The Book Of Margery Kempe: The Representation Of Female Agency And Feminine Spirituality Within One Influential Religious Institution

Margery Kempe’s late medieval tale of conversion entitled, The Book of Margery Kempe, is a narrative that redefines how one views the female in relation to The Church. As an example of late medieval piety, Kempe’s narrative takes into consideration the gender roles within the Late Medieval Era and represents the female as that which is both earthly and spiritual. This view of female corporality is different from the representations seen in Medieval Era literature concerning the female — their role and their place. With this in mind, what this paper intends to analyze is how The Book of Margery Kempe represents female agency and feminine spirituality within one influential religious institution.

During the Middle Ages — a time characterized by the authority held by The Church — the common laywoman held the positions of being wife/housewife, mother, peasant, artisan, and/or nun. For both the male and the female within this time, class, family connections/status, marital status, education, and gender determined societal roles. Women in this way held the responsibility of children rearing, cooking, tending to livestock, and caring for their husbands or fathers. Margery Kempe, daughter of the major of Norfolk and mother of 14 children, seemed to have fulfilled what in medieval times would have been her womanly duty. However, Kempe, after a series of visions and confessions, desired chastity for God. In the beginning of The Book of Margery Kempe, Kempe confesses that God spoke to her and believed that God desired for her to become his anointed bride even though Margery was already bound by her earthly husband; John Kempe. The passage states, “Daughter, I will have you wedded to my Godhead, for I shall show you my secrets and my counsels, for you shall dwell with me without end”. Additionally, although the rights of women in the 14th century were limited concerning marriage and wifehood, widows in this sense were portrayed as being more independent, pious, and chaste. Although Kempe’s vow of chastity could be deemed as a declaration of her spiritual devotion, it also appears as though the commanding actions brought on in order to bring into fruition such devotion, came about due to the strong desire to possess such purity. We see examples of this when in the chapter entitled [Margery and Her Husband Reach a Settlement], quote: “Now, good sir, amend yourself and ask God mercy, for I told you nearly three years since that you should be slain suddenly, and now is this the third year, and yet I hope I shall have my desire. Good sir, I pray you grant me what I shall ask, and I shall pray for you that you shall be saved through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall have more reward in heaven than if you wore a hair cloth or a jacket of mail. I pray you, suffer me to make a vow of chastity in whatever bishop’s hand that God will”.

Further solidifying her request in this next passage when she declares, “Sir, if it pleases you, you shall grant me my desire, and you shall have your desire…And make my body free to God so that you never challenege me by asking the debt of matrimony after this day while you live…”. In this way, as a married women in the Late Middle Ages, in aligning her sexuality with the pious virtues of chastity, Margery Kempe expresses and thus represents female empowerment and spiritual independence. A concept unfamiliar in The Church within this time. Additionally, as this paper moves forward, we see how the Church comes to deal with such expressions of female agency and its role in the spiritual. While Kempe liberated actions seemed unusual within her time, she was nonetheless a woman who remained conventional and true in her belief and commitment to God. Jonathan Hsy in his article “Be More Strange and Bold” goes onto say that “despite her superficial normative status as housewife, mother, and widow… by negotiateing her way out of the marital debt that she owes her husband, ” wearing white clothing to signify a chaste existence, and exhibiting desires for the “manhode of Christ”, Kempe in this way expresses the unfamiliar notion of female spirituality within the male dominated biblical narrative. By narrating and essentially living out her self-proclaimed conviction, Kempe essentially becomes the creator of feminized Christian teaching for women who — unlike Mary Magdalene — are not virgins or widows. We see more of this within the passage entitled Pilgrimage to Jerusalem where Kempe, overcome by her emotions via her love for Christ, cries, “roars and weeps as though she had seen Christ in his childhood”. This intense expression of emotion during this time was not taken lightly as Kempe writes, “And, as soon as she perceived that she should cry, she would keep it in as much as she might, so that the people should not have heard it, for it annoyed them”. As influential as the male dominant biblical narrative was during this period, it is clear to see how unsympathetic male centered Christian thought and teachings proved to be in relation to the unfamiliar feminized spirit in which Kempe expresses throughout her stay in Jerusalem. We continue to see such misunderstandings in the following passages: “The two German pilgrims went to her and kept her form falling, of which one was a priest. And he put spices in her mouth to comfort her, thinking she had been sick, ” and again when Kempe felt compelled to weep in the Holy Place, quote, “When her crying ceased, she said to the priest, “Sir, his death is as fresh to be as if he had died this same day”… “then the good lady, hearing her communication, said, “Sir, it is a good example to me, and to other men also, the grace that God works in her soul. ””

Furthermore, Tara Williams in her article, “Manipulating Mary” took to claim that the narrative of Margery’s “pragmatic feminine Christianity”, emphasizes the Blessed Virgin Mary’s emotional and somatic responses in a way most biblical gospels or religious leaders, “do not understand”. However, the religious teachers should not be to blame for this. Throughout the Middle Ages, biblical scriptures more often than not dictated how women were seen and placed in society. Moreover, the emphasis placed on women forbade them from teaching and instructed them to remain silent. Mary Magdalen, however, creates a distinction between the negative imagery portrayed towards women in such a way that throughout the Middle Ages, “Mary was seen as the most powerful” saintly image — given that she was the mother of Christ, a model for chastity, and a enlightened image of motherhood. Although Margery’s text is staged with male language and male interference, narrated by a series of male writers, it remains a model for feminine devoutness.

In summary, with the evidence analyzed above, The Book of Margery Kempe provides a peek into the soul of a devout woman seeking purity in chastity, in turn establishing a matched sense of pious among holy figures. As a married women in the 14th century, in aligning her sexuality with such visions of piety and spiritual devotion, Margery Kempe in her devotion to chastity, creates a new way in which the Church ought to view female agency, devotion, and spirituality. Margery Kempe, a non-virginal, not-quite-widowed woman, in establishing herself within The Church as a physical representation of female empowerment and physical/spiritual independence. Hence, Margery Kemp’s declaration of chastity, her marriage to God, serves as a practice that allows her to center not only an intimate relationship with God, but also spiritual and influential control over her own sexuality — in both a physical and spiritual sense.