Julian of Norwich

LIFE

--b. 1342 (plague year)

--Benedictine nun

--anchoress in cell attached to St. Julian's church (three windows)

--visions at age 30 (1373)

--Margery Kemp visited her for advice

A BOOK OF SHOWINGS

--short and long versions extant

--visions only once

--15 years of meditations on the visions

--influenced by Walter Hilton, letters of St. Catherine of Siena, and anonymous Cloud of Unknowing

--written 20 years after visions

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

--Peasant Revolt in 1381

--Pope in Avignon (France)

--Wycliffites burned half a mile from St. Julian's Church

MARGERY KEMPE

c. 1373 - 1438

--wife of prominent citizen

--mother of 14 children

--The Book of Margery Kempe (autobiography) known only in excerpts until 1934 when whole book was discovered.

--may be first autobiography in English

--public disfavor for her loud weeping

--traveled abroad as a pilgrim

INSPIRATION