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JULIAN'S WEB:

THE SHOWING OF LOVE'S STRUCTURE



 irst this editor of Julian met with resistance over the dating of the manuscripts of the texts of Julian's Showings, though she went to paleographers and consulted with them about watermarks and other indications. She tries to assemble that information in Julian in a Nutshell. Second this editor met with resistance when she observed that Julian of Norwich made use of Adam Easton's library of texts. She assembles the arguments for the possibility of the Norwich Benedictine Cardinal knowing and assisting the Norwich Benedictine Anchoress in a further essay, given as a lecture 1 December 1998 in Norwich Cathedral. Third this editor met with resistance when she questioned the absolutism of the XVI Showings Crucifixion structure for Julian's text. For she found that the Paris and Sloane index and the Sloane chapter headings refer to Julian in the third person, while her texts speaking in Julian's own voice unify the XV Showings as one, centred on Mary and on Jesus, who become each other. It reminds this editor of her walking to Mass, for she is not enclosed in her hermitage, under the stars, brushing through cobwebs built in the night by spiders against her path. So here she assembles these arguments concerning Julian's complexity in 'Julian's Web: The Showing's Structure'. And with a prayer that she does no harm to the Lady Julian.

Julian's text is far more complex than XVI Showings. She is not linear, constructing her text with square lintels and posts, but she and her editor consciously analogize Julian to God's Daughter, Wisdom, sweetly ordering all things, creating a Gothic structure with tensions and tracery, like the webbing and vaulting we see still in Norwich's Cathedral and Cloister, like a web seen in the dew, sparkling with rainbow facets.

Norwich Cathedral

Julian in the Long Text speaks of a Crucifixion series of XV + I visions, contemplations, sacred conversations, the last summing up all the rest, but which she also breaks down as the Crucifixion vision occuring only in the I, the II, the IV, and the VIII Showings (Paris Manuscript, folio 16v, henceforth P16v, etc.), interspersed amongst others which are not about the bleeding Crucifix, and the one following all these, that she has the day after. But she also speaks of a Marian series wrapped up within that XVI series, which she says at P48v, is of III visions: I of the Virgin as she conceived (P8-9,13v-14); II of the Virgin in sorrow under the Cross (P36); III of the Virgin as she is now in joy (P47v-49), only this last one making it into the Table of Contents, and listed there as the XI Showing, though paradoxically this is the only one of the three that barely makes it into her text. Julian surrealistically imposes the one cluster upon the other, the Crucifixion, the Nativity/Annunciation, the male, the female, death and birth, sorrow and joy. And she keeps referring back to the Marian series again and again in her text, and almost always speaking of the Virgin as she conceived as the 'I Showing' (P13v,48v,81,122-122v,128v). It is in the Marian vision in all three versions of her texts where Julian also embeds the vision of the entire cosmos as the quantity of a hazelnut that she, and we, hold in the palm of our hand. In doing so she directly quotes from Gregory's Dialogues on Benedict, repeating that quotation again and again, relating together Mary's humility resulting in her Magnificat to Benedict's spurning of the world resulting in his vision of God's glory. In this she is being herself intensely Benedictine, using that Dialogue's discourse, and that of the Rule, upon humilitas as that which enobles and 'ones ' us, women and men alike, to God. Nor is it only Benedict she uses, but also it is Dante's words he composes for St Bernard to say in Paradise to the Virgin in the Heavenly Rose, that she is daughter of her son, the Creator born of her that is a creature, which Dante may have taken from Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls' opening. Julian seems to know these texts through Cardinal Adam Easton. For Adam Easton uses and quotes Dante in his writings. And that text, The Mirror of Simple Souls, for which Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake by the Paris doctors of theology in 1310, is copied out with Julian's Showings in the earliest extant manuscript that we have, the Amherst Manuscript in the British Library, and by the earliest scribe that we have copying out any surviving version of Julian's Showing of Love. Thus Julian blends the two, Benedict and Bernard, Benedictine and Cistercian, also monastic and lay writing, also that of women and men, weaving all these together.

In the Westminster Text, Julian emphatically gave that First Showing a further layer of meaning, referred to again later also in her Long Text and in the editor's chapter descriptions, as that of Wisdom, God's Daughter, the Advent Antiphon, 'O Sapientia', who sweetly orders all things, being present with God at his creating of the world, and at his creating of ourselves. Furthermore in both Westminster and in the Long Text she turns Jesus into Mary (P36,122v,126v-128v), and this First Showing becomes even of Jesus/Mary as giving birth to us, just as Julian is giving birth to her book. That was the image Marguerite Porete had used of her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls, which deeply influenced the Friends of God, Eckhart, Tauler and Suso.

Again and again, Julian tells us there are not XVI Showings, but one Showing, there are not multitudes of souls, but one soul. And she does that in her text, forever turning her Christological Crucifix vision into her Marian Nativity/ Annunciation one (for she has that Marian First Showing go surrealistically backwards in Time), turning death into life, having Christ give birth to us on the Cross, and even become like Christ's comment on the sorrows of the mother being forgotten in the joy at the birth of her child, that we at that moment become the One Body, the one soul, the Christ/Adam, even the Pauline least soul that shall be saved, all being saved.

But it doesn't work trying to read Julian as if she were a modern logical textbook! She - playing as Wisdom, God's Daughter - sweetly orders all things - backwards as well as forwards, in circles and traceries, rather than in linear sequences. She, or her editor who writes the Table of Contents, says there are XV + I Showings of the Crucifix. But she in her text instead tells us there are III Showings of the Virgin. And she 'ones' these many crisscrossing Showings, 'oneing' us into them, into God. She even, in the midpoint of her text, tells us this is her system (P96), that its principle is the beginning, learned inwardly, recalled often, of Julian and ourselves performing lectio divina upon her one Showing.

