Forged by Fire: Margery Kempe's Account of Postnatal Psychosis

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Literature and Medicine, Volume 32, Number 2, Fall 2014, pp. 348-364(Article)

P bl h d b Th J hn H p n n v r t PrDOI: 10.1353/lm.2014.0017

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348 Margery KeMpe’s account of postnatal psychosis

Literature and Medicine 32, no. 2 (Fall 2014) 348–364© 2014 by Johns Hopkins University Press

Forged by Fire: Margery Kempe’s Account of Postnatal PsychosisDiana Jefferies and Debbie Horsfall

Ecce ancilla Domini fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (Lucem 1:38)1

[Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word]2

In this paper, we examine the life of an extraordinary woman, Margery Kempe, who in the early fifteenth century overcame an episode of insanity, described as postnatal psychosis by medical historians, to live a life of remarkable freedom based on her absolute belief in her special relationship with the Godhead.3 When this episode of postnatal psychosis, found at the beginning of Margery’s life story, is examined closely and in context with the rest of her autobiography, it becomes evident that it had a profound effect on her sense of well-being and that, following her recovery, her life and her worldview were trans-formed. Our purpose in examining this episode is to show how and why Margery developed strategies that would eventually enable her to leave married life and the possibility of future childbearing. The difficulty of achieving these goals is demonstrated when, later in her autobiography, Margery says that she has given birth to fourteen children.

Today postnatal psychosis is considered a serious psychiatric emergency that affects one to two women per thousand in the first four weeks following childbirth.4 Women can experience auditory, visual, and olfactory hallucinations and delusions, and there is an increased risk of self-harm, suicide, and infanticide associated with the condi-tion.5 Margery, of course, did not have access to the modern medical understanding of postnatal psychosis. Instead, she came to understand her experience by interpreting the symptoms of this condition in terms of her own worldview, using religious imagery. For example, she be-

349Diana Jefferies and Debbie Horsfall

lieved that her illness resolved following a conversation with Christ; such experiences of conversation with divine figures continued for the rest of her life and were recorded in her autobiography.

Although these conversations have been interpreted by Trudy Drucker, Marlys Craun, and Phyllis R. Freeman, Carley Rees Bogarad, and Diane E. Sholomskas as auditory hallucinations and therefore as evidence of ongoing mental illness, we interpret them instead as em-powering strategies Margery used both to recover from, and to attempt to prevent further episodes of, postnatal psychosis.6 In her autobiogra-phy, she refers to these conversations when justifying any decision that would be considered unconventional in the medieval context, such as her decision to leave the marriage bed, her resolve to preach and go on pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem, and her mystical marriage to the Godhead. These conversations became the evidence she required to give herself authority so that she could pursue the life she desired, rather than the one prescribed for her by medieval social conventions.

Theoretical Approach to Reading the Book

The Book of Margery Kempe is considered to be the first auto-biography in English. It tells the life story of a married woman of King’s Lynn in Norfolk who was born in 1373 and died sometime after her final mention in official records in 1439.7 The Book is not a conventional autobiography. As a woman living in the late medieval period, Margery was illiterate; the autobiography was dictated to two amanuenses. As a consequence, she is not represented as an “I” in the text but rather referred to in the third person, often as “this creature.”8 Nevertheless, literary scholars have concluded from careful examina-tions of the text that Margery did have editorial control of what was written.9 Although the extent of her authorial voice in the text remains a subject of scholarly debate, we assume that the text represents what Margery dictated to her amanuenses and we will refer to Margery as the autobiography’s author.

