Julian of Norwich


	Little is known about Julian of Norwich, a close contemporary of Chaucer’s – not even her name (“Julian” was the name of the church at which she was an anchoress). Unlike Kempe, Julian wrote her text, Revelations of Divine Love, exclusively about her vision and religious meditations, not about her life. Following her vision, which occurred during a bout of illness, Julian withdrew from the world to a cell attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich.
Her version of Christianity is notable for its joyfulness, and also for its androgynized Jesus. Like other female mystics of the time, Julian interpreted Christianity in a more explicitly woman-friendly way than did her male contemporaries. Female mystics often emphasized the role of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Mother of God, or dwelled on Mary Magdalene’s importance as a thirteenth disciple, or attributed stereotypically feminine qualities to God or Jesus. In addition to blurring gender distinctions within the deity, female mystics of the Middle Ages often experienced their relationship with God in sexual terms. Both elements are apparent in Julian’s quotation of God: **I am the goodness of the fatherhood; I am the wisdom of the motherhood. I am the light and the grace that is all blessed love.** I am the trinity. I am the unity. I am the goodness of all manner of things. I am the one who makes you love. I am the one that makes you yearn. I am the endless fulfilling of all true desires.

Julian also tended to find specific physical metaphors from daily life to explain her religious insights. The most famous of these is her explanation of the immensity of God – compared to him, she says, all of creation is the size of a hazelnut.