28.9: Margery Wept

Margery Kempe cried so much and so loudly that she became one of the most annoying women in her hometown of Lynn as well as neighboring Lincoln and Norwich not to mention Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de compostella where she made pilgrimages. She was regarded as a madwoman, a heretic, a faker, and a lollard. She was also called a deeply pious and religious woman. She was examined by priests, bishops, and archbishops and threatened with burning at the stake. Friars denounced her from the pulpit. Anchorites alternately encouraged and rejected her. She idolized St. Bridget and met St. Julian of Norwich. And she wrote, with the aid of a priest as scribe, what is probably the very first autobiography in the English language.