Did You Know?

The Middle Ages spanned a thousand years, from about 500 to about 1500.

Margery Kempe may be known for the first autobiography in English, but she could neither read nor write. She dictated her memoirs to a priest, who wrote them down. The only manuscript of Margery’s book was lost for hundreds of years, until it was rediscovered in 1934.

Before Gutenberg’s printing press in 1450, every single book in Europe had to be written by hand, which could take weeks, months, or even a year. The books are called manuscripts, from two Latin words meaning “written by hand.”

Books were written on the skins of cows or sheep. It could take a lot of animal-skins to make one book. For the famous Lindisfarne Gospels [http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html], 250 calves gave their lives!

Contrary to popular opinion, medieval girls didn’t get married at 12. Church law allowed it (14 for boys), but 20 was a much more common age. Margery Kempe was 20 when she got married.

Medieval servants were often hired in the autumn, at the Michaelmas Fair. It was no disgrace to be a servant; it was a good way for a girl to earn money and learn how to run a household before she got married.

Pilgrimages to religious sites were common throughout the Middle Ages. From England, people took arduous journeys to the Holy Land, to Rome, to the shrine of St. James at Compostela in Spain. They also traveled to shrines in England: to Canterbury, to Walsingham, Glastonbury, and other places.

Take a look at the website Mapping Margery Kempe [http://www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/] for pictures from the town of Lynn and information about the pilgrimage Margery and Johanna took.