For the edition I have compiled a list of Julian's cross-references and I repeat that list here with its central instances in bold, the normal cross references to these in normal type, and the consciously-stated cross-references which cite these by number of Showing in the text, or by re-quoting Christ's earlier words to Julian with rubrication in italics. I give Showing, chapter, and folio in the following sequences, e.g. I.iv.8-9.

[I Magdalen at Crucifixion Paris/Amherst's Desired First Showing of Compassion: Paris, Prologue ii.3v-4, Amherst 97,(105v).]

I [II, IV,VIII] Showing=Crown of Thorns, Blood of Crucifix, Passion: Paris: [Table of Contents.i.1=I], Prologue iii.6,6v, I.iv.7-7v, I.v.9, [I.vi.11], I.vi.14-14v, I.vii.16v, II.x.19v-20, IV.xii.25-26v, VIII.xvi.32-33, VIII.xvii.33v-34v, VIII.xviii.37v -38 VIII.xxi.41, [IX.xxii.42v , IX.xxiii.44v, X.xxiii.46v , XIII.xxxi.57v ], XIII.xxxiii.60-60v , XIV.li.104v-105, XIV.lv.117v, XIV.lvi.119, XIV.lviii.125, XVI.lxvi.141v, XIV.lxx.147-147v, XVI.lxxi.149v-150; [Westminster/W77,85,91v,102]; Amherst/ A97,98v,100,101v-104v, 106v,111v,113v. [But at I.viii.16v ramified as: I Bleeding; II Virgin; III Trinity; IV Benedictine humilitas; V Love; VI Goodness; at IX.xxii.43v given as II Showing; at IX.xxii.44v: ramified as: I Bleeding; II Veronica; III Scourging; IV Drying; V Joy] [Westminster/W77,85,91v,102] Amherst/ A97,98v,100,101v-104v, 106v,111v,113v.

I Trinity: Maker, Keeper, Lover: [Table i.1] I.iv.7v , I.v.9v, XIII.xxxv.62v, W74, A99 [XIII.xxxv.62 v states this I Showing is Trinity as Might, Wisdom, Love. See Further Trinities at III, XIII, XIV.]

[I/XI] Showing=Mary at Incarnation : [Table i.l,i.2=XI Showing], I.iv.8-9, I.vi.11-11v, I.vi.13v, I.vii.13v-14, I.viii.16v, I.viii.17, IX.xxiii.45v, XI.xxv.47v-49, 48v, XIV.xliv.81, XIV.li.102,102v,105, XIV.lvii.122-122v , XIV.lix.127-128, XIV.lx.128-128v; W72v-73v,77,77v,103v; A99v,105v [But ramified as II Showing of I Showing at I.viii.16v, and further ramified at XI.xxv.48v as: I At Incarnation; II At Crucifixion; III Now, at XIII.xxxv.62v relating I Showing to Trinity, Might, Wisdom, Love, and III Showing, God in Point]

I Oneing of God and Soul : [Table 1.i ], Prologue ii.3v,4, iii.7, I.vi.10-10v, II.x.22v,23 , III.xi.24, VII.xv.30v, XII.xxvi.49 , XIII.xxvii.50v, XIII.xxxi.56v, XIII.xxxii.57, XIII.xxxiv.61v, XIII.xxxv.63v, XIII.xxxvi.65v , XIII.xxxvii.67- xxxviii.67v, XIII.xl.71v,73, XIV.xliii.78v-79v , XIV.xliv.80v, 81, XIV.xlvi.84v-85, XIV.xlvii.85v, XIV.xlviii.87,89,89v,91, XIV.li.97v, XIV.lii.108, XIV.liii.112v-113v, XIV.liv.113v,114 , XIV.lv.115v,117v, XIV.lvi.117v-119, XIV.lvii.120v, XIV.lxi.130v, XIV.lxiii.135v, XIV.lxv.140 , XVI.lxviiii.145-145v, XVI.lxxi.148, XVI.lxxiii.154, XVI.lxxv.157, XVI.lxxix.164v-165, XVI.lxxx.166v-167, XVI.lxxxi.167v, XVI.lxxxiv.172 ; W75,76,79,97v,98-99v,100v,101-102; A102-103,108-109, 110,110v,112,113v,114v,115

I /XI MaryI.iv.8, I.vii.13v, VIII.xvii.36, XI.xxv.47v-49, XIV.xliv.81, XIV.li.102;W72v,77v; A99v,104,105v

I Wisdom/TruthI.iv.8v , I.vii.13v, XI.xxv.48, XIV.xliv.81,81v, XIV.xlvi.84v, XVI.lxxxi.168v; W72v(2x),73,97,97v,100v; A99v

I Benedictine humilitas I.iv.8v, I.v.9-10, I.vii.13v-14, I.viii.16v-17, XIII.xxxii.57-57v, XIV.xlv.81v, XIV.xlvii.86,86v, XV.lxv.139v, XVI.lxviii.144v; W72v-75v,80; A99v,100

I Beclose/Enclose I.v.9, I.vi.12-12v, XIII.xxxi.55, XIV.liiii.112, XIV.liv.114-114v, XIV.lvi.118v, XIV.lvii.122-122v; W73v,77v

I Hazelnut I.v.9,9v; W74; A99,99v

I Nought I.v.9v(3x)-10(2x), I.ix.18v, V.xiii.27v, VIII.xix.39, IX.xxii.43v, XIII.xxviii.52, XIII.xxviii.60,61, XIII.xxxvi.64, XIV.xlvi.84 v , XIV.li.101,102, XIV.liiii.112v (4x), XIV.liv.114v, XIV.lxi.131v, XV.lxv.140v; W74,97v,99,104v; A106-106v,107v,108,108v,109,110,113

I Rest I.v.9v-10 , XII.xxvi.49, XIII.xxxi.55, XIII.xxxii.57v, XIV.xlvii.86v, XIV.lvii.122v; W75,75v; A99-100

