The Book of Margery Kempe

Margery Kempe was an upper-middle class English mystic who lived during the Late Middle Ages. Kempe was born in East Anglia ca. 1373 and grew up in the merchant town, King’s Lynn, where her father served as mayor and as an alderman (a county or town council member). When she was approximately 20 years old, she wed local burgess John Kempe, a middle-class man who was of slightly lower status than Margery, something she reminds us of in her book.

She bore 14 children, during which time she began having visions of the divine and saintly figures as well as “contemplations” in which she believed God spoke directly to her. She often fasted and wore a hair shirt as acts of penance for her sins and in imitation of Christ’s suffering during the crucifixion, acts that were not uncommon among pious medieval people. She frequently went to confession because of her concerns over her salvation and had several close confessors, including a local anchorite in Norwich, the county in which King’s Lynn sits.

Kempe undertook local and long-distance pilgrimages at God’s direction, even visiting sacred sites in Jerusalem and Rome, where she spent some time. After returning to England, Kempe says God instructed her to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, which took several weeks.