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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I am Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry Holly,

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Speaker 1: and today we're talking about one of those cool elements

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Speaker 1: of history that I think if you had never been

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Speaker 1: interested in history before and you heard the story, you

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Speaker 1: would suddenly become a fan of all history, Like you

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Speaker 1: would just want to dig three books for more of

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Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. Yes, well, and if the thing

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Speaker 1: I learned about studying literature, So it's one of those

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Speaker 1: things that intersects a lot of different pieces. We're going

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Speaker 1: to talk to me about a woman who lived in

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, so the late fourteenth and early into

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Speaker 1: the mid fifteenth century. Her name was Marjorie Kemp and

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Speaker 1: seems like pretty ordinary woman. She was a wife and

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Speaker 1: a mother of fourteen children, which was a pretty normal

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Speaker 1: number of children at that period. In spite of this

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Speaker 1: apparently typical side of her, she also had, especially in

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Speaker 1: the latter part of her life, some pretty intense spiritual visions. Yes,

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Speaker 1: she's often cited as a mystic. Now, yes, um, During

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, men definitely ran the church. They were

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Speaker 1: in charge. They were the people who were the priests

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Speaker 1: and the clerics and the ones who made all of

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Speaker 1: the decisions UM. And then there were women that also

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Speaker 1: had these very deeply spiritual lives and would talk about

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Speaker 1: having visions and UH and having really intense religious experiences.

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Speaker 1: Most of them were reclusives also UM. They were called

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Speaker 1: anchorites or anchoresses who lived either within the church or

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Speaker 1: sometimes literally within a wall of the church, so they

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Speaker 1: would have a tiny, tiny cell tinier than the room

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Speaker 1: that we record podcasts in that they would spend their

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Speaker 1: entire lives in. And those were some of these women

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Speaker 1: UM had their own followers and sort of that there

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Speaker 1: would be sort of like a cult of people that

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Speaker 1: followed their teachings. UM. Marjorie Kemp was a very spiritual person,

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Speaker 1: but she traveled with her husband and it was not

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Speaker 1: an anchor right, not at all. She went on pilgrimage

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Speaker 1: and traveled all over UM for a period of several years,

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Speaker 1: so that kind of sets her apart from some of

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Speaker 1: the other mystics who were happening in the same era.

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Speaker 1: At that point. When she began traveling, she had kind

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Speaker 1: of established that she was dedicated to her religion and

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Speaker 1: to the visions that she was having and to following

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Speaker 1: um religious doctrine. And so she eventually, and we will

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Speaker 1: get to this in more depth. You know, had this

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Speaker 1: claim to chase life. But she was traveling with a

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Speaker 1: man who was her husband, which confused some people who

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Speaker 1: had fathered fourteen children. Yeah, they had a whole brood

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Speaker 1: of kids together. Um, and so that that confusing some

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Speaker 1: of her children she did have after she started having visions,

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Speaker 1: but before she and her husband stopped the sexual part

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Speaker 1: of their relationships. So uh, some of the visions that

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Speaker 1: she had were while she was pregnant. And and we're

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Speaker 1: of Jesus telling her it's going to be okay, I

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Speaker 1: will arrange for your child to be taken care of

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Speaker 1: while you go on pilgrimage for me. And what's really

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Speaker 1: interesting is that she's often credited as, uh, the creator

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Speaker 1: of the first autobiography and English for sure. Yeah uh,

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Speaker 1: and she dictated it because she was not literate herself. Um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's the oldest known autobiography and in English,

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Speaker 1: and it isn't written in chronological order. Uh, it isn't

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Speaker 1: a full account of her life. She leaves out big

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Speaker 1: chunks and she really just focuses on her spiritual journey. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and she focused on it in sort of in the

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Speaker 1: order that she remembered things. So scholars have kind of

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Speaker 1: gone back and pieced together a timeline based on her

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Speaker 1: references to holidays and world events that we know when

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Speaker 1: they happen. So when we talk about sort of the

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Speaker 1: chronology of her life, that's been pieced together based on Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is not her laying out her autobiography like I

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Speaker 1: was born here and she's kind of all over the place,

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Speaker 1: and she did dictate it sometime after most of the

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Speaker 1: events she talks about, so it is all you know,

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Speaker 1: it's subject to human recollection, but to start at the beginning.

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Speaker 1: So she was born around seventy three to her father

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Speaker 1: who was John Brunham. It may also have been Burnham,

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Speaker 1: it's not quite sure. We've seen both ways, Yes, we've

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Speaker 1: it's written down in more than one spelling. And he

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Speaker 1: was the mayor of King's Lynn, which was then called

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Speaker 1: Bishop's Lynn, which is on just in case anybody needs

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Speaker 1: a quick geography checkpoint, it is on the side of

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Speaker 1: England towards the Netherlands, in a little inlet. Yes, it

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Speaker 1: was a coastal town. So there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: money to be made in the world of merchant work,

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Speaker 1: so things that had to do with buying and selling

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Speaker 1: and shipping. It was a lot of what was going on.

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Speaker 1: Her father also served as one of the town's two

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Speaker 1: representatives to parliament six times, as well as a lot

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Speaker 1: of other positions. He was a very notable and successful

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Speaker 1: person and Marjorie was very proud of that fact. She

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Speaker 1: was a very proud person, which is the theme that

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Speaker 1: will come up in her life later. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: she was a child of a wealthy pillar of the community. Um.

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Speaker 1: Not not a mystery why she would be proud of that.