Margery’s reason for committing her life story to writing is explained in the opening proem. She describes how Christ used ill-ness to persuade her, a sinful woman, to accept his love: “Than this creatur, of whom thys tretys thorw the mercy of Jhesu schal schewen in party the levyng, towched be the hand of owyr Lord wyth grett bodily sekenesse, wherthorw sche lost reson and her wyttes a long tym tyl ower Lord be grace restoryd her ageyn, as it schal mor openly be


schewed aftyrward.” (Then this creature, about whom this treatise is written through the mercy of Jesus, shall show in part the way of liv-ing, touched by the hand of our Lord with great sickness of the body, where she lost her reason and wits for a long time until our Lord by his grace restored her again, as it will be shown afterward) (28–32). From a distance of forty years’ contemplation, Margery constructs her autobiography to present the reader with her growing understanding of the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.10

Margery’s journey is often articulated through a changing concep-tion of her relationship with her body, which begins when she experi-ences an episode of postnatal psychosis following her first pregnancy. Her description of her feelings has provoked strong negative reactions in modern readers. As David Aers remarks, “Sadly, but predictably, the book’s very resistance to sublimation has been the main reason it has aroused such condescension and hostility among medievalists.”11 Clarissa Atkinson explains this hostility by observing that Margery’s story does not conform to the expected patterns of behavior, both in the social sphere as a wife and religious sphere in a convent or as an anchorite, for women in the fifteenth century.12

Re-examining how Margery presents her spiritual life in terms of her relationship with her body produces a new understanding of how and why Margery managed to live beyond the accepted social and religious spheres in the medieval period. While it could seem surprising to modern readers that she uses her ill body to refashion her relationship with God, and therefore her life, there are other such examples in medieval literature. Julian of Norwich, for instance, re-cords the religious revelations she received when she was gravely ill in her Revelations of Divine Love. Even today, pilgrims seek miraculous healing from religious centers such as Lourdes in France. Often, those who receive healing through miraculous means or grace believe that they are cured for God’s special purpose and that they have a special relationship with the divine.

Margery’s spiritual journey which begins with her experience of postnatal psychosis, however, has not been fully interpreted in the same terms. Indeed, rather than seeking to understand how she made meaning out of her experience of illness, other critics have turned to psychiatric labels to explain away instances of Margery’s behavior that they find disturbing.

Psychiatry has been a feature of critical discourse concerning Margery Kempe since the first modern edition of her autobiography was published in 1940.13 Many critics concluded that she lived with


a lifelong mental illness. For example, in 1990, Freeman, Bogarad, and Sholomskas asserted that Margery’s behavior showed a cycle of mania and melancholia which distorted her worldview while enriching its meaning for her.14 In 2005, Craun argued that the postnatal psychosis did not fully resolve and Margery continued to have psychotic symp-toms for the rest of her life. Craun adds that Margery’s story was an opportunity to hear the voice of a woman with a serious mental illness living 600 years ago.15

Although it is possible to conclude that Margery experienced symptoms of mental illness throughout her entire life, her episode of postnatal psychosis is significant because she credits it with changing the direction of her life. A close reading of this episode demonstrates that Margery turned to a spiritual life after her illness because she was not just fighting for a sense of freedom; she was also fighting for her own survival. The conjugal obligations of married life, leading to further pregnancies, could continue to take Margery not just to the brink of insanity but could also result in her death. We argue that the psychological impact caused Margery to re-evaluate her relation-ship with her body, leading her to reject her role as a wife because she did not want to risk further pregnancies. There has been a failure to consider how this traumatic experience of illness affected her and influenced her later decision-making.

Some critics have acknowledged that this illness was a life-changing event. For example, William Ober identifies Margery’s early psychotic episode as postnatal psychosis and claims that this led her to believe she was able to communicate directly with various aspects of the divine.16 Later, Roy Porter saw that Margery’s own interpretation of her experi-ence of postnatal psychosis was a catalyst to her walking a spiritual path, leading to greater control over her destiny.17 Recently, Alison Torn echoed Porter’s view, reading Margery’s behavior as symptomatic of various mental illnesses, but arguing that her religious beliefs gave her the freedom to explore her psychotic symptoms with dignity.18 These readings conclude that Margery did suffer from a mental illness, for at least some part of her life, but they also acknowledge Margery’s own interpretation of her lived experience of the illness.

