Julian of Norwich

Background

Julian of Norwich, sometimes referred to as “Dame Julian,” “Julian,” or “Mother Julian,” was an English mystic who lived at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. The circumstances of her early life are shrouded in mystery, but it is believed that in or about 1373, she suffered a very serious illness from which she miraculously recovered. It has been conjectured that she may have been married and had children prior to becoming a mystic and anchoress. Visions that she experienced in the course of her illness, many of which involved Jesus’ Passion, radically changed her life and led her to become an anchoress enclosed in a single-room cell attached to the church of St. Julian in Norwich. There were two windows in her cell. One was a small window onto the street, from which Julian could converse and provide spiritual direction (which she did for many individuals including, most famously, Margery Kempe); the other window permitted her to witness...