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Speaker 1: She did get married roughly twenty which is pretty late

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Speaker 1: in life for most girls at that time, to John Kemp,

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Speaker 1: who was also the son of a successful merchant, and

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Speaker 1: he was a merchant to not really as successful as

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Speaker 1: his father, but they did well enough. Um. Her first

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Speaker 1: pregnancy was really hard. She was very sick for a

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Speaker 1: lot of it, and then after the baby was born,

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Speaker 1: she had a period of more than a year of

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Speaker 1: what she herself describes as madness. You know, things that

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Speaker 1: we would reckon nys as being signs of being mentally

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Speaker 1: ill today. So she talked about having hallucinations, being just

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Speaker 1: very verbally abusive to her family, having to be restrained

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Speaker 1: to keep from injuring herself. UM. A lot of people

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Speaker 1: today sort of say that she she must have had

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Speaker 1: some kind of postpartum psychosis going on during this period. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then one day she had a vision while she

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Speaker 1: was very sick, and during this period, she had a

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Speaker 1: vision of Jesus. Uh. And during this vision, Jesus asked

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Speaker 1: her why she had forsaken him when he had never

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Speaker 1: forsaken her. Uh. And she was sort of like, well,

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Speaker 1: that's a good question, and then started to recover from

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Speaker 1: this illness that she had had. Um. It was not

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Speaker 1: a light switch, though. That was not the thing that

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Speaker 1: led her to then become a very devoted religious person.

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Speaker 1: She continued to sort of live life as she had

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Speaker 1: been before. She described herself as pretty proud and stubborn. Um.

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Speaker 1: She went into some of the more mundane job that

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Speaker 1: women had in in the Middle Ages. She worked for

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Speaker 1: a brewer as a while for a while, and as

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Speaker 1: a miller um. And both of those businesses failed. Um.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't great at those things yet, well she was

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Speaker 1: really She made good beer, but she couldn't like, repeatedly

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Speaker 1: make enough good beer to sell it. Like she she'd

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Speaker 1: make a good batch and then the next one would

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Speaker 1: be terrible, and uh, the the mill had problems with

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Speaker 1: the horse, like one of the team of horses just

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Speaker 1: refused to turn the mill and it. So both of

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Speaker 1: those businesses failed, and that started to become a more

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Speaker 1: humbling experience. Um. It's still though, was a period of

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Speaker 1: years before before she started on a just very deeply

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Speaker 1: religious path. Um. She started to become more and more

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Speaker 1: preoccupied with what Heaven was like and how in her

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Speaker 1: mind Heaven was this amazing place and Earth was pretty terrible,

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Speaker 1: so let's figure out how to get to Heaven faster.

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Speaker 1: She started spending more and more time in shirt. Um.

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Speaker 1: She gave up meat and alcohol and eventually sex as

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Speaker 1: penance for previous sins. And she also did a thing

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Speaker 1: that was kind of a common practice during the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: which was the mortification of the flesh. And she did

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Speaker 1: this by wearing a hair shirt. And if you don't

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Speaker 1: know what a hairshirt is, it's a very coarse or

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Speaker 1: prickly shirt that you wear under your clothing so that

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Speaker 1: it physically irritates your skin all day long, constantly. Um.

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Speaker 1: And she actually that she started wearing that before she

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Speaker 1: stopped having sex with her husband, because she wore it

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Speaker 1: while she was pregnant at one point, which sounds like torture.

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Speaker 1: It does sound horrible. I I've never had a child,

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Speaker 1: but knowing from the descriptions of other people what being

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Speaker 1: pregnant is like that it can be very uncomfortable, and

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Speaker 1: it's exhausting already and sometimes you already feel like prickly

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Speaker 1: and rashi anyway, So to add a hairshirt on top

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Speaker 1: of that, no, it's horrible. Yes. And then she had

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Speaker 1: a couple of years that were kind of the easy

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Speaker 1: part of her right where she was fasting, she was

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Speaker 1: you know, acts of contrition, they weren't terribly difficult. But

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Speaker 1: then she had three years of temptations, yes, including when

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Speaker 1: a man tried to seduce her away from her husband. UM.

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Speaker 1: So she had had these years where it was sort

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Speaker 1: of like she was trying very hard to be a

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Speaker 1: very quote good religious person and that was going really well.

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Speaker 1: It was easy for her to fast, it was easy

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Speaker 1: for her to do these things. Then all these temptations started,

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Speaker 1: including a man who tried to seduce her, and when

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Speaker 1: she agreed to seduce him, or to to be seduced

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Speaker 1: by him. He spurned her um So she did not

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Speaker 1: actually go through with it, but the fact that in

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Speaker 1: her brain she had given in she thought was genally

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Speaker 1: since she could mentally send, and she felt that that

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Speaker 1: was just as bad um and so it was after

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Speaker 1: that that she really recommitted herself two, staying on the

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Speaker 1: path that she felt like was going to lead her

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Speaker 1: into heaven and to being a better person and to

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Speaker 1: getting rid of the sins of her past. Um. Once

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Speaker 1: she got to about the age of forty, she started

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Speaker 1: having some just really intense, dramatic visions that felt she

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Speaker 1: described them as real, like real events that were happening

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Speaker 1: that she was participating in. Um So, she had visions

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Speaker 1: where she would hear God or Jesus speaking to her.

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Speaker 1: But then she also had these visions that were like

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Speaker 1: she was physically present at events that were described in

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Speaker 1: the Bible. Um So, she had one where she was

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Speaker 1: present at the birth of the Virgin Mary and took

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Speaker 1: care of the Virgin Mary as a child. Um and

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Speaker 1: then the birth of Jesus so and the crucifixion, like

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Speaker 1: very notable events. She's sort of had visions that were

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Speaker 1: physically real to her in which she participated in all

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Speaker 1: of these events. And it's interesting to me just that

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Speaker 1: a lot of those are in a maternal way. It's

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Speaker 1: taking care of these religious figures and being part of

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Speaker 1: you know, their birth and that young developmental part of

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Speaker 1: their life cycle. When we'll talk about it a little

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Speaker 1: bit more later. But in most of her writing she

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Speaker 1: never mentions her kids. The fourteen children she actually had

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Speaker 1: are pretty tertiary, and the whole narrative, we only really

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Speaker 1: hear about one of them, and that is one who

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Speaker 1: she describes as being physically or spiritually troubled, and she

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Speaker 1: felt that her intervention had helped to save him. And

