Kate's review of The Book of Margery Kempe: Annotated Edition
The Book of Margery Kempe: Annotated Edition (Library of Medieval Women) by Barry Windeatt
Kate's review
rating:
recommended for:
Anyone interested in women's history or medieval history
status:
Read in July, 2005
Yes, Margery was crazy. But she wasn't that crazy.
A bout with post-partum depression sends Margery off the deep end. She recovers and, step by step, becomes a mystic. But not one of those quiet, floating mystics. One of those falling-down-on-the-floor-and-screaming mystics. Actually, she's a good example of a certain strain of medieval piety--affective--that encouraged strong emotion reactions to imagining oneself present at the events of the life of Christ. And some of her visions of that life seem to be copied, move for move, from the York Corpus Christi cycle, which she may have seen (it's in the footnotes). What's more, she travelled sans husband to Rome and the Holy Land--not uncommon--and provides a detailed account of life on pilgrimage.
Good stuff.
A bout with post-partum depression sends Margery off the deep end. She recovers and, step by step, becomes a mystic. But not one of those quiet, floating mystics. One of those falling-down-on-the-floor-and-screaming mystics. Actually, she's a good example of a certain strain of medieval piety--affective--that encouraged strong emotion reactions to imagining oneself present at the events of the life of Christ. And some of her visions of that life seem to be copied, move for move, from the York Corpus Christi cycle, which she may have seen (it's in the footnotes). What's more, she travelled sans husband to Rome and the Holy Land--not uncommon--and provides a detailed account of life on pilgrimage.
Good stuff.
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