Spiritual Virgin to Virgin Mother: The Confessions of Margery Kempe

9 Spiritual Virgin to Virgin Mother: The Confessions of Margery Kempe Liz Herbert McAvoy The history of medieval w o m e n , then, is in part a history of the constraints of economic disadvantage, familial duty, and prescribed social roles. But it is also in part a history of women's agency within and against these constraints.1 The burgeoning interest in Margery Kempe and her Book in recent decades has tended to focus on her o w n unique brand of mysticism and the singular m o d e of its expression — the boisterous weepings and high-profile persona which characterised her piety. Also of c o m m o n interest has been Margery's apparent escape of family ties, her compulsive travelling, and her expression of imitatio Christi, and imitatio Mariae. S o m e of these approaches have at least touched upon the theme of motherhood in her Book, but what has not been fully recognised is 1 Judith Bennett inSisfers and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. by Judit and others (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p.6. 2 See, in particular, Kathy Lavezzo, 'Sobs and Sighs between Women: the Homoerotics of Compassion' in The Book of Margery Kempe', in Premodern Sexualities ed. by Louise Fradenburg and Carla Freccero (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 175-196, Hope Phyllis Weissman, 'Margery Kempe in Jerusalem: Hysterica Compassio in the Late MiddleAges', inActs of Interpretation: The Text in its Contexts, 700-1600 ed. by Mary Carruther Elizabeth Kirk (Oklahoma: Pilgrim, 1982), pp. 201-217, Gail McMurray Gibson, 'St Margery: The BookofMargery Kempe', in her study of EastAnglian devotional practices, The Theatre ofDevotion: East Anglian Drama and Socie in the Late Middle Ages, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 47-64. 10 Liz Herbert McAvoy the extent to which Margery's Book and its account of her journey towards realisation other holy vocation, although seemingly dependent upon an apparent rejection of orthodox female gendered roles within society such as that of the mother is, in fact, predicated upon a sustained type of recontextualisation of such maternal discourse in order to accommodate Margery's call to the holy life. I a m not suggesting that such discursive recontextualisation by w o m e n was unique to Margery. The author would have drawn on a long tradition within Christian theology and hagiography which allowed for a m o r e fluid representation of gender and valorisation of the female principle. Both Ruth Karras and Caroline B y n u m have illustrated h o w idealised perceptions of the female were integrated into mainstream Christian thinking, and likewise Clarissa Atkinson has examined the various maternal discourses which had an influence upon medieval piety. In the context of the uses to which medieval w o m e n such as Margery put such 'feminine' discourses, it is useful to examine some of the theoretical standpoints of Judith Butler who, in her critique of the notion of fixed gender identities, has developed an authoritative 'performative' theory of gender. Butler has argued persuasively against the 'naturalness' of gender and its hegemonic ethics, regarding gender as a series of performed acts or enactments which, although suggestive of a gendered 'essence', are never more than inscription on the surface of the body: ...acts, gestures, and desire produce the effect of an internal * core or substance, but produce this on the surface of the body, 3 This essay forms part of a wider study which examines the influence contemporary attitudestowardswomen on the writing of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. 4 Ruth Mazo Karras, 'Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend/ Journal of the History of Sexuality, 1.1 (1990), 3-32; Caroline Walker Byn Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Genderand the Human Body in Med Religion, (New York: Zone Books, 1991). 5 Clarissa Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in theMiddl (Ithaca and London, 1991). 6 See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion ofIdentity York and London: Routledge, 1990). Here Butler analyses gender in terms of performativity asserting that 'within the inherited discourse of the metaphysics of substance, gender proves to be performative—that...