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Speaker 1: that's really the sort of the one story of one

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Speaker 1: of her children that we hear about. Um. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: she she talks a lot about having visions of women

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Speaker 1: who are president in the Bible and having relationships with them,

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Speaker 1: and then she has other visions that are more like conversations,

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Speaker 1: um with Jesus or with God. So, for example, she

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Speaker 1: had a vision of a conversation with Jesus in which

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Speaker 1: he told her to stop wearing that hair shirt because

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Speaker 1: he was going to give her sort of a spiritual

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Speaker 1: hair shirt for her her heart. Other than physically wearing

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Speaker 1: a hair shirt, he also commanded her to continue to

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Speaker 1: not eat meat and to only wear white, which was

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Speaker 1: the color of consecrated virgins. Um. That was actually a

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Speaker 1: huge deal at the time, the fact that she was

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Speaker 1: going around all in white but she was not actually

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Speaker 1: a virgin. Lots of hatred and derision people. Um. And

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Speaker 1: then in the same series of conversations, Uh, she felt

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Speaker 1: commanded by God to go on pilgrimage to Rome, Jerusalem,

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Speaker 1: and Santiago. And so after a few years she did that.

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Speaker 1: It took a while to actually get started, uh that

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Speaker 1: you know, they had various affairs to settle and other

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Speaker 1: stuff that they had to prepare for. But about two

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Speaker 1: years after feeling commanded by God to go on pilgrimage,

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Speaker 1: she started her pilgrimage and that was in fourteen. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she in the midst of all of this, she

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Speaker 1: was praying pretty constantly to end her sexual relationship with

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Speaker 1: her husband because she felt that she was displeasing God

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Speaker 1: with their inordinate love. Yet they had a very active

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Speaker 1: physical life together clearly because they UM. But Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: way she describes it, there's was not a relationship of

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Speaker 1: quote having sex just for procreation. Like they had a

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Speaker 1: very physical relationship. They were very attracted to each other.

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Speaker 1: It's a very passionate it's very passionate thing. And you know,

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Speaker 1: this whole thing happens from her point of view, but

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Speaker 1: she describes her husband as a willing participant in the

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Speaker 1: end of their sexual relationship eventually. At first it takes

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Speaker 1: it's some years of prayer, yeah, some years as what

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Speaker 1: of what she sort of describes it's kind of a

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Speaker 1: divine intervention, like he would he would want to have sex,

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Speaker 1: and then he would be stricken with terror, and then

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Speaker 1: they would not. And she had been praying for about

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Speaker 1: three years when they had an argument it one day

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Speaker 1: a while they were traveling by the side of the road, um,

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Speaker 1: and and an argument in which he was like, so

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Speaker 1: if if somebody came and said, like with the sword,

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Speaker 1: if somebody came with a sword and said you need

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Speaker 1: to have sex right now or I'm going to murder you,

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Speaker 1: could we have sex? And she was like, no, I

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Speaker 1: would rather you die. And he was like, Okay, seriously,

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Speaker 1: if if it's going to be time for this, what

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Speaker 1: I want you to do is to start stop your

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Speaker 1: fast that you're doing on Fridays and have have a

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Speaker 1: meal with me on Friday and pay off all of

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Speaker 1: my debts. It was a bit of a negotiation, was

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Speaker 1: a totally negotiation, and she she was kind of reluctant

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Speaker 1: to do this at first because she had been praying

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Speaker 1: really hard to stop their relationship, but she had also

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Speaker 1: felt commanded by God to fast every Friday, so she

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Speaker 1: prayed about that. The word she got back was Okay,

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Speaker 1: if if this is cool, you can stop having your

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Speaker 1: fast on Friday and and stop your relationship with your husband,

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Speaker 1: and then that will all work out, will even out,

264
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Speaker 1: It will even out, And so on Juneen, she and

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Speaker 1: her husband stopped being married and they can or they

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Speaker 1: stopped having sex, but they continued to be married until

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Speaker 1: he died. Yeah, which is interesting. I mean that is

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Speaker 1: at that point twenty years into the marriage. So I

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Speaker 1: think when when you're retelling it or even hearing it

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Speaker 1: or reading it in a history book, there is that

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Speaker 1: weird you know, wow, that would really stink to marry

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Speaker 1: someone and have them say they didn't want to be

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Speaker 1: intimate with you, And it seems like it's much closer

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Speaker 1: to the beginning, but they had to be married for

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Speaker 1: quite a while at that point. Um. And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we can't ever fully know everything that went down there

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Speaker 1: and like what words were truly I mean she recounted,

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Speaker 1: you know, from memory, but I do just wonder at

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Speaker 1: what that conversation must have really been like. And you know,

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Speaker 1: if there was some degree to which he wanted to

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Speaker 1: give in just to make her happy. Because they seemed

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Speaker 1: like they had genuine affinity for one another. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: seem to have a very close relationship. That that was

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Speaker 1: they stun love and trust and support. Um. I had

285
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Speaker 1: actually because I had read her autobiography many years ago,

286
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Speaker 1: and I had kind of forgotten that part of it.

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Speaker 1: And in my head he had become this kind of

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Speaker 1: like reluctant participant in his wife's craziness. Um. And that

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Speaker 1: was sort of that was just me, uh, superimposing because

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Speaker 1: that is not how it reads at all. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: she talks about them having a very fond relationship. Um,

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Speaker 1: they did have things that they disagreed about and things

293
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Speaker 1: that they had to come to some kind of consensus over,

294
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Speaker 1: like stopping their sexual relationship. Uh, but that he did.

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Speaker 1: He also he also wanted to be a more spiritual person,

296
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Speaker 1: and he also wanted to live a good life, so

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just her kind of dragging him along with

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Speaker 1: her down this path of of pilgrimage and abstinence. UM.

