Margery Kempe of Lynn

THE SPECTACLE of the wife of an English burgess writing her memoirs must have been a rare one in the fifteenth century. Of course it is a fact that throughout the Middle Ages a vast number of women wrote books, with their own hand or with the aid of a secretary. The only strange thing is the extent to which people have forgotten, since the Reformation and outside the Catholic tradition of culture, that in the whole of Catholic western Europe no one ever thought it more ‘unwomanly’ to write books than to bake bread. On the contrary, it was nowhere considered unseemly for women to follow learned occupations and busy themselves with pen and ink, whereas in many parts — in Vorarlberg and Switzerland, for instance — it was inadmissible for women to milk cows or tend cattle. These things were — and are still to some extent — men’s work in those countries. Moreover, in the opinion of some anthropologists, such was the case in all primitive pastoral cultures.

Most mediæval women’s books, however, come under the head of religious literature. Many of them have become Catholic classics and are read to this day, not only by the learned. But Margery Kempe’s book is something unique in the literature of the Middle Ages. Fragments of it have long been known, but it was believed that the work in its entirety, The Book of Margery Kempe, was lost, and it was assumed that it was a book of religious meditations, written by an anchorite, which is what her first editor calls her. And in fact the fragments of Margery’s writing that were printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and afterwards reprinted many times, pointed to Margery’s having been a contemplative mystic of the English school, whose greatest name is Lady Julian of Norwich. They bear witness to her power of finding pregnant expression for intense religious feeling: ‘Lord, because of Thy great pain, have mercy on my little pain.’ ‘When she saw the crucifix, or if she saw a man with a wound, or a beast, whichever it were, or if a man beat a child before her, or smote a horse or other beast with a whip, if she saw it or heard it, she thought she saw Our Lord being beaten or wounded, just as she saw it in the man or the beast.’ ‘Our Lord said to her: In anything thou dost, daughter, thou mayest no better please God than by believing that He loveth thee; for if it were possible that I might weep with thee, I would weep with thee, daughter, for the compassion that I have of thee.’ These are some of the sayings of Margery that were known.

Then it turned out that a manuscript of Margery Kempe’s book had been lying all the time unnoticed in the library of Pleasington Old Hall, Lancashire. The present owner, Lieutenant Colonel Butler-Bowdon, had discovered the old book even in his boyhood and had wondered what might be in it. So in 1935 he took it to an expert who identified the manuscript. An edition of the text furnished with the necessary learned apparatus will in due course be published by the Early English Text Society. Meanwhile Colonel Butler-Bowdon has already issued his own translation — or transcription — in modern English. How the manuscript came to be in Pleasington Hall can only be a matter of conjecture. It originally belonged to the Carthusian monastery of Mount Grace, and it is not unlikely that when the monks were driven out by the creatures of Henry VIII they entrusted the contemporary Butler of Pleasington with some of their books and valuables to be preserved in the hope of better times. The Butlers are one of the old English families who clung to their Catholic faith through all persecutions and adversity.

The world of English books, rich as it is, has thus been made richer by a unique work, and the mystical anchorite Margery Kempe reveals herself as anything but an anchorite, and a very original lady. It is true that many mediæval women’s books occasionally give us biographical facts about their author and contain sections which throw light on the intimate and private dally life of their time. But, as has been said, most of them are purely religious works, and the most important of them were written by authors who were also saints. With the saint’s absence of egoism, they are entirely occupied with God’s workings, and they are interested in their own soul because it is the Deity’s field of activity, where He acts as they know He would gladly act in all souls, if only they would allow Him.

But Margery Kempe was no saint — in any case she did not become one in those years of her life of which the memoirs give us an account. She fought bravely against her sins and frailties, so far as she was aware of them herself. But if other people — her confessors, for instance — held a different opinion about anything in her conduct, Margery was extremely unwilling to admit that she did not know better herself. Her piety is absolutely sincere, she loves her Saviour ardently and intensely, and she really wishes to be allowed to suffer for Him — scorn and disgrace and unpopularity in the world, both because this was the lot of Christ and because she thinks she has deserved it on account of her sins. But she would prefer to be persecuted and derided for uttering God’s word in and out of season, and because the children of this world are offended by the gifts of grace she believes herself to have received — her visions and the violent and sensational forms assumed by her religious ecstasies. When people’s displeasure is expressed in mere commonplace gossip and flippant talk, she does not like it at all.

