The author of this travel narrative – this book can certainly be called a narrative due to its form (storytelling, plot) – is extremely interested in telling the story of her travel through a religious lens. In Chapters 28 and 29, she travels to the greatest locations in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, including Jerusalem and Bethlehem. She makes a point to visit the most critical sites here: the location of Jesus Christ’s (one member of the Christian Holy Trinity) tomb, the crucifixion site, Mount Zion (where miracles and moral lessons occurred), other burial sites for major biblical people, and where Jesus was born.

She notes her own emotional responses to these locations, stating, “she wept, she sobbed, she cried out so loudly that it was amazing to hear it (107).” She continuously describes herself as this over-emotional creature, a nuisance to her traveling mates because of her excessive love for the Lord and inability to keep quiet on her devotion and religious beliefs.

The beginning of this chapter details the mode of travel Kempe uses to reach these Holy Grounds. They were to set sail for Jerusalem, but Kempe convinces the traveling party to take a different kind of boat, as God told her to avoid sailing in the other one. The party she was traveling with was full of people Kempe did not particularly like, and in addition to goading her and excluding her, would also simply act pettily towards her. On the ship, Kempe recalls that one of the members stole her bedsheet; these antics reinforce the idea that Kempe’s extreme devout demeanor was not well-received by her companions. Once they left their ship, Kempe states that she rode an ass to Jerusalem and later to Bethlehem. There is no specific timeline of Kempe’s travels in these chapters, but she seems to move from place to place quite often.

Kempe is obviously an outsider among her party. Something I find especially noteworthy is her profound episodes of devout prayer and emotion. They are obviously observed as strange, annoying, and contemptuous, and as a woman of this time period, her motives for drawing even more attention to herself are certainly interesting. She notes having visions and discussions with God, often yelling or crying during the episodes. We may be able to assume that although Christianity is a followed religion at this point, most believers are more discrete with their shows of belief, and may not follow as many of the rules as Kempe does, including eating meat.

Kempe explains that if others are weeping or crying over more common earthly griefs, such as losing a loved one, no one would tell them to stop, and, therefore, her episodes of grief and mourning over Jesus are no different. Perhaps her attention-grabbing episodes are actually an attempt at conversion or overt reminders of the horrors believed to have occurred in the Christian faith. On page 107, Kempe says that those on Earth to easily forget the sacrifices Jesus made for them – therefore, her episodes of grief and apparent conversations with God are a constant reminder to those witnessing that God is watching and listening, and that they, too, should be practicing their faith more openly and devoutly. She ends Chapter 29 with a supposed message from God, saying, “Daughter, I shall make the whole world wonder at you, and many men and women shall speak of me for love of you, and honour me in you (107).” This reinforces the idea that Margery Kempe’s attention-grabbing episodes make people remember and honor God when they have perhaps forgotten their religious duties.