Margery Kempe:

In Search of the Scribe

About Margery Kempe: In Search of the Scribe

Questions about authority, authorship, and scribal practice have surrounded the Book of Margery Kempe since the discovery of its manuscript. Although many scholars have posited various identities for Margery’s scribe, his identity, an essential element of its authorial amalgam, remains unknown. The questions of exactly how the Book was written, by whom, and under precisely what conditions are central to the ways that we think of the Book. A great deal of scholarly commentary about Margery Kempe and her Book hinges on the issue of her authority and the problems that arise from her collaboration with the scribe. Articles by Nicholas Watson and Felicity Riddy in the recent Voices in Dialogue focus on the difficulty of deciphering Margery’s text, one that contains multiple voices — voices that are gendered, classed, and spiritualized to different degrees.

But who exactly was Margery Kempe’s scribe? The goal of this website is to help provide an answer to this question. Although it may never be proven, this project was designed to give readers a better picture of the identity and person that Margery’s second scribe must have been. Using a variety of methods, we hope to provide a cultural, historical, literary, and spiritual tapestry that might lead readers to a better understanding of the scribe and his role in the Book.

“Margery Kempe: In Search of the Scribe” is the culminating project of a graduate seminar facilitated by Professor Rosalynn Voaden at Arizona State University in the Fall of 2006.

For ease of on-line viewing, Middle English orthography has been transliterated throughout. To accommodate the preferences of each contributor, there is no standard edition of the Book used in the site. The specific edition used is noted on each page.

Acknowledgements

Home