GARDNER­WEBB UNIVERSITY

JULIAN OF NORWICH

SUBMITTED TO PROF. S. STEIBEL
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF CHRISTIAN JOURNEY

BY 
SAMUEL B HARRELSON
11 FEBRUARY 2009
 Julian of Norwich’s work, Showings, should not be viewed in a vacuum of time and
space. Rather, her work should be approached with an understanding of the particular
context in which she lived and worked. Relegating this background material obfuscates
the text to an entity of purely spiritual, rather than practical, reflection and instruction,
which doesn’t allow for the text to adequately represent its worth.
Julian was born in November of 1342 during what can only be described as a chaotic
time in the history of Western Europe. Fourteenth century England was especially being
pulled and pushed by a torrent of change and upheaval. Following the relative calm of
the previous two centuries, the feudal system had firmly established itself as the norm of
life in England. However, the Great Famine of 1315-1317 started a chain reaction of
events that would pay out during the next century and have irrevocable consequences for
church and politics in England. Following an unseasonably wet Spring and Summer in
1315 followed by unseasonable temperatures, the agricultural rhythm of England and
most of Western Europe was upended. Hunger, crime, infanticide and even cannibalism
were occurrences around the continent and severely challenged the claims of the then-
dominant Catholic Church that put a premium on the providence of God.
Coupled with this horrendous famine of biblical proportions, a new and lethal threat
swept through Europe and England in the mid fourteenth century (when Julian was a
young girl of approximately ten years old), which would be called the black plague. This
outbreak of bubonic plague would go on to further cut the population of Europe and
England by more than half, and further lower population numbers after the Great Famine.
These two events would prove not only disastrous in terms of human capital but they
would also contribute to the growing challenges against the political and religious
structures that would play themselves out during the lifetime of Julian in the fourteenth
century. Due to the decreased population following the Great Famine and the outbreak of
the plague during Julian’s early years, there was a growing concern over the inability of
the churches in local situations to supply aid or answers to suffering congregants. As a
result, the pre-reformation movement known as Lollardy (or the Lollards) became a
serious threat to the Catholic establishment in England. This movement sought to cast
aside notions such as transubstantiation, the prohibition against the use of vernacular in
worship and Bible translation, the baptism of infants, the heavy education of clergy and
the hierarchical nature of the Church itself. Throughout Julian’s life, this Lollard
movement would infuse itself into the religious and political life of England and combine
with a lower population to bring about the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 when revolutionaries
infused by Lollardy and a deeper sense of workers’ rights sought to bargain with the King
of England for better working, living and legal conditions for those not of the aristocratic
class.
While Julian does not directly mention this chaotic background context of fourteenth
century England, her work’s abounding optimism and notions of love for all of humanity
and creation are even more astounding given this political, societal and religious strife
going on all around her. This theme of optimism flows throughout the recorded visions
in the Showings. Over and above all of the other streams of theology, philosophy and
mysticism, Julian’s constant optimistic emphasis on the love that God has for all of
humanity and the creation and the results of this (ultimate victory over and through
suffering) can be seen as the main theme of the work. This is most evident in Julian’s
refrain that “All is well” as in Chapter 31’s:

“I may make all things well, I can make all things well, I will make all things
well, and I shall make all things well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of
things shall be well.”

To have such an optimistic message about the love of God during a time of so much
suffering and discord is extraordinary. Unfortunately, what we know about the person of
Julian is only available through the words of Showings. We know when she was born and
when she had her onset of illness at age 30. She begins the Showings with the self-
identification (with a self-deprecation based on the rhetorical tool often employed by
philosophers and other writers such as Chaucer):

“These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered, the year of our
Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May.”
 We also know the approximate date of when she felt as if she had processed the
visions that lay behind the text of the Showings and when she decided to expand the text
of Showings to include more theological reflections than the work she published shortly
after her visions (1393) some twenty years later.
We can see the development of her personal theology during these decades by the
subtle and abrupt changes and alterations that separate the two texts across time and
distance. However, her main themes (optimism of God’s love, God’s caring for all
creation, the redemptive suffering through Jesus’ suffering and blood, and God’s ability to
make amends for our sins through God’s own actions in history) remain true to both
versions of Showings and are all combined in the rich language of mysticism of the texts.

“He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep
them without end.”

“Here saw I a great oneing betwixt Christ and us, to mine understanding: for
when He was in pain, we were in pain.” Chapter 8

“That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in
all things and I shall make all things well.” Chapter 32

One of the themes of Julian that has been popular in the modern era is her interesting
and authentic expression of the Trinity’s love and care for humanity by connecting Christ
to a mother figure. In chapter 59, she writes:

“As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He
in all.”

Rather than being a completely feminist take on God, Julian is uplifting the entirety of the
Trinity’s existence as best as she can in the metaphor of humanity. Again, her use of this
language is consistent with her overarching creative expression of the need for humanity
to accept and realize God’s love for all of creation in order that we may find redemption
in times of suffering as Jesus did when he suffered on the cross (as she makes clear in the
first half of Showings).
In my opinion, Julian’s complete story of hopeful revelation and her life of living in
self-imposed solitary confinement in the midst of a century of turbulence can be summed
up by her tale of the hazelnut found in chapter 5:

And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut , lying in the
palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it
with the eye of my understanding, and thought, 'What may this be?' And it was
answered generally thus,'It is all that is made.' I marvelled how it might last, for I
thought it might suddenly have fallen to nought for littleness. And I was answered
in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all
things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second
that he loves it. And the third, that God keeps it. But what is this to me? Truly, the
Creator, the Keeper, the Lover. For until I am substantially oned to him, I may
never have full rest nor true bliss. That is to say, until I be so fastened to him that
there is nothing that is made between my God and me.

The three properties of the hazelnut which Julian are made privy to along with her
unending fascination and explanation of how this seemingly small mundane object itself
can encapsulate the great love that God has for the creation is a fitting tribute to her
invocation and invitation for all of her readers to experience the rich and complex love of
God on such a mystical level.