Margery Kempe And Her Close Encounter With A Falling Beam

By 1413, Margery Kempe—an up-and-coming mystic and self-proclaimed holy woman—was dividing the masses of England down lines of public opinion. Although she could not read, she apparently memorized much of the Bible through hearing, and she claimed to have had personal access to holy wisdom through vivid visions in which she saw and conversed with Jesus. Margery’s spiritualism pushed her in some unique directions; she became a vegetarian after a vision in 1409, then cajoled her husband into joining her in a vow of chastity by 1413, and, in her greatest calling-card, she became prone to profuse sobbing during religious services. Such antics made Margery one of those figures that people could only love or hate.

Around June 1413, Margery Kempe was concerned about her already divided reputation. As she dictated to a scribe in her autobiography, Margery Kempe, at that time, was “very much fearing public opinion, which said God should take vengeance upon her” (Book of Margery Kempe, Book I, chapter 9). To console her fears, Margery Kempe went to church in her hometown of King’s Lynn to pray, hoping for some divine aid in her ongoing struggle with public relations. Yet, ironically enough, what would occur that day in church would in no way bring her supporters and decriers together. Instead, what would befall her in the church would be seen by both her fans and critics as proof for their positive and negative opinions.

On that June day in 1413, Margery Kempe entered the church and lowered herself in prayer, calling up to the heavens for aid and strength. She quickly had an answer to her prayers, and other parishioners in the church did not need a mystic’s mind to hear God’s loud and clear response. Loud creaks and cracks echoed out in the sanctuary, and Margery Kempe described what happened next (in the third person) within her autobiography:

 “Suddenly—from the highest part of the church vault, from under the base of the rafter—there fell down on her head and on her back a stone which weighed three pounds, and a short end of a beam weighing six pounds, so that she thought her back was broken in pieces, and she was afraid that she would be dead in a little while. Soon after she cried, ‘Jesus, mercy,’ and immediately her pain was gone” (Book of Margery Kempe, Book I, chapter 9).

As this was a very public and eye-catching event, news about Margery Kempe’s close encounter with the falling rock and beam from her very church spread fast. Her supporters proclaimed that it was a miracle—God had shielded her from pain and harm, and she walked away from the incident unscathed. Yet, her detractors instead proclaimed that the falling rock and beam were a warning from God, and a sign that her actions were not looked upon favorably from heaven. As Margery herself mused, “many people greatly glorified God in this creature [Margery]. And also many people would not believe it, but preferred to believe it was more a token of wrath and vengeance than of mercy or favor” (Book of Margery Kempe, Book I, chapter 9).

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Detail of a miniature (dated c. 1320-1340) of an allegorical figure embodying Tristesse (Sadness). Image taken from f. 10 of Roman de la Rose (index Romance of the Rose), [Public Domain] via picryl.com and Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Book of Margery Kempe, dictated by Margery Kempe, and translated to modern English by B. A. Windeatt. New York, Penguin Classics, 2000.

The Entrepreneurial Woes Of Margery Kempe

Margery Brunham was born in 1373 to a prominent and wealthy merchant family from King’s Lynn, Norfolk. Her father, John Brunham, was one of the most influential men of the Lynn community, serving in such roles as Member of Parliament, Mayor of Lynn, Justice of the Peace, chamberlain, and alderman of the local guild. He even held the office of coroner. John Brunham was an undoubtedly successful man in both finances and politics, and his daughter, Margery, consequently lived like an heiress, wearing the latest fashion trends and soaking up the local limelight. Margery Brunham described her early wardrobe to a scribe, who wrote “She wore gold piping on her headdress, and her hoods with the tippets were fashionably slashed. Her cloaks were also modishly slashed and underlaid with various colours between the slashes, so that she would be all the more stared at, and all the more esteemed” (The Book of Margery Kempe, chapter 2). Her philosophy in wearing such garb, she claimed, was simply that wearing anything less than the best would be a dishonor to the Brunham family’s lofty prestige.

Margery’s expensive lifestyle would change, however, when she was about twenty years of age.  The change came because of her marriage to John Kempe around 1393—he was described by his wife as a tender and compassionate man, but Mr. Kempe was far less successful than Margery’s father in business and politics. This was a problem for the new Mrs. Kempe, as she was loath to decrease her wardrobe expenses, regardless of who she married. The newlywed couple soon began to clash over their finances. Margery Kemp apparently scoffed at her husband’s attempts to curtail her spending, and admitted in her autobiography that she “answered [him] sharply and shortly,” arguing that if he did not have the means to satisfy her wardrobe demands, then he should not have married a proud woman from the Brunham family. Margery did, however, eventually relent somewhat to her husband’s concerns, and she ultimately tried to start her own businesses so that she could pay for her lifestyle out of her own pocket.

In her first entrepreneurial endeavor, Margery Kempe launched an ale brewery operation. According to her autobiography, she became “one of the greatest brewers in the town of N. [Lynn] for three or four years” (The Book of Margery Kempe, chapter 2). Her self-proclaimed ‘greatness,’ unfortunately, was measured by quantity, not quality. Although she apparently had one of the largest brewing operations at the time, the beverages she produced must have been terrible. Her autobiography recounted how “all the ale was lost in one brewing after another, so that her servants were ashamed and would not stay with her” (The Book of Margery Kempe, chapter 2). Faced with no sellable product and abandoned by her workers, Margery gave up her brewery ambitions. Yet, her entrepreneurial endeavors were not yet exhausted.

Not long after she abandoned her brewery, Margery Kemp soon bought herself a milling business. She obtained a horse-mill, and brought in two horses, plus a handler to work the animals and the contraption. Her business plan was to grind peoples’ grain for a fee, and looked forward to raking in cash while the horses did their simple job. Yet, Margery Kempe made a horrible mistake—she seemed to have bought the single worst pair of horses in all of Lynn. The horses refused to work with the mill or the miller, grinding the enterprise’s productivity to a halt. Both horses put up such a stubborn fight that Margery’s single employee at the mill quit his job in frustration, and the reputation that the mill gained in its short lifespan made it impossible for Margery to hire another mill operator. In Lynn, Margery’s back-to-back business failures apparently became a favorite subject of local gossip. The aforementioned autobiography claimed, “it was noised about in the town of N. [Lynn] that neither man nor beast would serve the said creature [Margery], and some said she was accursed” (The Book of Margery Kempe, chapter 2). After the failure of her mill, Margery gave up her private business endeavors. Her passion, however, simply shifted from entrepreneurship to spiritual pursuit. To the dismay of John Kempe, his wife’s new phase was quite expensive, as Margery’s spiritual drive led her to go on pilgrimages to lands such as Germany, Spain, Rome and Jerusalem.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Young woman drawing, painted by Marie-Denise Villers  (1774–1821), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Book of Margery Kempe, dictated by Margery Kempe, and translated to modern English by B. A. Windeatt. New York, Penguin Classics, 2000.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margery-Kempe