Margery and her company travel to Venice from Bologna, and her account does not detail how long this journey took. Assuming they went by foot, this journey would have taken approximately 32 hours, or a couple days if one accounts for breaks, meals, and sleeping (estimated time courtesy of Google Maps). Kempe is only allowed to travel with the company to Venice (as the company had previously abandoned her) if she promises to not speak of the Gospel at mealtime but instead make a concerted effort to sit and make merry like everyone else in the company when they are dining. Margery stresses that the company stayed in Venice for thirteen weeks (101). While she is there she again focuses primarily on herself and the religious services she partakes in. In Venice, Margery details that she “received communion every Sunday in a great house of nuns– and was very warmly welcomed amongst them” and she goes on to say she was visited by Jesus Christ, and out of her devotion she wept so much that the nuns were amazed by it (102). Sickness also overtakes Kempe in the latter half of her stay in Venice, where she claims the Lord “made her so ill that she thought she should die” but was made well by Him again (102). As she did in Zierikzee, Margery also preoccupies her narrative with accounts of how poorly her company is treating her. After speaking about the Gospel at a meal as she had promised not to, her company called her out on her broken promise. Margery then claims it is unjust for her to keep her promise because she must speak of her Lord Jesus Christ. She details that after this incident she ate alone for six weeks. Kempe also speaks with distaste for her maidservant, whom she claims “prepared the company’s food and washed their clothes” while failing to attend to Margery, whom the maidservant had made an oath to serve (102).
It appears that in her travels to Venice, and throughout the text in general, Margery’s purpose in recording the information that she does serves to align herself more with God and holy servants of the church (like the nuns) and separate herself as being morally better than the company of pilgrims she is traveling with. When detailing the “great house” of nuns, she describes them as being “good ladies,” but especially stresses that she was “very warmly welcomed” by them and that the nuns were “amazed” by Margery’s devotion to Christ and her tears (102). On the flip-side, when discussing the average pilgrims she is traveling with, she highlights how her maidservant neglects her, and sees her promise to not speak of the Gospel at meals as being unfair and ungodly, stating that she simply “must speak of [her] Lord Jesus Christ, though all this world had forbidden [her]” (102). Claiming the world is forbidding Margery to speak about the Gospel acts as an insult to her company, by framing them as a group of so-called “religious” pilgrims who do not want to hear the Word of God. This insult functions to make them look like hypocrites that do not truly care about Jesus Christ or the Christian religion and religious reasons behind their travels as much as Margery does. By Margery noting that she is welcomed with open arms by the nuns and that they were amazed by her tears, Margery sides herself with women who devote their lives to Christ, and contrasts herself from the anti-Gospel sentiments of her company. It is altogether ironic that Margery is so well received by a nunnery considering she is a woman in the Middle Ages who walks around with no escort wearing white and has over ten children, but nonetheless her description of the nuns accepting her with joy and amazement serves to make her appear very holy. While Margery dictated her text, it was in vernacular language and thus her audience aimed at the lay people. Her descriptions of her travels, such as in Venice, that seek to align her with God and against other pilgrims, help establish her own authority as a female author. Through seeking alignment with God, being accepted by nuns, being compelled to share the Gospel at dinner, claiming to be visited by Jesus Christ and moved to tears, and more, Margery establishes herself as a woman of God. By establishing herself explicitly as a woman of God, Margery makes her opinions and descriptions of visions and locations in the text seem more accurate and “biblical” in and of themselves. In framing herself as beloved by God, she also frames her company of fellow pilgrims as being rather averse to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, making Kempe appear morally superior. Pilgrims were often regarded as insincere and not wholly invested in their religious pilgrimages, and in a way Margery seems to corroborate those stereotypes while also asserting that she is a true pilgrim undertaking her journeys to gain new experiences with Christ. This move of framing herself above her company urges her lay-audience readership to take her words and musings on Christ as being the truth– so she is ultimately providing a religious manifesto of sorts, although it is mainly focused on her personal day-to-day feelings.
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