I Lesson of Love/ Teaching [Table i.1] I.vii.13v, I.ix.19, II.x.22v, 23, VII.XV.31v, VIII.xix.38v, XI.xxv.48, XII.xxvi.49, XIII.xxx.53v, XIII.xxxi.54v, XIII.xxxii.59, XIII.xxxiii.59v-60, XIII.xxxiv.61v, XIII.xxxv.62,62v, XIII.xxxvi.66, XIII.xxxix.69v, XIII.xl.72, XIV.xlii.76, XIV.xlvi.84, XIV.xlvii.85v, XIV.l.92, XIV.li.93, 96 ,96v,97v, XIV.li.104, XIV.lx.129v, XVI.lxxi.149, XVI.lxxiii.152v-153, XVI.lxxv.157, XVI.lxxvi.158v-159, XVI.lxxvii.162v; W73v,80,81, 92v,100v; A101,107,108,109,109v,112v

I Trinity: Might, Wisdom, Love [Table i.1=III Showing], I.vii.16v, IV.xi.25, XIII.xxxii.58, XIII.xxxv.62v, XIII.xxxvi.63v, XIV.xlvi.84v, XIV.lviii.124v, XIV.lxi.132, XIV.lxii.133v, XVI.lxxiv.154,154v, XVI.lxxvii.161; W83; A100,114

I Oned/Knit [Table i.1], VIII.xvii.36,36v, VIII.xix.39, VIII.xx.39v, XIII.xxviii.52, XIII.xxx.54 v , W98 v ,100 v A109, XIII.xxxi.55, XIV.xlii.76, A110-110 v XIV.xliii.78 v ,79 v , XIV.xlix.91, XIV.li.96, XIV.liii.111 v ,113, XIV.lv.116 v ,117, XIV.lvi.118, XIV.lvii.121,122, XIV.lviii.123 v , 125,126, XIV.lxi.133, XVI.lxxi.149 v , XVI.lxxvi.159 v , XVI.lxxxiii.171; W74v,90v,92v,94v,96,98; A99,104,104v,107v,109,110-110v [Compare with Ruusbroec, Sparkling Stone , Amherst, A116v]

II Veronica/ Passion [Table i.1=II], II.x.19v-23v, II.x.20v,22, VIII.xvi.32-VIII.xvii.36, IX.xxiii.44v, XIII.xxxiii.60, XVI.lxxi.149v,150; A98v

III God in Point [Table i.1v], III.xi.23v-25, XIII.xxxiv.62, XIII.xxxv.62v, XIV.lii.108, XVI.lxxxi.167v; W82-83; A101v

IV Scourging/ Bleeding[Table i.1-1v=IV], IV.xii.25-26v, IX.xxiii.44v, XIII.xxxiii.60v , XIV.li.104v-105, XVI.lxvi.141v ; A102

V Fiend/Fiends [Table i.1v=V], Prologue ii.4, iii.6v, I.iv.8, V.xiii.27-29 , VIII.xix.37v, XIII.xxxii.58v, XIII.xxxiii.60, XV.lxv.140, XVI.lxvi.142v-143v , XVI.lxviii.146, XVI.lxix.146v-lxx.147v, XVI.lxxvi.160, XVI.lxxvii.160-160v; A97v,98,99,102,102v,111-112v.

VI/XV Service in Youth/Thanking/Reward [Table i.1v], Prologue ii.4v, VI.xiv.29-30v, XVI.lxxxiv.171v ; [W112-112v] A102v ,106

[VII] Touch/ Weal and Woe [Table i.1v=VII], I.v.10, VIII.xx.40v, XIII.xxvii.50v, XIII.xxxix.69v, XIII.xl.71,72, XIV.xliii.80, XIV.lii.107, XIV.lii.109, XIV.lvi.119-119v, XIV.lxi.131, XV.lxv.140v, XVI.lxxi.150, XVI.lxxxiii.170v; W75v,76, 96; A106v ['Touch', used throughout Long Text, does not occur in VII Showing]

VIII Drying/Ghostly Thirst/Compassion [Table i.1v=VIII], VIII.xvi.32-33, VIII.xvii.33v-36 , IX.xxiii.44v, XIII.xxxi.55-57, XIII.xxxiii.60v, XIII.xl.72, XIV.lii.108, XIV.lv.117v, XIV.lxiii.136, XVI.lxxi.149v-150, XVI.lxxv.157 A103-103v [IX .xxiii.44v says these are III and IV Showings of the Passion/Table of Contents gives as IX Showing]

[VIII/IX] Gladly, Merrily [Table i.1v-2=IX], III.x.23v, VI.xiv.29-29v, VIII.xxi.41 , IX.xxii.44v, IX.xxiii.45-XI.xxv.49, XIII.xxxv.62v, XIII.xxxviii.68-69, XIII.xl.71v, XIV.xli.74v, XVI.lxxi.149v, XVI.lxxx.168-XVI.lxxxi.168v, W91, A104v,105v,107v [Table of Contents says this is IX Showing, but in text it is VIII ]

IX Paid/Suffer Passion IX.xxii.42-44, IX.xxiii.45v, XIII.xxxi.56 , XIV.xlvii.85, XIV.lv.115v, XIV.lx.129, 129v-130; W83v,84,86; [A104] A104v,105v

IX Three Heavens IX.xxii.42, IX.xxiii.44; A105 [Third Heaven becomes Passion in Five Showings]

IX Crown IX.xxii.42v , X.xxiv.46, XIII.xxxi.56, XIV.li.106; W84v; A105

IX Giver/Gift IX.xxii.42v, IX.xxiii.45v; W85,86v,93; A97,98v,105

X Cloven Heart/Wounded Side [Table i.2], IX.xxiii.46-46v, XIV.lx.129v-130; W87,100,111v; A105v

