Revelations, p.1
Revelations, page 1
Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: The Mysteries
Part I: Incendium Amoris
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Part II: The Gift of Tears
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Part III: The Cloud of Unknowing
22
23
24
25
26
Historical Afterword
About the Author
Connect with HMH
Copyright © 2021 by Mary Sharratt
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sharratt, Mary, 1964– author.
Title: Revelations / Mary Sharratt.
Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033855 (print) | LCCN 2020033856 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328518774 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358450238 | ISBN 9780358450436 | ISBN 9781328518781 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kempe, Margery, approximately 1373– | Julian, of Norwich, 1343– | GSAFD: Biographical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3569.H3449 R48 2021 (print) | LCC PS3569.H3449 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54 — dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033855
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033856
Cover design by Martha Kennedy
Cover art: bpk Bildagentur / Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen / Rogier van der Weyden / Art Resource, NY
Author photograph © Reg Whitman
v1.0421
For Joske, my companion on the journey
Pilgrims are we all.
—Piers Plowman, XI 240
Prologue
The Mysteries
York
Anno Domini 1417
MY STORY IS NOT a straightforward one. Women’s stories never are. To burst free of our fetters, we must first have an awakening. We must be summoned by God. This was how I came to find myself preaching to the women in front of York Minster.
“Every living creature will be saved,” I told them as they circled round me. “Those were Dame Julian’s words.” As I spoke, I heard Julian’s voice. Her wisdom caressed me like a feather.
Pilgrims come to see the Corpus Christi mystery plays thronged the cathedral yard. On a decorated hay wain that served as a stage, a costumed troupe from the Mercers’ Guild enacted the End of Days, the separation of the blessed and the damned. But the women seemed to have eyes and ears only for me. Burghers’ wives, servant girls, pie sellers, and baker women, they leaned in to hear my every word.
“Dame Julian told me she could see no hell. No wrath. Only love. Like the sweetest mother’s love for her only child.” I swallowed, waiting for that to sink in.
In the awed silence that followed, cooing sounded above our heads. We looked up to see a mourning dove, her wings gleaming gold in the midsummer sun.
Lest I attract too much attention, I drew away from my audience. Ducking my head, I followed the stream of the devout into York Minster, that lofty cathedral bedecked with leafy birch boughs for the feast of Corpus Christi. One Mass had just ended. Before long, another would begin. Palmers lit candles as they recited the Lay Folks’ Catechism, for which they would earn an indulgence of forty fewer days in purgatory—or so they’d been told.
Though I tried to hide in plain sight among all the others, I stood out. Clerics regarded me with reproving glances, something I had learned to endure, being such an odd creature, a perpetual wayfarer with no desire to ever return home. A lone woman wandering the wide world with no husband, son, brother, or father to stand at my side and uphold my honor.
Entering the side chapel of the Holy Cross, I knelt on the cold stone floor and began to chant the Veni Creator Spiritus. My gaze anchored on the crucifix painted so harrowingly that I saw it through Julian’s eyes, as if I were privy to her first revelation those forty years ago. As she lay deathly ill, she beheld Christ’s face above hers, and through this grace, she had recovered. But only yesterday the news had reached me that, at the age of seventy-four, Dame Julian of Norwich was well and truly dead.
Though I knew her to be in paradise with our Beloved, our God, I was destroyed by the thought that I would never see her again upon this earth. I was insensible in my sobbing until I felt a sharp tug on my sleeve.
The hairs on my flesh stood on end. A canon with a jeweled pectoral cross loomed over me. Other clerics gathered round, regarding me as if I were some diseased beast who had no right to set foot in this place.
“Madam, why do you weep so noisily?” There was no compassion in the canon’s voice, only an aridness that filled my throat with dust.
“Sir,” I said, struggling to make the obligatory reverence while he held fast to my sleeve. “You are not to be told.”
At that, I attempted to wriggle free, but the clerics formed a solid wall round me.
“You, wolf, what is this clothing you wear?” The canon stared at my white gown and kirtle, my white hood and cloak. “Are you a virgin?” His voice thickened with the insinuation.
“Sir, I am a good Christian wife who has taken a vow of chastity. An honest pilgrim.” I pointed to the scallop shell pinned to my cloak, a keepsake from my recent journey to Santiago de Compostela.
“A wife and yet you travel alone?” The canon shook his head. “Do you have an affidavit from your husband giving you permission to tramp across the land?”
“Sir, my husband gave me leave with his own mouth.” I tried not to tremble before his chilly blue eyes. “Why are you questioning me and not the other pilgrims here who have no more affidavits than I?”
“What cloth is that?” The canon fingered my sleeve, as if hoping to prove that I’d run afoul of the sumptuary laws.
“Plain wool, sir,” I said. “Even the lowliest beggar might wear it. Now if you would let me be on my way.”
How I wished I hadn’t left my pilgrim’s staff behind at my lodgings—it would come to good use right now as I attempted to force a path between two of the skinnier clerics. But the canon laid hold of my arm.
