"And now I know how Joan of Arc felt"

No, this isn't a post about The Smiths song, but instead a comparison between Joan of Arc and Margery Kempe. While reading the text, I was struck by the similarities and difference between the two women who lived around the same time period in Medieval Europe. Though Margery is a fictional character and Joan is not, their lives are quite analogous and quite dissimilar.

Margery's dress is an issue several times throughout the text. Her desire, or rather God's will, to have her dress in virginal white is contrary to her position in society. As we've noted at other times in the course, one's dress was very important in Medieval society because it depicted social status. In this text, we see dress in a slightly different way. It is clear from the text, that Margery is certainly not a virgin. She has fourteen children with her husband. Although she rebukes and is revolted by his sexual desires, she still has lustful thoughts about herself and God. During her inquest, the Archbishop asks, "Why go you in white? Are you a maiden?" She, kneeling on her knees before him, said, "No, sir, I am no maiden; I am a wife" (p.91). There is something unnatural in Margery being clothed in all white. One sees the same thing when studying the trials of Joan of Arc. The charge brought against her, wearing men's clothes, is ultimately one of the charges in which she is burnt at the stake for. The Church regards Joan's choice of dress similar to that of Margery's. Dressing in such a way is unnatural. Yet, it is even more so, something that is against the Church, which in turn causes a person to be a danger to the Church and society as a whole. Not dressing in one's normal dress and being a well known figure is a threat to society because it could cause other women to veer off the normal course and wear such dress.

Secondly, both women claim to hear the voices of higher beings. For Joan this is also a cause for her demise, as she is deemed a heretic. Margery, however, is both praised and damned for her spiritual beliefs. For instance, when she arrives in Rome at the hospice of Saint Thomas of Canterbury the text states, "and there was she houseled every Sunday with greet weeping, violent sobbing, and loud crying and was highly beloved of the master of the hospice and by all his brother" (p.59). A few lines later the text describes a priest in the hospice who despises Margery, it states "he spoke so evilly of this creature and slandered so her name in the hospice that through his evil language she was put out of the hospice so that she might no longer be shriven nor houseled therein" (p.59). It is also interesting to note that most places Margery goes, clergy seek her out as being the woman who hears the voice of God. Moreover, in places where she is thrown out of, it is more for her absurd weeping and wailing and not her belief that she hears God.