Margery Kempe (Essay Date C. 1436)

SOURCE: Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe, translated by B. A. Windeatt, pp. 161-67. London: Penguin, 1985.

In the following excerpt from The Book of Margery Kempe, written c. 1436, Kempe relates her examination by the archbishop. Kempe addresses the charge that she should refrain from sharing her revelations with others because she is a woman; she also upbraids the clerics who attack her for speaking out, causing many of them to change their minds about her.

There was a monk who was going to preach in York, and who had heard much slander and much evil talk about the said creature. And when he was going to preach, there was a great crowd of people to hear him, and she present with them. And so when he was launched into his sermon, he repeated many matters so openly that people saw...