When Margery Kempe sees Jerusalem from above, she prays for God to reveal to her the heavenly as well as the earthly city of Jerusalem, and feels that she gazes on heaven. Overwhelmed with grace, she almost falls off the ass she is riding, and mentions that two German pilgrims and a priest assist her.

She describes her movements through Jerusalem as something like a religious city tour. Beginning at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the pilgrims follow friars through the city. The friars carry a cross, and the pilgrims carry candles. During the tour, over the course of three weeks, they visit Mt. Calvary, “the grave where the Lord was buried,” the place of Christ’s crucifixion, a marble stone where his body lay, Mt. Zion, the location of the last supper, the place where the disciples received the Holy Spirit, and the burial place of the Virgin Mary. At many of these sites, Kempe is able to receive mass and plenary remissions (or indulgences). Kempe experiences strong religious emotions, and cries, screams, and prays. She also describes seeing visions and hearing voices. At Mt. Calvary, she describes a vision of Christ’s crucified body. The only features of the landscape that Kempe describes are mountains (specifically Mts. Zion and Calvary) and hills. Descriptions of Kempe’s journey to Jerusalem reveal that she travelled with a group of other pilgrims (all men), although she frequently argued with them and at one point travelled alone with an old man she met along the way. She and her companions stayed in the houses of wealthy people in each city, and travelled by foot, ass, and boat.

It is clear from these facts that Kempe saw almost everything from a religious perspective. She doesn’t describe the people or buildings of Jerusalem, but rather focuses on each location’s association to Christ. Rather than describing the physical aspect of pilgrimage sites, she describes her own reaction to them, what Christ did there, and any visions or voices she experiences in prayer. Kempe’s focus is not ethnographic in any sense. She began her pilgrimage in order to increase her worth in the eyes of God, and she is only interested in the religious significance of the places that she visits. This can also potentially reveal something about the Jerusalem that Kempe visited. It appears from her descriptions that the city had a complex infrastructure in place for accommodating religious pilgrims. Upon her arrival to the city, she immediately interacts with two pilgrims from Germany, revealing that pilgrims are common enough for her to happen to find them in her time of need, and that they come from various locations. In addition, there are friars ready to escort the pilgrims through the city, taking them primarily to religious sites. Masses and plenary remissions are offered at these sites, which seem to be set up to accommodate (and perhaps attract) pilgrims. This implies that the city receives enough pilgrims to necessitate such infrastructure, and that the city encourages the influx of pilgrims. Kempe’s account shows how religious pilgrimages were able to function within a prearranged infrastructure without interacting too much with the non-religious life of a city— although this may also reflect Kempe’s singular devotion to her task.