Candidates for the Role of Priest-Scribe:

Textual Representations

Reader Priest

A priest newly come to Lynn in 1413, who reads to Margery for seven years.

v What we know about the reader priest is that he arrived in Lynn around 1413 to live with his mother, sought Margery out and, after hearing of her revelations, became her “lystere” for the length of seven or eight years. Apparently after this period, the priest was beneficed; during it, he suffered a period of great sickness during which Margery visits the tomb of Richard Caister to pray for his recovery. He does recover, although we do not hear more of him after Chapter 60.

v Because we know for certain that the reader-priest is beneficed (Ch. 58), his name (currently unknown) should be amongst the clerical records of Lynn.

Is the Reader Priest Margery Kempe’s Scribe?

The Reader Priest is the MOST LIKELY Candidate

for the Identity of Margery’s Scribe.

Positive:

v Like the Scribe, the reader-priest’s primary descriptor is “priest.”

v While the reader-priest does have an additional descriptor, it is “lystere,” or “reader,” which suggests something of a scribal relationship between him and Margery (Ch. 60).

v The same books the reader-priest is said to have read to Margery are referenced in Chapter 17; this congruence suggests that the scribe, like or as the reader-priest, has a familiarity with these books.

Ø From Chapter 58: “He red to hir many a good boke of hy contemplacyon and other bokys, as the Bybyl wyth doctowrys therupon, Seynt Brydys boke, Hyltons boke, Boneventur, Stimulus Amoris, cendium Amoris, and swech other.”

Ø From Chapter 17: “Sumtyme the Secunde Persone in Trinyte, sumtyme alle thre Personys in Trinyte and o substawns in Godhede, dalyid to hir sowle and informyd hir in hir feyth and in hys lofe how sche schuld lofe hym, worshepyn hym, and dredyn hym, so excellently that sche herd nevyr boke, neythyr Hyltons boke, ne [B]ridis boke, ne Stimulus Amoris, ne Incendium Amoris, ne non other”

v The Scribe is able to recount a moment when Margery (presumably from whom he is getting all his information) has left the room, leaving only the priest-scribe and his mother. It is possible that the scribe is able to recount this moment because he is the reader-priest:

Ø "Sithyn sche toke hir leve and partyd fro hem at that tyme. Whan sche was gon, the preste seyd to hys modyr, "Me merveylyth mech of this woman why sche wepith and cryith so. Nevyrtheles me thynkyth sche is a good woman, and I desyre gretly to spekyn mor wyth hir." Hys modyr was wel plesyd and cownselyd that he schulde don so." (Ch. 58)

v Reading to Margery is said to increase the reader-priest’s “cunnyng” in Chapter 58, whereas the priest-scribe is said to have “copiid the same tretys aftyr hys sympyl cunnyng" in Book 2, Chapter 1. This linguistic connection is significant, both because it connects the priest-scribe and reader-priest in terms of identity, and because it links the reader-priest to Book 2, since the primary factor serving to discredit the reader-priest’s potential to be the priest-scribe is the fact that we do not hear about him in Book 2.

v The problem of the priest-scribe’s means of income if unbeneficed is resolved if the priest-scribe is the reader-priest. We know that the reader-priest was unbeneficed at the time that he read to Margery, but since we also know that he lived with his mother and was a constant companion to Margery, we can assume that he either had some form of support from his mother or was in some way compensated by Margery herself. After he has finished the seven or eight-year period of reading to Margery, he is beneficed and would have been supported by the Church during the period of 1438-9 if he did write Margery’s Book.

Negative:

v We hear no direct tell of the reader-priest after Chapter 60.

PASSAGES

Involving the Reader-Priest

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