A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe

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 Contents

Preface [with Katherine J Lewis] - John H ArnoldPreface [with John H Arnold] - Katherine J LewisIntroduction: Reading and Re-Reading The Book of Margery Kempe - Barry A WindeattMargery Kempe and the Ages of Woman - Kim M PhillipsMen and Margery: Negotiating Medieval Patriarchy - Lynn and the Making of a Mystic - Kate ParkerMargery's Trials: Heresy, Lollardy and Dissent - John H ArnoldA Shorte Treatyse of Contemplacyon: The Book of Margery Kempe in its Early Print Contexts - Allyson FosterReading and The Book of Margery Kempe - Jacqueline JenkinsMargery Kempe, Drama and Piety - Claire SponslerPolitical Prophecy in The Book of Margery Kempe - Diane WattMargery'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 CullumMargery Kempe and Saint-Making in Later Medieval England - Katherine J LewisFinal Thoughts [with Katherine J Lewis] - John H ArnoldFinal Thoughts [with John H Arnold] - Katherine J Lewis