"That Sche Schulde Not Etyn Alone": Food, Community, and Authority in The Book of Margery Kempe

This article explores the ways that The Book of Margery Kempe engages with medieval devotional and dietary practices in order to better understand Kempe's self-positioning as spiritual authority within her various communities. These "communities"—intersecting and overlapping groups of people united through official, affective, or temporary means—understand her as a liminal figure, whose ability to traverse and transgress boundaries is often determined by her eating practices. Divinely ordained by God, yet frequently castigated by those around her, Margery's diet is a subject of complex preoccupation and debate throughout the Book. As a former miller and alewife, as well as mother of fourteen, her relationship with food is integral to her social identity; I contend that it is integral as well to her spiritual identity. This paper examines key instances of eating, fasting, feeding, communal dining, and dietary change in the Book, and how these moments serve to engage (or disengage) Margery with the people around her.