Memoirs Of A Medieval Woman: The Life And Times Of Margery Kempe (Paperback)

~ Louise Collis (Author) "Margery Brunham, or Burnham, was born about 1373 in Bishop's Lynn, as King's Lynn was then called, in Norfolk..." (more)
Key Phrases: John Kempe, Margery Kempe, Dame Margaret Florentine (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

For history and biography lovers, the 15th-century life and travels of the extraordinary Margery Kempe, who left her family to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Product Details

• Paperback: 269 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (January 19, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060909927
• ISBN-13: 978-0060909925
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #912,486 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You Are There, March 28, 2000

By	George Weber (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ms. Collis has brought The Book of Margery Kempe to life by her fine renditions of the times in which the mystic lived. My interest was on the state of Christianity -- clerical and lay -- in those times, and I have in this book an instructive and enjoyable accounting, played out against the memoirs of Margery Kempe. It is well worth your attention, followed up by a visit to Britannica.com for other source material on Kempe. The footnotes and bibliography of Collis' book are also of great value.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book..., January 23, 2003

By	C. Loomis (Darmstadt, Germany) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This really was an excellent book. It was a wonderful understanding of the Medieval world from a person who lived through it. Margery Kempe was not much into politics which is fine. We already have dates and figures from our history books. She was into daily life.

The only bad part of the book was Margery. If I had been one of the Pilgrims she had traveled with, I probably would have been the one to finally throw her overboard. Even though I would never want to meet someone like Margery and would go nuts if I did, she was truly an amazing person. Amazing from the perspective that people actually believed in her and she let herself believe in all of her delusions. It was amazing that she could get all those priests to believe she really talked to God. It shows how truly superstitious the Middle Ages were. It was also amazing to see how divided the Catholic Church was. You had Fransiscan monks against her and undermining an Archbishop. It was also amazing how little she seemed to care about her husband and children that they were hardly ever mentioned. The only real use she had for her husband was for the occasional logistics. This was truly a wonderful book for the inside look it gave to a Medieval woman's mind and her times.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Gal !, March 9, 2006

By	G. L. Marshall Jr. (Gurley, AL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Being a lover of medieval history, when I bought this book and sat down to read it I was expecting perhaps, another somewhat dry and unexciting account of the daily life of a medieval woman living in a medieval town. Wow! Was I pleasantly surprised! This little book is a real gem as it recounts, in modern English and in biographical narrative fashion, the travels and tribulations of a truly remarkable, if a bit eccentric, Englishwoman of the 15th century. I especially enjoyed the description of her journey to and sojourn in the Holy Land and her stay in Rome. This woman, who was subject to visions of and visitations from the saints and Jesus, would likely be declared insane today, and she almost was burned as a heretic back then.
Her courage and fortitude are truly admirable. Ms. Collis has done a masterful job of weaving quotes from Margery's autobiography with modern English prose to present a lucid and most enjoyable account of this lady. Definitely a two thumbs up book!