Margery Kempe​

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  Margery holds the distinction of having dictated the first known autobiography in the English language. This seems a likely task for one who was very focussed on herself! Her case is an extreme illustration of how one’s will can be turned to God when one genuinely seeks union with him – even if the particulars are not to be imitated. Margery is a prime example of how God’s grace not only works through our failings but quite in spite of ourselves (in a Christian tradition begun with a manipulative conversation initiated by a criminal who hung next to Jesus on the cross).

Much of this disjointed, and often very confusing, work is quite hilarious, particularly when Margery recounts dialogue. Yet there is an underlying tragic quality, because she clearly had a mental disorder which caused extremely obsessive thought and behaviour. Margery references a sin for which she would seek to "atone" for the remainder of her life, and all of her history shows one of terrible agitation and an intense need to be humiliated and punished.

Mental illness hardly precludes holiness, but Margery shows none of the detachment of the saint. First to last, her concern would be her mystic experiences. She states, repeatedly, that those who heed and support her will be blessed – those who do not, quite the contrary. She constantly seeks assurance of the validity of the experiences, yet sees the hand of God as ready to smite anyone who questions them. Sadly, Margery is completed centred on herself (undoubtedly because of her illness), and even the few occasions mentioned when she serves others who are ill (including her husband) show concern only for the service being an atonement for her sins, not for the welfare of the other.

Margery’s contrition (for that unnamed sin of youth and for others) is genuine, and one could not doubt her seeking union with God, however misguided her efforts may have been. Her love of neighbour expresses itself in her willingness to share her mystic experiences with others, assured, as she imagines was revealed by God, that "he who worships you(Margery) worships Me." Many of the "revelations" are far off the mark theologically, but, though Margery feared diabolical deception, she does not seem to have had the wise caution about self-deception which was characteristic of the mystic saints.

As with most of us, the traits which Margery mentions as having led her into sin (slander, over attachment to wealth, and vanity) will surface in her attempts at practising virtue. She not only recounts, at great length, how wrong and evil were those who opposed her, but assumes not only their motivation but the divine punishment that is ahead because of this rejection.

Notes:

• I class Margery as an "also ran", because, while her "seeking" is unquestionable, there is much in her reflections that shows one far short of "seeing" holiness.

• Margery was suspected of being a Lollard because her preaching was seen as assuming a function reserved to the clergy, and therefore as a denial of the apostolic succession. She was brought before the ecclesiastical courts at least twelve times, but never made any heretical statement and was invariably released. (The Inquisition, of course, was not active in England. The attitude towards heretics, unless they were heads of bands of criminals, was usually more aimed at silencing than burning, and the violent heretical groups were not native grown. Contrary to popular misconception, inquisitors did not sit up nights looking for obscure figures to chase, and it is clear that Margery’s approach was highly vocal and public for them to have been interested in her at all.)

• Margery has a lack of detachment: certain self-centred qualities, self-importance

• There is something horribly painful in the picture of one so tortured with guilt that she would carry atonement to an obsessive extreme. Excess in penance was not unusual then, but by contrast to, for example, Francis of Assisi, Margery’s words are not mainly about the glory of God but about herself. (Margery does not fall into the "oh, what I rogue I am" characteristic of those who are not genuinely repentant but enjoy reciting their past failings. However, there is a strong, continuous theme of "…and look at the unprecedented graces that I have now." )

• Continuous theme of her fear of damnation – seems to motivate her more than divine love. Unfortunate mediaeval stance of "Christ’s Passion was not enough atonement."

• Tells everyone of her experiences "to see if they have any value." The mystic saints not only were cautious about believing special gifts were genuine, but were highly reluctant to reveal them.

• Many saints reference conversion (directly related to serious sins of their own – not merely metanoia) in their histories. However, Margery’s recollections are profoundly unsatisfying. She emphasises that there was a secret sin of her early life that she would rather have send her to hell than confess. (Sacramental theology of the time and place, such as Walter Hilton expresses, did not see sacramental confession as essential for forgiveness, but rather as a means of reassurance for the individual. Still, considering that Margery clearly believes it is essential in that sense, a position of "I’d rather be damned" shows that she indeed was to experience a singular grace of contrition that turned her to the "good will" the other writers mention.)

• When her first child was born, Margery received a revelation that Christ had ‘been there all along.’ Her obsession with damnation had led her more to despair than to repentance.

