Artist lecture: Leigh Ann Craig, PhD, 11/19/09

I attended Dr. Craig's lecture titled "From Holy Matrons to the Sine Sensu: Nine Medieval Women, Pilgrimage, and the Negotiation of Boundaries in Later Medieval Europe." Dr. Craig's lecture dealt with material from her recent book titled "Wandering Women and Holy Matrons: Women as Pilgrims in the Later Middle Ages." She discussed nine women from Medieval European history that went on pilgrimages and the negotiations with their husbands that they had to endure in order to be granted permission in order to attend these pilgrimages. Dr. Craig explained that women were expected to stay home and care for their husbands and children and provide sex to their husband so as to help their husbands avoid sinning by engaging in sexual relations with a woman other than his wife.

One particular story she shared was of a woman named Margery Kempe (1373-1438) who is most famous for the fact that she wrote what is considered the first autobiography in the English language. Her autobiography titled "The Book of Margery Kempe" went into great detail about the pilgrimages she took throughout her life. For her first pilgrimage she had to negotiate with her husband in order to have his permission for her to travel without him. After what she considered a conversation with Jesus Christ, she asked that they have a celibate marriage, even though they had already engaged in sexual relations, asked that she be able to fast on Fridays and go on the pilgrimage. He of course told her in order for her to go on the pilgrimage, she must continue to engage in a sexual relationship with him, eat and drink with him on Fridays, pay his social debts and then he'd grant her permission. All she got out of the deal was the ability to go on the pilgrimage in exchange for paying his social debts and giving up a celibate marriage and fasting on Fridays.

The lecture revolved around eight similar women and their stories of how they attained permission to go on pilgrimages, including one woman named Christina Coppir who was forced to go on a pilgrimage by her husband because six days after they married, she became possessed by the devil.