XI His Mother [Table 1.2=XI], Prologue ii.3v-4, I.iv.7, VIII.xviii.36-37v, VIII.xx.40, XI.xxv.47v-49, XIII.xxxiii.60v; A97,104,105v

XII I It Am [ Table i.2], XII.xxvi.49-49v, XIII.xxx.55v, XIV.lix.126v, XIV.lx.129v,130v, XIV.lxi.130v, XVI.lxxiii.152v, XVI.lxxxiii.170v; W102v,103,105v; A106

XIII Sin/Evil II.x.21-22 , III.xi.23v bis ,VII.xv.31v, VIII.xvii.35v, XIII.xxvii.49v-53v, XIII.xxii.57v, XIII.xxxiv.62, XIII.xxxv.62v-63v, XIII.xxxvi.64,65, XIII.xxxvii.66v-67, XIII.xxxviii.67v-69, XIII.xxxix.69,70, XIII.xl.71v,71,73, XIV.xlv.82-82v, XIV.xlvi.83,84, XIV.xlvii.87, XIV.xlix.90-91, XIV.l.92-93, XIV.lii.107, XIV.lii.108v, XIV.liii.111, XIV.lix.126v, XIV.lix.127v, XIV.lxiii.135, XVI.lxvi.142, XVI.lxvii.150,151v-152v, XVI.lxxiii.153,154, XVI.lxxiv.155,156, XVI.lxxvi.159, XVI.lxxx.161, XVI.lxxviii.162v,163v, XVI.lxxix.164v,165,167, XVI.lxxxii.169v; W82v,83, A101v,103,106-106v,108-109,110v-111v,113-114

XIII All Thing Well [Table i.2v], XIII.xxvii.50, XIII.xxviii.51, XIII.xxxi.54v-55, XIII.xxxii.57-59v, XIII.xxxiv.62- XIII.xxxv.62v, XV.lxiv.136v, XVI.lxviii.146v, A106,106v,108-108

XIII Holy Church [Table 1.2v], I.iii.5, I.ix.18 v -19, XII.xxvi.49, XIII.xxviii.51v , XIII.xxix.53, XIII.xxx.54, XIII.xxxii.59-60, XIII.xxxiv.61-61v, XIII.xxxviii.68, XIII.xxxix.69v, XIV.xlv.82,82v, XIV.xlvi.84, XIV.xlvii.85, XIV.lii.109, XIV.lx.129v, XIV.lxi.133, XIV.lxii.134v, XVI.lxvii.143, XVI.lxxiii.154, XIV.lxxx.166; W94v,105v,106,110; A97,97v,100v,101,106-107v,109v,112,114 [XIII.xxxiv.61: Christ=Holy Church; XIV.xlvii.85: Holy Church=Mother; XIV.lxii.134v: Holy Church=Mother=Christ]

XIII Asseth/Satisfaction XIII.xxix.53v; A106v,107v

XIII Deed to be Done/Secret [Table 1.2], XIII.xxxii.58, XIII.xxxiii.60v, XIII.xxxiv.61-62. XIII.xxxvi.64-66

[XIII/XIV] Adam XIII.xxix.53-53v, XIV.li.95v (2x) ,97,98,98v (2x),101v(7x) ,102(6x), 103(3x), 105v, XIV.lii.107,108,108v, XIV.liii.110v, [XIV.liii.112 v ]; A106v (30x total)

XIII No Blame [Table i.2], XIII.xxxix.69-XIII.xl.73, XIV.lxv.82-83, XIV.l.92-93, XIV.li.97v, XIV.li.102, XIV.lii.110v, XVI.lxxvii.161v, XVI.lxxxii.169

XIV Prayer I.vi.10v-12, XIV.xli.73-81v; W72v,75v,76v-78,79; A97v,109-110

XIV Ground [Table i.1, i.2 v ], I.vii.14, I.vii.16, XIII.xxviii.52v, XIII.xxxiv.61v, XIII.xxxv.62v, XIII.xxxix.69v, XIII.xl.72v-73, XIV.xli.73v,74, XIV.xlii.76-77, XIV.xliii.78v, XIV.xliv.81, XIV.xlvi.84, XIV.xlviii.87v, XIV.xlix.89,89v, XIV.xlix.91v, XIV.li.99v, XIV.li.101, XIV.liii.112, XIV.lv.116,116v, XIV.lvi.117v, XIV.lvi.119v-120, XIV.lvii.121,121v, XIV.lix.126v, XIV.lxii.134, XIV.lxiii.136, XVI.lxxviii.162v, XVI.lxxxvi.173; W73,89v,90v,92,93,93v,100,101,103,104; A107v,108v,109,109v

Principle/Beginning/ Inward Learning/ Recalled Often XIV.li.96

[XIV] Mother VIII.xviii.36, XIV.lvii.122-122v, XIV.lviii.123v-125v, XIV.lix.126v-128, XIV.lx.128-128v, 129-130v, XIV.lxi.132-133v , XIV.lxii.134,134v, XIV.lxiii.136; W103v=111v; A103v

[XIV] BrotherI.vii.15v, X.xxiv.46v, XIV.lii.106v, XIV.lviii.124, XIV.lix.127 , XVI.lxxiv.155v; W87v; A101

XIV Jesus=Mary VIII.xviii.36, XIV.lvii.122v, XIV.lix.126v-XIV.lx.128v; W103v

I/XIII Trinity: Might, Wisdom, Goodness [Table i.2] I.v.10, XIII.xxxv.63, XIV.xlvi.84v, XIV.xlviii.87v, XIV.xlix.90(2x), XIV.lix.114,114v, XIV.lviii.125v, XIV.lxiii.136, XVI.lxviii.144, XVI.lxvii.161; A112