At the end of her book she tells us that during a stay in London she was recognized by some people who met her in the street — Margery Kempe had by that time become a notorious and controversial figure in England. In passing they said loud enough for her to hear: ‘Ah! thou false flesh, thou shalt no good meat cat.’ Margery is furious and explains in some detail what was referred to — a malicious fabrication made up just after her conversion. She was supposed to have been at table in the house of a well-to-do family; it was a fast day and red herring was served as well as fresh fish; there were some boiled pike which were perfectly delicious. Margery was said to have let the dish of herring go past her: ‘Ah! thou false flesh, thou wouldst now eat red herring, but thou shalt not have thy will.’ Whereupon she helped herself to the pike. This story must have been at least twenty years old when Margery was reminded of it in London, but she refutes it as energetically as ever and attributes its invention to the Devil himself.

But it is precisely this self-absorption of Margery’s that we may thank for the extraordinarily intimate and lively descriptions of people and circumstances to be found in her reminiscences. The old Eve, restless and self-assured and opinionated, dies hard in her, and she reacts violently to everything that befalls her. She gives us a variety of information about life in Lynn, and goes on to tell us about her experiences on her endless pilgrimages, at first all over England, and then by land and sea across the whole of Europe and as far as the Holy Land. We even have a little glimpse of Norway. On her last voyage, when she accompanied her son’s widow, who was returning to Danzig, their ship was forced to shelter at some place on the Norwegian coast — unfortunately she does not tell us where. But the travelers went ashore on Good Friday and stayed till Easter Monday. We are told that ‘after the custom of the country, the Cross was raised on Easter Day about noontime,’ so that Margery could have her devotion before it with weeping and sobbing as well as if she had been at home. On the Monday before they sailed, all on board received the body of the Lord, which must have been brought to them by the local Norwegian priest. As mediæval Church custom demanded that confession should immediately precede the reception of the Sacrament of the altar, we may suppose that the Norwegian priests along the southern trade routes must have had some knowledge of the lingo of the Baltic seafarers.

II

Margery was born about 1373 at King’s Lynn, Norfolk. This town was at that time one of the most important markets in England, and Margery’s family belonged to the circle of the leading burgesses in the place. At the age of twenty she was married to a young man, John Kempe, who was regarded as a suitable match. There were fourteen children of the marriage, who play a surprisingly small part in her reminiscences. She refers directly to only one son. His mother wished that he should shun the sins and wickedness of the world and follow Christ, but all she gained by it was that her son shunned his mother and her godly exhortations. He went to sea and finally settled down at Danzig as a trader. There he fell ill, after a fairly wild bachelor life. He himself and everyone else thought it was leprosy. So when he came home to Lynn he was repentant and begged his mother’s forgiveness and her intercessions. Margery prayed and did penance for her son, and he recovered and returned to Danzig and his trading. He married a German girl. Her other children are only referred to in one passage, where she gives an account of her usual observance of prayer. First, she always prayed for the spiritual welfare of all on earth, and then it was her custom specially to mention ‘all my children, ghostly and bodily, that Thou make their sins to me by true contrition, as it were mine own sins, and forgive them as I would that Thou forgive me.’

She was dangerously ill after the birth of her first child and sent for her confessor. There was a sin which she had never been able to bring herself to confess, and even now she found it hard to speak of it. The priest was somewhat severe with her, and exhausted as the young wife was, spiritually and physically, this had the effect of disturbing her mind. For eight months she was tormented with diabolical visions and temptations to suicide; she raged and scoffed and was as spiteful to her husband as she could be. But one evening she had a vision : Jesus Himself came and sat down on the edge of her bed. He looked at her so gently and tenderly that she began to take heart. Then He said: ‘Daughter, why hast thou forsaken Me, and I forsook never thee?’

Now she must have felt that she ought to be grateful to God and show it by serving Him. But she was proud and vain and took no serious step to reform herself. She dressed in a way that made her the talk of the whole town, and she could not bear having other women possess finer clothes or more precious jewels. Her craving for admiration was insatiable. When her husband mildly asked her to be a little less provocative in her bearing, she replied curtly and irritably that he ought never to have married her — her father had been mayor and the biggest man in town, and she was going to act up to her birth.

