Mothers, Mystics, and Merrymakers: Medieval Women Pilgrims

Description: Surveys "some of the many roles played and influences exerted by women in the practice of medieval pilgrimage," considering literary texts and cultural contexts from the fall of Rome until Margery Kempe and the Paston women in the fifteenth century. References to Canterbury and to Chaucer recur throughout, with one chapter dedicated to discussion of the "wayward, over-experienced" Wife of Bath and the "corrupted innocence" of the Prioress as examples of Chaucer's efforts to expose contemporary corruption.