Heritagizing Margery Kempe on the Camino Inglés
摘要
Margery Kempe is the only fifteenth-century English woman who left an account of her pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. She is constructed as an intangible heritage resource on the route she followed, the Camino Inglés (English Way). This article studies two recent heritage items that commemorate Kempe’s pilgrimage, with particular attention paid to how they depict her racial and religious identity. A fundamental question it explores is the relationship between medievalism and the current construction of the Camino as an inclusive, welcoming space for walkers and tourists of various nationalities, races, religions, and genders. These two heritage items depict Kempe’s Catholicism implicitly rather than overtly, creating room for various readings of her identity. Ultimately, I argue that these secularized Kempe depictions accommodate multifaceted tourism on the Camino Inglés; nonetheless, the insistent medievalism of the Camino currently limits its racial and religious inclusivity.