the book of margery kempe an abridged translation

Concealing her visions from the general public, Kempe has little need to seek legitimization for her own safety or public sanctity. Nor are her disclosures merely a matter of compliance with discretio spirituum, that is, the need to seek authentication of the divine origin of visions from a Church authority. The Book also portrays her describing her visions to her scribes, one of whom was her son. She shared her “high contemplations” with a series of priests, bishops, and men who would become her confessor-in many cases, people she barely knew and would never see again. ĭespite her imitatio of saints who kept their secrets, however, Kempe did indeed talk about her visions. She inhabits a collapsed past-present that demonstrates and criticizes the “historical specificity” of both women’s holiness and religious authority.

Thus, the distance between the era of the virgin martyrs and fifteenth-century England also causes the (very partial) ostracization that allows Kempe to recapitulate St. However, her fifteenth-century contemporaries fail to recognize her imitatio and scorn her for her behaviors.

Kempe essentially lives the legendary past in the present, collapsing chronological eras into a single sacred time. Some scholars have argued that the result is a unique theology of time. These saints have intimate encounters with Christ that remain their secret, but display their Christian heroism by enduring persecution and death for their faith. Instead, she crafts a life following the romance template of the early Church virgin martyrs, whose legends were wildly popular in the fifteenth century. Kempe’s externalization of her special piety and concealment of her true gifts are a saintly imitatio (or hagiographical tropes), but not of contemporary saints she admires like Birgitta of Sweden. Recent research has added demonstrated an additional theological dimension. She explains her innermost visions to high clergy in order to seek their confirmation that her revelations do come from God. Acting but not telling her audiences in church or on pilgrimage creates the persecution on behalf of Christ she so desires. Margery Kempe, the protagonist of the Book of Margery Kempe, did not like to talk about her visions, as my previous blog discusses.

Catherine of Alexandria, Germany (Swabia) c.

The book of margery kempe an abridged translation