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Speaker 1: And this was again kind of early on in the

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Speaker 1: pilgrimage phase. Uh. Yes, that was in fourteen thirteen, and

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Speaker 1: that winter they stayed in in Venice as sort of

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Speaker 1: a stopping point before going to the Holy Land. I

303
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Speaker 1: think it's interesting that a little before that, at the

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Speaker 1: very beginning, she um visited holy sites closer to home,

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00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:15,000
Speaker 1: skipped over that pointrich in Canterbury, UM, and she met

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Speaker 1: with a lot of other religious figures of the day,

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Speaker 1: both official and unofficial religious figures. She before they left England,

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Speaker 1: she met the Bishop of Lincoln and the Archbishop of Canterbury,

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Speaker 1: and then she also met Julian of Norwich. And that's

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Speaker 1: one of the anchors is that we talked about earlier

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Speaker 1: who lived walled up in the wall of a church.

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Speaker 1: And I had read one account that suggested that she

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Speaker 1: kind of asked Julian to verify her visions a little

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Speaker 1: bit where I mean, so she has I think we

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Speaker 1: think of anybody that is claiming to have all these visions.

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Speaker 1: It's very easy to go, hey, you're crazy, but she

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Speaker 1: recognized that that was a possibility, and so she turned

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Speaker 1: to another religious figure that she really you know, believed

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Speaker 1: and trusted and trusted to say, am I insane? Is

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Speaker 1: this crazy? I really think this is happening? And Julian

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Speaker 1: was like, no, I'm pretty sure you're having the visions.

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Speaker 1: They're valid. She had similar conversations with priests sometimes and

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Speaker 1: and there were there were priests and other religious figures who, um,

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Speaker 1: she cried a lot. She was sort of visited by

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Speaker 1: religious weeping, uh, and would just have this sort of

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Speaker 1: uncontrollable crying during religious events, either while she was having

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Speaker 1: visions or while she was praying. And there were priests

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Speaker 1: who thought that she was doing this just to get attention, um,

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Speaker 1: and they would do things like say, okay, you need

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Speaker 1: to come come to my cloister and and do your

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Speaker 1: prayer there with nobody watching you. And then they would

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Speaker 1: just kind of secretly watch from around the corner and

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Speaker 1: find that she was still weeping, and they would find

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Speaker 1: that as evidence that she was being genuine and what

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Speaker 1: she was describing and not making it up. It was

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Speaker 1: the hair shirt in her heart it was the hair share,

337
00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:05,160
Speaker 1: probably making her cry. Yes, So, lots of travels around

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Speaker 1: England to religious sits. There in fourt a stop in Venice,

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Speaker 1: and then that spring they sailed from Venice to Jerusalem

340
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Speaker 1: and she spent about a year visiting holy sites in

341
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Speaker 1: Jerusalem before returning home again via Rome. And while in

342
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:27,760
Speaker 1: Rome one of the most sort of notable and interesting

343
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:32,080
Speaker 1: events of her religious life happened, which is that she

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Speaker 1: got married to god Um in a vision. Uh. She

345
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Speaker 1: got married to God and the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary.

346
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Speaker 1: All of the Apostles and lots of saints were all

347
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Speaker 1: witnesses to this. Um. She actually already before this had

348
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Speaker 1: had sort of a mystical marriage to Jesus and had

349
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Speaker 1: a wedding ring that was her wedding ring to Jesus

350
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Speaker 1: that she would wear uh. And so this became sort

351
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Speaker 1: of this multidimensional like a marriage multiple aspects of the Godhead. Yes,

352
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:06,359
Speaker 1: while simultaneously still married to an actual human right, even

353
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Speaker 1: though their relationship was non sexual and kind of more

354
00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 1: one of friendship at that point. Yes, so yes, she

355
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:17,760
Speaker 1: she at that point considered herself to be married married

356
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Speaker 1: to god Um. Before they returned back to England. She

357
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Speaker 1: went to Assisi and visited holy sights in Assisi, uh

358
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Speaker 1: and they departed from Rome in at Easter time of

359
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Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen and they got back to Norwich in May. Um.

360
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Speaker 1: She had one more sort of leg of her pilgrimage

361
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Speaker 1: after that, and that was from July ish around July

362
00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:45,600
Speaker 1: seven of fourteen seventeen, she took a seven day voyage

363
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Speaker 1: oversea um to Santiago to Compostella in Spain, and that

364
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:54,720
Speaker 1: is where the team of St. Peter is And that's

365
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:58,440
Speaker 1: also a pilgrimage that people continue to make Overland today.

366
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Speaker 1: That's a thing that will continue to do. Um. And

367
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:05,680
Speaker 1: that was another you know, meeting other religious figures there,

368
00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:11,239
Speaker 1: having spiritual experiences there. And they returned from Santiago in

369
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Speaker 1: August of fourteen seventeen. And that was sort of the

370
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Speaker 1: period of her religious wandering, right, those were her her travels.

371
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Speaker 1: It was her travels of devotion. Yes, it was not

372
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Speaker 1: at all the end of her uh, the spiritual side

373
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Speaker 1: of her life or the difficulties she experienced though, because

374
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Speaker 1: once she got back home to England she started to

375
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Speaker 1: be put on trial for heresy. Yeah, I mean she was,

376
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Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier she was wearing white, which was

377
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Speaker 1: reserved for consecrated virgins. She was claiming that she had

378
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Speaker 1: this marriage yes to God and Jesus. She you know,

379
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Speaker 1: there were just a lot of things that conflicted with

380
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:56,800
Speaker 1: society's norms. Even very religious elements of society were like,

381
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:59,120
Speaker 1: you're doing this not the right way, where this isn't

382
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:02,760
Speaker 1: this isn't how worship. She was threatening to sort of

383
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 1: the religious orthodoxy in ways. Yeah, she was definitely outside

384
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Speaker 1: the normal realm of what you did if you had

385
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:15,679
Speaker 1: dedicated your life to your devotion. So, you know, people

386
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 1: can perceive to have a lot of times as heretical

387
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,920
Speaker 1: was very threatening and that was definitely the case with Marjorie.

