ABSTRACT
If there’s one thing wannabe-saint Margery Kempe can do well, it’s hobnob with biblical types. Margery makes it a priority to be seen at all the best spiritual parties. In one of her earliest visions, she inserts herself into the Nativity scene as a dutiful helpmate to the Virgin and her baby. 1 She procures lodgings in Bethlehem, begs for food and cloth, and even swaddles the Christ Child. So doing, Margery takes on the role of the handmaid or midwife that assists at Christ’s birth, an apocryphal figure that was nevertheless a main-stay of Nativity iconography. As with most elements in Margery’s career as a holy woman, though, she’s got some stiff competition in the child-care arena. In a vision, Ida of Louvain goes one further, and bathes the infant Christ. Drying him off, Ida plays with him ‘familiarly in motherly fashion’ (‘materno more familiariter’). 2 In fact, her maternal attachment is so strong that she refuses the Virgin Mary’s request for her to hand back the child, leading to a farcical wrestling match between the pair.