We extend this approach by honoring Margery’s stated purpose for constructing her story during this period of psychosis and in other episodes following her illness. We focus on her description of the cause, symptoms, progression, and treatment of her postnatal psychosis in religious imagery before she believes she is a recipient of grace. This close reading provides a point of comparison to later periods in her life


when she claims to be in communication with God, Christ, the Virgin Mary and Mary’s mother, Saint Anne. Although commentators such as Freeman and Craun have referred to these later episodes as evidence of a continuing mental illness, these episodes are, in Margery’s mind, evidence of her special relationship with God and are recorded as oc-curring in times of great difficulty when she was looking for counsel and encouragement.19 Thus, Margery’s interpretation of her postnatal psychosis makes many of her future activities more understandable as she strives to maintain her special relationship with God and protect herself from further episodes of the illness.

As we show, setting aside modern understandings of postnatal psychosis and reinterpreting Margery’s lived experience and medieval worldview reveals this episode as sparking a process of emancipation. Margery certainly experienced symptoms that do fit with the modern diagnostic criteria for postnatal psychosis, but her explanations for these were based in a Christian paradigm. This paradigm enabled Margery to explain the course, symptoms, treatment, and resolution of the illness in a manner that fitted with the purpose of her autobi-ography: to demonstrate how Christ convinced Margery, as a sinner, to accept his love.20 Taking her own view into account produces a decidedly more positive view of Margery’s life story. She moves from being a character in her life story whose major interest is as a study of mental illness to being an exemplar whose spirituality empowers her to live her own life.

Making Sense of Postnatal Psychosis

Etiology of the illness:Margery’s life story opens with a description of her episode

of postnatal psychosis, which she clearly links to her marriage and pregnancy. The autobiography begins with Margery approximately twenty years old; the reader is told that she married an honorable public official and quickly became pregnant (175–77). The brevity of this description suggests that there was nothing remarkable about her life or her expectations. However, her experience of pregnancy and childbirth change the course of her life.

Margery tells her readers that her first pregnancy and delivery are so difficult she believes that she might die after the birth: “Sche was labowr wyth grett accessys tyl the child was born and than, what for labowr sche had in chyldyng and for sekenesse goyng beforn,


sche dyspered of hyr lyfe, wenyng sche mygth not levyn” (And after she conceived, she was afflicted with severe attacks of illness until the child was born, and when she went into childbirth and with the preceding sickness, she despaired of her life, knowing that she might not live) (177–80). Margery interprets these events from a Christian perspective as the fear of possible death leads her to contemplate the state of her soul.

Margery’s concern is that she has an unnamed sin on her con-science for which she has not sought absolution although she has per-formed private penance, such as fasting and giving alms with prayers of devotion: “And therfor this creatur oftyntymes dede greet penawns in fastyng bred and watyr, and other dedys of alms wyth devowt preyers, saf sche wold not schewyn it in confession” (And therefore this creature many times did great deeds of penance such as fasting with bread and water, and gave alms with devote prayers, except she would show it in confession) (186–88). Although other commentators assume that Margery’s “sin” may refer to a sexual encounter before marriage to another man, at no point in the text is the nature of this sin revealed.21

In fact, it is possible to interpret Margery’s admission of sin as recognition that simply being a person or a creature of the world is to be sinful. Her pregnancy and the birth of her first child remind her that she is the daughter of Eve and, as such, she lives in a state of sin.22 Furthermore, her difficult pregnancy and delivery reinforce her intrinsic sinfulness when read against Genesis 3:16. God tells Eve that she will have a twofold punishment for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: first, she will deliver children in great pain; and second, she will be subject to the power of her husband. There is no need, then, to locate the exact nature of Margery’s sinful-ness in any particular act, sexual or otherwise. As a married woman who has given birth in great pain she is living proof of the truth of God’s declaration to Eve as she left the Garden of Eden. Margery herself does not give any explanation for the sin she believed she needed to confess but she believed that the devil was influencing her life because she did not make a confession while in good health. When she began to fear that she might die following childbirth, this lack of confession meant that she could die in a state of sin. She attempted to rectify this situation by calling for her confessor but when he came he didn’t hear her entire confession, so she remained in a state of sin. It is at this point that she says she “went owt of hir mende” (went out of her mind) (199). Margery knew that her pregnancy and labor


had made her ill, but it was the fear of dying without absolution that caused her to lose her reason and wits.

