Margery Kempe

About the Author

Margery Kempe (c. 1373–1438) was a medieval English mystic, visionary, and one of the earliest known female authors in the English language. Born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, to a prosperous brewer and mayor, she married John Burnham at age twenty and bore fourteen children before embarking on a profound spiritual journey. After a vision of the Virgin Mary, Kempe experienced intense religious ecstasies, including uncontrollable weeping and prophetic revelations, which led her to undertake pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Dictated to scribes in her later years, her autobiographical 'The Book of Margery Kempe' offers a vivid, unfiltered account of her trials, persecutions, and unyielding faith, blending raw emotion with theological insight and providing invaluable glimpses into 15th-century life, gender dynamics, and devotional practices.