Talk:Margery Kempe

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My recollection of reading about Margery Kempe (sorry, I don't have time to do the homework and find the citations) is that she was regarded as a fraud and a buffoon by many of her contemporaries. She was thought to be the type of bogus mystic excoriated by the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing". These views should be emphasized in her entry. Why is there so much about her in Wiki and so little about Julian of Norwich, who was the genuine article? Xxanthippe 07:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it is very narrow minded to attempt to pit Margery Kempe against Julian of Norich. Although it is true to say that many believed Margery to be a fraud in her own time it must also be noted that we are aware of this because Margery chose to discuss it in her book. If you are unsatisfied with the entry on Julian of Norich then I suggest you improve it yourself. Lisa.padden 12:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

There has been interest in Margery Kempe, including that of psychiatrists who debate what she was suffering from - postpartum psychosis now seems more likely than, as many of her contemporaries believed she had, epilepsy. ACEOREVIVED 21:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Recent edits 2 Saints banner and category 3 Dubious request for a photograph 4 Reference to Freeman, Bogard and Skolomskas' paper

[edit] Recent edits

I just reverted several edits, though I have no doubt they were made in good faith. But in some cases they repeated things already in the entry, in others they used evaluative language that is not appropriate in an encyclopedia, and in others they were not smoothly written. Sorry if this seems heavy-handed, but the article seems more solid as it was. — scribblingwoman 21:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Saints banner and category

Based on this individual being included in the Calendar of saints (Church of England), I am adding the Category:Anglican saints and the Saints WikiProject banner to this article. I am awaiting reliable sources which can be used to add the content to the article. John Carter 17:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dubious request for a photograph

Has something been lost of me which is obvious to others, but why the requests for a photograph for an article on a women who lived several centuries before the invention of the camera? ACEOREVIVED 21:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference to Freeman, Bogard and Skolomskas' paper

In view of what I typed above, I shall now say a little more. In her own lifetime, the Englishwoman Margery Kempe was seen as a sufferer of epilepsy, and more recent scholarship has portayed her as a sufferer of post-partum psychosis; however, such views are criticsed by Freeman, Bogard and Skolomskas, who claim that it is more likely that she was suffering from manic-depressive psychosis.

Reference: Freeman, P.R., Bogard, C.D. & Skolomskas, D.E. (1990). Margery Kempe - a new theory: The inadeduacy of hysteria and post-partum psychosis as diagnostic categories. History of Psychiatry, Volume 1, pp169-190