• Underlying feeling that Margery wanted her own way to quite an extent! Her revelations are presented in such a way that one wonders if she is trying to convince herself, constantly, of her own holiness. Her maddening habit of wishing to know others’ sins and reveal them to the others as a means of encouraging repentance seems quite well-intentioned, and one wonders if this predilection made her multiple confessors uneasy or in awe to the point that they never told her to stop it.

• Easily misunderstood today: Chastity was viewed (until the latter part of the 20th century) as a way of greater perfection, that is, greater asceticism. (This is downplayed now through the incorrect notion that this implied that marriage or sex was evil. Not so – ascetic practises always involved sacrificing one good for another that would be beneficial to one’s relationship with God.) An ascetic practise (in fact, in some minds, even those already a matter of obligation) was also more perfect when vowed, because a vow added an act of worship to the action. Margery refers to her chastity as a great sorrow – it is safe to assume that she made the vow because of a predilection for always doing what was most difficult.

• Ascetic practises (involving physical pain, extensive fasting, etc.) were common for the medieval saints – but there is something lacking in Margery’s mention of this. There is none of the sense of joy and detachment found in the writings of the holy ones.

• Hard to accept her "self-knowledge" as such! Her practises seem rooted in her early tendency to do harsh penance of her own to avoid confessing the secret sin. She constantly speaks of diabolical deceptions. It is likely that her wish to make vows before a bishop was a confirmation that the Church accepted the penance – that it was not the old diabolic despair. Nonetheless, there is grace here, even if perceived through a twisted mind. One who did anything to keep apart from the Church, even at risk of damnation, seems to have progressed in turning to a bishop at all – though Margery was to inflict her prophetic gifts of insight on him as well. There was some act of faith in the Church here – and even in her marathon of sacramental confession.

• Even for one steeped in medieval studies it is extremely difficult to explain the approach to penance in the middle ages, particularly because it did work very well in its time! (We find most of the physical penance revolting, because, thanks to Freud who’d have enjoyed Margery’s case, we associate it with pathology or sexual deviance – which usually was not the case at all. Margery, though a clear pathological case, actually does not mention extreme physical penance – more sacrifices and pilgrimages, and enduring the scorn and derision of others.) Though some forms of physical mortification (fasting, for example) are still used today, it usually is for the sake of discipline or for austerity to eliminate distractions (or even some sign of solidarity with the poor). (We would think of "temporal punishment" as being dealing with natural consequences of our actions.) The medieval idea was that all sin had punishment attached to it, whether on earth or in purgatory, and also that, since we are one church, my penance could remit your temporal punishment. Such ascetic practises, then, could involve an act of worship in acknowledging divine justice – an imitation of Christ, where one bears pain out of love for another – an act of atonement (of sorts) in expressing that one’s own sins "put Jesus on the Cross", and an act of faith in this plus a "comforting" of the suffering Saviour. Discipline then was not an act of asserting one’s own control (fasting was not anorexia!), but of submission to divine authority – a very vivid concept in a feudal society, where authority and mutual dependence were daily realities.

• Ascetic practises which involve sacrifices are valid only if what is sacrificed is good in the first place. Margery’s obsessive concern that she’d taken too much pleasure in sexual relations is not characteristic of the era of bonnie and buxom at bed and board – this can be a mistaken impression in the post Puritan and Jansenist time. Since, in one of her times of being questioned, Margery reveals on oath that she has had no lovers other than John, the past sin to which she devoted so much attention clearly is not adultery.

• Considering her overall fears of having been vain about clothing, her fixation with fasting, her "constantly wanting more remission of sin" and so forth, it appears more that she feared her past sin required huge penance that she had neglected. It does not seem that she grasped that asceticism is aimed more at the practise of virtue.

• Margery was quite a trial as a penitent! No confessor (and she had quite a procession of them!) could stand in the way of "God’s will" – and he’d be punished if he tried. Margery made her confession and related her consolations, so she related, up to three times daily… and one cannot help but wonder whether the latter disclosure was the greater trial for the listener!