388
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Speaker 1: So she was put on trial more than one time,

389
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:27,360
Speaker 1: and more than one say, she spent some time in prison,

390
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: either in the actual jail or in the home of

391
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,040
Speaker 1: one of the jailers. Um, so she was imprisoned at

392
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:37,680
Speaker 1: various times. Um she was not ever found guilty, which

393
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,840
Speaker 1: is I think good because she would have been burned

394
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 1: at the stake. And yeah, and it I mean it

395
00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:46,159
Speaker 1: does sort of give her a little bit of, um

396
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 1: historical credibility. They say, like, no, people actually believe this

397
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:53,639
Speaker 1: was just part of her dedication. You know, she proved

398
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 1: to them that that's what what it was. She wasn't

399
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 1: just trying to be rebellious or you know, she wasn't

400
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,879
Speaker 1: trying to fly in the face of convention. These were

401
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,159
Speaker 1: her beliefs and she really felt strongly that she was

402
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: getting these directives from God. She was able to make

403
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 1: a case for that recently. Uh and and and not

404
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: in the end be ruled to be someone who was

405
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 1: making it up or was doing something that was going

406
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 1: to be contradictory to what the church was teaching. So

407
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 1: she was back home in Lynn again by fourteen eighteen,

408
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:28,160
Speaker 1: and she stayed there for years. She had spent five

409
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 1: years traveling, and then she just sort of she continued

410
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: to live her life in Lynn, continued to have visual

411
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 1: and and physical vision experiences. She continued to try to

412
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 1: teach people and try to talk to people. Um she

413
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:46,199
Speaker 1: did not get along with one of the nearby friars

414
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: who objected to the way that she was weeping all

415
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: the time, and so that caused a fair amount of tension. Really,

416
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: a lot of the hardest criticism that she got she

417
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: got at home. She got less of it when she

418
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: was traveling and more of it at home, and she

419
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,400
Speaker 1: continued to live in Lynn and her until well even after.

420
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,199
Speaker 1: But her husband passed away in fourte um and it

421
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: was after that that she took the last journey that

422
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: she went on UH. And her son also died that year,

423
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: the only the only child of hers that we did,

424
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 1: we really hear anything in her tails. We didn't have

425
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: no idea about the other thirteen. And her husband, she said,

426
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,679
Speaker 1: you know, had been ill, he had been senile, and

427
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:32,399
Speaker 1: she had been taking care of him for quite some

428
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: time at that point. But yeah, so she had one

429
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: more journey to make UH. And she was about sixty

430
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: at this time. So it was four four and she

431
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: was traveling to Prussia by ship to escort her widow

432
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 1: daughter in law home, and then they also toured religious

433
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: sites on land on the return journey. But she was

434
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: sixty and it was a little bit rougher at that point.

435
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 1: She didn't quite have the zeal of youth that she

436
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: had on her previous pilgrimage. Yes, activities, and not quite

437
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:04,719
Speaker 1: a spry because she used sixty is quite old at

438
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:07,719
Speaker 1: that time at that point. Yet especially to have you know,

439
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: it's the physical toil of fourteen children is a lot,

440
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of women in that age

441
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 1: who in their later pregnancies things got harder and harder

442
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 1: and often didn't survive childbirth. Right. So we don't know

443
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 1: when she died, but it was some point after the

444
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: age of sixty. Um, there are a few I mean,

445
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: this is so long ago now that it's really hard

446
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: to pinpoint dates. There are a lot of records to

447
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: refer to. No, so there are records of someone with

448
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,360
Speaker 1: names similar to hers doing various things around the town.

449
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: And it's one of those where okay, maybe they're talking

450
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: about Marjorie, but we're not really sure. So so that's

451
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: basically her life. Um. But she's one of those people

452
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,919
Speaker 1: who her life goes there's more to it than just

453
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: the dates of what all the things happen. It's a

454
00:25:56,080 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: very important figure in the landscape of religion. We we've

455
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 1: talked a lot about sort of the themes of her

456
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: life already. There was just there was a lot of

457
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: prayer and a lot of confession, and a lot of

458
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: teaching of gospel to other people. And she was also

459
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 1: really beloved and reviled depending on who you talked to. Uh,

460
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: there were religious leaders who would ask for her to

461
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: come visit them so that they could meet her and

462
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: talk to her. And then there were other people who

463
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 1: would try to prosecute her for heresy. Yeah. I mean

464
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: she was sort of just having to prove the validity

465
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: of her faith and devotion constantly. Um. So yeah, she she,

466
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: depending on who you spoke to, was either just an

467
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: amazing religious figure or or a heretic um. When you

468
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 1: look at her autobiography, and we'll talk about the autobiography

469
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: a little bit more in just a minute, but when

470
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 1: you look at it, she traveled a lot. That was

471
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: a lot of travel for a medieval person to do.

472
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 1: She did a lot of travel going and she went

473
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: a long way. She talks about that almost none. Um.

474
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: She when she says barely anything about her children, she

475
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: says barely anything about the the travel aspects of her travel.

476
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: Pretty much all of her autobiography is focused on the

477
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: things that seemed spiritually important. Um. And the rest of

478
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 1: it is just not even really acknowledged. Yeah, it's all,

479
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,640
Speaker 1: like a said earlier, secondary and tertiary at best. It's

480
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: just right if it fills in some portion of the

481
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: recounting of the spiritual journey then it gets included and

482
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: otherwise it doesn't make the cut. And I said it

483
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: did right out. Um. Uh. There are many similarities though,

484
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: between her and some other mystics. Yes, to put her

485
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,360
Speaker 1: put it in context, she was sort of happening. Her

486
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: life was happening within the greater picture of this whole

487
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: tradition of medieval mysticism Um. And one of the mystics

488
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 1: that she had the most in common with is St.

