Table Of ContentMur~eryK empe and Trunslutions
of the Flesh
University of Pennsvlvania Press
CULTURAL
NEW STUDIES SERIES
Joan DeJean, Cawoll Smith-Rosenberp, and Peter Stallybrass, Editors
A complete listing of the books in this series appears at the back of the
book.
TrnmhttiOns
and o f
the Flesh
By IZarma Lochrie
Copyright O 1991 by the University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First papcrh,~ckp rinting. 1994
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lochrie, Karma.
Margery Kempe and translations of the flesh 1 by Karma Lochrie.
p. cm. - (New cultural studies series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
- .
ISBN 0-8122-3107-4( cloth); 0-8122-1557-5( pbk)
I. Kempe, Margery, b. ca 1373. Book of Margery Kempe.
2. Christian literature, English (Middle)-Histoy and criticism.
3. Mysticism-England-History-Middle Ages, 600-1500. 4. Women,
Christian-England-Religious life-History. 3. Flesh (Theology) in
literature. I. Title. 11. Series.
PRZoo7.KqZ77 1991
91-26069
CIP
Contents
I~ltroduction
I. The Body as Text and the Semiotics of Sufkring
2. The Text as Body and Mystical Discourse
3. From Utterance to Text: Authorizing the Mystical Word
4. Fissuring the Text: Laughter in the Midst of Writing
and Speech
5. En~bodyitlgth e Test: Boisterous Tears and Privileged
Readings
6. The Disembodied Text
Bibliography
Acknowledpents
I am grateful to my colleagues at the University of Hawaii who inspired me
to pursue this project in its initial stages, particularly Nell Altizer, Kathleen
Falvev, Jay Kastelv, and Judith Kellogg. Many scholars have contributed to
this e.ffort with rheir knowledge, suggestions, and comments, including
Gail McMurray Gibson, Margot H. King, Valerie Lagorio, Clare A. Lees,
and Gillian R. Overing. I am particularly indebted to Allen J. Frantzen at
Loyola University of Chicago for his encouragement and support of my
research and for his generous readings of this manuscript. Others who read
all or part of the manuscript, including Elizabeth Robertson and Willenlien
Otten, are deserving of my gratitude. For help in preparing the manuscript,
I thank Gordon Sellers, who assisted with proofreading and compiling of
the index, and Man Dye, who transfered a draft of the manuscript to a new
computer system.
I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for a
Summer Stipend, and Loyola Universiq of Chicago and the University of
Hawaii for their grant support. At the University of Pennsvl~~anPiare ss, I
am indebted to my editor, Jerome E. Singerman, for his direction and
encouragement, and to Alison Anderson, for her guidance through the
final stages of the book. I am also grateful for the assistance of the librarians
at Trinity College, Cambridge, and for the enthusiasm and camaraderie of
the medievalists at the Newberry Libran in Chicago.
Part of Chapter I originally appeared in "The Language of Transgres-
sion: Bodv, Flesh, and Word in Mvstical Discourse," in Speaking Two
~an~uageTs:rn ditional Disc+lines aid Contempora~yT he09 in Medieval
Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen (Albanv: State University of New York Press,
1991).P ortions of Chapter 3 appeared in "The Book ofMargery Icempe: the
Marginal Woman's Quest for Literary Authority," Journal ofMedieval and
Renazssance Studies 16 (1986): 33-56. Chapter 4 began as a conference paper
which was subsequently published, "Margery Kempe and the Rhetoric of
Laughter," Vox Benedictina 3 (1986).I thank the publishers of these journals
and the essay collection for permission to reprint this material in revised
form. I also thank the Coancil of the Early English Text Society for
viii Acknowledgme~lts
pern~issiont o quote from Sanford B. Meech and Hope Emilv Allen, The
Book ofMargery Icenzpe, EETS, o.s. 212 (1940; rpt. 1961).
Finally, I would like to give special thanks to Huma Ibrahim, whose
friendship and intellectual vitality have benefited me immeasurably. To my
parents, I will always o\ve a debt of thanks for their continued support.
There is hardly any other calami? more apt to do harm or that is more
incurable [than the unbridlecl speech of \i.omen]. If its only conse-
quence were the immense loss of time, this would already be s~lfticient
for the devil. Rut you must knokv that there is something else to it: the
insatiable itch to see and to speak, not to mention. . . the itch to
In 1415, Jean Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, Lvrote a treatise
in response to the alarming claims of St. Bridget and other women to
mystical reIdation and prophecy. Dep~obntio1~spei vituurn represents Ger-
son's attempt to provide guidelines for the Church by ~vhichi t could
identie true mystical inspiration and condemn false religious fenlor. In this
treatise, Gerson warns against the religious appetites of women and adoles-
cents (\vhom he lumps together) ~vhichm ake them prone to unbridled
speech and passions.2 In the quotation above, Gerson specificallv addresses
the problem of woman's speech in conjunction with the appetitive faculties,
of sight and touch, in particular. The excessive quality of woman's speech is
linked implicitl\l with that "insatiable itch to touch," and with bodiliness.
Behind the visions and speech of women mystics, Gerson senses that
"something else" ~vhichr enders it calamitous, that is, the \vomanls body.
The word he chooses to describe her mystical desire, "itch," is a telling one
because it imparts some of Gerson's olvn horror and disgust at the insuffi-
ciently ~vlortifiedf emale flesh.3
This book begins with Gerson's insatiable itch not in order to draw
attention to his misogyny or to nl&e light of his point; rather, I take it as
the starting point for my study of one of the most controversial of late
medieval m\.stics, Margery Kempe, in order to highlight what is at stake in
any discussion of her. The intersection of \voman's body and her speech is a
crucial problem in any analysis of late medieval piety. We cannot begin to
discuss ~vhatG erson means by his critique until we ask questions about
medieval culture's understanding of the female body and about women's
speech and writing. In turn, issues surrounding Margery Kempe's mystical
practices, her autobiographical mystical treatise, and her methods as an
author dictating her ~vorkto a scribe a~vaiat theoretical investigation of the
