Margery Kempe

6 Margery Kempe

Some of these worthy clerics took it, on peril of their souls and as they would answer to God, that this creature was inspired with the

Holy Ghost, and bade her that she should have a book written of her feelings and her revelations. Some offered to write her feelings with their own hands, and she would in no way consent, for she was commanded in her soul that she should not write so soon. And so it was twenty years and more from the time that this creature first had feelings and revelations before she had any written. Afterwards, when it pleased our Lord, he commanded and charged her that she should have written down her feelings and revelations, and her form of living, so that his goodness might be known to all the world. Then the creature had no writer who would fulfil her desire, nor give credence to her feelings. The Book of

Margery Kempe

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Shortly after Julian wrote the first book in English, Margery Kempe began a work in 1436 that also transgressed ideas of what a woman should do and say, in what would become the first autobiography in English: compiled over many years it became known simply as The Book of Margery Kempe. As she makes clear, Kempe could neither read nor write and struggled to find someone to write down her experiences. Kempe eventually found a priest who was willing to write it out legibly from the various existing badlywritten sections, ‘asking him to write this book and never to reveal it as long as she lived, granting him a great sum of money for his labour.’ Because of the ad hoc nature of its composition, ‘this book is not

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written in order, every thing after another as it was done, but just as the matter came to this creature’s mind when it was to be written down, for it was so long before it was written that she had forgotten the time and the order when things occurred.’

Kempe refers to herself throughout in the third person, mostly as ‘this creature.’ Like Julian and the other mystics she claims her revelations came directly from God, after she had been led astray by devils. ‘She slandered her husband, her friends, and her own self. She spoke many sharp and reproving words; she recognized no virtue nor goodness; she desired all wickedness.’ Jesus then appeared to her, ‘clad in a

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mantle of purple silk, sitting upon her bedside.’ After this Margery wanted to devote herself entirely to God, at the expense of sexual relations with her husband; transgressively she refuses her husband his conjugal rights.

And after this time she never had any desire to have sexual intercourse with her husband, for paying the debt of matrimony was so abominable to her that she would rather, she thought, have eaten and drunk the ooze and muck in the gutter than consent to intercourse.

Kempe wants to make a vow of chastity and regrets being married. ‘Ah, Lord, maidens are now dancing merrily in heaven. Shall I not do so? Because I am no virgin, lack of virginity is now great sorrow to me.’ Still, God forgives her. ‘Ah, daughter, how often have I told you that your sins are forgiven you and that we are united.’ But her husband has become so afraid that he does not even try to have sex with her anymore:

then she said with great sorrow, ‘Truly, I would rather see you being killed, than that we should turn back to our un-cleanness.’

And he replied, ‘You are no good wife.’

And then she asked her husband what was the reason that he had not made love to her for the last eight weeks, since she lay with him every night in his bed. And he said that he was made so afraid when he would have touched her, that he dared do no more.

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Margery travels to the Holy Land and to Rome but on her return to England she is put on trial for her outspokenness by the Mayor and the Abbot of Leicester. She is not treated well.

‘Ah’ said the Mayor, ‘Saint Katherine told what kindred she came of, and yet ye are not like her, for thou art a false strumpet, a false Lollard, and a false deceiver of the people, and I shall have thee in prison ’ And she answered ‘I am as ready, sir, to go to prison for God’s love, as ye are ready to go to church ’ When the Mayor had long chidden her and said many evil and horrible words to her, and she, by the grace of Jesus, had reasonably answered to all that he could say, he commanded the jailer’s man to lead her to prison. . .

Then the steward took her by the hand, and led her into his chamber and spoke many foul bawdy words unto her, purposing and desiring, as it seemed to her, to oppress her and ravish her And then she had much dread and much sorrow, crying him for mercy She said – ‘Sir, for the reverence of Almighty God, spare me, for I am a man’s wife ’

Then said the steward – ‘Thou shalt tell me whether thou hast this speech of God or the devil, or else thou shalt go to prison ’

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘to go to prison, I am not afraid for My Lord’s love, Who suffered much more for my love than I may for His I pray you do as ye think be . . . Then he, all astonished at her words, left his business and his lewdness, saying to her, as many a man had done before –

‘Either thou art a right good woman, or else a right wicked one.’

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On trial at the abbey, packed with onlookers, Kempe says she is the one who is obedient to God and accuses the mayor in return. ‘Sir, ye are not worthy to be a Mayor, and that shall I prove by Holy Writ.’ On another occasion, in York, Kempe is accused by the Archbishop and ‘many of the Archbishop’s retinue, despising her, calling her “Lollard” and “heretic” and swearing many a horrible oath that she should be burnt,’ but again she gives as good as she gets. ‘Sirs, I dread ye shall be burnt in Hell without end, unless ye amend in your swearing of oaths, for ye keep not the Commandments of God I would not swear as ye do for all the money in this world.’ Margery’s book ends with a dedication to God and a prayer for herself, referring to the story in the Gospel of John where Jesus told anyone without sin to cast the first stone.

Have mind, Lord, of the woman that was taken in adultery and brought before Thee, and as Thou drove away all her enemies from her, and she stood alone by Thee, so verily may Thou drive away all mine enemies from me, both bodily and ghostly that I may stand alone by Thee.

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