chastity.

3
.   i.e. the right of both parties to sexual intercourse within marriage under medieval canon law.

4
.   Excessive bodily penance – more common among continental mystics – was discouraged by such influential English guides as the author of the
Ancrene Riwle,
Richard Rolle, and Walter Hilton.

5
.   Frequent confession was recommended to the devout and noted in the lives of such female visionaries familiar to Margery as St Bridget of Sweden and Mary of Oignies.

6
.   cf. chapter 4: three years of temptation followed two years of quiet. As the Proem warns: ‘This book is not written in order…'

1
.   St Margaret of Antioch, a legendary virgin martyr (supposedly martyred in the persecution of Diocletian) whose cult was very popular in later medieval England. Olybrius, governor of Antioch, tried to marry or seduce her, but she declared herself a Christian and rebuffed him. She was subjected to torture, and was swallowed by a dragon, which exploded into pieces when she made the sign of the cross. She was eventually beheaded. Her feast day was 20 July.

2
.   i.e. the church of St Margaret which still survives in King's Lynn, although the nave was rebuilt after a spire fell causing damage in 1741. The church belonged to the Benedictine priory of Lynn, which was itself a cell of Norwich Cathedral monastery.

1
.   Advent was traditionally a season for thoughts of penance and of the Last Judgement.