I/XIV Trinity: Truth, Wisdom, Love XIV.xliv.81(2x),81v, XIV.xlvi.84v, XVI.lxxxi.168v; W97

I/XIV Trinity: Truth, Wisdom, Goodness XIV.liv.114; W99v

[XIV] Lord and Servant Parable I.vii.15, VI.xiv.29-29v, VI.xiv.30, XIII.xxx.54, XIV.xlvi.82v, XIV.li.93-XIV.liv.113v, XVI.lxxxii.169

XV Sickness [ Table i.2v], Prologue ii.3,4,4v, I.iii.5-7, VIII.xxi.41v, XIV.xli.75, XV.lxiv.137-137v,139, XV.lxv.140v, XVI.lxvi.141-141v, XVI.lxvii.143, XVI.lxviii.146, XVI.lxxiii.153-153v; W111v-112; A97-98v,110v,111,111v,113v-114v

XV Reward/Mede [Table i.1v,i.2v], I.vii.16, IX.xxii.42v, XIII.xxxiii.61, XIII.xxxix.70v, XIV.xli.75-75v, XIV.xliii.79, XV.lxiv.137v; W85,112 A105,110v

XVI City of Soul [Table.i.2v-3], XIV.li.98v, XIV.li.103v, XIV.lii.108, XIV.liv.113v, XIV.lv.116, XIV.lvi.118v, XIV.lvii.122v, XVI.lxviii.143v-146v, XVI.lxxi.168; W101v; M21-21v; A102v-103,112,113

XVI Discerning of Spirits XVI.lxxiv.154v-XVI.lxxxvi.173v; A100-101,102,109,114 v ,115

Miscellaneous

Light I.iii.6, II.x.20, XVI.lxviii.144v-145, XVI.lxxxiii.170-171v; W94; A101v,112v,113v

Enough I.iv.8, I.v.10v, IX.xxiii.45v, X.xxiv.46, XIII.xxxvi.65v, XIV.xli.75, XVI.lxxix.164v; W75v,86; A99,105v

Homely/Courteous I.vii.15v, I.viii.18, VI.xiv.30,30v, XIII.xxviii.52v, XIII.xxxiv.61v, W105 v ,108,109 v A109,110 XIII.xxxv.62, XIII.xxxviii.68 v , W112 A111 v ,112, XIII.xl.71,71 v ,72 v , XIV.xliii.79, A114 XIV.liii.111, XIV.lviii.125 v , XIV.lxi.132 v , XIV.lxiv.138 v , XVI.lxvi.142, XVI.lxvii.143, XVI.lxxiii.154 v , XVI.lxiv.156 v , XVI.lxv.158 v , XVI.lxxvii.160, XVI.lxxvii.162, XVI.lxxviii.163, XVI.lxxx.165, XVI.lxxxi.168 v W82,96v,100,105v,108,109v,112; A101v, 106,109,110,111v,112,114

Even-Christians I.viii.17,17 v , XIII.xviii.52, XIII.xxxvii.67, XIII.xl.73; A100-101,115

Time I.viii.17, XIII.xxxviii.69, W82 XIV.li.96v, XIV.lii.109v, XIV.lxii.134, XIV.lxiv.137v, XIV.lxiv.138, XV.lxv.141, XVI.lxxvi.160, XVI.lxxxvi.173 v A101v,106,110v

Laughter V.xiii.27v-28(6x), XVI.lxvi.141v, XVI.lxxvii.160v; A102

Master Jesus XIII.xxvii.50; A106

Alone XIII.xxviii.52v, XIII.xxxvi.65v, XVI.lxxxi.167; W104v

ABC XIV.li.104, XVI.lxxx.166

There is the bleeding, dying Christ, supposedly of XV Showings but actually only in four of the XV, and in two of these that brilliant red blood oxidizes with age, turning brown, rather than red. There is the pregnant Virgin of the Joyous Mysteries, the mourning Virgin of the Sorrowful Mysteries, the ascended Virgin of the Glorious Mysteries. And all are gathered up as one in the Parable of the Lord and the Servant: the Lord in blue, the Virgin's blue, seeing the Servant, Adam, Julian, you and I, and Christ, fall, be scourged, lie under the earth, fall into the Maiden's womb, which also becomes God's, then rise again to sit at the Lord's right hand side. This Parable is nowhere mentioned in the Table of Contents. It begins just past the midpoint of the text, though foreshadowed again and again in it. It is neither the crucified bleeding Christ, nor is it the Virgin gestating her Child, from Nativity to Annunciation. Neither of Julian's Showings is here, instead it is a Third, which knits up the other Two as One, it is what becomes the bridge between the two, between death and life. The one whom Angela of Foligno calls the God/Man, both Angela and Julian deriving that theology from the Athanasian Creed.

But to return to this resistance. The Westminster Cathedral Manuscript has an integrity all its own, Edward Nolan noting it as like a seamless garment. This Manuscript had been mentioned passingly in Julian scholarship following its discovery in 1955, but merely as unimportant 'Excerpts of the Long Text'. In 1990 I asked to see it. An embarrassed silenced followed. Then I received a letter. I could now come and see the Manuscript. Apparently my letter had caused consternation. For years the Manuscript had safely rested in a safe and had quietly been forgotten. And now it was found because of my query. In 1991 I returned across the Atlantic and read it. And realized how perfect a text it is. It lacks the XV Showings structure apart from an interpolated reference to the Ninth Showing. It speaks in the future tense of Julian's desire to die of an illness while young (here Julian echoes Augustine's Monica in Confessions IX). It contains most of her mature theology, the hazelnut in the palm of her hand, God in a Point, Jesus as Mother, but it does not have the deathbed vision, nor the Parable of the Lord and the Servant, nor the 'All shall be well ' passages. Moreover, at the beginning of the manuscript is written the date '1368'. In that year Julian was just twenty-five years old. It was not written in that year, for it is a Tudor manuscript produced within the cloister of Syon Abbey by nuns, of a foundation too late to include the Lady Julian though it did take in other anchoresses. All the Syon manuscripts demonstrate careful collation one with the other. It seems that this manuscript is a careful attempt to reconstruct what was once Julian's original Showing of Love.+

Eventually, after two years and many letters, I was asked to come to Keble College to meet with the Director of the Lambeth. On that same day in Oxford I signed the contract with Penguin Classics' Editor Professor Christopher Ricks to edit Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh and Other Poems.

