Margery Kempe and English Mysticism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the English mystic Margery Kempe (1373-1438) whose extraordinary life is recorded in a book she dictated, The Book of Margery Kempe. She went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to Rome and Santiago de Compostela, purchasing indulgences on her way, met with the anchoress Julian of Norwich and is honoured by the Church of England each 9th November. She sometimes doubted the authenticity of her mystical conversations with God, as did the authorities who saw her devotional sobbing, wailing and convulsions as a sign of insanity and dissoluteness. Her Book was lost for centuries, before emerging in a private library in 1934.
Guests
- Miri Rubin
12 episodes
Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London - Katherine Lewis
5 episodes
Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfield - Anthony Bale
2 episodes
Professor of Medieval Studies at Birkbeck University of London
Reading list
-
A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe
John H. Arnold and Katherine J. Lewis (eds.) (D. S. Brewer, 2010) Google Books → -
The Book of Margery Kempe
Anthony Bale (trans.) (Oxford University Press, 2015) -
God is an Earthquake: The Spirituality of Margery Kempe
Santha Bhattacharji (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997) Google Books → -
Margery Kempe and her World
Anthony Goodman (Longman, 2002) Google Books → -
Margery Kempe and the Translations of the Flesh
Karma Lochrie (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991) Google Books → -
The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages
Gail McMurray Gibson (University of Chicago Press, 1989) Google Books → -
Margery Kempe's Dissenting Fictions
Lynn Staley (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994) Google Books → -
Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion
Jonathan Sumption (Faber & Faber, 2002) Google Books → -
Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader
Brett Whalen (University of Toronto Press, 2011) Google Books → -
The Book of Margery Kempe: Annotated Edition
Barry Windeatt (ed.) (D. S. Brewer, 2006) Google Books → -
The Book of Margery Kempe
Barry Windeatt (ed.) (Penguin Classics, 2000) Google Books →
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Programme ID: b07cyfkg
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cyfkg
Auto-category: 270 (Christian church history and Christian denominations)