Margery Kempe: Mother, Mystic, Madwoman

Dating to the 15th century and discovered in its entirety in 1934, The Book of Margery Kempe is perhaps the first autobiography in the English language. Dictated to a scribe by the apparently illiterate Kempe, it chronicles her travels as a religious pilgrim and provides an in-depth account of a middle-class woman’s experience in the Middle Ages. The mother of 14 claims that after the birth of her first child, she fell into a bout of madness and had a vision that called on her to do what? Discuss

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