That work has long ago been completed and published. It was with Julian of Norwich that the greatest resistance came about. No one wanted to know about this third version of her text. Or only if it were published by another, who disparaged it. I had intended to edit all the manuscripts, having the necessary skills in paleography and textual editing. Decades ago I edited Il Tesoretto, the poem written by Dante's teacher, Brunetto Latino, and which influenced the Commedia, and at this moment, a reprinting of this for a facsimile edition being asked for by Florentines, I am spending mornings in the Laurentian Library, going over that text. But in England, for the Lambeth Thesis, I was only allowed to submit an edition of the Westminster Cathedral Manuscript. I was also ordered to explain why it was important in relation to the other versions, though forbidden to edit all three. I set myself the task of discovering how Julian could have written such splendid theology in '1368'. I had as models Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church, all of twenty-four years old at her death, yet whose theology has much in common with Julian of Norwich, who had pleaded for the study of the sacred languages of the Scriptures, Greek and Hebrew, and whose writing initially suffered from overmuch editing; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who again at a very young age studied the sacred languages, Greek and Hebrew, with the leading scholars of her day, Sir Uvedale Price and the blind Hugh Boyd, and who filled her poetry with compassionate theology and ethics. It was then that I realized my similar work on St Birgitta of Sweden had already introduced me to Julian's probable patron, the learned Norwich Benedictine who became Cardinal of England and who knew Birgitta of Sweden and Catherine of Siena, Norwich Cathedral Priory's Adam Easton, OSB. I already knew Birgitta was influenced by the Hebrew scholar, Magister Mathias, and through him by Nicolas of Lyra. Next I found that Adam Easton knew and taught Hebrew and owned and consulted the Latin and Greek versions of Pseudo-Dionysius. So I both edited the Westminster Cathedral Manuscript and explained the influence of Adam Easton's philological Hebrew and theological Greek studies upon Julian of Norwich.+ +

Meanwhile I had asked for the two theses submitted by Sister Anna Maria Reynolds, CP. to the University of Leeds in 1947 and 1956, through Interlibrary Loan. Next, I found myself in horror in the Hastings Public Library staring at the true first edition of the Westminster Cathedral Manuscript, done by her in 1956! No one had stated that fact in print. We were already in contact with each other so I immediately rewrote the first sentence of my Thesis acknowledging her work and we arranged that we publish her editions collaboratively. For I realized I had given up everything to reinvent the wheel. The edition had been done, excellently, very quietly, years before, and slipped in as a mere appendix to a thesis. Indeed all the Julian manuscripts were already quietly and excellently edited in those 1947/1956 University of Leeds Theses, upon which all subsequent editions have been based, Colledge and Walsh, Glasscoe, Beer, though without adequate acknowledgement. It is of the utmost importance that now the credit go to her. To do otherwise would be plagiary.

Julian of Norwich opens the Westminster version of her Showing of Love with the great letter ' {O ', the Omega, of endings as beginnings, and with the meditation of the Virgin contemplating upon her newborn, then just conceived, Child, of the Nativity, then of the Annunciation, having time go backwards, Mary being pregnant with her Child, who is Wisdom and Truth within her soul, just as is Julian as she begins her contemplative work pregnant with her Showing of Love and its Wisdom and Truth she will show to us.

In so doing Julian recalls the Great O Antiphon '{ O Sapientia ', 'O Wisdom', said by Mary to her yet unborn Child in Advent. Julian aligns herself, as do Birgitta and Margery, with the Virgin, joining in that contemplation, in that 'sacred conversation', in which Mary ' pondered upon all these things in her heart' (Luke 2.19). It is a sacred conversation such as described ten centuries earlier in the Letters XLVI and CVIII of Paula and Jerome, the Roman matron Paula and and her virgin daughter Eustochium being models for the Swedish Birgitta and her married virgin daughter Catherine.

It echoes, too, Marguerite Porete's Speculum simplicium animarum, The Mirror of Simple Souls:

a text carefully translated into Middle English with an explanatory commentary by one M.N. and copied out with Julian's Showing of Love in its earliest extant manuscript, the Amherst Manuscript, at folio 138v.

Traditionally the date of the Annunciation, of the Word entering the World of which it is Creator, is March 25, likewise the date of the Creation of the World and of the Crucifixion, of Eve and Adam's sin and of Adam and Eve's redemption through Mary's contrappasso, the mirror reversing EVA/AVE. The Paris, Sloane and Stowe Long Text Manuscripts will constantly refer to this scene as the First Showing, though it is not so in that text, only being so in the Westminster text. The Long Text centres, instead, upon the XV Os of the Passion, mourning the Death, rather upon the VII Great O Antiphons of Advent, celebrating the Birth, of Christ.

