Navigating Space as a Disabled Creature: Undergoing Medieval Womanhood, Disability, and Spiritualism in The Book of Margery Kempe

Abstract

In The Book of Margery Kempe, medieval English mystic Margery Kempe continually refers to herself in the third person by using “creatur” [creature], which this article views as part of Kempe’s engagement in the practice of imitatio Christi. Whilst scholarship has studied her engagement in this practice of self-injurious behaviour to become like Christ, it fails to consider Kempe as a disabled woman. By adopting a disability studies perspective this article views Margery Kempe as disabled with her use of creatur and her engagement in imitatio Christi as expressions of her disabilities. Finally her Book will be considered her ultimate ‘space’ for her disabled body through which Margery Kempe reinvents ableist notions.