Julian of Norwich was born in 1343, “and almost certainly lived until after 1416, when she would have been 73.” (Beer, Women and Mystical Experience, 130) Her theological works were decidedly optimistic, arguing that God loved everyone deeply and equally, and the spirit of these works is best reflected in one of her most popular sayings: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” (Poet Seers)
Although a number of exceptional women stand out in the Middle and Early Modern ages as political or military leaders – Eleanor of Aquitaine, participating in the Second Crusade, or Inés Suárez, the Spanish conquistadora – most women at this time had few opportunities outside of the home or the convent. Julian experienced a series of 16 revelations at about the age of thirty, during an illness, which were to be the basis for her writings. After her revelations, Julian chose to enter the convent life, and joined the Church of St. Julian as an anchoress (Beer, Women, 130).
Her Theological Significance: The "Motherhood of God" Philosophy
Unlike her contemporaries Hildegard of Bingen and Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich did not draw on the courtly love imagery that was culturally popular at the time. However, she does draw on many contemporary and historical theological ideas in her writing. And, like Hildegard and Mechthild, she also reflects gender roles as they were at the time, particularly in the form of modesty. She refers to herself, countless times, as an unworthy sinner or wretch. Yet, she also sticks up for herself and womankind when she asks: “Ought I to believe, simply because I am a woman, that I should not tell you of God’s goodness?” (Beer, Julian of Norwich, 33) Historian Frances Beer posits, in respect to the female mystics of this period, that “despite their assertions of inadequacy, their voices exude authority.” (Beer, Women, 161)
Julian of Norwich’s voice exudes so much authority that she remains today one of the most popularly quoted female mystics. Her “motherhood of God” philosophy, in particular, continues to be important to modern theology. In this philosophy, long repressed by male ecclesiastical figures as mere metaphor, Julian focuses on God’s fatherly and motherly traits, echoing early Church Fathers almost a millennium after their deaths. She claims, “I beheld the working of all the blessed trinity, in which I saw and understood these three properties – of fatherhood, of motherhood, and of lordship – in one God.” (Beer, Julian, 61-62)
It is in this philosophy of the motherhood of God that Julian of Norwich is so unique. Since the fifth century, this had been unthinkable, and God had always been masculine. God was always a he, and it was ever God the Father and God the Son. Church leaders and historians, up until about the 1970s, viewed Julian’s ideas condescendingly as metaphor in order to maintain the status quot. Only recently has this philosophy been looked at in an egalitarian, and more objective, light.
The Revelations of Divine Love
The Revelations of Divine Love, for which Julian of Norwich is best known, also attests to the equality between human beings. According to Beer, “the message of the revelations is that we are always protected and kept secure by the absolute power of divine love. And this is a love that is wholly egalitarian: in Julian’s understanding there is no hierarchy.” (Beer, Women, 134-135) Even Hell, in Julian's opinion, hides behind it some aspect of God's loving kindness.
In her revelations, Julian watches the Passion of Christ play out before her eyes, and is granted a one-on-one audience with Jesus. She is briefly filled with doubt, but she overcomes it. And eventually she comes to understand not only the nature of sin, but the nature of God’s divine, eternal, and unconditional love for all things created, man and woman and everything else. In Julian’s understanding, this unconditional love is more motherly than it is fatherly, but she would not feel confident enough to voice this explicitly until her later years.
Background and Life
Despite all the popularity and influence of her writings, little is known about Julian as a person. “Julian apparently had none of the outspoken, defiant qualities of Hildegard or Mechthild,” (Beer, Women, 160) and she is modest to the historian’s detriment. In fact, there is almost nothing known of her outside of what she tells us of herself in her writings – and she tells us very little.
Nevertheless, she was still an influential figure in the Catholic Church’s story and a brilliant theologian of the Middle Ages. Her work was significant when first written and circulated, and is still significant today, where it is quoted regularly in academic texts and analyzed professionally by historians and theologians both.
Through her revelations, Julian of Norwich is given a voice: a voice that women did not often have in this era. Beer says of Julian, and the other female mystics that were her contemporaries, that “they transcended the man-made restrictions of their societies, found magnificent emotional fulfillment in the love of God, rejoiced in the creation in all its potential glory as the image of its loving creator – and compromised their womanhood not one whit.” (Women, 161) An appropriate conclusion to which one might only add of Julian that her influence in her own time was commendable, especially for a woman, and that her theological philosophies survive through and have been debated through the ages, retaining their historical and theological significance even today.
Sources
Beer, Frances. Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love and the Motherhood of God. D.S. Brewer: New York, 1999.
Beer, Frances. Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages. Boydell Press: Rochester, NY, 1992.
Poet Seers. "Julian of Norwich Sayings." <http://www.poetseers.org/spiritual_and_devotional_poets/christian/julian/julianp>, cited December 12, 2008.
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