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The Book of Margery Kempe
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
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The Book of Margery Kempe
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Summary
The Book of Margery Kempe is the extraordinary account of a medieval wife, mother, and mystic from Norfolk. Having married in c. 1393, given birth to 14 children, and pursued unsuccessful ventures in brewing and milling, Kempe made a vow of chastity and embarked on a life of prayer, penance, and pilgrimage. Known as the earliest autobiography in the English language, it contains intimate portraits of people and places, and a remarkable eye for detail, as it traces the transformation of a "sinful wretch" to a holy pilgrim.
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What listeners say about The Book of Margery Kempe
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Simon A
- 29-12-22
Let down by accents
This is worth listening to, and the narrator is pretty good until she does Margery Kempe’s accent. It sounds like she is trying to impersonate a slightly deranged bar maid. Otherwise it’s okay.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Clare
- 14-01-24
A difficult one
This is a difficult book. It isn’t always chronological so you aren’t sure what order various events occur in, and involves an awful lot of odd behaviour. Apparently she had 14 children. Who looked after them when she went travelling to Jerusalem and Rome? Her poor husband had to become celibate because she wanted to (after the 14 children presumably). I think it would probably help to have studied this book, or gone on a course to help reveal and explain it. Lucy Scott did a very good job with challenging material
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jeremy Critchlow
- 26-01-24
The Hitchhiker's guide to going on pilgrimage.
Margery Kempe has a hotline to God; she also writes (with help) the first known autobiography in the English Language - and she's quite a character. Her gift is a strange one - the prodigious and uncontrollable gift of weeping. She seems to weep most of the time: she weeps (very loudly) during sermons, much to the annoyance of numerous clerics and most of the congregation. She weeps whenever she thinks of Christ's crucifixion (which she does quite often). She not only thinks of Christ, she sees him as well, sitting, for example, on the edge of her bed. Every thought that come into her head is a direct message from Jesus himself (and occasionally Mary) so it's not surprising that many of her contemporaries find her to be an insufferable pain in the neck and accuse her of hypocrisy, and even Lollardy. She has an unenviable knack of making enemies and is frequently abandoned by many of her fellow pilgrims. But Margery is not the kind of woman to be deterred by the naysayers - after all, isn't persecution a sign of religious sincerity? And she has her supporters as well, plus it can come in useful to have a quick word with God who can change the weather whenever it's necessary.
I rather liked Margery Kempe. She means well, despite her zealotry. And she's tempted too, for example when for twelve weeks she is plagued by thoughts of male genitalia; or when, having convinced her husband to embrace celibacy, she decides to accept the lecherous advances of a fellow parishioner - only to discover that he didn't mean it.
It's true that her obsessive religiosity can be at bit much at times - but that's what you get when you enter the mindset of a devout woman from the early 15th century. Her message is clear. I love Jesus and Jesus loves me.
I suspect that if she were alive today she would probably be an internet influencer - but for me, the value of her book is as a gateway to a way of thinking so very different from our own, when religion was the dominant show in town.
Lucy Scott's narration is spot on, occasionally lapsing into a warm and lilting west country accent.
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