Symptoms and progression of the illness:In Margery’s mind she remains in a state of sin because she

has not received absolution from the priest. Thus during the episode of postnatal psychosis she describes visual and auditory hallucina-tions that are indicative of an experience of damnation. The visual and auditory hallucinations depict a world inhabited with devils who threaten Margery verbally and physically: “Develys opyn her mowthys al inflaumyd wyth brenny[n]g lowys of fyr, as thei schuld a swalwyd hyr in, sumtyme thretyng her, sumtym pullyng her and halyng hir bothe nygth and day” (And in this time she saw, as she thought, devils opening her mouth all inflamed with burning logs of fire as if they would have swallowed her in, sometimes pawing at her, sometimes threatening her, sometimes pulling at her and dragging her both night and day during this time) (202–5). The purpose of this attack by the devils is to persuade Margery to forsake her Christian faith and deny God, Mary, all the saints in heaven, and her friends. She responds to her hallucinations by slandering her husband, her friends, and herself, and desiring all forms of wickedness. The influ-ence of the devils is clear in the text because Margery says “lych the spyrytys temptyd hir to sey and do, so sche seyd and dede” (like the spirits tempted her to say and do, so she said and did) (213–14). There is no treatment to relieve any of the frightening symptoms she experiences; all her attendants can do is prevent her from self-harming or committing suicide, thereby saving her from damnation. They do this by keeping her restrained and removing any object that she might use to hurt herself throughout this period of psychosis. Margery un-derstands how perilously close she came to losing her soul because she tells her readers that she has a scar on her hand where she bit herself during the episode.

Resolution of the illness:Although the efforts of her attendants keep Margery safe dur-

ing her psychosis, it is to a visit from Christ that she attributes the restoration of her sanity. Appearing to Margery in the guise of a man dressed in a purple mantle and looking beautiful, amicable, and with a happy expression, he immediately lifts her spirits. Yet he carries a simple message: “‘Dowtyr, why hast thow forsakyn me, and I forsoke neyre thee?’” (“Daughter, why have you forsaken me, as I did not forsake you?”) (232).


In Margery’s mind, he has reminded her that she is obliged to consider her spiritual life in accordance with her commitment to Christ. His message also associates her illness with his experience on the cross, when he asks God the Father just before he dies: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

Yet while Christ followed his Father’s will and submitted to death by crucifixion, Margery, who refused to follow church teachings and make a proper confession while she was in good health, had demonstrated that she had forsaken Christ and allowed devilish forces to dictate her response to sin. She identified with Eve, who allowed the serpent in the Garden of Eden to convince her to eat the fruit of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Margery had been convinced that private penance without formal confession would absolve her sin. As such, she had forsaken Christ. Prior to his appear-ance, then, her betrayal leads to an eight-and-a-half-month episode of postnatal psychosis taking her into the terrors of damnation.

Negotiating Freedom to Prevent Further Episodes of Postnatal Psychosis

Despite her return to sanity after her experience of Christ’s in-tervention, Margery believes that she continues to live in a state of sin because she remains under the authority of her husband. In this capacity she remains in the shadow of Eve. This is vividly shown in the text when Margery asks her husband for the “keys of the botery to takyn hir mete and drynke as sche had don beforn” (keys of the pantry to get her food and drink as she had done before) (239–40). Margery, even as the mistress of the household, required her husband’s permission to enter the food store. In no uncertain terms, her position in society as a wife gave her husband enormous power and required that Margery submit to his desires.23 This authority extended over Margery’s body, which, despite the difficulties she had experienced during and after her first pregnancy, placed her on a marital treadmill of continuing pregnancy and childbirth. Margery understood that she risked further episodes of postnatal psychosis every time she gave birth, but her explanation for this risk was that of sin. It is not surprising, especially given the parallels with Eve, that authority over her body in relation to sex becomes the battleground as Margery narrates her movement from the authority of her husband to the authority of the Godhead. Margery, however, uses her body, and her sexuality, to ne-


