The Fascinating Life of Margery Kempe and All Saints Church by Emma Williams

The Fascinating Life of Margery Kemp and All Saints Church

by Emma Williams

Margery Kempe (née Brunham) was born in 1373 to the Mayor of Bishop’s Lynn, now King’s Lynn in East Anglia. As a Christian Mystic, she claimed to experience visions of Jesus and have conversations with the Virgin Mary. Mysticism is the sense of some form of contact with the divine or transcendent, often understood in Christian tradition as involving union with God. Margery is believed to have had fourteen children with her husband John Kempe but it’s unclear whether that was actually fourteen pregnancies or living children. During her life she did several jobs but after two of her businesses failed, she chose to devote her life to God, believing the failing of her work was a sign from him.

Margery’s Early Visions Begin

When Margery was 20 she got married, fell pregnant and began to experience her visions soon afterwards. It’s possible they were a result of post-natal depression or the reprimands she received from a priest about her religious views on sex, which she saw as a sin.

Margery’s first visions were of demons admonishing her and she found them incredibly disturbing. She would then sense Jesus come to her in a vision and tell her that she had forgotten him but that he had not forgotten her. She found it hard to know whether her visions were genuinely from God and thought perhaps that the devil might be trying to deceive her instead. To help with interpretations Margery went to a priest but even theologians of the time were not always sure how to interpret the visions of mystics. For around fifteen years Margery had no visions but then began to believe she had had discussions with both Christ and the Virgin Mary and been present at their births. She even believed that Jesus would marry her when she died. Margery found many of these visions extremely harrowing and often wept as a result of them, saying that she felt Christ’s pain on the cross. In 1409, as a form of penance for her sins, Margery stopped eating meat and asked her husband if they could have a chaste marriage. She felt this would show her devotion to God and the church and set out on pilgrimages across Europe and the Middle East.

Margery often dressed in white to show her love for the Virgin Mary but some found this an odd contradiction since she had several children and white clothes were a symbol of purity, worn by nuns of the time. With her emotional and moral outbursts many people found her extremely difficult to get along with.

Margery Comes to Leicester

After returning from one of her trips abroad, Margery arrived in Leicester. It was illegal for women to preach and despite protests that this was not what she was doing, Margery was brought to the Mayor, suspected of having Lollard beliefs (see page 10). Fortunately, Margery was considered a respectable woman and instead of being kept in the jail overnight she was housed by the jailer and his wife. She was treated well but interrogated by the Steward of Leicester who imprisoned two of her companions. The next day a ferocious storm arrived and was interpreted as a punishment from God for the imprisonment. Margery’s companions were released with the plan that they be interrogated at the Guildhall the next day. Margery was interrogated at All Saints

by the Mayor of Leicester, the Dean of Leicester and other authorities who tried to trick her into confessing to Lollard beliefs. Margery had become able to finance herself by praying for people and they may have been threatened by her independence from her husband, fearing their own wives might follow in her footsteps.

The Legacy of Margery Kempe

We know a lot about Margery Kempe because she is considered to be the author of the first autobiography in the English language. The book details her early life, her marriage and children, her mystic experiences and the pilgrimages she went on. It would have been hard for her to complete, given her illiteracy. Margery used three different scribes to help her but the first two had notes that were undecipherable. The third could not understand her writings either until he too, in a strange twist of irony, was said to have received his own vision from God.

The Book of Margery Kempe Quotes:

“The Father also said to this creature, ‘Daughter, I will have you wedded to my Godhead, because I shall show you my secrets and my counsels, for you shall live with me without end.’” pg.122 “And on the next day following, our Lord sent such storms of thunder and lightning, and continuous rain, that all the people in the town were so afraid they didn’t know what to do. They feared it was because they had put the pilgrims in prison.” pg.151

“The Mayor said to her, “I want to know why you go about in white clothes, for I believe you have come here to lure away our wives from us, and lead them off with you.’” pg. 153

“…for they dare not go against my feelings for fear of God…” pg. 154 “And so she and Patrick, together with many good folk of Leicester who had come to encourage her, thanking God who had preserved her and given her victory over her enemies, went out to the edge of the town, and there they gave her a good send-off,…” pg. 155

Bibliography

Bragg, M. In Our Time Podcast: Margery Kempe and English Mysticism

British Library Website. Margery Kempe. Accessed 19/2/2020. https://www.bl.uk/people/margery-kempe#

British Library Website. The Book of Margery Kempe. Accessed 19/2/2020 https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ the-book-of-margery-kempe#

Mapping Margery Kempe Website. 2009. Accessed 19/2/2020 https://college.holycross.edu/ projects/kempe/text/main.htm

Margery Kempe. 1985. The Book of Margery Kempe. Penguin - London. (Translated by B. A. Windeatt).

Stanley, L. 1996. The Book of Margery Kempe: Introduction. Accessed 19/2/2020 https://d.lib.rochester. edu/teams/text/staley-book-of-margery-kempeintroduction

Emma Williams

I study Archaeology at the University of Leicester, I’m in my final year and we had the opportunity to volunteer with a heritage project. I chose this project because the medieval period really interests me. Furthermore, studying All Saints Church’s history gave me the opportunity to look at women’s lives during this period and their roles within society and religion.