Revelations of Divine Love

Introduction

Julian, whose own name is unknown, lived as an anchoress enclosed in a cell at St Julian’s Church in Norwich. She received her visions during a severe illness in May 1373, at the age of thirty, and wrote them down twice: a short text, probably within a few years, and a long text of 86 chapters, which adds the parable of the lord and the servant. It is usually described as the earliest surviving book in English known to be by a woman. Her theology of a God in whom there is no wrath, and of Christ as mother, became widely known only through modern editions; T. S. Eliot quoted “all shall be well” in “Little Gidding” (1942).