gotiate freedom from psychosis. Her movement away from a state of sin and living in the shadow of Eve is a process of the body, as she identifies pain and suffering as signifying sinfulness. Her response is to inflict further pain as penance by punishing her body. An example of this process occurs when two business ventures fail and she earns the scorn of her neighbors because of her elaborate style of dress. Her reaction is to punish her own body: “Than sche askyd God mercy and forsoke hir pride, hir covetyse, and desyr that sche had of the worshepys of the world, and dede grett bodily penawnce, and gan to entyr the wey of evyrlestyng lyfe, as schal be seyd aftyr” (Then she asked for God’s mercy and renounced her pride, her covetise, and her desire to be worshipped in the world, and she did great penance to her body which began her entry into the way of everlasting life, as shall be said after) (320–23).

Although Margery does not elaborate on how she punishes her body, she becomes convinced of the efficacy of bodily penance when she hears a melody while in bed at night that she associates with being in heaven. This pleasant sensation of music contrasts with her experience of hell occurring during postnatal psychosis; of the music, she remarks, “it is ful mery in hevyn!” (It is very merry in heaven!) (328). Experiences such as her postnatal psychosis, failed business ventures, and the scorn of her neighbors persuade Margery that her path to salvation lies in the denial of bodily comfort and pleasure.

While Margery remains under the authority of her husband, her sexuality is a source of suffering. She tells her readers that she has lost all sexual desire for her husband but she continues to consent to sex because this is her duty as a wife. She says that she lay by her husband’s side every night and continued to bear children and describes how this caused her suffering in graphic terms: “He wold have hys wylle, and sche obeyd with greet wepyng and sorwyng for that sche mygth not levyn chast” (He would have his will, and she obeyed with great weeping and sorrowing because she was not living in chastity) (354–55). Margery comes to view her continuing sexual relations and childbearing as evidence of her sinfulness and her as-sociation with Eve. Her response is to further punish her body; these penitential practices take an increasingly ascetic nature. She reports that she confessed and received absolution two or three times a day; fasted; kept a vigil in the church from two or three in the morning until at least noon; suffered the insults of many people; and began to wear a hair shirt.


It takes twenty years for Margery to achieve sexual freedom from her marital obligations by turning her focus to her spiritual life. Even so, she continues to experience feelings of sexual desire. In one particular episode, sexual desire is interpreted as a corrective sent by Christ when Margery becomes complacent. She believes that because of her ascetic practices she no longer needs to fear any devil and that she loves God more than he loves her (409–12). Identifying that she is guilty of vainglory, she says that Christ sends her three years of temptation. This includes the shame of being sexually attracted to and rejected by a man who was not her husband. Margery sees Christ’s intervention as a means of teaching her to temper her penitential practices so that they comply with the recommendations of the church (477). However, this does not give Margery the comfort she craves as she begins to despair that God has forsaken her and that she can no longer trust that he will be merciful to her (479–81). Margery finds that the church does not bring her the sense of security about salva-tion that she needs and, as a result, she does not continue to submit to the authority of the church.

Margery finally learns to negotiate freedom through submission to the will of the divine. She realizes that her despair will only lift if she places her trust in God (or Christ) and submits to his will (499–501). She signals this willingness to submit by documenting her first conversation with Christ following the resolution of her postnatal psychosis. In this conversation she is given a specific spiritual program. The three steps of this program are as follows: first, she is commanded to accept Christ as her love, “boldly clepe me Jhesus, thi love, for I am thi love and schal be thi love wythowtyn ende” (boldly call me Jesus, your love, because I am your love and shall be your love without end) (504–5); second, Christ asks Margery to remove her hair shirt and replace this form of penance with giving up eating meat, and instead take the Eucharist every Sunday (508–12); and finally, Christ advises Margery to go to an anchorite at Saint Margaret’s Church and seek his spiritual counsel because Christ’s spirit will speak through him (530). This anchorite will act as a mediating force between Margery and the messages she receives from spiritual sources, as he will advise her whether they come from the Holy Ghost or from the devil (536–40).

