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Norwich Cathedral

Margery Kempe at Norwich

The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Norwich, was the head of the diocese in which Lynn took its place.  Therefore it is natural that the city would figure so prominently in Margery Kempe's account.  She traveled to Norwich to see Richard Caister, the vicar of St. Stephen's, who was one of her confessors and who appears to have instructed her in devotional literature of the time (Ch. 17).  She also visited a Carmelite (Whitefriar), William Southfield and the anchoress Julian of Norwich (Ch. 18).  She mentions offering at the cathedral of the Trinity in Norwich (Ch. 26) on her way to the Holy Land.  She was again in Norwich on her return from Jerusalem (Ch. 42-44) and she mentions again offering at the Cathedral, seeing an anchorite at the Chapel-in-the-Fields, and being well received by the vicar of St. Stephen's.  She records that when next she was in Norwich (Ch. 60), Caister had died and she "fell down with violent sobbings, weepings, and loud cries beside the grave of the good vicar."