'I wold thow wer closyd in an hows of ston': Re-imagining Religious Enclosure in the Book of Margery Kempe

The fifteenth-century Book of Margery Kempe raises complex questions about the cultural processes which constitute medieval women's subjectivity. One cultural discourse influencing the representation of female subjectivity is the discourse of religious enclosure. Though Kempe herself does not join a monastery, her Book engages the discourse of enclosure by negotiating expectations of claustration and transforming prisons, private homes, even sickrooms into holy spaces. Kempe's unenclosed life reveals a new identificatory relationship between medieval religious women and the practices and cultural meanings of enclosure. Specifically, Kempe's performances of enclosure make possible a critique of enclosure and suggest possibilities for female community.