1. Margery Kempe struggled a great deal to forge a meaningful path for herself as a spiritual and chaste woman. At first when she declares that “’all the love and affection of my heart is withdrawn from all earthly creatures, and set on God alone’” (Kempe, 577), she is still forced to fulfill her marital duties to her husband. By the end of her narrative, John has finally decided to take the vow of chastity with her, which allows Margery to be taken control of by another calculating and violent force – Jesus. He says to her “’And daughter, I want you to give up your praying of many beads, and think such thoughts as I shall put into your mind. I shall give you leave to pray until six o’clock to say what you wish. Then you shall lie and speak to me in thought, and I shall give you high meditation and true contemplation.’” (Kempe 578). If Margery is told what to pray, think, and even wear for clothes, how affective is her piety? Has she escaped from the grips of masculine control, only to be ravished by and succumb yet again to a spiritual control?
2. Although her spirituality was largely personal for Margery, she was accused of being a Lollard more than once. In chapter 54 of her Book, Margery encounters the Archbishop, who is “amazed at where she got the money to travel” (Kempe, 591). Margery travelled with her husband, and received warm welcomes wherever she went because of this, and many people often gave her money so that she would pray for them. These men, in Margery’s own words were “good”, and she took their money so that she would be able to travel more easily. What would Chaucer say of Margery taking money from people so that she might pray for them? Would he consider her a pardoner more than a Lollard? Chaucer was often most critical of these religious characters, and while many thought they were doing the good work of God, their acts seem hypocritical. Do you see Margery as a pardoner, or simply as a woman attempting to save her own soul?
1. Until she is instructed by God to wear all white, Margery Kempe is clearly a
woman who enjoys her fashion. Despite changing so many other aspects of her
life after her first religious vision, she refuses to change her dress; she insists on
owning every outfit of high fashion, “so that she would be all the more stared
at” and wearing “gold pipes on her head, and … hoods with the tippets that were fashionably slashed” (LABL 575). This glamorous headdress, as well as her pilgrimage to Jerusalem, evokes the image of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, another female pilgrim with excessive headgear. In what ways are Margery Kempe and the Wife of Bath similar characters? If Margery Kempe had been on the pilgrimage to
Canterbury, what tale would she have told?
2. In Passus V of Piers Plowman, Langland describes the Seven Deadly Sins,
personifying pride as Parnel Proud-Heart who “fell prone to the ground/ And lay
long before she looked up and cried, ‘Lord, mercy!’” and vowed to “make [her]self
meek and beg for mercy” (67). This and other actions of Parnell Proud-Heart mirror
the dramatic performances of Margery Kempe, who was known to cry “so loud
and so amazing that it astounded people, unless they had heard it before” (LABL
585). Both Parnel and Margery, as well, promise to wear hair shirts as proof of
their devotion and love for God. Is it possible that Margery Kempe, who appears so
pious and religious, is actually epitomizing one of the Seven Deadly Sins according
to Langland? Is this a comment on affective spirituality, or is does Langland believe
that Margery Kempe should be showing her religion in a quieter way?
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