Ship of Fools: Margery Kempe

Thread: Margery Kempe Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on :

A lot of people have to read Margery Kempe as part of History or English and really hate doing so and dismiss her as a mad lady ranting nonsense.

Or is this just a modernist/rationalist interpretation of someone's religious experience?

Or is it because ladies didn't have as many opportunities in those days?

Or a mixture?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Synchronicity at work here. I have just read a book by Rabbi Blue in which he mentions with admiration something about her I had not heard before (I haven't read her): that she spent time on one of her pilgrimages nursing someone no-one else would bother with. Mad ladies ranting nonsense who do things like that we could do with more of.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

By way of putting her in context, you might be interested in this work . (Referred to, btw, in the household of one of the editors as 'The Bumper Book of Blessed Broads')

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

A great deal of medieval thought can be filed under the heading "A bit mad and ranty". If people have a problem with that they should probably study another subject.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
A lot of people have to read Margery Kempe as part of History or English and really hate doing so and dismiss her as a mad lady ranting nonsense.

Or is this just a modernist/rationalist interpretation of someone's religious experience?

Or is it because ladies didn't have as many opportunities in those days?

Or a mixture?

Possibly - but from her own account some of the people she encountered in her travels thought her a bit odd, to say the least - hence the accusations of her being a loller (sic) - though it does look to be that her accusers had no clear idea of what lollardy was.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Although it is meant to be an autobiography of sorts it was not written by Kempe herself since she was probably illiterate.

Since the power of the written word rested largely with men - particularly those of the cloister - it is a good bet that what is written in Margery Kempe has been given a slant, which could be why she comes across as mad or ranty???

Just a thought [Smile]

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

A woman having supernatural visions must of course be a mad lady ranting nonsense. A man on the other hand doing much the same is a hero who changes the course of history, Martin Luther for example.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
A woman having supernatural visions must of course be a mad lady ranting nonsense. A man on the other hand doing much the same is a hero who changes the course of history, Martin Luther for example.

Lady Julian of Norwich?* Hildegard of Bingen? Others (see the citation in my post above).

*whom Kempe visited at one point.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Metapelagius wrote:

quote:
hence the accusations of her being a loller (sic) - though it does look to be that her accusers had no clear idea of what lollardy was.

"Loller/lollar" seems to have meant "idle babbler" or something like that. Whether it is the the root word of Lollard is disputed (there being other potential roots), but it was used in a much broader sense than we would use the word Lollard nowadays I think.

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
A woman having supernatural visions must of course be a mad lady ranting nonsense. A man on the other hand doing much the same is a hero who changes the course of history, Martin Luther for example.
Lady Julian of Norwich?* Hildegard of Bingen? Others (see the citation in my post above).

*whom Kempe visited at one point.

Maybe her reputation and writings (or oracular tradition) were particularly outstanding because she was a woman being taken note of, at a time when women generally weren't. At least not for the things she got up to. There wasn't exactly a wealth of material on influential women - mad or otherwise - in religion and politics, at that time. Not compared to men.

And what there was usually fell into either the 'domestic goddess protecting the home castle using her unusual masculine courage' category or 'mad bint steps out of her station in life' category. Perhaps there was a third category for people like Julian and Hildegard; but for every one of them, there's several score (or hundreds) of the opposite sex, as any bookshelf on contemplative religious history will tell us.

In today's age, Margery Kempe would probably have her own channel on the Showcase channel on satellite TV. Her male counterpart, his own chat-show on Channel 4 [Big Grin]

Posted by FCB (# 1495) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Metapelagius wrote:
quote:
hence the accusations of her being a loller (sic) - though it does look to be that her accusers had no clear idea of what lollardy was.
"Loller/lollar" seems to have meant "idle babbler" or something like that. Whether it is the the root word of Lollard is disputed (there being other potential roots), but it was used in a much broader sense than we would use the word Lollard nowadays I think.

If I recall correctly (and it's been a few years), she refutes the charge with an orthodox profession of faith in the Eucharist, so the technical charge of Lollardy seems likely.

FWIW, I love Margery Kempe, though I am also sympathetic to her fellow-pilgrims who tried to ditch her in the middle of the night.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Fair enough FCB - that would seem to indicate the charge of lollardy could have been meant - or at least inferred.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

I think the idea of the non-rational, hysterical, semi-heretical religious female vis-a-vis the rational, dispassionate, pristinely orthodox religious male, is a common meme across belief systems and certainly in Christianity. I seem to recall C.S. Lewis using this nonsense as an argument why men were somehow ontologically closer to God than women.

Posted by hanginginthere (# 17541) on :

Julian of Norwich (an anchorite attached to a church) and Hildegard (an abbess) were both integrated into the church structures of the time. Marjory, as a married woman, was the ultimate outsider. I think this is enough to explain the difference in how she was regarded.

Posted by hanginginthere (# 17541) on :

Sorry, that should have been 'Margery'.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

Although Julian and Hilegarde both ran afoul of Church authorities at one point or another for things they'd said...I'm not an expert on either, but Julian seems the more conciliatory of the two, while Hildegarde's "I'm just a poor, feeble, unworthy woman, but since no men seem to be able to fix the corruption and incompetence in the Church God has seen it fit to make a mere female like me speak out," to me seems more sarcastic than submissive. And to the degree that her male hearers didn't pick up on that -- well, good on her. [Devil]

Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hanginginthere:
Sorry, that should have been 'Margery'.

Surely spelling began to be standardized (!) only long after her death. Even Shakespeare scarcely spelled his name the same way twice (and never like that), and he wasn't exactly an illiterate!

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

Quick side bar: why is Julian sometimes called "Dame Julian of Norwich?"

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

Dame because she was a nun, of Norwich because that's where her cell was?

As far as Margery goes, I've admired her for ages. But she's definitely in the category "fascinating to read about, a pain to meet for real"; then again, so many great figures fit in there.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

When I was at college, somebody asked me who Margery Kempe was, and I answered "mysteric".

I could say the same about some men.

I tend to think men are fuzzy and emotional (Charles Dickens) and women ironic and detached (Jane Austen). I'd read and re-read Julian (she wasn't certainly a nun, but Dame was a polite title for a woman at the time) and learnt a lot from her about God, Christ, Mary, prayer. You know, important things like that. I can't say I have any urge to re-read Margery, other than as an heroic biography.

(She may have been illiterate herself, but she could always get someone to write down her words from her dictation.)

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

When I think of medieval women, I think of Chaucer's Wife of Bath. Certainly not a domestic goddess or a nun.

Posted by Vade Mecum (# 17688) on :

I recall writing an essay at some point during my degree arguing that her theology was suspect and ultimately gave onto an heretical denigration of the Church (much like the Free-Spirit heresy of the C14th). I'm not sure I'd be as definite now, but there's certainly a lot in her thought and theology which causes demur.

She is a very dim star next to S. Hildegaard & Mother Julian, though.

Posted by LQ (# 11596) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Quick side bar: why is Julian sometimes called "Dame Julian of Norwich?"

I think it's due in part to Anglican confusion over what to call our saints/blessed/HWHM who are not recognised as such by any patriarchate. Personally, in St Julian's case I think this reticence is unwarranted, as her cultus is well-established in the English Church. (Even RCs seem to acknowledge a kind of "common law status)

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