In our time

A recent edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’ featured, as an expert guest, Professor Anthony Bale from Birkbeck, University of London (English & Humanities).

The discussion centred on England’s medieval mystic Margery Kemp. The figure of Kemp has been a lynchpin of Anthony Bale’s recent research, resulting in the publication of his lively translation of Kemp’s writing: The Book of Margery Kemp’ (OUP 2015).

In the book’s accompanying editorial commentary Bale brings fresh insights into the extraordinary life of this proto-eminist pilgrim and pioneering travel writer. Critically acclaimed internationally, the book is record of popular religion, women’s spirituality and pilgrimage practices. It vividly conveys the vitality and vivacity of late medieval European and Middle Eastern cultures captured in a female gaze.

• BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’. Margery Kempe and English Mysticism.
• First broadcast: 2 Jun 2016. Listen again at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cyfkg.

Anthony Bale is currently leading a network of international scholars as part of a Leverhulme-funded research project (2016-18) called Pilgrim libraries: books and reading on the medieval routes to Jerusalem & Rome.

Professor Anthony Bale

Author: ubapin002

Administrator (Network Facilitator)

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