Julian of Norwich

English anchoress and mystic, c. 1342–c. 1416. We do not know her birth name. "Julian" comes from the church of St Julian in Norwich, in whose anchorage she lived for decades. In May 1373, at thirty years old and gravely ill, she received sixteen "showings" — vivid visions of Christ on the cross — over a single day and night. She recovered, wrote down a short account of what she had seen, then spent twenty years contemplating it before composing the long version of *Revelations of Divine Love* — the first book written in English by a woman. She lived enclosed in a small cell attached to the church, with a window onto the street where she counseled visitors (Margery Kempe was one). The Black Death had killed roughly half the population of Norwich; she was writing inside that grief. Core teaching: God is our mother as much as our father. Sin is *behovely* — necessary, in some way we cannot now see — and yet all shall be well. Love was God's meaning. Look no further. Key works: *Revelations of Divine Love* (also called *A Book of Showings*), in two versions — the *Short Text* and the much longer *Long Text*.