The influence of Dorothea von Montau on the mysticism of Margery Kempe

This investigation examines the influence of Dorothea von Montau, the patroness of Prussia and the Teutonic Knights, on the mysticism of Margery Kempe.

Dorothea was born near Danzig in Prussia in 1347, married in 1363, and after her husband's death in 1391 moved to Marienwerder where she lived as Prussia's first anchoress until her death in 1394. To secure her speedy canonization, her confessor, the Dominican canon Johannes von Marienwerder, between 1395 and 1400 wrote a series of Latin accounts of Dorothea's life, visions, and revelations for the papal legates in charge of the canonization inquiry. For the local populace and the Teutonic Knights he prepared a vernacular spiritual biography, which in 1492 furnished the text for the first book to be printed in Prussia.

The life and spiritual career of Margery Kempe of Lynn, as they are described in The Book of Margery Kempe, bear such a striking resemblance to the life of Dorothea, as it is recorded in Johannes von Marienwerder's vernacular biography Des Leben der zeliqen frawen Dorothee clewsenerynne in der thumkyrchen czu Marienwerdir des landes czu Prewszen, as to raise the question of whether Margery knew about Dorothea and consciously or unconsciously patterned her own mysticism on Dorothea's example.

The focus of this study, a close textual analysis of both The Book of Margery Kempe and Des Leben der zeliqen frawen Dorothee clewsenerynne in der thumkyrchen czu Marienwerdir des landes czu Prewszen, establishes the probability of Dorothea's haviag served as an important model and inspiration for Margery Kempe, and of Johannes Marienwerder's biography's having influenced the pattern and content of Margery's own spiritual autobiography. The close mercantile ties which Lynn and Danzig enjoyed under the auspices of the Hanseatic League, Margery's life-long association with Germans and her abiding interest in German affairs, and her visit to Danzig in her later years indicate the channels through which Dorothea's influence could have reached Margery.

This investigation concludes that Margery was probably familiar both with Johannes von Marienwerder's popular vernacular biography and with the many accounts of Dorothea's miracles which circulated in Danzig and throughout Prussia after her death. It also concludes that the style and content of The Book of Margery Kempe, which differ so greatly from those of the writings of other English mystics, are indebted to the accounts of continental female mystics and especially to Johannes von Marienwerder's vernacular spiritual biography of Prussia's first recluse, Dorothea von Montau.