The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe

Author:Margery Kempe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Chapter 55

When she had crossed the River Humber, she was immediately arrested as a Lollard and led towards prison. There happened to be a person there who had seen her before the Archbishop of York, and he got her leave to go where she wanted, and excused her to the bailiff, and undertook for her that she was no Lollard. And so she escaped away in the name of Jesus.

Then she met a man from London, and his wife who was with him. And so she went on with them until she came to Lincoln, and there she suffered much scorn and many annoying words, answering back in God’s cause without any hindrance, wisely and discreetly, so that people were amazed at her knowledge.

There were men of law who said to her, ‘We have gone to school many years, and yet we are not sufficient to answer as you do. From whom do you get this knowledge?’

And she said, ‘From the Holy Ghost.’

Then they asked, ‘Do you have the Holy Ghost?’

‘Yes, sirs,’ said she, ‘no one may say a good word without the gift of the Holy Ghost, for our Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples, “Do not study what you shall say, for it shall not be your spirit that shall speak in you, but it shall be the spirit of the Holy Ghost.” ’1

And thus our Lord gave her grace to answer them, worshipped may he be.

Another time there came a great lord’s men to her, and they swore many great oaths, saying, ‘We’ve been given to understand that you can tell us whether we shall be saved or damned.’

She said, ‘Yes, truly I can, for as long as you swear such horrible oaths, and break God’s commandment as knowingly as you do, and will not leave your sin, I dare well say you shall be damned. And if you will be contrite, and shriven of your sin, willingly do penance and leave sin while you may, with a will to turn back to it no more, I dare well say you shall be saved.’

‘What! Can’t you tell us anything other than this?’

‘Sirs,’ she said, ‘this is very good, I think.’

And then they went away from her.

After this she went on homewards again, until she came to West Lynn.2 When she was there, she sent into Bishop’s Lynn for her husband, for Master Robert, her confessor, and for Master Aleyn, a doctor of divinity, and told them in part of her tribulations. And afterwards she told them that she could not come home to Bishop’s Lynn until such time as she had been to the Archbishop of Canterbury for his letter and his seal.

‘For when I was before the Archbishop of York,’ she said, ‘he would give no credence to my words, inasmuch as I didn’t have my Lord of Canterbury’s letter and seal. And so I promised him that I would not come to Bishop’s Lynn until I had my Lord of Canterbury’s letter and seal.’

And

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