Margery Kempe and Her World [Paperback]

A. E. Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Medieval World | Publication Date: September 18, 2002

Daughter of a mayor of King's Lynn, wife of a burgess there and mother of fourteen children, Margery Kempe (c. 1373-post 1438) was also a religious mystic and hysteric, who dictated her 'autobiography' to a scribe at the end of her life. In this history of her life, Anthony Goodman examines "The Book", to reconstruct as much of her conventional biography as the materials allow. Including her spiritual experiences, but focusing most particularly on her day-to-day life, he builds an intriguing picture of bourgeois society in late medieval Lynn, and the wider world of late medieval towns in England and Europe more generally.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Goodman's book is for readers who want to know what The Book of Margery Kempe has to offer by way of social and political historical information.'

'Anyone who does not wish to work his or her way through the whole of Margery's confusing and effusive text will be grateful.'

Livia Visser-Fuchs, The Ricardian XVI, 2006

 

'Margery Kempe and Her World is not the same old Margery. It is far more creative, interesting, and sensible, and makes a valuable contribution to an increasingly overcrowded field.'

'Goodman succeeds both in offering new and plausible interpretations of Kempe's intriguing work...'

'...an excellent introductory text. Students who read it will learn a great deal about important aspects of life in late medieval England.'

Raymond A. Powell, The Catholic Historical Review, April 2006

From the Back Cover

"Professor Goodman pulls off the extraordinary trick of both illuminating the text as literary artefact and at the same time using it as a historical source. He does so by placing the book and its subject firmly in the context of the society of late-medieval Kings Lynn...The book contains many gems beside the exploration of Margery's spirituality...Margery Kempe has been awaiting her modern amanuensis and historian for a long time. Now she has found him; this book will not so rapidly disappear from view as did hers."

Professor A.J. Pollard, Teeside University

"A lucid and well-written history, which makes Margery's complex character more comprehensible by setting her in the social and spiritual context of the community in which she lived, and illuminates many aspects of fifteenth-century religious life"

Professor J.A.F. Thomson, Edinburgh University

Margery Kempe is one of the most extraordinary figures in English medieval history. Daughter of a mayor of King's Lynn, wife of a burgess and mother of fourteen children, she was also the author of the first autobiography ever dictated by an Englishwoman. "The Book of Margery Kempe", a single manuscript dictated 1436-38, and discovered in the 1930s, was not brief and formal as one would expect but an uninhibited, exhibitionist, outpouring of impassioned emotions, confessional in the religious and psychiatric sense. It is notable as an example of post-classical autobiography, from a highly unusual source - an illiterate woman of burgess status. The Book comprises an account of the mystical intimations of a lady born into the Lynn's stately but troubled elite. These episodes are interlinked with equally dramatic accounts of mundane experiences, in Margery's home town, in many English regions, and as far afield as Brandenburg, Rome and Jerusalem.

Tony Goodman reviews all aspects of Margery's career and writings in this full history of her life and times, but particularly examines the Book to expose the bourgeois society of late medieval Lynn and also to reconstruct her conventional biography, aside from the intensity of visions and devils. Margery Kempe provides a mirror to the world in which she lived, giving the reader an opportunity to hear a "real" voice of medieval people, from Lancastrian kings to the people of the Baltic.

Anthony Goodman is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance History in the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of many books, including `The Wars of the Roses'.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Longman (September 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582368081
• ISBN-13: 978-0582368088
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #740,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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