Each of these steps signifies Margery’s movement away from her worldly existence towards the commencement of her spiritual life. The first step shows that Margery believes she has a special relationship with Christ and, as such, can refuse to accept any worldly authority whether this is from her husband or from the church. The second step


indicates that she no longer receives her nourishment from the world, but is nourished by the spirit. And finally, the third step enables her to find spiritual counsel that is not associated with worldly institu-tions such as the church because her anchorite confessor has a direct relationship with God and can discern the revelations of the Holy Spirit.24 The question she plans to pose the anchorite is noteworthy as it demonstrates Margery’s fear that she could still be suffering symptoms of her former psychosis—symptoms she connects to being in a state of sin. The anchorite is therefore a mediating figure who confirms whether Margery is unwell, and therefore sinful, or whether she is indeed communicating with the Godhead. Significantly, now that Margery has agreed to submit to the authority of Christ, she is no longer required to punish her body as penance because she is no longer under the spirit of Eve.

Margery’s understanding of her relationship with Christ becomes integral to her negotiations with her husband as she seeks to be re-leased from her conjugal obligations. Margery consults Christ about the terms demanded by her husband before he will grant her wish. Margery and her husband end their marital relations after she agrees to pay his debts and eat with him on Fridays and he agrees to al-low her to go to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. In this exchange with her husband, Margery announces her new alliance with God:

Sere, yf it lyke you, ye schal grawnt me my desyr, and ye schal have yowr desyr. Grawnteth me that ye schal not komyn in my bed, and I grawnt yow to qwyte yowr dettys er I go to Jerusa-lem. And makyth my body fre to God, so that ye nevyr make no chalengyng in me to askyn no dett of matrimony aftyr this day whyl ye levyn, and I schal etyn and drynkyn on the Fryday at yowr byddyng. (Sir, if you like, you shall grant my desire, and I shall grant your desire. Grant me that you will not come into my bed, and I promise you that I will pay your debts before I go to Jerusalem. And I make my body free to God, so that you never challenge me to ask for any debt of matrimony after this day while you are still alive, and I shall eat and drink on a Friday at your bidding.) (778–84)

She has effectively transferred the ownership of her body from her husband to God in a commercial transaction. Furthermore, she le-gitimizes this transaction by reporting that Christ commanded her to speak with her husband about these matters. Margery knows that


to be successful in obtaining her freedom, she must claim that she is submitting to the will of God or Christ. This appeal to spiritual authority negates any opposition she might encounter from worldly authority. In essence this submission to God (or Christ) can be viewed as a strategy of emancipation.

Margery further legitimizes her relationship with the divine when she visits Rome on her return from her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Here she undergoes a mystical marriage with God: “‘Dowtyr, I wil han the weddyd to my Godhede, fir I schal schewyn the my prevyteys and my cownselys, for thu schalt wonyn wyth me wythowtyn ende’” (“Daughter, I will have you wed to my Godhead, and I will show you my revelations and my counsels, because you will live with me without end”) (2816–18). This marriage removes Margery’s two fears: that the divine messages she receives are not from God, and that she will not achieve salvation. She finds additional reassurance in the sweet smells and beautiful melodies she experiences daily from the time of the marriage to when the book is written, a period of twenty-five years (2864–73). These experiences are in direct contrast to her experience of postnatal psychosis and her disgust at the prospect of having sex with her husband. Whereas both these previous episodes had convinced Margery that she was sinful and would be damned after her death, the sweet smells and beautiful melodies convince her that she will receive salvation; at the time of her marriage she reports that God assured her that: “God is in the and thu art in hym” (God is in you and you are in him) (2886) and that she is surrounded by angels who will protect her from the devil (2887–89). This reassur-ance of God’s love and the promise of salvation completes Margery’s journey towards a spiritual life.

Margery’s journey to a spiritual life is not just about the cessation of her sex life with her husband, the avoidance of pregnancy, and the prevention of further episodes of postnatal psychosis. Her belief that she has a special relationship with God also enables her to find a new life purpose outside her role as a wife and unregulated by institutional authorities such as the church. Christ tells her that her prayers will save hundreds of souls: “‘For I have ordeyned the to knele befor the Trynyte for to prey for al the world, for many hundryd thowsand sowlys schal be savyd be thi prayers’” (“Because I have chosen you to kneel before the Trinity to pray for all the world, for many hundred thousand souls shall be saved by your prayers”) (611–13).

