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Medieval Lives
Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life
A fresh account of the medieval mystic, traveling pilgrim, and pioneering memoirist Margery Kempe.
This is a new account of the medieval mystic and pilgrim Margery Kempe. Kempe, who had fourteen children, traveled all over Europe and recorded a series of unusual events and religious visions in her work The Book of Margery Kempe , which is often called the first autobiography in the English language. Anthony Bale charts Kempe’s life and tells her story through the places, relationships, objects, and experiences that influenced her. Extensive quotations from Kempe’s Book accompany generous illustrations, giving a fascinating insight into the life of a medieval woman. Margery Kempe is situated within the religious controversies of her time, and her religious visions and later years put in context. And lastly, Bale tells the extraordinary story of the rediscovery, in the 1930s, of the unique manuscript of her autobiography.
This is a new account of the medieval mystic and pilgrim Margery Kempe. Kempe, who had fourteen children, traveled all over Europe and recorded a series of unusual events and religious visions in her work The Book of Margery Kempe , which is often called the first autobiography in the English language. Anthony Bale charts Kempe’s life and tells her story through the places, relationships, objects, and experiences that influenced her. Extensive quotations from Kempe’s Book accompany generous illustrations, giving a fascinating insight into the life of a medieval woman. Margery Kempe is situated within the religious controversies of her time, and her religious visions and later years put in context. And lastly, Bale tells the extraordinary story of the rediscovery, in the 1930s, of the unique manuscript of her autobiography.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published January 13, 2022
About the author
Anthony Bale
18 books46 followersProfessor Anthony Bale, MA (Oxford), MA (York), DPhil (Oxford), is Professor of Medieval Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, England.
Anthony Bale teaches on the BA English, MA Medieval Literature and Culture and supervises doctoral students working on medieval topics.
Bale has published widely on medieval literature, culture, and religion. In particular, his work has explored relations between Christians and Jews in medieval England. He has also edited and translated several medieval texts, and has recently published a new translation and edition of The Book of Margery Kempe with Oxford University Press. His current work explores travel and pilgrimage between England and the Holy Land in the later Middle Ages.
He has received fellowships from the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Australian Research Councils, the British Academy, the Huntington Library, the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Michigan Frankel Institute, and the National Humanities Center.
Anthony Bale teaches on the BA English, MA Medieval Literature and Culture and supervises doctoral students working on medieval topics.
Bale has published widely on medieval literature, culture, and religion. In particular, his work has explored relations between Christians and Jews in medieval England. He has also edited and translated several medieval texts, and has recently published a new translation and edition of The Book of Margery Kempe with Oxford University Press. His current work explores travel and pilgrimage between England and the Holy Land in the later Middle Ages.
He has received fellowships from the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Australian Research Councils, the British Academy, the Huntington Library, the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Michigan Frankel Institute, and the National Humanities Center.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 15, 2022
Margery Kempe, together with Julian of Norwich and maybe Christine de Pizan, is one of those few women of the Middle Ages who is known to the wider reading public. Anthony Bale is well aware of this and has produced a book that is academically rigorous while, at the same time, appealing to that audience. He acknowledges that the Book of Margery Kempe has a contemporary resonance beyond the (dwindling?) confines of Medieval studies when he writes that it is “more widely read than ever, from university syllabi to theatrical productions. Since the 1980s Kempe has been widely studied, building on interest in mysticism and women’s experience among feminist theorists and historians” 203-4). He goes on to discuss references to Kempe in contemporary fiction and across digital social media platforms, suggesting that the Book “speaks to contemporary culture as an exploration of the subject as author” and claiming that Kempe, “asserts the validity of her own experience and authority while attempting to repudiate social acclaim, as she struggles with the demands of the mixed [spiritual and worldly] life”(205).
Shortly after reading Professor Bale’s book I found myself nodding as i read an article by medievalist Irina Dumitrescu where she wrote that she found herself nodding as she read an article by Alexis Soloski in the New York Times about the current trend in the media to “transform historical women such as Emily Dickinson, or Catherine the Great into ‘girlbosses’: stronger, sassier, more glamorous and more progressive than they could have been in their own centuries” (1). For all of its rigour, this could equally be said of Anthony Bale’s book about the Book of Margery Kempe.
Readers of the Book of Margery Kempe cannot be unaware of the problematic status of the text as it contains an account of its own vicissitudes of production. It does not claim to have been written by Kempe, rather it is a narrative of her spiritual life as recorded by at least two clerical scribes and requiring the miracle of Divine intervention to allow the later scribe to decipher the script of his predecessor. Professor Bale notes that the Book is strongly influenced by the genre of “saints’ lives” and that the language of the text is sometimes elevated by lexical choices that are likely to reflect the clerical learning of the scribes. Despite these concessions, he notes that the “consensus is that the narrative of “The Book of Margery Kempe” as we have it is, more or less, as dictated by Kempe, but turned into continuous prose and variably edited by her amanuenses. If we trust its own account of itself, “The Book of Margery Kempe is best thought of as a collaborative document, in which individual experience merges with the imprimatur of confessors and scribes, rendering it a collectively produced version of Kempe’s life" (196). The difficulty with this summary is that it seeks to retain the idea that the book gives us access to “individual experience”, and even to a ‘girlboss’ type assertion of “the validity of her own experience”, when in fact its entire structure and claim to significance is derived from the genre of the saint’s life and - in particular - from the life of the Swedish St Bridget. All of the necessary critical qualifications of such a 'girlboss' reading are provided by Professor Bale, but his book in its entirety accommodates itself contemporary appropriations of the kind described by Professor Dumitrescu.
