Welling Up: Women and Water in the Middle Ages
New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes looks at male fears and why Margery Kempe was criticised for crying and bleeding. Recorded at the Free Thinking Festival Sage Gateshead.
Hetta Howes looks at male fears and why Margery Kempe was criticised for crying and bleeding
Medieval mystic Margery Kempe's excessive, noisy crying made her travelling companions so irritated that they wanted to throw her overboard, while others accused her of being possessed by the devil. But Kempe believed she was using her tears as a way to connect with God, turning the medieval connection between women and water into a form of bodily empowerment and a holy sign. New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, from City, University of London, explores the connections between medieval women and water.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by 成人快手 Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival.
Producer: Luke Mulhall.
Last on
More episodes
Previous
You are at the first episode
Broadcast
- Mon 12 Mar 2018 22:45成人快手 Radio 3
Featured in...
![]()
New Generation Thinkers—Free Thinking
From prison breaks to VR dinosaurs: insights from the AHRC & 成人快手's scheme for academics.
![]()
Arts
Creativity, performance, debate
Free Thinking Festival 2018
Leading thinkers come together to debate and share new ideas, music and performance.
Death in Trieste
A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.
Watch: My Deaf World
Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Download The Essay
Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.
Podcast
-
![]()
The Essay
Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