• Margery was a very simple woman, and her confessors (even allowing for that the recollections are sifted through an ill mind – Margery clearly was honest, and indeed one of this select group was the scribe for this autobiography) may well have been just as simple and not much more educated than she. They probably unwittingly reinforced some of the obsessions, at least partly because, during the Middle Ages, odd happenings were seen as the hallmark of the blessed. (As well, Margery may have had a particularly keen sense of intuition and observation, which can be astonishing in those with serious mental illness.) One confessor regularly asked that Margery "reveal the future" to him – though saints’ having gifts of prophecy was a staple of mediaeval hagiography, this priest, perhaps in total innocence, hardly aided Margery’s cause by using her for a fortune teller. (His agreeing to record her recollections in this book was contingent on her revealing future happenings.) Another used his own "gift of prophecy" to predict Margery’s trouble with her maid, and "staked his soul" on Margery’s apprehensions being genuine. Tempting though it is, in a time when Mass offerings and indulgences could be quite profitable, to wonder if they catered to Margery’s belief that she was a mystic because she was generous in turn, it is very possible that ignorance rather than malice or greed was the problem. General reminder here (blind leading blind!) of how we should not undertake apostolic work when we haven’t a clue as to what we are doing!

Quotations from Margery – with footnotes by Gloriana

Margery Kempe
Biographical: ca.1373-1438; born in King's Lynn, East Anglia. Her father, John Brunham, was a wealthy burgess, the Mayor of Lynn five times, and held one of the town's two seats in the parliament. Margery married John Kempe at age 20, 14 children; briefly, though unsuccessfully, owned a brewery and mill. Most of Margery's later life was spent in pilgrimages, within Britain and also to Jerusalem, Italy and Campostella. Her "preaching" led to her being questioned by inquisitors on numerous occasions, including confrontations with the Bishop of Lincoln and the Archbishop of York, though she was never found guilty of heresy.
 

Bibliography for Quotations:

Triggs, Tony (translator),
The Book of Margery Kempe: The Autobiography of the Madwoman of God
Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England: Burns and Oates, 1995

Quotations
 

Page 109

(Increase and multiply refers) not only to the physical bearing of children but also to the begetting of virtue - the fruit of the spirit. We can do this by hearing God's word, by setting a good example, by meekness, patience, charity and chastity and so forth. As for patience, it is worth far more than the working of miracles.

Weakness eternal
 

Speaking of before her conversion (page 23):
 

My neighbours were very jealous of me, and wished that they were as well-dressed as I was. My only wish was to be admired. I would not take correction, and unlike my husband I wasn't content with the things God gave me; I always wanted more than I had.
 

Things changed, of course, following the conversion experience
 

No vanity about dress (this being one of countless incidents where Margery stresses how God willed for the mother of 14 to wear virginal white):

Page 86 -

I was to ask (my confessor(1)) to let me wear my white clothes again, for he had made me give them up as a point of obedience, as I have already explained. When I told him that it was God's will he didn't dare to think of refusing(2).
 

Undue need to be admired?

Page 62

On Sundays I received the sacrament wherever time and place allowed, and I wept and sobbed so violently that many people were struck with amazement that God had given me so much grace
 

Page 72 - during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem:

I realised the truth of what God had told me before I left England: 'Daughter, I shall make all the world wonder at you.'

Page 76 - now in Assisi

This noteworthy scholar said that I owed a great debt to God; he had never heard of anyone in the world(3) living as close to God in love and intimate speech as I did.
 

Ability to take correction

Chapter 33 - referring to dealing with her confessor, who believed God was at work within Margery:

"…when he did have doubts our Lord, speaking through me, sent him signs of his own misconduct and wrongful living."
 

Chapter 52 - confrontation with the archbishop of York, during which Margery had another weeping fit:

(The archbishop): "Why do you cry in such a way, woman?"

I answered, "Sir, you will one day wish that you had wept as surely as I do."
 

Special privileges?

Chapter 32 - page 77:

"The priest was very pleased to hear how contrite and full of compunction I was … because he could not understand any English, our Lord sent John the Evangelist to hear my confession…"
 
 

Questionable that this was the voice of God
 

Wifely devotion

Chapter 9 - page 32
 

I was praying to God to let me live chastely with my husband's permission(4), and I heard Christ say to me inwardly, 'On Fridays you must go without both food and drink, and your wish will be granted before Whit Sunday, for I will suddenly strike your husband dead.'(5)
 

Margery is freed of vainglory (and well connected)

Chapter 10 - page 22
 

(Jesus told me) 'Daughter, don't be afraid. I shall free you from vainglory. For those who worship you worship me; and those who despise you despise me, and I shall punish them for it…. those who hear you hear the voice of God.'
 

