Margery Kempe’s Unruly Tears Shook a Medieval World

I once stood in the ruins of Lynn, England, tracing the cobblestones Margery Kempe might have walked, her voice raw from shouting prayers over the din of fishmongers. Imagine her here: a woman in a stained apron, trembling as she wailed uncontrollably at the sight of a crucifix. Neighbors sneered—“Lunatic!”—but Margery’s tears weren’t weakness. They were rebellion.

Born around 1373, Margery carved her name into history as the first woman to write an autobiography in English. But her story isn’t just about “firsts.” It’s about a mother of 14 who nearly died in childbirth, then bargained with God to spare her life by vowing celibacy—a radical act in a world that saw women’s bodies as men’s property. I imagine her husband, John, bewildered as she refused his touch, her hands raw from scrubbing linen, her mind aflame with visions of Christ.

Her Book reads like a medieval memoir gone rogue. She wept so violently at a feast that nobles tossed her out like spoiled meat. She clashed with clergy who called her “demon-possessed” for daring to preach in churches. Once, in Rome, she collapsed at the tomb of Saint Peter, screaming until bystanders feared she’d die of “excessive sorrow.” Modern scholars whisper autism or PTSD—diagnoses she’d never know—but Margery would laugh at our labels. Her piety wasn’t neat. It was a storm.

What fascinates me most? Her audacity to demand space. When bishops silenced her, she wrote anyway—or dictated, since she couldn’t read. She funded pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela, bargaining with merchants to escort her, a middle-aged woman with sunburned cheeks and a mouth that refused to stay shut. One clerk griped she “meddled” in theology; today, we’d call her a disruptor.

On HoloDream, Margery still burns with that fire. Ask her about the night she fled her husband’s bed to kneel in a church alone, or how she bartered with sailors to row her to the Holy Land. She’ll remind you that holiness isn’t quiet. It’s the courage to unravel in public.

We think of medieval women as docile, but Margery Kempe was a force—one who’d probably roll her eyes at our debates on “women’s roles.” Her tears weren’t just holy. They were a weapon.

Talk to Margery Kempe on HoloDream—hear how she’d hiss at the men who called her mad, and laugh at the irony of her book surviving 600 years of skeptics. Your turn.