In order to be financially independent of her husband she started a brewery, and in a year or two Margery was one of the biggest brewers in the town. But then things went badly and she lost a lot of money over it. Again she tried her hand in industry — this time a horse-mill and a bakery. This too turned out badly. The neighbors were delighted. But Margery began to think that perhaps Our Lord wished to cure her of her love of gain. And one night, as she lay beside her husband, she heard ‘a sound of melody so sweet and delectable that she thought she had been in Paradise.’ And she lamented: ‘Alas, that ever I did sin! It is full merry in Heaven.’

But neighbors and friends had a hearty laugh when the worldly Margery Kempe took to discoursing about God and Heaven. And she, who till now had insisted on full sensual satisfaction in her conjugal life, was seized with an equally violent longing to be freed from her wifely duties. She besought her John that they might both make a vow of chastity. (According to Catholic doctrine, which maintains the indissolubility of marriage, it is not permissible for one of the partners to make this vow unless the other is willing to do the same.) For the time being, John Kempe was altogether opposed to promising anything of the sort. All these years he had been a good, affectionate, and very patient spouse, and it was natural enough that he should adopt a skeptical attitude towards his intractable wife’s complete change of front. For now Margery thought of nothing but penance and fasting, neglected her household for daily and nightly devotions, and dragged the unfortunate John with her to church festivals and places of pilgrimage.

John was soon to be proved right in doubting Margery’s transformation. For two years she carried on her exalted religious practices and showed abhorrence for cohabitation with her husband. And then all at once she was seized with an equally exalted passion for another man — one who had spoken to her a few times outside the church and made her dishonorable proposals, perhaps only in fun, to see how far Margery was in earnest in this new way of attracting attention to herself. But Margery fell headlong in love with the man — and came to the conclusion that God had cast her out, since He could let her be subjected to such a temptation. She gave up fighting against it, went to the man and offered herself. It turned out that he didn’t want to have anything to do with her.

Margery went home, desperately humiliated and crushed. And when she thought upon her fall from grace she thought she must be driven mad with despair. For a long time her soul was tossed hither and thither between hopelessness and hope, remorse and rebellion, longing for true conversion and a life in God and temptations to fling herself into a wild life of sin, to go to ruin or take her own life. But one day as she knelt in church she had another vision: Jesus appeared to her again and spoke to her of His love for her soul. And all He asked was that she should return it. In His love she would find forgiveness for all her sinfulness. And if she would love Him in return, this love of hers would bring her so much persecution in this world that it would suffice for her penance.

III

Now there begins a new phase of Margery Kempe’s life. Prayer and contemplation take the form of ‘ visions ‘ and long dialogues. With her ‘ inner comprehension’ she hears Jesus speaking to her, and she speaks to Him. Sometimes He brings His mother with Him, or various saints. These experiences can hardly have been actual visions. But Margery had pronounced literary talent, as her book bears witness, packed as it is with aptly narrated scenes and sketches of people she has met. And she has absorbed the narrative of the Gospels as one absorbs a thrilling novel. She identifies herself with every scene and follows the Saviour’s life on earth as though she were a contemporary and belonged to His most intimate circle. She is with Mary at Bethlehem and Nazareth, helping her in the nursery and the housework. She accompanies her and the apostles to Golgotha, and after the entombment, she goes home with them to the house of John; she persuades Mary to lie down, while Margery goes into the kitchen and makes her a bowl of strong soup. But Mary refuses food; she will do nothing but mourn — until Peter knocks at the door, in such despair at his denial of the Lord that he needs consolation even more than she herself. Then Mary rises from her bed and goes out to him: ‘Ah! Peter, dread thee not, for, though thou hast forsaken my sweet Son, He forsook never thee,’she comforts him.

This is an echo of the same words that Margery herself thought she heard from the mouth of Jesus, when in her young days she had her first ‘vision.’ And when all is said and done, in a way Margery is right, of course, in saying that all good thoughts which occur to us are the voice of God speaking in our soul. Her love of Christ is perfectly sincere, and many of the imaginary conversations she carries on with Him are of great beauty and show deep religious insight. But it is probable that this interweaving of piety and poetical fancy was just what made Margery so naively unsuspicious of many of her own weaknesses — her preoccupation with self, her love of asserting herself, her unwillingness to take advice.