Margery comes to associate the following activities as acts of intercession for the world: prayer, mediation, pilgrimage, fasting, speak-


ing good words, and shedding tears (635–36). By performing these deeds at the request of Christ, Margery has left behind the shadow of Eve to identify herself instead with Mary—not in the sense that she identifies as the mother of Christ, but in that she, like Mary, has agreed to submit to the will of the Divine and live her life according to this submission.

Margery’s belief in her mystical marriage and identification with Mary give her an enormous sense of personal freedom and the con-fidence to stand up to worldly authority. Her encounters with church authorities such as the Archbishop of Canterbury (1157–60) and the Bishop of Lincoln (1076–80) demonstrate how she negotiated her own personal freedom, including the right to travel to Jerusalem, Rome, and the shrine of Saint James Compostela on pilgrimage. Margery consulted many other spiritual authorities, including Julian of Norwich, and was herself considered a spiritual authority. But there were also occasions when others doubted her spiritual credentials, and she was either ridiculed or accused of Lollardry. In all cases, Margery appeals to God (or Christ), who each time reassures her that she will receive salvation: “‘Derworthy dowtyr, lofe thow me wyth al thin hert, for I love the wyth al myn hert and wyth al the mygth of my Godhed, for thow wer a chosyn sowle wythowt begynny[n]g in my syghte and a peler of Holy Cherch. My merciful eyne arn evyr upon the. It wer unpossibyl to the to suffyr the scornys and despytes that thow schalt have, ne were only my grace supporting the’” (“Respectfully daughter, you love me with all your heart, for I love you with all my heart and all the might of my Godhead, for you were a chosen soul without any beginning in my sight and a pillar of the Holy Church. My merciful eyes are ever on you. It was impossible for you to suffer the scorn and insults that you have had, were it not for my grace supporting you”) (932–37). In Margery’s eyes, it was God’s unwavering love that allowed her to refashion herself from being a worldly wife to living the life of the spirit.

Conclusion

As discussed above, the opening episode of The Book of Margery Kempe gives a graphic description of the torment she experienced after the birth of her first child. Although Margery realized that she was not of sound mind during the episode, she also came to believe that she had been given a vision of Hell, and was so terrified by her experi-


ence that it became a catalyst leading her to a spiritual path. Dictating this experience of illness as an elderly woman, Margery defines the episode as the beginning of her journey towards her acceptance of Christ’s love, which she says is the major theme of her autobiography.

A significant thread of criticism about Margery’s life story has revolved around her mental health. When the text is read to discern the authentic voice of Margery Kempe, however, rather than a sufferer of psychosis, she becomes a powerful figure who strategically refashioned her persona from wife to spiritual figure. This should not be read as a cynical or calculated process. If her episode of postnatal psychosis is interpreted with compassion from Margery’s point of view, it is a terrifying and traumatic experience—and certainly one that she would not have wished to repeat. As a married woman in the early fifteenth century, she was obliged to submit to her husband’s sexual demands; she reports that she had fourteen children because she had no access to contraception. To escape this cycle of pregnancy and childbirth, Margery turned to the only sources of comfort she found during her psychotic illness: Christ and other spiritual figures.

Through this episode Margery also came to believe that she had the ability to converse with divine figures. These conversations can be interpreted as evidence that she suffered from auditory hallucina-tions as a symptom of an ongoing mental illness. However, once her postnatal psychosis had resolved, she repeatedly says that these divine conversations occurred during times of prayer or contemplation, often remarking that Christ and other figures spoke to her in her soul. Mar-gery associates these divine voices with her performance of spiritual exercises rather than with mental illness.

