Book Review: The Book of Merla Meadows

Title: The Book of Merla Meadows

Author: R.C. Mogo

Quote: "It was  a dark secret to doubt their people--the Catari..."

The Catari, or Cathari, or Cathars, were one of several Christian dissenters that were stamped out by the Catholic Church before the Reformation. They were neither Catholics nor Protestants but I'm not sure whether Mogo is justified in saying their beliefs were "fundamentally at odds with Christianity." They did teach that celibacy was more virtuous than marriage, that abstinence from any kind of pleasure was more virtuous than enjoyment, but so, at that period, did the Catholic Church. Their "heresies" were, from what I've read, which isn't enough, more a matter of theology; specifically, they didn't think the Pope was infallible and did think that adhering to the vows they took would make them "perfect." 

The Lollards were a different sect, in England, less distinctive, more easily suppressed, and more easily forgotten. 

Margery Kempe was an interesting historical character in England. She was called a Lollard, but denied being one. She is remembered for writing (more strictly speaking, dictating) a book in the extravagant theological language of her time, which is likely to impress modern students as evidence of religious mania. She was just a bit heretical: she dressed all in white, which was seen as pretending to be a nun while married, and preached and prayed as if she believed she was a saint. She always claimed to hate sex, though she seems to have had rather a lot of it; after producing more than a dozen legitimate children she petitioned for permission to take a vow of celibacy and go on pilgrimage in Europe, but on her pilgrimage she somehow or other became pregnant again. Given contemporary attitudes toward women, I find it just barely plausible that Margery wanted to go on pilgrimage just to catch her breath in between births and may have been raped while on that pilgrimage. She dictated a book about her spiritual life and the opposition she met from male authoritarians. How many children she had, altogether, and how her life ended, are unknown; there were at least fourteen children and she lived more than sixty years, from the early 1370s to at least the late 1430s..

Now you're prepared, more or less, to read this short "novella" intended to motivate you to buy more novels the author has written about Margery Kempe's children. Very little is actually known about them. In this novella James Kempe meets an English girl called Merla Meadows whose parents joined the Cathars in Italy, who is not sure what she believes but is sure she wants to enjoy life and not take the Cathar vows of abstinence even from most foods. (The Cathars practiced extreme frugality, probably to support themselves in the face of social persecution.) The Cathars don't want to lose the precious soul of a young virgin (who would be obligated, of course, to care for the elders in an aging community) and punish her for even dreaming of going back to England with James Kempe, so harshly that James feels he has no alternative to taking her back to England. 

I don't think it's especially well written, and observe that most historians judge the Cathars less harshly than Mogo seems to do, but after all Mogo seems to have seen the Cathars first through the censorious eyes of Margery Kempe. The historical story is interesting. I'd like to know how much of this fictional series is based on facts, even the biased reporting of facts by a well-known eccentric like Kempe or, well, just about any of her contemporaries, before I read more of the fiction. If this chapter of history interests you (and it's said to interest enough people to generate major tourist attractions in Europe), you might want the whole series.