In this chapter of Margery Kempe’s travels, she continues on her journey through holy lands, including Mount Quarantine. This is supposedly the mountain where Jesus himself fasted for forty days. Kempe’s travels are truly devoted to finding and experiencing holy lands and specific sites of miraculous and religious events. After her trip up Mount Quarantine, she also traveled to important sites of John the Baptist, Mary, Martha, Lazarus’ miraculous resurrection location, the church where Jesus reunited with his mother on Easter Day, Mary Magdalene’s location at Jesus’ walk towards his crucifixion, and more (110-111). From these many religious locations, Margery moves towards Rome but stops in Venice first. In Venice, many of her companions fall sick and end up refusing to help her on her journey from that point forward.

Much of what Kempe discusses is not about the details of transportation, food, or even the specifics of certain events, but rather about how she is perceived and treated in each of the places she visits and how the people in those places react to her unusual devoutness. Kempe highlights mostly the differences between the people she meets along the way against the way she was/is treated by her original companions. She notes that her original companions are not very fond of her and often refuse to help her or continue along the journey with her. She evidently does not have a good relationship with these men and is likely perceived as crazy, annoying, or generally insane.

On the other hand, Kempe meets many people along her travels, most of whom are of different religions and races, and rather than have a judgmental tone or outlook, she actually grows fond of these strangers. Kempe notes that many of the people she meets are actually much kinder to her than she is used to, no matter their differences of religion, language, or origin. When her original companions refused to help her up Mount Quarantine, a random Saracen man came and helped her up the mountain with little hesitation.

In a similar fashion, when Kempe makes it to Venice, she says that all of her companions abandoned her and would not continue traveling with her even if they were paid a large sum. Despite being terrified and very obviously alone in a strange place, Kempe never loses her faith in the Lord and describes a private conversation she has with Him, where He reassures her that everything will be okay. On her way, she meets a man with a broken back, two Friers, and a woman who all help her continue her journey to Rome. Again, these are strangers who are mostly of differing religions/races than Kempe, but are much kinder to her than the people she began her journey with.

Despite a language barrier, these strangers help her along the way, feeding her, clothing her, housing her, and generally providing her with the things she needs to survive this journey. It is evident that Kempe values people who are generally kind, especially if they are religious. No matter what religion others are, it seems that Kempe finds religion itself to be a common ground to trust strangers on – simply the act of being religious, even if that religion is different from her own – is enough to allow Kempe to travel with these strangers. Perhaps Kempe highlights these strangers’ acts of simple kindness to highlight that goodness is not secular, that anyone can be good and anyone can be bad, no matter what God they believe in. Even though Kempe herself is devoutly Catholic, her ability to highlight the goodness in others, no matter how different they are, is an anomaly for writers of this period.