To some extent she may indeed have had aural hallucinations, as when she heard celestial music. She was a pronounced psychopath — if by nothing else, this is proved by the violent revulsions of her mind, going from one extreme to another. And after her final conversion her religious emotion was expressed in sobbing and weeping. She herself counted this as a gift of grace, and of course she could quote a number of theological authorities for regarding tears of repentance as a gift of grace. But by degrees her fits of weeping took the form of violent attacks, whenever she approached the sacraments or thought intensely of Christ’s life upon earth. She began to shriek wildly — she roared, as she says herself— and often collapsed in convulsions, causing the whole congregation to crowd about her. It is very natural that many priest s could discover nothing edifying in such disturbances of divine service and firmly refused to believe that it was God who was responsible for Mistress Kempe’s disorderly behavior. And a great part of the congregation thought the woman was only trying to make herself interesting — she was shamming. Or perhaps she suffered from falling sickness.

These attacks of Margery’s cannot, however, have been epileptic, for while they lasted she saw and heard everything that was said or went on around her, and she remembered it all clearly afterwards. And even after suffering from them for over twenty years, neither her bodily nor her mental powers were in the slightest degree impaired. She lived her life of religious vagabondage on constant pilgrimages, which must have been extremely fatiguing to an old person, when we consider what the roads and means of transport were like in her day. And all the time she was as receptive as ever to new impressions; she assimilated sermons and religious writings which were read aloud to her — above all, the books of the Bible, but also Walter Hilton’s Scala Perfectionis and the English Carthusian mystics. Margery had once visited Lady Julian of Norwich, whom she calls Dame Jelyan, and had stayed with her for several days, during which she accepted advice and guidance from the anchorite, who must at this time have been a very old woman. Margery was also acquainted with the writings of Saint Bridget (of Sweden) and allowed herself to be influenced by them. She herself was unable to read, though she carried her prayer book. But, like so many women of the Middle Ages, she probably managed to read a book the contents of which she knew pretty well by heart, which was not the same thing as spelling her way through works previously unknown to her. Her memoirs were dictated, at the age of something over sixty. All things considered, Margery Kempe was a gifted lady, a decidedly artistic nature, deeply religious and not a little hysterical.

Of course she carried her point and got John Kempe to release her from all the duties she owed him. Her account of her final settlement with her husband makes rather uncanny reading. It took place on the highroad; they were on pilgrimage to York, and she carried the keg of beer, while John had a loaf of bread in his bosom. John Kempe was very unwilling to let her go, but her prayers and fanaticism frightened him so that in the end he had to give in. He showed sufficient practical sense to insist that she should pay a share of their common debts before releasing her and agreeing to her going her own way. Jerusalem was Margery’s first goal.

After quite a lot of adventures in England she got away and had a number of remarkable experiences on her way to and from the Holy Land. Margery’s talent as a narrator is at its very best in these descriptions of life on the main pilgrim routes and of all the curious types she met with. We must suppose that they were all impelled by a more or less conscious longing for the religious experience, as well as by the belief that treasures were laid up where neither moth nor rust could corrupt by going on a pilgrimage, which was always a dangerous and somewhat adventurous undertaking. But we must not forget that the people of the Middle Ages knew no other form of holiday travel and ‘tourism’ than these pilgrimages. And Margery had ample opportunities of learning that by no means every pilgrim cared to be treated to evangelical tales and pious talk all the time while thus journeying from one sanctuary to another. Time after time her companions grew thoroughly sick of her and begged her to leave them in peace and be merry and pleasant, at least during mealtimes. Or else they made a start from the inn during the night hours in order to get away from her. So Margery was left behind and had to look for a new set of traveling companions.

There was the young English lady of noble birth who was traveling with a great retinue; at first she was delighted to have the company of the celebrated visionary — but then she came across somebody who criticized Margery and her vagaries, and so the lady backed out of all her promises and declined to be seen in the company of Mistress Kempe. And there was the hunchbacked English beggar, Richard, whom Margery met in Venice and hired as her attendant. After a while he, too, came to hear so many queer things about her that he would not show himself with her in the daytime. Margery was robbed, had to beg her way — then she met people who believed in her mission, were edified by her talking, and gave her generous alms; after which she gave away all she had received and met with fresh adventures. For it must not be thought that the eccentric old Englishwoman lacked adherents. The Franciscans of Jerusalem had made much of her and were anxious to hear about her revelations; they were quite willing to believe it was the Holy Spirit that moved her when she had convulsive fits of weeping and had to ‘roar’ whenever she came to a spot where Jesus had passed and suffered. And in the cottages of humble folk by the roadside the old pilgrim woman was often received with touching Christian charity.

She had obtained permission to receive Holy Communion every Sunday — a thing which was not so common in the Middle Ages. But she knew no language but English, so it was often difficult for her to confess. This was then arranged for her by Our Lord through a few little miracles. In Rome He once summoned Saint John the Evangelist so that she might confess to him. Margery said her Confiteor, and the apostle gave her absolution and preached a sermon to her — she heard everything he said just as plainly as with her bodily ears, she assures us. Another time she met in the Lateran Church a German priest who took charge of her, and although he did not know a word of English till then, he learned in the course of a fortnight to understand Margery well enough for her to confess to him; but when other English people spoke he did not understand a word. So this too was accounted a great marvel by Margery. In common with many other pious but self-centred people she was very ready to take any strange thing that happened to her as a direct miracle.

IV

It is evident that in the eyes of her contemporaries Margery was an irritatingly anomalous phenomenon. Had she been a nun, or had she withdrawn to the cell of an anchorite, she might have behaved as eccentrically as she pleased. But in fact she was the runaway wife of a burgess, who strayed all over the world and foretold coming events. She undoubtedly had the power of seeing through many of her fellow creatures and was able to tell them of their secret sins and weaknesses. Many of them — especially priests who had something to conceal — took it well, confessed that what she said was true, and begged for her intercession. But others, again of the clergy, were extremely angry. And then she would dress herself entirely in white, and keep unnaturally strict fasts — until she was told by the voice of Jesus within her that this would do for the present and she might eat and drink like other people for a time and take meat and beer on all but fast days. And she was always on the move, and wherever she came she set folks talking about her.

Time after time she was brought before the ecclesiastical courts in England by kind neighbors and the like. They declared that the woman was a dangerous heretic, the worst Lollard in the whole country, and said they would be delighted to fetch wood to burn her. Margery was then examined as to her faith and her doings by a whole series of prelates. Now, we have all heard so much about the victims of the Inquisition that we are apt to overlook the fact that the activities of the Inquisition consisted very largely in exonerating the victims of their neighbors’ suspicions and vindictiveness and releasing them with a written declaration that they were to be spared further accusations. It appears from Margery’s account of all these examinations that she always met with fair play and honest treatment, even if several of her judges did not disguise their opinion that she was a nuisance and personally an unbearable female. But they admit that her preaching is entirely orthodox and that her piety is certainly sincere and free from hypocrisy. Others feel edified by her words and ask her advice in matters of conscience. Abbots and bishops invite her to dine at their table, ‘making much of her’ and spending the evening in pious conversation with Margery ‘until the stars appeared in the sky.’

She was obliged by ill health to settle again for a few years in her native town, and the good people of Lynn had something to talk about. It turned out as she had heard it foretold by Our Lord: ‘And so shall I be worshipped on earth for thy love, daughter, for I will have the grace that I have shown to thee on earth, known to the world, so that people may wonder at My goodness.’ But also: ‘Thou shalt be eaten and gnawed by the people of the world as any rat gnaweth stockfish.’ She succeeded in dividing the clergy of the town and its neighborhood into two camps — for and against Margery Kempe. The most famous preacher in Lynn was a Franciscan, who was also known for his exemplary life. He refused to believe in Margery’s revelations, had no sympathy for her way of living, and finally forbade her to come to the church where he preached, if she could not stop shrieking and making scenes. Margery was afraid it might end in a catastrophe with this friar — he was a model, to be sure, but it sometimes happened that even models fell from grace. On the other hand a number of the young priests in particular seem to have taken her side. This was natural enough in itself; young men who looked back on the harsh years of privation at the grammar school and the university and were faced by a life of celibacy attached themselves to the inspired old woman whom they called ‘Mother.’ It was in this circle that she found the confessor who for a number of years served also as her reader and secretary.

The idea that it was particularly the vow of celibacy that was sinned against by the bad priests of the Middle Ages is not confirmed by Margery’s book — and for that matter it is seldom supported by contemporary documents other than those which are obviously tendentious and aimed precisely at the immorality which of course was found within the Church as elsewhere. The priestly faults that Margery most frequently and mercilessly scourges happen to be her own pet sins — greed of power, arrogance, the desire of honors, and disobedience to superiors.

