A Tale of Two Confessors

A Tale of Two Confessors

The Book of Margery Kempe is a classic of English spirituality. It is the tale of a medieval wife, mother, and mystic from the fifteenth century. The book tells the story of Margery’s transformation from a failed businesswoman and lustful wife to a chaste pilgrim and mystic who communes directly with Jesus Christ and is granted both gift of tears and multiple, heavenly visions.

Reading this book, it strikes me that Margery is very much presented as a type of Christ, that is, one who obviously has great sanctity and is set apart from the world and to whom the world responds quite variably. Some people (the minority) accept her visions and treat her with kindness. To the rest she is a madwoman and possibly a Lollard heretic.

This dichotomy is neatly encapsulated in an exchange that she has with an anchorite who acts to her as a confessor and spiritual father. She begins by speaking to him of the other confessor that she has when the anchorite is not available and says,