Free Thinking Essay: Welling Up: Women & Water in the Middle Ages
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2018
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hetta Howes looks at male fears and why Margery Kempe was criticised for crying and bleeding
Medieval mystic Margery Kempe's excessive, noisy crying made her travelling companions so irritated that they wanted to throw her overboard, while others accused her of being possessed by the devil. But Kempe believed she was using her tears as a way to connect with God, turning the medieval connection between women and water into a form of bodily empowerment and a holy sign. New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, from City, University of London, explores the connections between medieval women and water.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage Gateshead
Producer: Luke Mulhall.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
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| 0:47.6 | Stop crying, Marjorie. |
| 1:15.6 | This is an order that medieval mystic Marjorie Kemp would hear countless times throughout her life. In the book of Marjorie Kemp, written in the 15th century, Marjorie tells the story of her life. Married at 20, she had no less than 14 children and still found the time to be a savvy businesswoman. But after the birth of her first child, something happened. |
| 1:19.6 | She experienced a crisis, an illness which sounds a bit like postnatal depression. |
| 1:26.6 | This sparked a new turn in her life, towards God. |
| 1:32.0 | Marjorie records a number of holy visions during which she has conversations with Jesus. |
| 1:37.8 | She hears him speak to her as if he were right there in the room with her. And as a result of these |
| 1:43.7 | visions, she does everything in her |
| 1:45.6 | power to live more spiritually, from fasting to trying to negotiate a vow of chastity with her |
| 1:51.5 | frustrated husband. There's a recurring theme throughout the stories Marjorie tells us, her tears. |
| 1:59.5 | Marjorie cries anywhere and everywhere, whenever she thinks about her own sin |
| 2:04.5 | or the suffering Christ endured on the cross. She cries on pilgrimage when she visits the holy |
| 2:10.6 | site of Jerusalem, but she also cries on the street of her hometown, her tears ignited by |
| 2:16.8 | anything that reminds her of God. |
| 2:19.8 | These tears provoke a range of responses in those around her. Some think she's been possessed |
... |
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