Other than that, this is a good introduction to a wonderful medieval text, exploring the it through places, things and feelings. It occasionally resembles a Lonely Planet Guide to Margery Kempe and most of the translations are wholly redundant (glosses of individual words are all that most readers would need). With luck, it will draw readers to the Booke of Margery Kempe in its original Fifteenth Century English.
(1) ‘Beyond the Girlboss, Irina Dumitrescu, Times Literary Supplement, 11. 02.2022.
Shortly after reading Professor Bale’s book I found myself nodding as i read an article by medievalist Irina Dumitrescu where she wrote that she found herself nodding as she read an article by Alexis Soloski in the New York Times about the current trend in the media to “transform historical women such as Emily Dickinson, or Catherine the Great into ‘girlbosses’: stronger, sassier, more glamorous and more progressive than they could have been in their own centuries” (1). For all of its rigour, this could equally be said of Anthony Bale’s book about the Book of Margery Kempe.
Readers of the Book of Margery Kempe cannot be unaware of the problematic status of the text as it contains an account of its own vicissitudes of production. It does not claim to have been written by Kempe, rather it is a narrative of her spiritual life as recorded by at least two clerical scribes and requiring the miracle of Divine intervention to allow the later scribe to decipher the script of his predecessor. Professor Bale notes that the Book is strongly influenced by the genre of “saints’ lives” and that the language of the text is sometimes elevated by lexical choices that are likely to reflect the clerical learning of the scribes. Despite these concessions, he notes that the “consensus is that the narrative of “The Book of Margery Kempe” as we have it is, more or less, as dictated by Kempe, but turned into continuous prose and variably edited by her amanuenses. If we trust its own account of itself, “The Book of Margery Kempe is best thought of as a collaborative document, in which individual experience merges with the imprimatur of confessors and scribes, rendering it a collectively produced version of Kempe’s life" (196). The difficulty with this summary is that it seeks to retain the idea that the book gives us access to “individual experience”, and even to a ‘girlboss’ type assertion of “the validity of her own experience”, when in fact its entire structure and claim to significance is derived from the genre of the saint’s life and - in particular - from the life of the Swedish St Bridget. All of the necessary critical qualifications of such a 'girlboss' reading are provided by Professor Bale, but his book in its entirety accommodates itself contemporary appropriations of the kind described by Professor Dumitrescu.
Other than that, this is a good introduction to a wonderful medieval text, exploring the it through places, things and feelings. It occasionally resembles a Lonely Planet Guide to Margery Kempe and most of the translations are wholly redundant (glosses of individual words are all that most readers would need). With luck, it will draw readers to the Booke of Margery Kempe in its original Fifteenth Century English.
(1) ‘Beyond the Girlboss, Irina Dumitrescu, Times Literary Supplement, 11. 02.2022.
November 8, 2024
This seems to be the definitive commentary on the text of Margery's spiritual autobiography. Great scholarship and translation of the text which is like Chaucer so not always easy to understand. I gave 4 on 5 because at times I thought that Mr Bale was rather judgemental on Margery's lively and human accounts. I find that they add to her mystical experiences because they make her a real breathing medieval woman instead of an icon. Highly recommend learning about this amazing woman to anyone interested in memoir , religious experience and feminist studies.
December 20, 2021
A hugely engaging and accessible book about a mediaeval mystic - this was not what I expected!!! This biography is judiciously grounded in reality - feeling grounded because evidence-based - and blissfully jargon-free. Covers so much details but very lightly. Bale holds off on focussing on Kempe's crying until the reader is already thoroughly engaged. It is written in a very good style with natural transitions, and the book is a pleasurable thing to hold, too: smooth paper; opens gracefully; nicely designed; splendidly illustrated. Incredible value, too. A lovely and engrossing introduction to one of mediaeval England's most captivating characters!
February 12, 2022
Aimed at a general audience, it's very readable and mercifully jargon free, but it tells the reader little more than Margery recounts in her own remarkable fashion.
December 21, 2021
A hugely engaging and accessible book about a mediaeval mystic - this was not what I expected!!! This biography is judiciously grounded in reality - feeling grounded because evidence-based - and blissfully jargon-free. Covers so much details but very lightly. Bale holds off on focussing on Kempe's crying until the reader is already thoroughly engaged. It is written in a very good style with natural transitions, and the book is a pleasurable thing to hold, too: smooth paper; opens gracefully; nicely designed; splendidly illustrated. Incredible value, too. A lovely and engrossing introduction to one of mediaeval England's most captivating characters!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews