''The Book of Margery Kempe'' is a medieval text attributed to

Margery Kempe Margery Kempe ( – after 1438) was an English Catholic mystic, known for writing through dictation '' The Book of Margery Kempe'', a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language. Her book chronicles her domes ...

, an English

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

mystic and

pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

who lived at the turn of the fifteenth century. It details Kempe's life, her travels, her accounts of divine revelation including her visions of interacting with the Trinity, particularly

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, as well as other biblical figures. These interactions take place through a strong mental connection forged between Kempe and said biblical figures. The book is also notable for her claim to be present at key biblical events such as the Nativity, shown in chapter six of Book I, and the Crucifixion.

Content

Kempe's book is written in the third person, employing the phrase "this creature" when referring to Kempe in order to display humility before God, via the distancing from her self by abandoning the first-person narrative form. It is structured into two "books" totaling 6,047 lines. The first book contains 5,246 lines and the second book has 801 lines. Kempe claimed to be illiterate and her book was dictated to two scribes who set it down. Modern editions of Kempe's book are based on a manuscript copied by a

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...

named Salthows sometime in the fifteenth century. The original manuscript has been lost. Recent research by Anthony Bale suggests that Salthows was Richard Salthouse, a monk at Norwich's cathedral priory. The manuscript, then owned by Colonel W. Butler-Bowdon, was found in a country-house in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

in the early 1930s, and was identified as Margery Kempe's book by Hope Emily Allen in 1934, who was instrumental in the publication of the second modern, and first scholarly, edition of the text. In June 1980, the manuscript was purchased by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

from Captain Maurice E. Butler Bowdon (1910-1984), at an auction held by

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

in London. Prior to the discovery of the full text, all that was known of Kempe's book were pamphlets published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1501 and Henry Pepwell in 1521 which contained excerpts from ''The Book of Margery Kempe''. Kempe's book is widely cited as the first

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

in English. However, scholars disagree on whether it can accurately be called an autobiography, or whether it would be more accurately classified as a

confession of faith A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) which summarizes its core tenets. Many Christian denominations use three creeds: ...

or autohagiography. There has been some discussion about conceptualizing Margery Kempe as a character or

persona A persona (plural personae or personas) is a strategic mask of identity in public, the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional Character (arts), character. It is also considered "an intermediary ...

instead of treating the book as purely autobiographical, similarly to how

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

as an author differs from Chaucer the character in

The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' () is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The book presents the tales, which are mostly written in verse, as part of a fictional storytelling contest held ...

Manuscript features

''The Book of Margery Kempe'' remains in the possession of the

. The manuscript has been digitised and can can be viewed online. Written in Gothic Cursive hand, it consists of 124

folio The term "folio" () has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

pages, measuring 205 x 140mm. Four distinct hands have been identified writing annotations and making illustrations within the marginalia of the manuscript, the most recognizable script being one made in red ink. It could be concluded through the effort of making of these annotations that Kempe's book was frequently used and valued as a text, perhaps its contents viewed with admiration for its religious fervor. The underlining and highlighting by various hands demonstrates the aspects of her text that are valued, perhaps even to draw away from Kempe's more radical and disruptive facets.

Manuscript, modern editions and translations

*"British Library Catalogue: Add. MS 61823: The Book of Margery Kempe". *Kempe, Margery. ''The Book of Margery Kempe'', ed. Sanford Brown Meech, with prefatory note by Hope Emily Allen (EETS. Original series; no. 212). London: Oxford University Press, 1940. *Kempe, Margery. ''The Book of Margery Kempe'', trans. Barry Windeatt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985. *Kempe, Margery. ''The Book of Margery Kempe: The Autobiography of the Wild Woman of God'', trans. Tony D. Triggs. Barnhart: Liguori Publications, 1995; Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1995. *Kempe, Margery
''The Book of Margery Kempe''
ed. Lynn Staley. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996. *Kempe, Margery. ''The Book of Margery Kempe: A New Translation'', trans. John Skinner. New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1998. *Kempe, Margery. ''The Book of Margery Kempe: A New Translation, Contexts and Criticism'', trans. and ed., Lynn Staley. New York: Norton, 2001. *Kempe, Margery
''The Book of Margery Kempe''
trans. Anthony Bale. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015

References

Manuscript

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Book of Margery Kempe 1430s books 15th-century Christian texts 1501 books British autobiographies Religious autobiographies Pilgrimage accounts