Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life and Revelations of Julian of Norwich by Veronica Mary Rolf (review)

Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth-century mystic and the first identified woman author in the English language, has come into her own. Her Showings—a Middle English text describing a series of visions she received as well as her later theological reflection on their meaning—was largely ignored by theologians and the ecclesiastical community until the twentieth century and the burgeoning interest in Christian spirituality. (It was, in fact, Julian’s Showings, also known as the Revelations of Divine Love, which launched the Paulist Press “Classics of Western Spirituality” series in 1976.) After centuries of relative obscurity, the spirituality audience has become particularly enamored with the Showings, and a growing number of titles from a wide range of academics, religious, and lay writers have been released about Julian’s work. The latest in this series of books is the provocatively-titled Julian’s Gospel (2013), a meaty work which treats Julian’s historical, social, and religious context, attempts to reconstruct Julian’s life, and provides a comprehensive commentary to the Showings. Researched and written by a professional dramatist and independent scholar of medieval studies, Julian’s Gospel is a passionate work with much to offer and admire; at the same time, there are some caveats about the work that cannot be overlooked.

Part I (“Julian’s Life”) introduces the broader context of late medieval Norwich as the setting for Julian’s life and text. It is important to recognize that very little is known about Julian herself, either from her text or from other contemporary documents. We know that she received a number of visions (on May 13, 1373, at age 30) and that her mother was alive at the time of her illness. We further know that Julian adopted the anchoritic life, an eremitical vocation with particular features in late medieval England. Julian’s visions are found in a shorter text (possibly composed shortly after her visionary experiences), and a longer text (written years later) which also includes extended reflection on her visions. In short, we know few precise details about the author. Rolf treats a broad array of cultural and historical factors in Part I, and her discussion paints a colorful portrait of late medieval life. The author’s intention is not simply to illumine the socio-historical context in which the Showings were born, but to attempt credible conjectures about Julian’s life. Part I excels in the former, but is potentially problematic in the latter. As a comprehensive introduction to late medieval England, this material can be useful to first-time readers of the Showings. However, some scholars might be concerned with the assumptions the book assays; for example, it argues that Julian could not have been an aristocrat because her writing shows “no sense of social superiority or elitism toward common people” (46), that young Julian “would have listened to the arguments in her household between scholars and businessmen discussing the resurgent neo-Platonic ideas of Greek and Latin writers” (93), and that Julian’s Jesus-as-mother language could not have been penned by a “cloistered nun” (101). Such conjectures, offered in modal language (might, would, could), are subsequently accepted as given facts about Julian, and by the narrative’s end, her social class, parentage, childhood, education, husband, and adult household are reconstructed with an amount of detail which scholars might find alarming. Certainly, Rolf’s impulse is understandable: Julian’s writing invites the reader intimately into her text, and we want to know who she is. It is not surprising that Rolf the dramatist should seek to set the stage for Julian’s Showings, nor is Rolf alone in attempting to discern the author behind the text. Ultimately, however, the real Julian is still hidden from history.

Julian’s Gospel finds its strength and its most compelling voice in Part II (“Julian’s Revelations”). Rolf guides the reader into Julian’s text and demonstrates how her...