Margery Kempe Timeline and Summary

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• Margery marries John Kempe at the age of twenty and has her first child shortly thereafter.
• Kempe suffers from post-partum depression for over six months, has visions of demons, and is ultimately saved from suicide by the appearance of Jesus at her bedside.
• Kempe starts her own brewery but finds that the ale goes flat; all her employees abandon her because they think she's cursed.
• Kempe decides to open a mill, but the horses refuse to pull for her manager. Rumors again fly that Kempe is cursed, and no one will work for her. Kempe gets the message and does penance. She enters into the contemplative life little by little, receiving enticing "tokens" from God of his love.
• Things go well for the first two years: Kempe fasts, cries, and prays with ease. Her conceited ways return.
• Kempe suffers three years of sexual temptations, does serious penance (including wearing a hair-shirt, even when she is pregnant), and endures slander from the townspeople.
• Kempe receives the "gift" of tears for her sins and begins weeping in public. Her fashionable friends abandon her.
• Kempe can no longer stand having sexual intercourse with her husband, though she hasn't yet secured a vow of chastity from him.
• Jesus tells Kempe to give up the hair-shirt and formal prayer. He wants her to enter true contemplation by being quiet and waiting for him to speak. Waiting for someone else to speak isn't that easy for Margery Kempe.
• Kempe begins to be "ravished" into the spiritual world, actively participating in events from the life of Christ.
• Jesus tells Kempe that she should go on pilgrimage for the benefit of her soul.
• Kempe bargains with her husband to get a promise never to have sex with her again. She settles his debts before leaving town and promises to quit fasting.
• Kempe's travels in England (to Canterbury) are plagued with slander and ill-will. The people of Lynn also turn on her.
• Kempe finally has her last child and goes to Norwich to visit with Richard of Caister and tell him all about her visions. Richard approves of her life.
• Kempe visits with Julian of Norwich, who tells her that God is certainly prompting her revelations.
• Kempe heads off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, even though she feels wholly unprepared. She is shunned by her companions and deserted by her maid.
• Kempe fends for herself in the Holy Land, where she has her most intense spiritual experiences and receives the "gift" of screaming.
• On her return trip, Kempe stays in Rome and visits sites of pilgrimage throughout Italy. She has more difficulties with English people, but she learns that Italians totally get her.
• Jesus commands Kempe to give away all her money and live as a pauper in Rome. She serves a poor lady for six weeks.
• Kempe undergoes a spiritual wedding to God the Father and graduates to a higher level of contemplation.
• Kempe returns to England with the help of a young English priest and her manservant. She visits Richard of Caister, who can't believe how calm she is after all her turmoil.
• Back in Bishop's Lynn, Kempe has many spiritual adventures in public places. Her social stock rises and falls, depending on the people's mood. The "Good Friar" makes life hard.
• Kempe gets the call to go on pilgrimage again, this time to Santiago de Compostela. Her return trip is a nightmare marked by multiple arrests for heresy and lots of unnecessary travel.
• Kempe has to go to the Archbishop of Canterbury to receive his letter and seal to help her live her life undisturbed.
• Back in Bishop's Lynn, it's more of the same. Kempe is either revered or reviled. She's banned from seeing Master Aleyn, her confessor and close friend.
• As time moves on, Kempe's husband John has a fall down the stairs and becomes disabled. She has to care for him until his death—and she doesn't like it.
• Kempe describes her revelations at the time of Holy Week over her years in Bishop's Lynn. She ends the first book by recounting the difficulties she had in having the first copy written down.
• In the second book, Kempe details her interactions with one of her sons and his wife.
• After her son's conversion and death, Kempe accompanies her daughter-in-law back to her home in Prussia. Their ship gets blown off course, and they celebrate Easter in Norway.
• On the return trip, Kempe has to traverse war-torn territories, largely without suitable companions.
• When she makes it back to England, Kempe has a lot of 'splaining to do, since she left abruptly and without her confessor's permission.
• Kempe ends her work with an extended prayer and supplication for grace and mercy.