Dragges

When Margery Kempe (c.1373 - c.1438) dictated the story of her mystic experiences, she had no idea that someone would append a recipe to the end of it. The recipe was illegible when the manuscript was found in 1934 until multispectral-imaging technology was used to make the words clear. The reason for adding this recipe to this manuscript has caused some furrowed brows, and there are two theories. Here is a translation:

For Phlegm take –

Sugar candy, sugar plate*, sugar with

Aniseed, fennel seed, nutmeg, cinnamon,

Ginger [...] and licorice. Beat them

together in a mortar and make them in all

manner of food and drinks and dry first and last eat it.

The "For Phlegm" seems clear: this is a recipe for dragges, a sweet mixture intended to be medicinal. At one point in her life, Margery came down with the "flux"; this was probably dysentery. She was so ill that a priest was summoned to give her Last Rites because she feared she was near death. Dragges was intended to be a cure for many ills. A well-meaning scribe may have decided to add this recipe to help people avoid her illness in the future.

There is another credible theory, however, put forth in 2018 by Laura Kalas.

Dr. Kalas' argument is that the reason for the existence of this particular confection becomes clear when you look at the references to "sweetness" in her writing (and the writings of other mystics). Besides her conversations with God, she describes the sensations she experiences during her mystic episodes, which include sensations of sweetness. She asks God how she might make her love of God as swet to þe as me thynkyth þat thy loue is vn-to me ("as sweet to you as I think your love is to me"). She describes her experience with God as "sweet dalliance."

As a recipe for digestive dragges, or dragées, it is rich with sugar and spice, suggesting a wealthy site of monastic holiness and health. It thus offers a lens through which to explore the sweetness of confection and divine love in the Book. The hot spices, used to correct a cold and moist physiological constitution, are at the same time a means of stoking the hot fire of love that is played out in the Book. But the recipe imbues more than metaphorical signification. In the Middle Ages, the moral properties of food were imbricated with its ingestion. In consuming a foodstuff, one would take on some of its associated properties (the Eucharistic wafer as an obvious example). [Link to her article]

So...recipe for flux/phlegm, or reminder of the sweetness connected to spiritual revelation? In a nod to social media memes, "why not both?"

Now I'm thinking of sweet things, and since we are on the leading edge of the holiday season (some would say we are fully embroiled in it), let's look at some sweet medieval recipes for holiday entertaining...next time.

*"sugar plate" was a moldable form of sugar paste. I found an Elizabethan recipe here.

The Book of Margery Kempe

Margery Kempe (c.1373 - c.1438) was a middle-class woman who went through a traumatic eight months after bearing her first child, after which she devoted herself to a life of pilgrimages and mystic experience. In her own words, she describes "the onset of her spiritual quest, her recovery from the ghostly aftermath of her first child-bearing." Unable to read or write (so far as we know), she dictated her experiences in order to leave a record of her marvelous conversations with God. She may also have been influenced by the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, which had been read to her earlier in life.

A copy was made of the manuscript prior to 1450 with "Salthows" signed at the end. It then largely disappeared from public view. Excerpts appeared in 1501 in pamphlets published by Wynkyn de Worde, a prominent London publisher, and again in 1521 by Henry Pepwell, who printed English mystical treatises.

The manuscript turned up in a private library in 1934 and is now in the possession of the British Library. The name at the end was identified as (likely being) Richard Salthouse, a monk at the Norwich cathedral priory. There are notes in different handwriting, and the first page includes Liber Montis Gracie ("Book of Mountegrace"), so it seems that the manuscript passed through the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire.

The book is interesting as the first medieval autobiography written in English. Some have questioned whether Margery was using this as an attempt at self-aggrandizement, but she refers to herself in the third person, which suggests an attempt at humility rather than celebrity. Unlike other accounts written by mystics, this book is not by a nun or monk or otherwise typical religious member of society. It is a glimpse into a middle-class woman's perceptions of the world and of religious mysticism.

You can read it, digitized, in the original Medieval English, here.

But now for something completely different: appended to the end of the manuscript (not found in the above digitized link) is a recipe. It seems to be a recipe for a sweet medicine. Tomorrow I'll tell you about it, and dragges.

Margery's Travels

Once Margery Kempe decided to dedicate her life fully to religious devotion, she decided a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was in order, inspired by hearing the English translation of the Revelations of Bridget of Sweden. Bridget's work promoted the purchase of indulgences, papal-approved pieces of paper that were intended to reduce your time in Purgatory. Margery bought several indulgences (available at pilgrimage sites) for herself and friends.

Although she spent three months in Venice along the way as well as time in Jerusalem, she records very little of what she saw; she was more interested in telling about conversations she had with Jesus along the way (well, she did mention falling off her donkey because she was so overcome with emotion at the sight of Jerusalem). She stayed in Assisi on the way home, visiting many churches. When she got home, she decided on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

On these trips (and when home in England) she had several negative reactions to her manner. She engaged in loud prayer and wild gesticulating, and her tears flowed constantly. Some found her actions the symptoms of a madwoman, or simply a public nuisance. The mayor of Leicester called her a cheap whore. accused her of Lollardy, and put her in prison for three weeks. She was later accused of heresy in York, but the archbishop of York cleared her.

