Margery Kempe Religion

When Margery Kempe is arrested and tried by the Archbishop of York he declares to his steward who has just expressed his desire to have her burned, “I leve ther was nevyr woman in Inglond so ferd wythal as sche is and hath ben” (173). The Archbishop’s words, though absolute in nature, ring oddly true for Margery Kempe and the unique account she gives of her spiritual and physical journey through medieval England and her personal relationship with Christ. She occupies a space both in and out of orthodoxy. Kempe is a liminal figure who who can be at once heretical and inspirational. Her experience with the Archbishop of York is indicative of her experience with clerical authority. She at once in defiance of it, yet also glowing in its approval.

The religious dramas of medieval England were influential to a community’s spirituality. Chester N. Scoville explains the importance of the religious drama in reinforcing orthodox values in a different way than church liturgy. Scoville reports “the importance of grounding the audience’s experience in the commonality of the Church became paramount, so that private interpretation did not veer into the heretical” (107). Though not part of official church liturgy, religious drama of the medieval period is rooted, to a certain extent, in the liturgy. David Bevington explains, “Most medieval drama is religious in nature and origin. It grew out of the liturgy...of the tenth-century Christian Church, and it achieved considerable magnificence under ecclesiastical sponsorship” (“Dramatic Elements” 3). In the early tenth-century religious leaders recognized the dramatic elements in church services that could be used to enhance the worshiper’s devotion. Scholarship about medieval drama does not contest the religious nature of the drama and its purpose of inspiring greater devotion. But another purpose of the plays was to educate a population that had varying degrees of literacy. Claire Sponsler explains, “drama was the privileged vehicle for lay religious expression, because like devotional imagery it could speak to illiterate people, but in even stronger terms” (134). The plays educated the public about biblical stories and were also intended to inspire a stronger brand of devotion to the viewer. Robert S. Sturges explains the plays “suggests by analogy that theater in its own indirect way can bring its audience into the presence of grace” (28). Theater becomes similar to the medieval liturgical services in the use of symbols and imagery. The Corpus Christi Cycle plays placed biblical stories on stage with depictions