Date of Award
1971
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Dr. Frances Underhill
Second Advisor
Dr. Frances Gregory
Abstract
There are few today who would consider Margery Kempe as an individual displaying characteristics of a normal, well-adjusted person. As a woman and representative of her era, Margery is atypical. In W. A. Pantin's words: "Margery was of course abnormal in several ways, but she was an abnormal specimen of what was a large and familiar class of devout lay people...," one whose spiritual experiences were realized in the fifteenth century, but who is a fourteenth-century product. As a mystic, David Knowles evaluates her as the "less highly respectable Margery Kempe." Among her townsmen her identity is not especially clear, for while a few are regarding her as a saint, the majority are finding her hypocritical and a nuisance.
Recommended Citation
Taylor, Mary Marshall, "The case of Margery Kempe" (1971). Honors Theses. 767.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/767