21. An Unusual Visitor

In medieval England few people travelled for leisure or to visit places where they were unknown.  Strangers in Hull were a rarity, especially female ones.  Margery Kempe would therefore have caused quite a stir as she arrived one day in 1417.  Dressed all in white she and her small band of followers would have made a striking sight as she walked down the High Street or stopped in the Market Place to admire Holy Trinity.

A few in Hull may have heard rumours about Margery.  She had apparently left her husband, children and a conventional family life in Norfolk to dedicate her life to God.  Visions of Jesus had instructed her to undertake pilgrimages alone to Rome, Spain and the Holy Land.  So deep were her religious feelings, she was said to cry out and sob intensely when at pray or receiving communion.

Women could live a religious life, as long as they did so quietly in holy orders as a nun.  They should not live like Margery Kempe travelling around the country.  Although even as nuns they were seen as less holy then men.  When setting up his religious house in Hull, Michael de la Pole had at first considered a house of nuns, but then decided that the monks of a Cathusian monastery would serve God far better.

Margery’s unusual behaviour in a time that didn’t tolerate difference meant she was often accused of being a Lollard, one who held deviant religious beliefs.  She was regularly arrested by the authorities and interrogated on suspicion of heresy, although each time they were forced to admit that she held the correct opinions on crucial matters such as the Eucharist.

Margery did have some supporters among the clergy and before arriving in Hull she had spent some time with her confessor at Bridlington Priory.  Most people in Hull though feared what harbouring an alleged heretic would do for their standing both in front of the Almighty and authorities closer to home.  After spending just one fretful night in the town, Margery had to leave but only got as far as Hessle before being arrested once again. 

She was escorted to Beverley amid jeers from passers by of  ‘Burn this false heretic’.  As this was cloth producing country, to this was added the regional specific shout that she should ‘go and spin…wool as other women do’.  After undergoing questioning once again, Margery was once again declared orthodox.  Later in life, once ill health had curtailed her wanderings, Margery dictated a book documenting the unique and difficult path God had called her to follow.  This book is the earliest surviving autobiography written in English.

Pictures: Extract from Margery Kempe’s autobiography.  Top from: The Book of Margery Kempe (Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), full text can be found at: http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/staley-the-book-of-margery-kempe.  Below from: B. A. Windeatt (trans) The Book of Margery Kempe (Penguin, 2004)

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