ABSTRACT
Very little is known about Julian of Norwich, not even her baptismal name. She was born in 1342. On 8 or 13 May 1373, when aged thirty, she experienced a series of visions as she lay dying, followed by a miraculous recovery. She wrote two accounts of this experience, one almost at once and another up to twenty years later. (But see Watson 1993 for a different view.) Before 1413 she became an anchoress at St Julian’s Church, Norwich, from which she may have taken her name in religion. She was still alive in 1416, when a will of that year left her a bequest, but was dead by 1426 when another will refers to the male recluse at St Julian’s.
