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Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral: Mapping Margery Kempe Image Database Margery's visit to Lincoln  as described in the Book of  Margery Kempe, Chapter 15 Additional archival images Interior of Lincoln cloisters from southwest   EXTERNAL LINKS Lincoln Cathedral Cathedral and Castle images from City  of Lincoln Website City of Lincoln from Lincolnshire Website Lincoln Cloister Garden: Plants associated with the Virgin Mary

Margery Kempe travels with her husband to Lincoln to ask the Bishop, Philip Repyngdon to accept their formal vows of chastity in the summer of 1413 (Ch. 15). At this time the see of Norwich was vacant, so the couple went to the bishop of Lincoln.  They stayed for over three weeks.  Ultimately he received Margery, inviting her to eat with his company and giving her money to purchase her white clothes proclaiming her status within a chaste marriage.
Repyngdon had once been associated with the dissenting Lollard movement. As Bishop of Lincoln he appears to have been very cautious about handling unusual cases like Margery's and he sent her for final approval to the Archbishop of Canterbury, his ecclesiastical superior.  Margery Kempe's passionate interest in visiting miraculous sites is not unusual.  Repyngdon promulgated such beliefs.  For example in 1405 he granted a 14 days indulgence for persons contributing to the rebuilding of the Yarborough Parish Church in Lincolnshire what had been destroyed by fire.  He explained that the cause has been blessed by a miracle.  The fabric wrapping the host has been untouched by the flames while the ivory and copper elements of its receptacle had been burned: the furious blaze burnt everything that it could find on the altar, even the double conical pyx of ivory within and without, containing with great care this vital bread. . .  and only that bread enclosed within a little silken compartment which could not have withstood such a fury remained miraculously whole.  See The Register of Bishop Philip Repingdon 1405-1419