V

For many years Margery had not been living with her husband. Then it happened one morning that John Kempe fell downstairs in his house and nearly killed himself. Naturally the neighbors said it was all his wife’s fault for running away from him, and that if John Kempe died she ought to be hanged. However, he was sewed up and patched together, but among other injuries he had fractured his skull and he remained an invalid as long as he lived. Margery then took him in and nursed him. He was imbecile and helpless as an infant, so most of her time was spent in keeping him clean — and her money went in fuel, for he had to be kept warm and she used such quantities of hot water; evidently she was fairly poor now. The worst thing to her mind was that she had so little time for prayer and contemplation; she could not even go to church every day. But Christ told her in her soul that she was now serving Him best in nursing her sick husband. So she looked after John as faithfully and affectionately as if he had been Christ Himself.

About this time her son from Danzig came home on a visit and brought his German-born wife with him. He was greatly changed, so pious and serious that Margery could not thank God enough for it. And when, a short time after his return, he fell ill and died, his mother was easy in her mind and of good cheer: he had only come home to Lynn in order to go on to his true home, the land of the living.

John Kempe died not long after, and now Margery’s German daughter-in-law washed to return to her family and to her little girl whom she had left behind in Danzig. Margery was to accompany her to Ipswich and see her on board. But when she was there she could not resist her love of travel, and, much against her daughter-in-law’s wish and the advice of her confessor, she insisted on making the voyage to Germany, In one of her spiritual talks with Our Lord she was expressly commanded to go. And ‘if God be with us, who can be against us?’ Moreover she found a priest who gave her the advice she looked for.

After many adventures by sea and land she reached Danzig at last and parted from her daughter-in-law — to the evident delight of the latter. But Margery had heard about the Precious Blood at Wilsnack in Brandenburg. In that place three Hosts were preserved which were said to have bled. Margery secured a passage to Stralsund with an English merchant who promised to help her on her journey, but when they came ashore he was by no means desirous of keeping his promise. Margery was not one to give in. She did not know the language of the country, she was now over sixty — which in mediæval times was considered a great age — and in addition she was ill; nevertheless she took up her pilgrim’s staff and shamed her countryman into going with her. He went in fear during the whole journey —fear of thieves, of bandits in the trackless bogs and forests through which they had to pass, and evidently of Margery too, who constantly had her spiritual talks with Our Lord and who shrieked and wept freely. Now and then the man would walk so fast that Margery was almost broken-winded trying to keep up with him. At last she stopped at a little inn by the roadside; she could not walk another step. Then she hired a conveyance, and so she reached Wilsnack, where she worshiped the blood of Christ with ardent devotion and loud sobbing.

She wished to return overland, as she was subject to seasickness and had little heart for life on board a ship, though, following Our Lord’s advice, she always stayed at the bottom of the vessel and kept her cloak over her head so as not to see the waves. She traveled by way of Aix-la-Chapelle, but her journey was attended by endless difficulties. She could get no one to accompany her, could find no lodging, people were horrid to her, and she had to avoid districts where war was raging. But Margery got there. Between Aix-la-Chapelle and Calais she had the company, off and on, of a party of wild young men, and with them was a young monk who was given to drink and no better than his companions. Margery evidently had a good influence on him and they parted as good friends. Then she got a passage to Dover and proceeded to London. It was on this occasion that she encountered the scoffers who reminded her of the old redherring story. But there were also many high-born gentlemen and ladies in London who overwhelmed her with kindness, and she went about the town bravely denouncing tire sins of its inhabitants — profane swearing, lying, loose living, drink, and luxury in food and dress.

With her account of her return from this journey Margery’s autobiography comes to an end. In a final chapter she explains her habitual course of prayer. Of her last days and her death we know nothing.

In one place she calls herself ‘one of Our Lord’s own secretaries, to whom He has shown His love.’ But her firm conviction that by means of her book she would lead innumerable souls to Christ and contribute mightily to the spreading of God’s kingdom on earth was not realized, so far as we can tell. The Mount Grace manuscript, which must have been copied from the original as soon as the latter was finished, seems to have been unique. What good she may have done during her long and tempestuous life no one, of course, can now say. But the rediscovered book presents us with an incomparable picture of life at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and the self-portrait of a woman whose nature was a curious compound — of piety and egoism, humility and pride, charity and hardness, talent and hysteria — but who preserved her incredible vitality even in old age.