Memoirs of a medieval woman; the life and times of Margery Kempe

by Louise Collis

Paper Book, 1964

Status

Available

Publication

New York, Crowell [1964]

Description

This memoir describes the 15th-century life and travels of the extraordinary Margery Kempe, who left her family to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

User reviews

LibraryThing member kant1066
Louise Collis' book stands of the interesting tradition of "books that are about books." While Kempe (c. 1373 - 1438) wrote what is quite possibly the first autobiography in the English language - and quite a fascinating book in its own right - Collis' re-telling of the story adds the occasionally
Show More
much-needed and very helpful narrative voice of a twentieth-century historian. At the same time, her voice is never intrusive, always letting Margery's story shine through any additional insight she might have.

Margery Kempe was born in or around the year 1373 to one John Brunham, the long-time mayor of Lynne (now King's Lynn) in Norfolk. In 1393, she would marry John Kempe and have her first child quickly thereafter. It was around this time when Margery had her first ecstatic religious vision when, according to her, Jesus appeared to her in a purple robe. Thirteen more children would follow over the years.

One day, while lying in bed with her husband, she has another vision, she tells John that she has decided to give up her sex life with him in order to give herself fully to God. This was one of the larger decisions that was made on the way to her becoming a fully repentant saint, whose spiritual ablutions and contrition would irritate many of the people that used to love her the most. In 1414, she took a dangerous trip to the Holy Land (the threats of vagabonds and brigands made long-term travel much more of an adventure than we could ever imagine it today), returning home a year later; in 1417, she took a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. Both of these trips are beautifully detailed in the text. During her travels, she was hardly able to control her grippingly emotional visions. While today we would imagine that everyone would admire her for such religious fervor, many of the people that she would encounter on her travels thought that she was either being histrionic and sanctimonious, or possessed by the devil.

There is absolutely no doubt that Margery was a brilliant woman. While unlettered, she knew enough about Church dogmatics to defend herself when she was accused by some of being a Lollard (a follower of John Wycliffe). On other occasions, she was accused of being a heretic of other stripes, but always received commendations from those in a position to say what was orthodox and what wasn't.

While the comparatively secular modern mindset might find Margery's religious devotion neurotic or overly compulsive, Collis' careful and considerate explication enables the reader to approach the text with more cultural and sociological sensitivity. No one would ever accuse Margery of being an uncomplicated woman. She was strong-willed and adamantine. But her sincerity, selflessness, and refusal to compromise those values which she found most important make her oddly likeable, and one of the more interesting religious figures to come out of early fifteenth century English religious history.

This book comes highly recommended for those interested in religious (auto)biography, the history of the Catholic Church, or English history on a larger scale.
Show Less
LibraryThing member BookConcierge
Margery Kempe was an extraordinary 15th century woman who traveled from England to Jerusalem (and a number of spots in between). She was convinced she had been chosen by God to be his servant, and, though married with 14 (!) children, she undertook to take His message to the faithful. More
Show More
importantly to her, she had a “secret sin” in her early life, which she felt she could only expunge by this pilgrimage.

Collis used Kempe’s own autobiography – the first ever written in English. (She was illiterate, but dictated her memoirs to a priest near the end of her life.) Thank God for Collis’s “interpretation.” The frequent quotes were enough to give me nightmares of a high-school English teacher who specialized in Middle English. As an example: “oon of hem specyaly” = “one of them, specially.” I also got tired of Margery, herself, pretty quickly. She was certainly committed to her cause, but I sympathized with her fellow travellers who wanted to abandon her (she was really insufferable).

In fairness, I did learn quite a lot about the history of this period. Though Chaucer was alive during this period, she probably didn’t know of him (remember, she was illiterate) ; still, I couldn’t help but recall Canterbury Tales (it seems written with “hyr in mynd”).
Show Less
LibraryThing member MrsLee
This book in turns fascinated me and disgusted me. The fascination was when the author was busy telling what was going on around Margery as she lived out her life. Historical events, people, and descriptions that Margery didn't include in her memoirs.

This is NOT Margery's memoirs, and now for the
Show More
part that disgusted me. The author picked and chose to give the reader only snippets of the actual memoirs. Picked at her discretion, to highlight her own agenda which apparently was to show Margery up as a selfish, foolish and annoying woman and no saint at all, by God! I'm not sure whether the author was offended that Margery tried to be a saint, whether she was angry with Margery for not living up to the legend that had been built up around her, or whether she simply hates religion or Catholicism. Collis missed no chance to drip vitriol on Margery; interpreting her motives for us, judging her character for us. One wonders if she has a personal vendetta from one of her ancestors to "put that woman in her place."

I grant you that I probably would have avoided Margery in life, but I would have liked to judge for myself through more of Margery's words and less of the author leading me by the nose.
Show Less

Language

Original publication date

1964

Physical description

269 p.; 22 cm

Local notes

biography
Page: 0.5299 seconds