The texts in the Westminster Cathedral Manuscript preceding Julian's Showing, consist of commentaries to Psalm 91, Qui Habitat, and Psalm 92, Bonum Est, often attributed to Walter Hilton, and parts of his Scale of Perfection. It is of interest that this initial material, especially its Psalm commentaries, contains direct echoes to Julian's texts, both in the Showing of Love and in the Norwich Castle Manuscript Treatise on the Lord's Prayer. On folios 14v-15 on Psalm 91, 'the kyngdom/ of heuen is within us. that is hymselfe. and therfor yf thu mayste through grace. at eny tyme fynd him in thee & thee in hym. than art thou in syker refute. and than Iuell shall not com to the'. On folio 18, ' there is no better maister for to shew the that thou art hurte. than the feelynge of helthe before'. On folio 19v, ' souereign goodnes. souereyne wysedom. souereyn might. endlesse beynge ', echoes both the Norwich Castle Manuscript (fol 63v), and Julian's Showing of Love P10, 63, 84v, 87v, 90[2x], 114, 114v, 125, 136, 144, 161; Amherst 112). and derived from Pseudo-Dionysius by way of the Cloud of Unknowing cluster of texts. On folio 20, God's name, ' that I am as I am', echoes the material in the XII Showing (P49-49v). Psalm 92 notes, folio 29, that ' The rightwysman ma=kyth myrth wt songe to our lorde god in a ten stringed Saudre' of the Ten Commandments, ' for to hathe & to loue all the byddyngs', not, folio 29v, what he 'forbyddith ', as in the Norwich Castle Manuscript (fol. 1v) and in Julian's Showing of Love (P121v-122). At folio 30 is given ' but loue alone suffyceth. And sothly he moste louyth god that through grace is most departed fro the loue of the worlde & that is. for he hath moste fer=uour or moste deuotion in teeris or in prayers. or in such felable comforte. But for he hath leeste of pryde. and most hath of mekenes '. The section on Hilton (fol. 44v), includes that on the Holy Spirit of the Trinity being 'boethe the gyfte & the gever. and makyth vs by that gyfte for to know hym and loue hym '. Folio 62 is to be echoed in the ending of Westminster, ' how & where vpon thu shalt sett the poynte of thi thought in tyme of prayer'. At folio 65, ' A chosen soule seeth god in thys lyf by a myrrour and by a lykeness as the apostle seyth ihesu is endles myght. wysedom & goodnes ', again gives us one of Julian's triads for the Trinity. The echoes are clear; what is also clear is that this collection of texts is indeed, as Edmund Colledge and James Walsh stated, for a contemplative, not for a lay readership. The texts speak of the liturgical Offices of the religious life, not of the laity's reciting of the Pater Noster, Ave, and Credo. That they are Latinless further informs us that that contemplative readership is composed of monastic women, rather than of men. The context would logically be that of Syon Abbey.

While most of the explanatory notes to the text give Julian's sources, a further comment should be made concerning Julian's use of Pseudo-Dionysian material. We are familiar from Dante with the invocation of the Hell Gate, Inferno III.5-6, to the attributes of the Persons of the Trinity as Might, Wisdom and Love, ' FECEMI LA DIVINA PODESTATE, LA SOMMA SAPIENZA E'L PRIMO AMORE ', and which Julian also uses; therefore we do not see that invocation as a rarity. But a search through the Latin Church Fathers will reveal only Peter Abelard, Apologia contra Bernardum, Theologia 'Scholarium', etc. (five instances), and Marguerite Porete, Mirror of Simple Souls (one instance), using the triad of Might, Wisdom, Love. Abelard, Porete, Dante, and Julian, men and women across Europe, seem to have introduced this triad. Another triad used by Julian does have some Latin Patristic sources. Augustine uses Might, Wisdom, Goodness twice, in De Trinitate and one other work, and it is also found in Aelred of Rievaulx, De Iesu puero duodenni , Andrew and Walter of St Victor (in Walter, nine times), William of St Thierry, John of Ford, Marguerite Porete (six times), Peter Abelard (six times and who notes that the triad derives from Plato), and one occurence in the Speculum virginum. We see it above in the Commentary to Psalm 92. Interestingly, Marguerite Porete is present in the Amherst Manuscript, and may have been a gift to Julian of Norwich from Adam Easton. Adam Easton read and cited Dante Alighieri in his Defensorium Ecclesiastice Potestatis. He also gave the same title to his account of his incarceration in a dungeon and torture, De sua calamitate, as had Abelard used in his biographical account which elicited Heloise's responsive Letters. John P.H. Clark claims that the attributes of Might, Wisdom and Goodness for Julian derive from Augustine's De Trinitate.

/John P.H. Clark, 'Time and Eternity in Julian of Norwich', The Downside Review 109:376 (1991), 259-276, esp. p. 259, on Might, Wisdom and Goodness of Trinity./

However, Aquinas attacked Augustine for so dividing the Trinity.

/G.A. Scartazzini, amongst Dante scholars, in particular, noting Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.90.xxxix.art.viii: 'Item, secundum Augustinum, Patri attribuitur potentia, Filio sapientia, Spiritui Sancto bonitas. Et videtur hoc esse inconveniens. Nam virtus ad potentiam pertinet; virtus autem invenitur appropriari Filio secundum illud I Ad Cor., Christum Dei virtutem; et etiam Spiritui Sancto secundum illud Luc., Virtus de illo exibat et sanabat omnes. Non ergo potentia Patris est approprianda', VII.130-131 ./

Julian clearly has not derived her other triad of Might, Wisdom and Love from Augustine.

A source for these attributes is Pseudo-Dionysius, who is intensely used by Marguerite Porete, Dante Alighieri, and Julian of Norwich. The beautiful invocation to the Trinity, ' Trinitas supersubstancialis et superdea et superbona, inspectrix divinae sapientiae Christianorum', prefacing the Dionysian Mystica Theologia, combines Might, Wisdom and Goodness. Cardinal Adam Easton owned an exquisite thirteenth-century manuscript of the Works of Pseudo-Dionysius, in Latin with some Greek, this particular folio, 108v, giving a large Gothic for 'rinitas', made with intertwines in gold leaf.