Divine insights about a priest who was unfavourable to her

Chapter 34 - page 81
 

'Daughter, don't worry about what he says to you, because even though he goes trotting off to Jerusalem every year I don't have any regard for him.'
 

Much truth spoken in a curious fashion

Chapter 48 - page 105 - as Margery defends herself before the inquisitors of Leicester
 

(Speaking about how God had commanded her to wear white clothes…)

I have told my confessors the same thing, and they've ordered me to go round like this because they've too much respect for God to oppose my inner feelings; they'd be more than ready to do so if they felt they could(6).
 

Chapter 52 - Margery addresses the Archbishop of York & company

Page 113-115
 

Then the archbishop said to me, 'I hear bad reports about you; I hear it said that you're a thoroughly wicked woman.'
 

And I replied,' And I hear it said you're a wicked man, sir. And if you're as wicked as people say, you will never enter heaven unless you mend your ways…'
 

Then he said, in his violent way, 'Why you!… What do people say about me?'

I replied, 'Others can tell you well enough, sir.'
 

(Now to one of the scholars:) "..in the place where I live for most of the time is an upright cleric who preaches well and speaks out against the people's wrongdoing. He won't stoop to flatter anyone, and he says from his pulpit, 'If my preaching upsets anyone, take good note because it means he feels guilty.' And I'm causing you the same discomfort. May God forgive you!"
 

Margery's Meeting with Julian of Norwich
 

Some of the points which Margery mentions Julian's having related to her:

§ Obey the will of our Lord God and do my best to fulfil the promptings in my soul as long as they didn't conflict with the worship of God or the well-being of my fellow Christians.

§ The Holy Spirit never prompts us to act unkindly; if he did he would be acting contrary to his own nature, for he is pure love.

§ (The Holy Spirit) stirs each soul to perfect chastity(7), for those who live chastely are known as temples of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit makes every soul unswerving and steadfast in the true faith and teaching(8).

1. 1 Wenslawe, one of Margery's extensive procession of confessors, understood no English - which may well be how he managed to endure the lengthy stint with Margery. Margery made her confession ("right from childhood to this very moment") and related her consolations, so she tells us, up to three times daily… and one cannot help but wonder whether the latter disclosure was the greater trial for the listener! I'm sure her being well heeled had nothing to do with her being able to maintain listeners.
2. 2 Enlightening the clergy, bishops in particular, about the specifics of God's will apparently was Margery's main apostolic work. It is quite intriguing that God spent most of his effort willing matters directly affecting Margery. The bishop who recommended that Margery consider the matter of the "white clothes," not making the gesture until she returned from her pilgrimage, was rebuked for his concern with worldly opinion - it was a day when God had more taste for the virtue of zeal than of prudence, I imagine.

3.  The vocal inflection and facial expression with which the good friar delivered these remarks sadly are not recorded.

4.  Married couples were permitted to observe total continence as an ascetic practise, but only if there was mutual agreement and commitment. It was not uncommon as a temporary penance, but was not generally encouraged as a permanent commitment. For example, some women with living husbands entered the monastic life, but permission for this depended on the husband's also entering a monastery.

5. 5 Margery's husband lived for decades afterward. When, three years later, John agreed not to engage in sexual relations with her, Margery prayed for him to be spared out of divine mercy… I daresay the dual penance of being married to Margery and waiting to be struck dead was sufficient for any life.

6.  It does not occur to Margery, of course, just why they well knew that they couldn't.

7. 7 Julian's writings, which pre-date this meeting, do not deal with any virtue in particular, except for humility, and this obviously is a response to a question from Margery, whose anxiety related to chastity was great. Julian's words about chastity being a calling of each soul have a subtlety which Margery missed - one wonders if she grasped that Julian clearly was referring to the virtue, not the vow!

8. 8Some of the more violent heretical groups of the time were known for their common practise of … rather extreme "free love", to put it mildly - and some of the bizarre "theological" ideas they set forth were tied into a backward argument wherein, since the celibate hierarchy were corrupt, an approach drastically opposed to any form of chastity was a reform. Whether Julian is addressing this is unclear, though she certainly would have been aware of the situation. In any case, all of the great theologians would have agreed that persistent grave sin of any kind eventually leads to a weakening or loss of faith, especially considering that one's justification of this is both a denial of divine law and deceit.