"Clad in flesch and Blood": The Sartorial Body and Female Self-Fashioning in The Book of Margery Kempe
This article examines how the engagement with textiles and textile-craft in The Book of Margery Kempe facilitates the performance of Margery's female religious identity. Drawing on the fundamental precepts of performance theory, the article responds to recent scholarly interest in the manifesta...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Penn State Univ. Press
[2019]
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| In: |
Journal of medieval religious cultures
Year: 2019, Volume: 45, Issue: 1, Pages: 29-60 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality CD Christianity and Culture KAF Church history 1300-1500; late Middle Ages KCD Hagiography; saints NBE Anthropology NBJ Mariology |
| Further subjects: | B
Women
B Gender Identity B Imitation in literature B Clothing B Pilgrimages B Iconography B Religious Identity B Semiotics B Textile industry B Textiles |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article examines how the engagement with textiles and textile-craft in The Book of Margery Kempe facilitates the performance of Margery's female religious identity. Drawing on the fundamental precepts of performance theory, the article responds to recent scholarly interest in the manifestations of material devotional culture and the performative body. It first maps out the charged theological significations of textiles and their subsequent transformative potential. Then, it examines how Margery finds an active tool in "fabrics of devotion" in the form of saintly relics, images, and garments themselves, and how Margery's adoption of white garb refashions her body in the image of a saintly matrilineage. It concludes that interaction with Bridgettine visual and material objects supplies Margery with a new Marian iconography, which allows her to perform a double imitatio, weaving together the thread of her own life into the rich tapestry of archetypal holy women. |
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| ISSN: | 2153-9650 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of medieval religious cultures
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5325/jmedirelicult.45.1.0029 |