The Book of Margery Kempe

The Book of Margery Kempe, medieval memoir that is widely believed to be the first autobiography written in English. It was most likely written in the late 1430s. Extracts of the work first appeared in 1501 as a seven-page devotional pamphlet. The full manuscript languished in obscurity until 1934, when it was discovered in a home in Lancashire, and it was first published in 1936.

Margery Kempe was the daughter of John Brunham, a prominent merchant in Norfolk, England. At the age of 20 she married John Kempe. Her story, which is written in the third person and is focused on her spiritual journey, begins with the birth of her first child. After the birth she suffered horrendous physical and spiritual torments, including visions of demons. She was cured by an apparition of Jesus Christ, who said, “Daughter, why have you forsaken me, and I never forsook you?” The book goes on to describe many visions and conversations with both Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

After 20 years of marriage and 14 children, Kempe made a bargain with her husband. She would pay his debts (she may have inherited a sum of money from her father, who died earlier that year) if he would move out of the marriage bed and allow her to travel. He agreed. A substantial part of the book is taken up with her pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and visits to notable pious people such as Dame Julian of Norwich. Her husband accompanied her in the earlier pilgrimages. Although later they later lived apart, when he became incapacitated, she then cared for him until his death in 1431. She later dictated her life story to two scribes.

In her lifetime, Margery Kempe was often seen as a heretic and madwoman. She was especially prone to loud crying fits, which often accompanied ecstatic visions. Whether she was a fanatical madwoman, a mystic, or something between the two extremes, her book is a unique account of medieval life as told by a singular and spirited woman. Scholarly studies of Kempe’s life and work did not begin until about the 1980s, and new translations of The Book of Margery Kempe (from its original Middle English to modern English) appeared in the 1990s and in the 21st century.