A review by foggy_rosamund
How To Be a Medieval Woman by Margery Kempe

I don't know how to rate this book. How can you describe a 15th century text? I really enjoyed it as a historical account, and I found Kempe's descriptions of travel, lust, madness, her own visions, and the cruelty she experienced, to be fascinating. But as a work of literature it didn't grip me at all: but then, that's not what it's trying to do. A woman was compelled, at great personal risk, to recount her visions and experiences of god, although she was illiterate. That alone, and the fact that it survived, is fascinating, as is its insight into a Medieval mind.