Book Of Margery Kempe Analysis

The Book of Margery Kempe (BMK) records the latter portion of Margery Kempe’s life as she has visions of Christ and struggles with the inevitable backlash of the clergy. Questions of her authority are brought up as Margery is repeatedly arrested on counts of heresy and Lollardy. While these sentiments are within the text, her authority is also questioned by the outside reader. Modern readers and scholars diminish her work due to her obvious lack of mental stability, and her inability to distinguish herself from other mystics. However, by focusing on her mental state or other mystics, readers overlook Margery’s very calculated plans for furthering God’s word and her sainthood, and fail to notice her ability to give herself authority in a time
where there was none for the common woman. This essay aims to identify various scenes where Margery’s feelings and dialogue reveal her plans for hers and Christ’s futures, and also instances where she solidifies her authority to her literary and literal audience. Admittedly, Margery does suffer from a form of psychosis and can be viewed as unreliable, but her ability to recognize her shortcomings and genuine belief in Christ’s physical presence outweigh the criticism. Margery knew what she was doing for Christ and she understood how to get her word out to the world. Margery Kempe’s story begins after the birth of one of her children.
She identifies this moment with the start of her visions because viscous illnesses and demonic figures plague her. After months of being tormented by forms of evil, Christ forgives Margery for her sins, and suddenly, she is cured of her psychotic behavior and sinister visions. From this point on we receive the stories of her discussions with Christ and her reflections on sainthood (potentially her own). Critics read the postpartum scenes as the prime example of her postpartum or postnatal psychosis, all in order to invalidate her later divine revelations and intentions. In the article “The Functional Eccentricity of Margery Kempe”, Mary Hardman Farley presents arguments regarding Margery’s mental well-being and her intentions as a writer. Farley’s prognosis reads as
follows:
…her career springs not from her strength and wholeness or from her perception of a lack of latitude in society to achieve her human potential, but rather from her anxiety to prevent her fragile ego from dissolving into periods of reactive psychosis, a common complication in histrionics (Farley 15).
Like the rest of the article, in this quote, Farley suggests that Margery not only suffered from a form of postpartum psychosis, but that in her recovery developed a disorder known as Histrionic Personality Disorder. Persons with the disorder are in constant need of attention and will go to all measures to get it. Farley bases her analysis on Margery’s crying, screaming, and sexual hallucinations (Farley 11). It seems like this is enough to condemn Margery and mark her as a fraud. While she believes she sees Christ, we as readers and listeners should only see it as attention seeking. However, while she could not predict later western psychology, Margery anticipates that there will be a questioning of her stability. She knows that she must defend her position to the clergy and she does this by creating a parallel with another character in the book. In chapter 75 of BMK, Margery encounters a distraught man in the church of St. Margaret. It is revealed that his wife has recently given birth and now behaves as if, “‘[his] wife doesn’t know [him], or any of her neighbors. She roars and cries so, it makes people terribly afraid. She wants to strike out and bite, and she’s had manacles put on her wrists’” (Kempe 159). This new mother is a mirror of Margery’s struggles after the birth of a child. Margery forsook her family, friends, and Christ, and was lashing out at everyone who approached her. Both of these women could have been condemned as hysteric or truly insane, but then Margery halts any notion of this by designating a cure. The woman in chapter 75 is cured when Margery continues to pray over her and then says, “And then she was brought to church and purified as other women are, blessed may God be!” (Kempe 160). Here Margery defends her position by showing that no matter how ill a woman may seem, Christ can heal them and bring them back to normal. This scene also serves as an example of Margery’s ability to successfully establish religious authority in herself. Margery writes that the first time she met the woman, she was told, “…I saw many fair angels around you…do not leave me, for I am greatly comforted by you” (Kempe 160).
As stated, this scene is a parallel of Margery’s struggle with giving birth, seeing evil, and then Jesus’s appearance curing her. In this woman’s life, Margery is the holy Christ figure. She has cured the ill just like Christ has done for her and others. Margery’s literal embodiment of imitatio Christi establishes her power and command in the teachings of the divine. Despite her possible mental illness, Margery’s unwavering belief that she speaks and acts through Christ fulfills the trope for a mystic, and therefore, she cannot be written off as just another crazy woman. Her ability to formulate such a parallel demonstrates how fully conscious and strategically she plans out her
methods. As Farley points out, Margery often acted erratically, but Margery admits that her tears are an expression of her intense passion for Christ (Kempe 90). This odd behavior continues when she will later claim to marry Christ, and at some points have vivid visions of raising the Virgin Mary and Jesus (Kempe 79, 21). Where Farley sees this as further evidence of her insanity, Wolfgang Reihle points out how fitting her behavior is to other mystics.
