A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe

Margery Kempe's 'Book' provides rare access to the 'marginal voice' of a lay medieval woman, and is now the focus of much critical study. This 'Companion' seeks to complement the existing almost exclusively literary scholarship with work that also draws significantly on historical analysis, and is concerned to contextualise Kempe's 'Book' in a number of different ways, using her work as a way in to the culture and society of medieval northern Europe. Topics include images and pilgrimage; women, work and trade in medieval Norfolk; political culture and heresy; the prophetic tradition; female mystics and the body; women's roles and lifecycle; religious drama and reenactment; autobiography and gender. Contributors JOHN H. ARNOLD, P.H. CULLUM, ISABEL DAVIS, ALLYSON FOSTER, JACQUELINE JENKINS, KATHERINE J. LEWIS, KATE PARKER, KIM M. PHILLIPS, SARAH SALIH, CLAIRE SPONSLER, DIANE WATT, BARRY WINDEATT.