Description
Book SynopsisMargery Kempe and her Book studied in both literary and historical context. Margery Kempe's Book provides rare access to the "marginal voice" of a lay medieval woman, and is now the focus of much critical study. This Companion seeks to complement the existing almost exclusively literary scholarship with work that also draws significantly on historical analysis, and is concerned to contextualise Kempe's Book in a number of different ways, using her work as a way in to the culture and society of medieval northern Europe. Topics include images and pilgrimage; women, work and trade in medieval Norfolk; political culture and heresy; the prophetic tradition; female mystics and the body; women's roles and lifecycle; religious drama and reenactment; autobiography and gender. Contributors: JOHN H. ARNOLD, P.H. CULLUM, ISABEL DAVIS, ALLYSON FOSTER, JACQUELINE JENKINS, KATHERINE J. LEWIS, KATE PARKER, KIM M. PHILLIPS, SARAH SALIH, CLAIRE SPONSLER, DIANE WATT,BARRY WINDEATT.
Table of ContentsPreface - John H Arnold and Katherine J Lewis Introduction: Reading and Re-Reading The Book of Margery Kempe - Barry A Windeatt Margery Kempe and the Ages of Woman - Kim M Phillips Men and Margery: Negotiating Medieval Patriarchy - Lynn and the Making of a Mystic - Kate Parker Margery's Trials: Heresy, Lollardy and Dissent - John H Arnold A Short Treatyse of Contemplacyon: The Book of Margery Kempe in its Early Print Contexts - Allyson Foster Reading and The Book of Margery Kempe - Jacqueline Jenkins Margery Kempe, Drama and Piety - Claire Sponsler Political Prophecy in The Book of Margery Kempe - Diane Watt Margery's Bodies: Piety, Work and Penance - Sarah Salih 'Yf lak of charyte be not ower hynderawnce': Margery Kempe, Lynn, and the practice of the spiritual and bodily works of mercy - P H Cullum Margery Kempe and Saint-Making in Later Medieval England - Katherine J Lewis Final Thoughts - John H Arnold and Katherine J Lewis Bibliography
