Many people have contributed to this study of the life of Margery Kempe, in a variety of ways. I particularly wish to thank the following: Michael Seymour, at whose suggestion the project was begun with a view to publication in a series of lives of late Middle English authors, currently suspended; Susan Maddock, senior archivist at the Norfolk Record Office, who gave invaluable help regarding documents held in King’s Lynn and Norwich; Felicity Riddy, who read the typescript and made useful comments on it; Max Oulton, who prepared the maps; and Alexandra Barratt, whose scholarly interest and editorial skills made it a pleasure to undertake the slight modifications required for publication in Mystics Quarterly.

1 See J. Hirsh (1984). I am grateful to Dr. S. Fanous for first alerting me to Hirsh’s chapter as an excellent source of information regarding several decades of Margery Kempe scholarship, including an account of H.E. Allen’s research and her papers deposited in the archives of Bryn Mawr College.

2 Page, page/line, Appendix, and note references are to BMK.

3 Most importantly by L. Staley. It may be noted in passing that in the unlikely event that the book could indeed be shown to be a work of fiction, the putative author would more credibly be sought among highly literate clerics, such as the second amanuensis, than among unlettered women such as Margery Kempe.

4 The Register of Bishop Philip Repingdon 1405–1419, Vol. I, ed. M. Archer (1963), pp. 1–1i.

5 A Calendar of the Freemen of Lynn, printed for the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society (1913), including Appendix, pp. 299–303.

6 William Asshebourne’s Book, ed. D. Owen (1981).

7 Ibid., pp. 97–99.

8 S. Jenks (1992), p. 418.

9 T. Nyberg (1965), pp. 70 ff.

10 F. Stenton, p. 17.

11 T. Lloyd, p. 91.

12 Jenks (1992), p. 418.

13 Jenks has described in detail the history of the Hanseatic warehouse, its ownership, and wider issues of the Hanseatic presence in Lynn and London, in “Der Liber Lynne und die Besitzgeschichte des hansischen Stalhofs zu Lynn”, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 68 (1988), 21–81.

14 Lloyd, p. 114.

15 Jenks (1992), p. 2; pp. 277–278.

16 William Asshebourne’s Book, p. 99.

17  Ibid., p. 83.

18 A marginal annotation, M of P, 17/35 fn. 5, probably indicates the Dominican anchorite’s initials. It has not been possible to identify him.

19 Victoria County History: County of Norfolk,  Vol II (reprint 1975), pp. 441–442. 

20 A. Nelson, p. 190.

21 E. Duffy, p. 21, n. 30.

22 C. Atkinson, p. 95.

23 See also P. McNiven, p. 82.

24 F. Riddy (1996).

25 N. Orme, pp. 583–585. 

26 S. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300–1500 (1948), pp. 71–72.

27 N. Tanner, p. 7.

28 N. Davis, Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century,  Vol. I (1971), p. xxxviii. The exception to this is Agnes Paston, who probably wrote not only one of her own surviving letters, but also part of one of her husband’s letters (A. Barratt, Women’s Writing in Middle English, p. 239).

29 See also A Calendar of the Freemen of Lynn, p. 13.

30 RR, pp. xix–xx.

31 KL/C17/9, Leet Roll for 1357. I am grateful to M. Begley for this reference.

32 KL/C39/91.

33 KL/C50/65–67.

34 D. Owen (1984), pp. 185–187. 

35 A. Little, pp. 8–29.

36 NRO, DCN 44/76/175.

37 Ibid., f. 77.

38 A Calendar of the Freemen of Lynn, p. 24.

39 RR, f. 128d.

40 William Asshebourne’s Book, p. 80. 

41 NRO, DCN 44/76/49.

42 William Asshebourne’s Book, p. 79.

43 Owen (1984), pp. 332–333.

44 RR, f.120, f. 124d.

45 NRO BL VIa (IV) 0.7.

46 For an overall view of urban women at work see H. Leyser, pp. 154–165; on Margery Kempe, see pp. 164–5.

47 KL/C17/3, Leet Roll for 1333. I am grateful to M. Begley for this reference.

48 V. Parker, pp. 33–40.

49 For the visual impact in particular of traditional religion on Margery Kempe, which will have applied during her childhood as well as later, see the numerous references to her in Duffy.

50 For the likely process of the Christian education begun in early childhood, and for the formative influence of the continental women saints and the dissemination of English versions of the vitae, see Atkinson, especially pp. 31–36, 92–94, 160. 

51 For the continental visionary tradition, and Margery Kempe’s place in relation to it, see, for instance, R. Voaden.

52 See, for instance, R. Beadle (1997).

53 R. Copeland, p. 271.

54 For the suggestion that recognition of Latin letter-shapes and their corresponding sounds in Psalters and Books of Hours could lead, even when not understood, to recognition of letters and sounds in the vernacular, and thence to reading, see M.C. Woods, “Shared Books: Primers, Psalters, and the Adult Acquisition of  Literacy among Devout Laywomen and Women in Orders in Late Medieval England”, in New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The Holy Women of Liège and their Impact, ed. J. Dor, L. Johnson and J. Wogan-Browne (Turnhout, forthcoming).

