Norwich
Cathedral: Mapping Margery Kempe Image Database
Margery's visits to Norwich as described
in The Book of Margery Kempe (Chapters 17,
18,
26,
42,
43,
44,
60)
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."