489
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 1: Bridget of Sweden, and St. Bridget of Sweden is somebody

490
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: who she knew about. She had had at St. Bridget's

491
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: book read to her. She talked about a couple of

492
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: times times, Yes, she had had She talked a lot

493
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: about sermons that she heard read and hearing people read

494
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 1: books to her, because she was not literate herself, but

495
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: she had heard a lot and had described to her

496
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: a lot about St. Bridget's life. They were both married

497
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: to men before they took on a spiritual wedding vow

498
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: to the Godhead Um. They both lived chasely for some

499
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 1: part of their married life. They both wore hair shirts

500
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 1: as an act of penance, uh fasted went on pilgrimages um.

501
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: The biggest difference in addition to being a little bit

502
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:37,639
Speaker 1: earlier in the period, St Bridge's was St. Bridget was

503
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: a lot more well off than Marjorie. So Marjorie would

504
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: have been like solidly middle class, uh and St. Bridget

505
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: was more like the nobility. But otherwise they had a

506
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: lot in common, and she had a lot in common

507
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: with a lot of the other women mystics of that time. Um,

508
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: so she wasn't just she wasn't the only person. No,

509
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: it was definitely not like alone alone mystic by any means.

510
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: I mean, her tail bears a lot of resemblance, not

511
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: just a Bridget, but to other mistakes of the time.

512
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: There were many women, and the women are always considered

513
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: mystics because they had this sort of different relationship with

514
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: God in the eyes of the culture of the time.

515
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: You know, the male heads of church were certainly religious

516
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: and devoted, but there was an administrative element to it.

517
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: It was, you know, as Tracy mentioned earlier, it was

518
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: about you know, the power of their positions and and

519
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: that was all a big factor. Whereas the women it

520
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: really was almost a more visceral. They are very connected,

521
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: like they had physical visions where their body would be

522
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: affected in different ways by their um, their moments that

523
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: they shared in these visions with God. So it's a

524
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: little bit, it's a different thing, and it's a reason

525
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: that there were many women experiencing these same things that

526
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: they were kind of lumped in this group of women mystics.

527
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: There were several some of them we may talk about.

528
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: It's some very future because I would not want to

529
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: cluster a bunch of women mystics together in the podcast.

530
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: But that's why the phrase women mystics happens, that they

531
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: are kind of portioned off as having a different relationship

532
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: with God than the men that were leaders in the church. Yes,

533
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: so today because because you know, we live in a

534
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: world that likes to find explanations for things that don't

535
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: necessarily have explanations. Um, there are a lot of theories

536
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: today about various illnesses that she may have had that

537
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: may explain the visions that she had. And so if

538
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: you if you go digging through through journals, you will

539
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: find people who argue that she had epilepsy or postpartum psychosis,

540
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: or hysteria, or schizuo effective disorder or bipolar disorder or

541
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: Jerusalem syndrome. It's sort of a long laundry list of

542
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: psychological explanations for the things that she wrote about in

543
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,479
Speaker 1: her life. I I sort of feel like, regardless of

544
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: what your own religious leaning is or whether you are

545
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: a member of any particular faith, the fact that she,

546
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: as a medieval woman, was able to take charge of

547
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: her life to the extent that she was and travel

548
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: as much as she was and become as notable as

549
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: she did, that is remarkable. Like, even apart from any

550
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: feeling that you may have about church or religion or

551
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: any of that. The incredible life, like I said at

552
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: the top of the podcast. As a historical figure, her

553
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: story is so engaging. Yeah, and when you juxtapose it

554
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: against sort of you know, what we know about society

555
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: that at that time and how society even works now,

556
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: it's She's incredible and she's really so noteworthy in so

557
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: many different ways. Well. And the other incredible thing is

558
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: her autobiography. Yeah. Um, we've talked about how it's the

559
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: oldest known autobiography in English. Um. She dictated it as

560
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: two different books. Uh, the first time around in fourteen

561
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: thirty six and then the second time in four Um,

562
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: so about twenty years after the first time she had

563
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: a vision is when she got with somebody to write

564
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,239
Speaker 1: all this down. Um. There's kind of a long and

565
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: wandering story of how the writing down happened, and much

566
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: like a lot of what's in her life, there's sort

567
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: of a vein of and and then something lucky happened

568
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: that made it actually become a real thing. Um. It's

569
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: possible that the first person to write the book down

570
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: was her son, who we talked about, like the one

571
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: child that we talked about. This is sort of circumstantial

572
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: evidence linking her description of the person who wrote the

573
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: book down to what her son's life was like. They

574
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: had both gone to Germany and gotten married and come

575
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: back with a wife and then later died. Um. That's

576
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: not super strong evidence, but there are people who think

577
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: the first person she told the book to was her son.

578
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know about that, but it is circumstantial.

579
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: At the same time, like we mentioned before, there wasn't

580
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: that much travel on that scope happening necessarily at that time,

581
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: so it is it's circumstantial, but it's also not insignificant

582
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:24,239
Speaker 1: that there are those matchups. So also, whoever it was

583
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: who did the first writing down did not do a

584
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: good job um, and did not write very legibly and

585
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: did not use grammar that was either correct English for

586
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: the time, UM, because it is kind of a Middle English.

587
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: If you if you read a non updated version, it's

588
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: very tricky to read as a modern reader. But it

589
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: was not even consistent within that spelling. It was like

590
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: not consistent English or consistent German spelling and grammar really

591
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: did not do a good job. And so she was

592
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: not dictating to a scholar, No, no, it was it

593
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:03,479
Speaker 1: was you. Whoever. Whoever she was talking to had more

594
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: literacy than she did, but not enough to do a

595
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: really great job. So she gave it to a priest

596
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: who she trusted later on, and the priest was like,

597
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: I can't read this. I can, Yeah, he gave it

598
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: back to her. Uh. He felt bad about that later

599
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: changed his mind. Um had trouble reading it because of

600
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: failing vision, and she was like, I really have faith

601
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: that God will help you do this. And in the

602
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: end he did do the rewrite of it with her UM,

603
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: and they kind of revised as they went. They revised

604
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: as they went. They added some more stuff in UM.