Although there are moments when Margery worries that she might be misinterpreting these messages and that they may actually be the voice of the devil or an illusion, she is reassured when she seeks further counsel from spiritual figures. The last chapter of Book 1 describes how such doubts were resolved: “Sumtyme sche was in gret hevynes for hir felyngys, whan sche knew not how thei schulde ben undirstondyn many days togedyr, for drede that sche of deceyts and illusyons, that hir thowt sche wolde that hir hed had be smet fro the body, tyl God of hys goodnesse declaryd hem to hir mende” (Sometimes she was in great uneasiness about her feelings, when she did not understand for many days, and feared that she was deceived and under illusions, that she thought she would strike her head from her body, until God in his goodness declared himself in her mind) (7404–8). These doubts notwithstanding, Margery was given enormous


self-confidence by her spiritual relationships, sharing them openly with authority figures.

When The Book of Margery Kempe is read with recognition for the authentic voice of Margery herself, she becomes a powerful and inde-pendent woman who successfully negotiated the institutional structures of the medieval period to live an extraordinary and exciting life. This view of her life story encourages the reader to look beyond the expla-nation of Margery’s spiritual encounters as the product of an ongoing and lifelong mental illness. However, as Margery herself recognized, for eight and a half months following the birth of her first child, she did experience a period of mental illness that has been identified as postnatal psychosis. Despite her reports that she gave birth to fourteen children, there is no record of another psychotic episode. This new imperviousness marks the episode as a turning point, not a persistent affliction, in Margery’s life. Although modern readers may find her experience strange and even disturbing, a compassionate reading of her life story demonstrates that she was a remarkable woman who used her special relationship with the divine to make meaning of her episode of postnatal psychosis and to live the life that she desired.

NOTES

1. See Weber and Gryson, eds., Biblia Sacra. Biblical quotations in Latin have been taken from this version of the Latin Vulgate as this is the version Margery would have known. All quotations are cited to the book, chapter, and verse in the body of the text.

2. The Bible: Authorized King James Version. All further English Biblical quota-tions will be from this translation.

3. The term “Godhead” is used in this paper to describe the divine nature or substance of God or the Trinity as it is used in The Book of Margery Kempe to give a sense of the collective nature of the divine or the Trinity. This term was used in the Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Authorized Versions of the New Testament and can be found in the following verses: Acts 17:29; Romans 1:20; and Colossians 2:9. In the modern English Standard Version of the Bible, the terms “divine be-ing,” “divine nature,” or “deity” are used instead. The Middle English Dictionary includes one example of Margery using this term and it is defined as either “the nature of God” or “divinity.”

4. See Doucet, “Differentiation”; Hay, “Post-Partum Psychosis”; Heron et al., “Early Postpartum Symptoms”; Rothschild, “Review”; Brockington, Motherhood.

5. See Doucet, “Differentiation”; Oates, “Perinatal Psychiatric Disorders”; Oates and Cantwell, “Deaths from Psychiatric Care.”

6. See Drucker, “Malaise”; Craun, “The Story”; Freeman et al., “Margery Kempe.”

7. Windeatt, “Introduction,” Book of Margery Kempe. All further references will be to this version of the text and cite to line number.

8. Spearing, “Book of Margery Kempe,” 625.


9. See Johnson, “Trope of the Scribe”; Archibald, “Sisters”; Ashley, “Histo-ricizing Margery.”

10. Power et al., “Autobiography as Genre,” 40.11. Aers, “Making of Margery Kempe,” 74.12. Atkinson, Mystic and Pilgrim, 159.13. Windeatt, lvi.14. Freeman et al., “Margery Kempe,” 189.15. Craun, “Story of Margery Kempe,” 656.16. Ober, “Margery Kempe,” 36.17. Porter, “Margery Kempe,” 44.18. Torn, “Madness and Mysticism,” 11.19. See Craun, “Story of Margery Kempe”; Freeman et al., “Margery Kempe”;

Drucker, “Malaise”; Meech and Allen, Book of Margery Kempe.20. See Jefferies and Horsfall, “Developing Person Centred Care.”21. Ober, “Margery Kempe,” 29.22. Williams, “Manipulating Mary,” 531.23. Aers, “Making of Margery Kempe,” 89–92. 24. Hughes-Edwards, “‘How Good . . .?’” 34.

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Forged by Fire: Margery Kempe's Account of Postnatal Psychosis

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