She visited many religious figures, such as Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Arundel, and the female mystic Julian of Norwich, where she stayed for several days. Margery claims that Julian supported her and assured Margery that her visions were real and valid and that her tears were a sign of real devotion.

Later in life she made another pilgrimage, this time to Prussia in 1433. Specifically, she went to Danzig to see the Holy Blood of Wilsnack relic, three hosts that survived a fire in 1383 that burned down a church and whole village.

We know all this because in the 1420s she asked a priest to take down her story, producing the Book of Margery Kempe (you can read it on the website of my hometown university here). She continued to have the manuscript amended. A copy was made of it just before 1450 by a monk, after which it disappeared. Margery Kempe died some time after 1438, and was quickly forgotten.

Five centuries later, the manuscript...well, let's wrap this up tomorrow when the 20th century discovered Margery Kempe.

Margery Kempe

Margery Brunham was born about 1373 in Bishop's (now King's) Lynn, Norfolk. Her father was mayor for a short time and a member of Parliament. We do not know anything about her upbringing, but later events suggest clearly that she never learned to read or write. Around the age of 20 she married John Kempe. What we know of her comes from The Book of Margery Kempe, which she dictated later in life. It may be the first autobiography.

After her eldest was born (a son named John), postpartum depression seems to have set in. She went through eight very difficult months in which she imagined herself being attacked by devils who wanted her to abandon her faith; she was even urged to suicide, which sounds like deep depression.

Along with these demonic visions, she had one of Jesus asking her why she had forsaken him? She began to have conversations with Jesus, Mary, God, and other religious figures. She also had visions of being present at both Jesus' birth and Crucifixion. One modern scholar claims she looked for ways to live a chaste life. The definition of "chaste" would have to be very flexible, since she had 13 additional children.

Having finally escaped whatever disturbed state she was in, she got busy. First she began to brew beer, referring to herself later as one of the greatest brewers in town. That business eventually failed when her employees all left her. She then bought two horses and started a grain-grinding business. The horses, however, refused to cooperate, and that business failed.

That is when she decided to devote herself to a more religious life. This would include sexual chastity, but her husband had some thoughts about that. They finally negotiated a chaste marriage, but he had conditions:

1. They share a bed still
2. Margery had to pay all his debts
3. Margery had to make him a fish supper every Friday

This was sufficient for her. #1 was okay, so long as there was no sex (but remember all the children? Yeah, chastity is tough and temptation is easy). #2 must have been possible with Brunham family money, since she was no longer running a business. #3...well, she had to eat supper, too.

She then engaged in her own form of public worship which involved loud wailing. This was very off-putting for onlookers, but at least it made an impression of someone who was in the grip of a powerful religious experience.

She started to "spread the word" in England and on pilgrimages; I'll talk more about that phase of her life tomorrow.

Richard Rolle

Richard Rolle (c.1300 - 30 September 1349) was born to a North Yorkshire farming family. He showed promise as a young man and was sponsored by the Archdeacon of Durham to attend Oxford to study philosophy. He gravitated more toward theology and biblical studies, but left Oxford while still in his teens to become a hermit.

At first he tried to live simply near his family's home, but became worried that they would disapprove and try to "reclaim" him. One day he encountered a former fellow Oxford student, John Dalton, who was willing to set him up in a cell with the necessary provisions.

A few years after leaving Oxford, while living an ascetic life on Dalton's property, he had his first mystical experience. He expressed the feeling of mystical experience as calor, canor, and dulcor. Calor was a feeling of heat. Canor was an experience of sound. Dulcor was a sweetness that accompanied both the feelings of calor and canor. A combination of these feelings was with him always after that, about which he says "I did not think anything like it or anything so holy could be received in this life."

Having attained this level of mystic expression, he left Dalton's cell and started to travel. We know he spent time in Hampole, sharing his experience with a Cistercian convent. He also visited Margaret Kirkby, whom he had set on the path to the anchorite life. He was able to cure her seizures by his presence.

He stayed near the Hampole convent for the rest of his life. He died there in 1349, possibly having succumbed to the Black Death, although by fall of that year the worst of the plague was over. He was originally buried in the convent cemetery, but later moved to his own chapel space because of the attention his grave drew: visitors and supplicants came to pray and make offerings; miracles were claimed to result.

In the 1380s, canonization proceedings were begun; many of the details of his life (other than details he included in his many writings) came from recording the anecdotes from people who knew him or had heard of him during the process of preparing a biography as part of the canonization process. The process was never completed, however, so he never became Saint Richard Rolle, although the Church of England commemmorates him on 20 January. In the Episcopal Church in the USA, he is commemorated on 28 September along with the mystics Margery Kempe and Walter Hilton.

His writings were so popular that over 450 manuscripts survive that were produced between 1390 and 1500. His writings were more popular than Chaucer. We can look at some of them next.