605
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: And that leads people to to sort of ask, who

606
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: should we think of as the writer of this was

607
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 1: it Marjorie, Was it the first person who wrote it down?

608
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,359
Speaker 1: Was it the priest who rewrote it? Um. One thing

609
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: that I think puts a lot of the answer of

610
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: that into Marjorie is that she talks about that the

611
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: priest read her what he had written down with her

612
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: in the room, and she okayed it. So even though

613
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 1: she was not physically the one holding the writing utensil,

614
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: she did sort of she approved what had been written

615
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: down after it was written down. She was like the

616
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: verbal editor at that point. There are there's also a

617
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,240
Speaker 1: lot of scholarly work that compares various pieces of the book,

618
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: like in terms of the spelling and the style and

619
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 1: the tone um, to try to figure out who wrote

620
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 1: what and what had been influenced by who UM. For example,

621
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: she you know, likely did not um need help making

622
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: her narration sound like other books written at the time

623
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,760
Speaker 1: that were devotional in nature, because she had been hearing

624
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: those from the time she was quite young, over and over.

625
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about St. Bridget's story that she

626
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: had read to her many many times, and several others,

627
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: so she already kind of had a sense of that

628
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: style of narration right well. And because she did not

629
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: have the luxury of being able to write things down.

630
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: She probably also had a very good memory, so even

631
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: though she was narrating something from memory, her memory was

632
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: probably a little sharper than a lot of hours now

633
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, people who have the

634
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: luxury of making the list of things to take to

635
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: the store because they know how to read them right. Um,

636
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: she did not know how to read and right, so

637
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: she had to keep all of the things that she

638
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 1: needed to know in her head. But it is believed

639
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: that the priest probably helped her with things like phrasing

640
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: for clarity and uh, just making sure that the story

641
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,879
Speaker 1: was told in a way that made sense, and particularly

642
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: the parts that are about when she was on trial.

643
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: She probably had some help not not running the risk

644
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: of further accusations of heresy and making sure that her

645
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: answers in the book were correct like that probably is

646
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 1: something she got a little extra help with. But otherwise

647
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: people seem pretty confident that is her it's her story

648
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: told from her point of view, it is told in

649
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 1: the third person. That's somewhere were of a narrative technique

650
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 1: though then uh, then cause for a question. Um, here's

651
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: the interesting thing, or is it the thing that I'm

652
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: going to say? I think so? Is it that the

653
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: text of the autobiography was not discovered until ninety four? Yeah,

654
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 1: that amazes me, I know. So ninety four. Let's just

655
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: let's back up a step. People knew that this book

656
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 1: existed because there was a guy named Winkin the Word,

657
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: which I just want to say all the time. Winkin

658
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: de Word had published excerpts from it in an eight

659
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: page pamphlet in fifteen o one. UM. So it had

660
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,800
Speaker 1: been referenced in other works that we already had a

661
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 1: new about. So people knew that that that this was

662
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: a book that existed. They thought that it was a

663
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 1: book about an anchorite, like they thought it was going

664
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: to be a book about somebody who was a recluse. Uh.

665
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: So in nineteen thirty four, UM sitting on a shelf

666
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: in a library at a Pleasington Old Hall, Lancashire. Uh

667
00:37:57,200 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: It was on a private library shelf basically, and people

668
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: would just pick it up and look at it and

669
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: read it like it was this ancient manuscript was not

670
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: being really super weirre well cared for in that respect, um.

671
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,800
Speaker 1: But it was owned by the Lieutenant Colonel William E. I.

672
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: Butler Bowden, and one day he thought, maybe I should

673
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: get this thing looked at. So he took his extremely

674
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:23,760
Speaker 1: old manuscript that had just been sitting on a library

675
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: shelf to a medieval scholar at the Victoria and Albert Museum,

676
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: which at the time was called the Museum of South Kensington. Uh.

677
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: And he showed it to an American medieval scholar there

678
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: named Miss Hope Emily Allen. Men. Miss Hope Emily Allen

679
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: was familiar with winkin to words hamplet and she's the

680
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: one who identified it, said, this is Marjorie Kemp's book. Um.

681
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 1: They were all kind of surprised that this was a

682
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: married woman who had traveled around that that was not

683
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: what they expected to happen. UM. The surviving tess the

684
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: one and only copy that we had of this medieval work. UM.

685
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: It was written in one person's handwriting, uh and probably

686
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 1: in about fourteen fifty, so it was not the first one.

687
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: Now it's not the original, but it's a pretty early copy. UM.

688
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: The first print edition of this newly rediscovered thing came

689
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: out in ninety and now, because this is a hundreds

690
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 1: of year old manuscript that's been around for a really

691
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,919
Speaker 1: long time. If you want to read it, you can

692
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: on the internet for free. That is how far we've

693
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 1: come as a society. Yeah, you can read medieval women,

694
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: woman mystics, entire work on the internet for free. Yeah,

695
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 1: we've come a long way. We've come a really long way.

696
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: Really fascinating story today is I love her story because

697
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,319
Speaker 1: it is so just mind blowing. She was, you know,

698
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: so outside the realm of of what was ever expected.

699
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: I mean, as you said, even scholars that discovered the book,

700
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: it was like, wait, thought what happened in her life?

