“All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”
You’ve likely heard these words sometime in the 12 months. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the first UK wide lockdown, I think many have read these words and found comfort in them. They were, as you’ve likely worked out by now, if you didn’t know already, written by the 15th century English author, mystic and anchorite, Julian of Norwich.
And now for a sentence I write far too often on this blog… We know very little of Julian’s life apart from some clues in her writings. Beyond her own words, Julian appears in 3 wills in the late 13th and early 14th centuries; though the anchor hold where she lived has been destroyed, the church it was attached to remains; then finally we have an account of Julian from Margery of Kempe who visited Julian as part of her own venture into mysticism and public religious life.
With some basic maths we can work out the years she lived. She was born sometime between 1342-1343. We know this because she wrote her book in 1373 and records in it her age as being 30 and a half. And we know that she died sometime after 1416 when the last bequest was made to her.
If these dates are correct, we can make some basic assumptions about Julian’s early life. Julian was born and raised in the city of Norwich, where she lived her entire life. Her early childhood, from the ages of 2-5 were likely dominated by the Black Death which devasted the city between 1348-1350. This outbreak killed over half the population and would continue to claim more lives through further outbreaks until 1387. She also would have grown up surrounded by the Christian faith. At this time, Norwich was one of the most religious cities in England. Norwich was home to three separate religious houses, as well as more recluses, hermits, and anchorites. So, Julian grew up surrounded by death and disease on one hand, and a thriving religious scene on the other.
When she was thirty, Julian herself fell ill. The illness was so serious that as Julian lay on her bed surrounded by her family, the curate was called to administer her last rites. It was while she was in the hold of this illness, when her sight began to fail and her body became numb, that Julian received the first of her sixteen visions.
It is not clear whether Julian was already an anchorite at this time or whether she entered her cell and adopted the anchorite life in response to what happened to her. Either way, Julian was housed in the cell at St Julian’s Norwich sometime in the 1370s when her reputation began to grow. While in her cell, Julian dedicated her life to prayer and learning. Whilst undertaking the strict religious duties her role entailed, Julian would have spent time learning about her role, praying for the souls of her community, offering wisdom to those who came to visit her, and undertaking charitable work she could have completed in seclusion, such as the making of clothes. She might even have had a pet cat as this was allowed for company and explains why Julian is often portrayed with her feline friend!
Julian originally wrote about the revelations she received that night on her death bed in a shorter version calledVision Showed to a Devout Woman/Short Textthat has since been lost to history. After this Julian challenged herself to understand the theological implications behind the revelations. With her newfound understanding, she later wrote a new account of her revelations sometime in the early 15th century. This is the copy we have available to us today, commonly known asRevelations of Divine Love.
It is in this text that we see how theologically capable Julian was. We can see a familiarity with the texts of other female mystics on the continent reflected in her work which hints at how well-read she was. She is also able to confidently handle and refer to the Latin Vulgate Bible throughout her work. Beyond this, the entire text speaks to Julian being“a master of rhetorical art as to merit comparison with Geoffrey Chaucer”as described by College and Walsh, the 19778 translators of Julian’sRevelations.
In her work, Julian combines her feminine perspective of faith, theology and spirituality, whilst simultaneously speaking into some of the contemporary theological discussions that were taking place across the Western Church at this time. Using her mystical experience as a launching pad, Julian grapples with the main ideas of Christian theology; creation, the nature of humanity, the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sin, grace, life, the Church and the world to come. However, one of the most striking aspects of her writing is her insistence on referring to God as Mother.
The idea and theology behind thinking of God as Mother, though less obviously recognisable to Christians today, is part of a long tradition rooted in Biblical texts like Isaiah 66 and Matthew 23:37. It was a theology explored by the Church Fathers and was something of a theological trend when Julian was writing. For Julian, seeing God as both Father and Mother helps her to fully grasp and portray her understanding of the trinity. She refers to God as Mother, and describes the motherhood of God, more than his fatherhood, not because she thinks the former is more important than the latter, but simply because this is an image she understands better and can relate to and describe more easily. It is obvious to the reader that God as Mother plays a large part in Julian’s spirituality. In her prayers, she cries out“My kind Mother, my gracious Mother, my beloved Mother, have mercy on me”. Yet, a J. Leclercq writes:
“In no way does she wish to substitute the idea of motherhood of God for that of his fatherhood; she wants to unite them. She works for an integration of all that is best of what we can conceive and experience of God. This theological synthesis is the result of her own psychological, spiritual and mystical integration.”
Though Julian received some public and widespread renown during her life, after her death both she and her writings came dangerously close to being forgotten. In 1670 Serenus de Cressy, a confessor for the English nuns at Cambrai, published herRevelationsunder a new title for the benefit of the nuns in his care. A couple of these copies survived, but Julian remained on the border of obscurity. This edition was reprinted 3 times in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it wasn’t until Grace Warrack’s 1901 modernised edition that interest in Julian was revived. Scholars quickly recognised the importance of Julian’sRevelationsas a theological work in its own right as well as important to the literary canon of religious female writings.
Today, with multiple editions and translations of her work available, we can enjoy her teaching. As Leclercq says:
“Her teaching is timeless, meeting some of the urgent needs of those seeking God in our age, answering many of the crucial problems of spiritual development and contemplative consciousness.”
Julian would have been pleased to see this revival of her work take place, though not for her own sense of pride and achievement. As she wrote: “I would to God it were known, and my fellow Christians helped on to loathing of sin and loving of God. This sight [her revelations] was shown for all the world.”With this in mind, I’d like to close with a quote from the last chapter of Julian’sRevelations:
“I desired many times to know our Lord’s meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said:
What, do you wish to know our Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, Love was his meaning.
Who reveals it to you? Love.
What did he reveal to you? Love.
Why does he reveal it to you? For Love.
Remain in this, and you will know more of the same.
But you will never know different, without end.
So I was taught that Love is our Lord’s meaning. And I saw very certainly in this and in everything that before God made us, he loved us, which Love was never abated and never shall be.”
– Julian of Norwich,Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 86.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Herbert, 09/04/1932 – 20/02/2021. Kathleen was my step-grandmother and, though I only got to know her for a few years, we had many similar interests on which we built a friendship. I enjoyed talking with her, even though she would always insist I must have something better to do than to listen to her! Kathleen was a great example and encouragement to me in my Christian life. While I’m not sure she was ever aware of this, she helped me understand that I could marry my love of God with my love of learning, and did not have to give up one for the other – instead I could use them to inform each other! After she passed, my Step-Mum sent me a Lent Devotional based on Julian of Norwich that was originally intended for Kathleen, so writing about Julian today seemed a fitting tribute for all Kathleen taught me.
Image shows the statue of Julian of Norwich on the West Front ofNorwich Cathedral, made by the sculptor David Holgate in 2014.
For further reading: Sheila Upjohn, The Way of Julian of Norwich: A Prayer Journey Through Lent; Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (with preface from Jean Leclercq), Julian of Nowich: Showings; Diane Watt, Medieval Women’s Writing; Katharina M. Wilson, Medieval Women Writers.
