Believed to have occurred around May 1373, Julian's revelations came during an illness so severe her family thought she was dying. She recovered and spent decades writing and revising 'Revelations of Divine Love,' a work of profound theological reflection that survives as the earliest surviving book in the English language known to have been written by a woman.
Julian, an anchoress who lived in a small cell attached to St Julian's Church in Norwich, recorded sixteen visions she experienced over several hours while near death from illness, likely in her early thirties. She later spent roughly twenty years expanding her initial short account into the longer text now known as 'Revelations of Divine Love,' wrestling theologically with the nature of suffering, sin, and God's love.
Her most famous line, 'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,' has echoed through Christian devotional literature for over six centuries. As an anchoress, she lived in voluntary enclosure, walled into a small room attached to the church, receiving visitors through a window while dedicating her life to prayer and contemplation. Her work remained obscure for centuries until being rediscovered and celebrated in the twentieth century as a landmark of English mystical literature and a rare surviving female voice from medieval England.
Key people: Julian of Norwich