701
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: And then she her husband and will and he said

702
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: it was okay that they weren't going to ask her. Wow,

703
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating tale. It is outside the realm of

704
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: regularity for her time, for sure. Yeah, outside the realm

705
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 1: of regularity for a lot of stuff. And she's you know,

706
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: regardless of whether you feel that her visions were real

707
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: or we're psychosis, she's a remarkable woman. Yeah. There you

708
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: can you know, google her and see all manner of

709
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 1: artwork depicting her, uh, which is just It's one of

710
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: those things where I will think about her story and

711
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: I'll look at some of those and it's like my

712
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: brain tries to put them together, and I just I

713
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 1: wish I could know what was really going on in

714
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: her head sometimes. If you if you want to read

715
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: her book, you have two choices. It means there are

716
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: lots of editions of it, but two primary choices, and

717
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: one is the one with modernized language, which is a

718
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: very easy and fast read because it is very simple language. Um,

719
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 1: if you're reading the one that is more in more

720
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: of a Middle English style, that can and take a

721
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: while to it. Yeah, if you're not used to it,

722
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: it can take a while, uh to get used to

723
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: the way things are spelled and all of that. But

724
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:12,240
Speaker 1: either way you can get a hugely interesting glimpse into

725
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 1: a medieval woman's just It's also significant because we mentioned

726
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: that it's the first English autobiography, but for many scholars

727
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: it's one of the really best surviving texts on to

728
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 1: sort of what life was like in medieval England. So

729
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: it's significant not just from her religious story in her

730
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:38,359
Speaker 1: societal sort of fascinating trajectory, but also just in terms

731
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: of a historical document about what it was like to

732
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: live in a port city in England at the time

733
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: in a middle class family. Yeah, so many reasons that

734
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: it's worth they're going to look at. So that's Marjorie Camp. Yes.

735
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: And then we have some listener mail. We have two

736
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: pieces we do because I am a new addition to

737
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm reading I'm reading mail that's addressed to

738
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: other people, and it's it feels kind of decadent to

739
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:08,879
Speaker 1: be reading other people's mail if you're eavesdropping on other

740
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 1: people's emails. Right, So this one is from Nancy and

741
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,399
Speaker 1: it's addressed dear Katie, Sarah, Deblina. If you're reading this, Holly,

742
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: did I miss anyone? Tracy me or it? Also Jane

743
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: and Candice and many of the past from years and

744
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 1: years ago. These three hosts. Um, I do not mean

745
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: to make you feel bad. If I did, I'm sorry. Um.

746
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: She says she's been thinking about sending an email since

747
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:34,399
Speaker 1: the last September, and she listens while walking the dog. Um.

748
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: She says. She says, this is very old news, but uh,

749
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: writing to you came came to mind again laft month

750
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: when Deblina and Sarah did a podcast on historical hoaxes,

751
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: and you referenced a podcast you did last September on

752
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: War of the World. I first heard about this radio

753
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: program when I was a young child. My mother, who

754
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: will be eighty seven in a few weeks, told me

755
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 1: about it. You see, she has very vivid memories of

756
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: listening to the program when she was twelve years old.

757
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:03,759
Speaker 1: She lived lived just outside Philadelphia, only seventy miles from

758
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: Graver's Mill, New Jersey. She remembers that the program aired

759
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:09,240
Speaker 1: on a Sunday night. Why did she know this because

760
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: in her time it was customary and many churches for

761
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: folks to attend services on both Sunday morning and Sunday evening.

762
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: My mom's parents had just returned church to church that

763
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: evening and left my mom home with her two older sisters,

764
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,760
Speaker 1: being just kids and alone in the home for the evening.

765
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: When they heard the program, they were petrified. Every time

766
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: I think about that radio program, I get shivers, imagining

767
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 1: what it must have been like to be my mom

768
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 1: hearing about Martians and bathing the earth, not very far

769
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: from where she was. Yes, it all seems so silly now,

770
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: but we forget how much things have changed in the

771
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,759
Speaker 1: past seventy years. I don't recall how my mom and

772
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,439
Speaker 1: her sister's finally learned that it was a hoax. One

773
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: thing that also sit down in my mind as I

774
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: listened to the podcast. Towards the end, you discussed whether

775
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: or not you think you would be fooled and what

776
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: you might have done. Deblina said she might phone someone.

777
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, but not so much that I will take

778
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: the time now to find the answer. How many homes

779
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: actually had telephones in nineteen and if they did, or

780
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: the phones party lines, my point being that it may

781
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 1: not have been that easy to just pound someone and

782
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: talk it over. I love that story. Yeah, I giggled

783
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 1: a little, not because I think it's funny that they

784
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 1: were scared, but because I can so easily project myself

785
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 1: to my youth when I would get similarly scared by

786
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: silly things. Yeah, I would get scared by thinking what

787
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: if there's a monster, Like if you told me that

788
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: there was a monster? Hard to being a kid. And

789
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: then we also got a postcard that was sort of

790
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:30,719
Speaker 1: near and dear to my heart for a reason I

791
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 1: will tell you in a bit, And it is fround

792
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: listener ali uh. And it is a picture of a

793
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 1: crooked beef crooked matsa mask uh and she is writing

794
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: us from the Berke Museum of Natural History and Culture

795
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: in Seattle. And this is near and dear to my

796
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: heart because when I was in elementary school, I lived

797
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: in Pewallup, which is near Seattle, and going to that

798
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,839
Speaker 1: museum is fond memories for me, so I loved it.

799
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: She is a um an assistant in the Ethnology Collection

800
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: and she's currently working on a produ of arranging three thousand,

801
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 1: thirty five millimeter slides from someone's travels in the Pacific

802
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 1: from the seventies. Sound's kind of fascinating and interesting. So

803
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: thank you for that ale because it was a nice

804
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,840
Speaker 1: little reminder of being a kid in the Pacific Northwest.

805
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 1: That's awesome, So thank you very much for sending his

806
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: postcards and emails. He would like to tack to us

807
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: if you can at Facebook dot com slash history class Stuff.

808
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: We're also on Twitter at missed in History, and you

809
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: can email us at History Podcast at Discovery dot com.

810
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: If you would like to learn a little more about

811
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,399
Speaker 1: the more mundane side of Marjorie Camp's life, you can

812
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: go to our website, put the word beer in the

813
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: search bar and you will find how beer works a

814
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: testament to her brief and failed time as a brewer.

815
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: You can do all of that and more at our website,

816
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: which is how stuff works dot com. For more on

817
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff

818
00:45:54,560 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: works dot com. Aten named the lane named the lane

819
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: ut full in Je,