“The law forbids women to preach, and yet I witnessed you performing that very act in the shadow of this holy minster,” he said.
“Sir, I’m no preacher.” I forced myself to hold his gaze. “Never have I spoken from any pulpit. But the Gospels give me leave to speak of God.”
My words only angered the canon all the more. How I infuriated and confounded these men by my very existence—a free-roving woman, neither a proper wife nor a cloistered nun, who presumed to speak of divine love and redemption. A masterless woman without a father or husband to rein me in.
Another man butted in, this one not a cleric but a worldly man, dressed like a princeling in calfskin boots and a brocade doublet. Around his neck he wore the chain of the office of mayor.
“Declare your name and business, woman,” he said.
“My name is Margery Kempe.” A deathly cold crept up my legs. “I hail from Bishop’s Lynn in Norfolk. I’m a good man’s daughter. My father was the Mayor of Lynn five times and an alderman in the Guild of the Holy Trinity,” I added, careful to convey the fact that I came from worthy kindred. “My husband is a burgess of that town.”
“Saint Catherine was eloquent in speech, describing what kin she came from,” the canon said. “But you’re no saint.”
“You,” said the mayor, jabbing his stubby finger at me, “are a strumpet. A Lollard. A deceiver of the people. I believe you’ve come here to take our wives from us and lead them off with you.”
“I’m no Lollard, sir.” A cold wash of panic filled my belly. “I’ve nothing to do with Wycliffe’s disciples.”
Two years ago, John Wycliffe had been declared a heretic. Though the ordained priest had been dead for more than thirty years, they ordered that his corpse be dug out of his grave and burned, all because he had translated the Bible into English. William Sawtry, a vicar from my own parish church of Saint Margaret’s in Lynn, had been burned for Lollardy.
“We have witnesses who heard you quoting the Scriptures,” the mayor said. “How should you come to know the gospels in English unless you’re a Lollard? One of Oldcastle’s whores,” he added, referring to Sir John Oldcastle, the renegade outlaw who had escaped the Tower of London and who threatened to bring down the King in order to establish a Lollard commonwealth.
“Good sirs, I can’t read!” I cried in desperation—may God forgive my lie. “I learned my scriptures from listening to sermons and speaking with godly folk,” I added, now telling the truth. “I swear that I uphold the teachings of the Holy Mother Church. I support neither error nor heresy—”
The mayor held up his palm to silence me. “Save that for the trial. You’re under arrest, Margery Kempe.”
I
1
Anno Domini 1390
WHEN I FIRST SAW the Mysteries at York, I was seventeen and as vain as Salome.
All the way from Bishop’s Lynn in Norfolk we had ridden, a seven-day journey. We were well rewarded, for the City of York was a moving pageant. Scattered through the streets and squares were the wagons, wains, and carts where the plays were performed that narrated the entire sweep of history from the Creation to the End of Days. Such a spectacle! Yet I can say without lying that as I rode past those decorated stages all eyes were on me. Even the players forgot their lines as they gaped and stared.
How could they not? I rode a dappled chestnut mare, her bridle inlaid with polished silver shining in the June sun. White roses and green ribbons were plaited in her flaxen mane. And I was showier still. As befitting the Mayor of Lynn’s only daughter, I wore gold piping on my towering headdress. My long trailing sleeves were dagged with tippets and slashed to reveal the many-colored brocades beneath. Pearls and coral beads gleamed at my throat. Even my Ave beads, hanging on display from my girdle, were of Baltic amber. My father had grown rich as a trader, exporting wool and grain and importing wine, timber, and fur. His ships sailed as far as Russia. Father was not only Mayor of Bishop’s Lynn, but a member of Parliament and a justice of the peace. A descendent of the de Brunhams of Brunham Manor in Norfolk, his kin had served as clerics for the Black Prince.
My lofty perch in the saddle allowed me to see over the heads of the poorer, horseless folk as I watched the Mystery of Creation. A young man in a flesh-colored tunic—intended to hint at the nakedness of Adam—lay on his side while an old man with a beard of purest white waved his hands. Then, up from behind the reclining young man, rose a girl in a flesh-colored shift, as though she had been conjured from the boy’s side. We gasped as we beheld Mother Eve—a tanner’s fourteen-year-old daughter with long golden hair. She stood beneath a sapling apple tree placed upon the cart. From its branches hung fruit fashioned from crimson leather and a real dead snake—the Tanners’ Guild had stuffed it to make it seem as lifelike as possible. Eve put her ear to the wicked serpent’s mouth before offering Adam the apple. We all crossed ourselves and held our breath as we witnessed the original sin, our fall from grace.
Yet I was lighthearted. Flanked by my parents and our servants, I gladly accepted the cup of caudled ale that the alewife pressed in my hand. Sipping the spiced brew, I reveled in the performance, the sheer pageantry of these Mysteries, so unlike anything I would have ever seen in mercantile, money-counting Lynn.
