Kempe, Margery

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Kempe, Margery (c.1373–after 1433). Author of the Book of Margery Kempe. Born in Lynn, Norfolk, she married young and had fourteen children, but was increasingly drawn to a deeper religious experience. In 1413 she and her husband took vows of chastity. Sharply critical of contemporary religious corruption, she went on pilgrimage and also visited Julian of Norwich. Her life, as revealed in her Book, became one of an imaginatively close relationship to Christ, her heavenly spouse, expressed in visions and highly emotional (some say disordered) devotion, and also in auditions.

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