Margery Kempe, a fascinating multi-dimensional woman

While exploring mystics and witches of East Anglia, I came across Margery Kempe (c. 1373 – after 1438) and I was instantly captivated. Her book about her life , the manuscript of which was discovered by chance in 1934, is considered the earliest autobiography in the English language. It contains her account of her spiritual thirst and sensual challenges, as well as records of her various journeys and pilgrimages. Shades and colours from her life have already inspired me to begin writing my new novel, tentatively entitled: Sidra's Lynn.

Excerpt from The Book of Margery Kempe:

“And after this time, she never had the desire to have sex with her husband, for the debt of matrimony was so abominable to her that she would rather, she thought, eat or drink the ooze, the muck in the channel, than to consent to any fleshly commoning, except in obedience. And so she said to her husband, ‘I may not deny you my body, but the love of my heart and my affection is drawn from all earthly creatures and set only in God.’ He would have his will, and she obeyed with great weeping and sorrowing because she could not live chastely.”