Margery Kempe was born around 1373 in Bishops Lynn, England. Even though of the wealthy class, she was never taught to read or write.
Sometime during her youth, Margery committed a "secret sin" of which she never mentions in detail. This sin so consumed her early life that she was afraid to confess to a priest.
Margery married around 1393 at the age of 20 to John Kempe, a successful merchant and a public official. Soon after the birth of thier first child, Margery attempted suicide and entered a period of intense self-examination. She found solitude in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem between the years 1413-1415. The pilgrimage to the Holy Land involved intense crying spells and meditation, which tried the patience of her fellow travelers.
Margery and John spent their later years traveling around England from trial to trial, defending her from accusations of heresy. Between 1431 and 1436, Margery transcribed her adventures to two scribes who faithfully recorded her journal. The last documentation of Margery's life was in 1438.
Brief Itinerary: Margery began her pilgrimage in the autumn of 1413 from her hometown of Kings Lynn, (in what is today Norfolk County) England. At Yarmouth, Margery booked passage along with a small travel group of travel companions to the Netherlands and German Empire, following the Rhine Valley. The group then stopped in Venice, Italy, for a stay lasting several months while they waited to board the ship that was to take them to the Holy Land. The group boarded ship and traveled southward along the Dalmatian Coast, west through the Greek Archipelago, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, and arrived in Joffa, the port city of Jerusalem about a month later.
Margery never revealed how long she stayed in Jerusalem. She was determined to go on to Rome after her stay. The return voyage to Europe was of the same route, docking in Venice. Taking up a male escort, Margery left her traveling companions and set out on foot from Venice to Chioggia southwards through Ravenna and Rimini to Pesarro, then inland over the mountains to Assisi and finally reaching Rome in the summer of 1414.
In April of 1415, Margery decided to travel back to England. She does not record what her travel route was taken on her trip home, but she arrived in Zealand, probably crossing the Alps, following the Rhine Valley roads. She arrived in Norwich, England and then arrived safely in Lynn in the fall of 1415.
