The Crucifix, the Pietà, and the Female Mystic:

Abstract

Focusing on The Book of Margery Kempe, this article argues that devotional objects such as the crucifix and the pietà functioned as a model for the performance of religious identity. Reading devotional objects as devotional “events,” using material culture and performance theory, the article will demonstrate that pastoral care texts and religious lyrics created an expectation that an encounter with a devotional object could be a powerful opportunity for religious self-fashioning. This was an opportunity that was available to Lollard as well as orthodox devotees and which, I will argue, was especially efficacious for laywomen. A detailed examination of Margery Kempe's encounter with the pietà and her experience in the house of a poor woman in Rome additionally reveals that such performances established female communities that operated outside of ecclesiastical control and renegotiated the contours of sacred space.

“Clad in flesch and Blood”: The Sartorial Body and Female Self-Fashioning in The Book of Margery Kempe

“…I draw attention to the second quoted use of "tokyn," which Varnam glosses as a "visible indicator of an inward state," "an act performed in confirmation or recognition of a contract or an agreement" and a "marvel or an event assumed to signify the favour of a supernatural power." 88 In this reading, Varnam states, "objects are not static, unresponsive matter, they are agential, interactive, and performative." 89 Rather, as in Dan Hick's reading of devotional objects, they are "events."…”

“…4 Varnam applies this to The Book of Margery Kempe, proposing that Margery draws upon devotional objects' established sets of meanings ("citations") as part of her attempt to "fix a religious identity." 5 On account of her status as a married laywoman, Margery was excluded from performing her religious identity in ways presiding members of society were able to-such as ordination. Marginalized groups, including the emerging middle classes and women, had to find other ways to perform their self-fashioning.…”