When the first Mystery ended, we wound our way up Petergate to see the next. We passed jugglers, minstrels, acrobats leaping backward to land upon their hands, and even a dancing bear. Still, I was the one who turned everyone’s head. A confectioner fawned as he lifted his tray of sweetmeats for my perusal. I took my time in making my selection, intently examining his delectable morsels of honeycomb, currants, and almonds as I reveled in his admiration.
Mother rolled her eyes. “Margery, you’ve grown insufferable! Remember, my dear, pride comes before the fall.”
Once Mother had been the great beauty of Lynn, or so Father told everyone in his jovial way, but birthing twelve babies had taken its toll. Though she was no less sumptuously attired than I, she had lost half her teeth and her face looked tired and pale. The greatest injustice my mother suffered was that only two of her children had survived—my brother, Robert, who couldn’t join us in York because he had sailed across the seas to trade, and I. Even our family’s wealth and position were no match for the contagions that killed infants in their cradles.
“Leave Margery be,” Father told Mother. “Soon enough she’ll be married and having daughters of her own.”
At that remark, I only smiled, confident that Father would want me to take my time choosing a husband. After all, my dowry was the envy of Lynn. I’d no intention of settling for the first herring merchant or wool dealer to call at our big house in Briggate near the Stone Bridge, which my father owned. With my riches and youth, my green eyes and honey-brown hair, I could pick and choose a man with the same dreamy whimsy as I’d plucked the most delectable sweetmeat off the confectioner’s tray.
But even then, there was more to me than that, a part of myself I’d learned to hide. Beneath my costly linens and silks, my soul was always hungry, always craving something greater than the narrow streets of Lynn and a future of dutifully bearing babies. I envied my brother, who owned a ship and sailed to the great Hanseatic ports—Bremen and Hamburg and Danzig. How my spirits feasted on the City of York, second only to London in the entire realm. All these new sights, from the castle to the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall. The great minster put our parish church of Saint Margaret’s to shame. Never in my seventeen years had I seen so much stained glass. With Mother and her maidservant at my heels, I traipsed through the vast nave, craning my neck to examine every window. My favorite was the scene of Saint Anne teaching her daughter, the young Virgin Mary, to read. Mother had taught me to read in English, as befitting my station as the mayor’s daughter. But I hungered for more. I wished I were some high-learned soul who was truly literate—literate in Latin. I burned with curiosity to decipher the secrets hidden in the arcane tomes that the clerks hoarded in their libraries.
I made do with the one book I owned, a lavishly illuminated book of hours, which was my most treasured possession. As the minster bells rang the office of Sext, I knelt beside Mother and opened my book to the appropriate page, moving my finger beneath the beautiful black letters spelling out the words of our Latin prayers.
* * *
As ravenous as I was for books, I took the greatest pleasure in maps, which raised me to the heavens and gave me a picture of all that lay below—the jagged coastlines and serpentine rivers. The City of York was marked by its heraldic white rose, its castellated walls, spired churches, and mighty minster. I knew Lynn by its famed harbor bristling with ships. So great was my love of maps that Father nicknamed me Compass Rose.
“Compass Rose,” he said to me when our week in York had reached its end and it was time to journey home. “My eyes aren’t as sharp as they used to be. Read the map for me, won’t you?”
We had just ridden out of Walmgate Bar, York’s eastern gate. The Vale of York spread before us, green hedges glistening with dew. Taking the map from Father, I unscrolled the tableau of rolling hills, towns, and hamlets, and traced the roads and highways with my finger. I felt as though I held the world in my hands.
* * *
The journey, I confess, delighted me far more than the destination. What a thrill it was to ride across the land even when the clouds showered hail and forced us to shelter beneath thickly leafed trees. Seeing the terrain constantly change before my eyes made my heart beat faster. When we crossed the mighty Humber on a wide ferry barge, I was breathless with elation. Ah, to feel the waves beneath me while the wind whipped my skirts. I stretched out my arms like wings and thought I might take flight with the gulls reeling above our heads.
But four days later, when we boarded Father’s own ferry to cross the Great Ouse to Lynn, I shriveled inside to see the familiar city walls looming across the water. Rather than give thanks for our safe travels, I lamented that my first and only journey and exodus from Lynn was already over.
* * *
Surely it was wicked to be ungrateful for my lot. Lynn was a large and important town, boasting five thousand inhabitants and a rich, bustling port filled with foreigners selling exotic wares. Mother’s kitchen was fragrant with rare spices, such as cinnamon and black pepper. I heard French and Flemish spoken in the Saturday Market. German cobblers made my shoes. But I recognized every face, from lowly artisans to the richest merchants and aldermen. I knew every servant girl, every friar, every single beggar and simpleton who haunted our streets. I could have found my way from one end of Lynn to the other through obscure alleyways with my eyes sewn shut. What was worse was that everyone knew me, my every vanity and foible. Wherever I went, a train of gossips clucked and mardled in my wake, their whispers pitched so I could hear every word. There goes Margery Brunham in her trailing tippets! She’s so conceited. I hope a seagull soils her headdress.
