Born: c. 1373
Died: c. 1440
Margery Kempe was an English mystic and religious writer. She was born at Lynn, Norfolk, the daughter of its mayor, John Burnham. In 1393, she married a local official, John Kempe; they had 14 children. For six months after the birth of her first child, she suffered a mental disorder. She claimed to be cured after Christ had spoken to her in a vision, and she grew increasingly austere and suspicious of all forms of pleasure.
In 1413 Kempe and her husband took a vow of chastity, and in 1414 she embarked on a series of pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Canterbury, Rome, and throughout Europe. Her religious enthusiasm often expressed itself in sudden fits of loud weeping in church. Descriptions of such incidents, along with the details of her travels, mystical experiences, prayers and meditations, are the substance of her autobiography, The Book of Margery Kempe, which she dictated to two clerks. The manuscript of this work, not discovered complete until 1934, is an important source of information about her time.