In a chapter of his book titled “Margery Kempe: The Shocking ‘Fool in Christ’”, Reihle compares Margery to other mystics and saints in order to show how well versed she was in their stories. He writes, “Living while the Middle Ages were declining, Margery still shows astonishingly strong links with the spirituality of the beguines” (Riehle 259). He believes that Margery had read from the beguines, began to imitate their marrying Christ in spirit, and copying Marie d’Oignies’ (a beguine) extreme sobbing for Christ (Riehle 259). While his piece mostly uses these examples as positives for Margery’s good education and ability to retain mystics’ stories, his writing starts to read negative towards Margery. The way his arguments are presented, it would seem as though Margery is stealing these tropes and not contributing anything very notable back to the realm of mysticism. Which, I would maintain was never her full intention. In fact, Margery’s appropriation of numerous mystic characteristics, is her way of elevating herself. Rather than show one incredible ability, she shows nearly all of them. Margery suffers convulsions, endures vivid images of evil and good, marries Christ with God’s permission, witnesses Christ’s death, and even has the impulse and ability to heal the sick. Margery’s intentions are best captured in a conversation she has with Jesus. While in mass Margery sees the Eucharist fluttering like a dove, and Jesus tells her, “‘…thank God that you have seen it. My daughter, Bridget, never saw me in this way’” (Kempe 46). Here, Margery has Jesus give her very high praise by telling her she has better vision than a canonized saint. In this instance it becomes obvious that Margery wished to be grouped at higher level than other saints. Her actions and behavior may be reminiscent of her predecessors, but it is purposeful as she aims to do more than they ever could.
Her intent to be the most holy of mystics is identified by Liz Herbert McAvoy in her article, “‘aftyr hyr owyn tunge’: Body, Voice and Authority in the Book of Margery Kempe.” The author articulates the transcendence of Margery’s approach to mysticism by contextualizing BMK. She points out that Margery was having to fight the clergy not only because she was potentially heretical, but because she was a female. The female body is “vilified” during Margery’s times, but, as McAvoy points out, female saints were highly regarded and more trusted than the predominantly male clergy (McAvoy 164). This caveat works within the text because as discussed, Margery would have known this fact. She had been well versed in church doctrine and saw how people treated the saints and martyrs. McAvoy then argues, and it is clear in the book, that what is essential to Margery is her fight against the clergy rather than her conceit to them. Her decision to embody a variety of mystical tropes displays how very hard she tried and wanted to seem as much of saint as possible, and then use her authority as mystic against the male clergy.
The tension between her female authority and male priests is clearest in a scene where she is confronted by a monk in church. The scene reads as follows, “So an old monk, who had been the Queen’s treasurer when he was in secular clothes, a rich man…she [told him], ‘you should look after God’s servants but you are the first to side against them. May God help you!’” (Kempe 29). By identifying the monk as a former rich man, Margery makes the said monk lose some credibility as it is hard for the rich to be holy (Kempe 84). She then chooses to point out that this man is not perfectly pious and is stained with his own sins. She fuels this idea more by scolding him for continuing to be unhelpful and working against the common people. Margery proves herself to be knowledgeable and more reliable than this male monk. McAvoy also makes this argument when she writes, “Margery’s self-definition and survival as holy woman is therefore dependent on her skilful negotiation of the parameters…rather than defying proscriptions against the female voice, she proved highly adept at working with and within them in order to disseminate a lasting version of her vision of God’s truth” (McAvoy 164). Margery’s knowledge of all the societal constructs allows her to forge a path for authority when speaking on Christ. She does not seek approval from the male clergy and simply attempts to live her best life for Christ. This idea is best captured in chapter 14, where she writes, “She imagined in herself what kind of death she might die for Christ’s sake” (Kempe 31). Many of Margery’s models for sainthood, were martyred female saints. They share their God’s word, get persecuted, and ultimately die some of the most gruesome deaths. All in the name of their Lord. Thus it is Margery’s aim to be an all encompassing mystic in a strong female body.
Margery’s potential for insanity and appropriation of her predecessors does not begin to touch what she was able to build for herself. She recognizes her illness and counters it with what she believes is a cure—Jesus’s love and forgiveness. She does not seek to please the male society that tells her to stop weeping for Christ, rather she prays they see the right way, and listen too what God has told her in her female body (Kempe 227, 229). Margery Kempe was a determined woman seeking to further Christ’s word by any means possible.