55 There has been much discussion of the identity of the St Elizabeth of Hungary referred to in the book. It was long thought that there was no tradition of mystical revelation associated with the famous Franciscan tertiary St Elizabeth (1207–31). W. Riehle, who was the first to argue that the reference was to the Dominican Elizabeth of Töss (for recent discussion see A. Barratt and S. McNamer), now wonders why he “ever doubted that in Margery’s Book the famous and ‘Franciscan’ Elizabeth was meant rather than the unknown Elizabeth of Töss” (private communication of 22.4.1998), since there is evidence of a tradition of revelations associated with the saint for instance in the late fifteenth-century Leben und Legende der heiligen Elisabeth nach Dietrich von Apolda mit 14 Miniaturen der Handschrift von 1481 (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1997).

56 See Tanner, pp. 11–12.

57 See A. Hudson (1988), pp. 435–436.

58 See J. Holloway.

59 For a brief history of the vocation and its liturgical ceremonies, see M. Erler.

60 Hudson (1985), p. 113.

61 R. Röhricht, p. 6.

62 R. Mitchell, p. 63.

63 Röhricht, p. 24. 

64 M. Newett, pp. 55–58, 160.

65 Nyberg (1972), pp. 28, 86–89; Leyser, p. 227. 

66 BRUO.

67 The case for the birth of Margery Kempe’s last child in Venice has been argued by L. Howes.

68 The Itineraries of William Wey, ed. G. Williams, Roxburghe Club (1857).

69 Stenton, p. 16.

70 Itineraries, pp. xx–xxv.

71 Quoted from Fabri’s Evagatorum in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti Peregrinationem .... by H. Weissman, p. 215.

72 See, for instance, marginal annotations on 105/20–24, fns. 4–5.

73 A. Little, fn. 4, p. 17.

74 Itineraries, p. 153. 

75 S. Bhattacharji gives a full account of the arrests and examinations in context. See also D. Gray, pp. 13–14.
76 155/18, fn. 1.

77 R. Shklar, p. 284.

78 See Ancrene Wisse: edited from MS. Corpus Christi College Cambridge 402, ed. J.R.R. Tokien, EETS OS 249 (1962), 146/26–29.

79 BRUC: Alan de Lynn, born c. 1348, died at Lynn convent after 1423.

80 Lloyd, p. 114.

81 M. Glasscoe, p. 284, writes of a “divine calling” fuelled by St Bridget’s experience urging Margery Kempe to visit Danzig, and comments on the odd absence of mention of Blessed Dorothea.

82 Nyberg (1972), pp. 38–39.

83 R. Kieckhefer, pp. 22–33.

84 R. Stachnik, pp. 298–299.

85 Nyberg (1965), pp. 181–186. 

86 For the history of Wilsnack as place of pilgrimage, and map showing known locations of pilgrim badges, see R. Buchholz, and K-D. Gralow, Zur Geschichte der Wilsnacker Wallfahrt unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pilgerzeichen (1992).

87 K.-J. Maercker, Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien in der Stendaler Jakobikirche (1995), p. xvi.

88 K. Bitterling, ‘Margery Kempe, an English sterte in Germany’, Notes and Queries 43 (1996), identifies sterte as a variant of Middle High German sterzer, ‘vagabond’.

89  245/31, fn. 3.

90  I am grateful to Felicity Riddy for this suggestion.

91 Atkinson, pp. 43–45.

92 E.M. Wiberg Pedersen, “On the Theology and Spirituality of Beatrice of Nazareth”, Franciscan Studies Quarterly 29 (1994), 209–220.

93 Chapters 24, 25 at least from 59/31–60/4, 62 at least from 152/29 to the end. See Hirsh (1975).

94 F. Riddy, “Anchoresses and Urban Identities in Late-Medieval England”, paper delivered at the conference on New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The European Impact of the Holy Women of Liège, University of Liège, 11–14 December 1996.

95 Information about Soham and its church was provided by Canon M. Shears, Vicar of Soham.

96 BRUC does not have an entry for William Bogy of Soham, but does name William Buggy, Bogy, or Buky,  as vicar of Saham Toney from 1427, vacancy by 1444.

97 W.P. Cumming, ed., p. xv.

98 Ibid., frontispiece, from MS Garrett, Princeton University Library Deposit 1397.

99 M. Sargent (1984).

100 J. Coppack, Mount Grace Priory (1991). 

101 Beadle (1991), p. 90.

102 H.R. Plomer, Wynkyn de Worde and his Contemporaries (1925), p. 65.

103 The annotations and the textual associations in Pepwell and subsequent anthologizers are analysed in detail by Lochrie (1991).