This is the manuscript Adam Easton brought back to Norwich when preaching there to the laity with fellow Benedictine Thomas Brinton in 1356-63, returning with it to Oxford (' In expensis Ade de Easton versus oxoniem et circa cariacionem librorum eiusdem, cxiijs iijd'), then again to Norwich, 1367-68, before leaving for the Papal Curia in Avignon, then again when he was penning his Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae and Julian her Long Text, together in Norwich in 1389-91. We have the bills for the shipping of his books to Norwich through Flanders

/ Norwich Cathedral Priory Master paying 48s 7d, the Almoner 10s 'pro cariagio librorum domini cardinalis', the Benedictine Prior of Lynn contributing 20s ' circa libros domini Ade de Eston', Joan Greatrex, citing NRO DCN 1/1/65; 1/6/23; 2/1/17/.

I learned of those bills because I was sitting across the table from Joan Greatrex in Cambridge University Library. I was admiring Easton's beautiful Dionysius manuscript with its lovely green leafy and gold leaf Gothic { for the invocation to rinitas and she was working on Benedictine archival records throughout England. At Adam Easton's death the Benedictine Cathedral Priory of Norwich arranged for the Cardinal's books to be returned to them from Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome, this manuscript being given the Norwich Cathedral Priory shelf mark of X.ccxxviij, telling us that Adam Easton's manuscript library numbered at least 228 volumes. It is now Cambridge University Library Ii.III.32. The attributes to the Trinity are translated into one feminine Goddess, Wisdom, who is invoked in prayer by the Cloud Author at the opening of Dionise Hid Diuinite, the translation into Middle English of the Mystica Theologia of Pseudo-Dionysius (EETS 231.2:14-24):

They are echoed again in the Norwich Castle Manuscript, 'Whos name is souereyn might, souereyn wisdom souereyn goodnes, souereyn treuth ' (fol. 63v). They carry with them the echo of the first Great O Advent Antiphon, '{O Sapientia '. While yet other Dionysian material can be found in the expression used so often by Marguerite Porete and by Julian of Norwich, of the soul being touched by the Spirit, from epaphe.

/Sister Anna Maria Reynolds, C.P., 'Some Literary Influences in the Revelations of Julian of Norwich (c.1342-post 1416)' Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages 7-8 (1952), p. 24, noting this as from Divine Names IV, signifying God's action on the soul. The phrase opens Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, ' Anima a Deo tacta est . . . ' and is used there 108 times./

While the headings to Jan van Ruusbroec 's Sparkling Stone and to Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls in the Amherst Manuscript clearly dedicate them to the Trinity.

Some years later the other person, an Anglican, published the thesis editing the Westminster Manuscript. He cites the Anglican funding he received, the Anglican help in obtaining the manuscript. He disparages the text of the Westminster Manuscript as the work of a 'Tudor hack'.

/I here quote the disparaging remark repeated to myself, an Anglican nun, by my Lambeth viva voce examiner, during which, for an hour an a half, I was not allowed to speak, only berated./

Particularly he finds the opening of the Manuscript distasteful for being Marian rather than Christological and sees it, sneeringly, as derived merely from some 'Roman' Catholic Primer for the laity, referring to Mary worshipping her Child, as Maker of her who is made, 'thou brogtest forth the makere of the world that made thee', unaware of the rich associations drawing not only from the rich imagery concerning Sapientia in liturgy and lectio divina, in Romanesque art manifested in the iconography of the Virgin and her Child as seated together upon the Throne of Wisdom, but also from fourteenth-century incarnational theology in the great vernacular poetry that this statement presents. It is, for instance, in Dante's rendition of the Invocation by St Bernard to the Virgin in Paradiso XXXIII.1-9:

and which is translated by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Prologue to the Second Nun's Tale of St Cecilia, rebutting that of the Prioress with its echoes of a Norwich legend, Canterbury Tales , VIII.36-49: likely in allusion to the Norwich Benedictine Cardinal Adam Easton who read and quoted Dante in his own writings, and whose Basilica in Rome was that of St Cecilia in Trastevere. The Anglican thesis writer claims that this Marian imagery is added by another, that it is inferior, for a later lay audience questing devotional Catholic piety, and doing less than justice to Julian's male, 'virile', vision of the bleeding Crucifix. He particularly objects to this text's emphasis upon the wisdom and truth of Mary's soul. Yet that is a theme which also runs through the Paris Showing text (P8-9, 11-11v, 13v-14, 16v, 17, 45v, 47v-49, 81-81v, 84v, 102, 102v, 105, 122-122v, 127-128v, 168v), and in the Amherst Showing text (A99v), as well as the Westminster Showing text (W72v), Mary becoming 'oned' with Christ whom she, and we, contemplate and thus with all our souls as one soul, in the one Body of Christ.

Indeed I had begun the Thesis I began in 1990 and submitted in 1995 with three quasi-facsimile versions of this passage, the first from the Westminster Manuscript, folio 72 verso:

The second from the Long Text Paris Manuscript, folio 8 verso: And the third, which is the same material in the Short Text Amherst Mansucript, folio 99 verso: The words thus are present in all three versions of Julian's text, and are no mere addition to them by another, later Tudor 'hack' editor of Westminster alone.

This person states in print 'Julian's entire introduction, with its narrative background and Christocentric focus, has been omitted by the W editor'. He claims that the above Marian material (which is in the Westminster, Paris and Amherst manuscripts) is imposed upon her Westminster text later and by another, saying the text is 'heavily edited', while not explaining the presence of these words in Paris and Amherst, and he dismisses this concept as unworthy of Julian's 'virile Christology'. Instead I see the Crucifixion vision as an imposition upon her Showing of Love, done later and reluctantly, by herself but because of another's desire that it be there. In 1368 the 1373 vision had not yet happened. A 'religious person ', a monk, had been greatly interested in that vision, though she had been much disturbed by that interest. Adam Easton, a Norwich Benedictine monk, was in England at that date and knew of another woman's vision of a Crucifix , that of St Birgitta in 1368 of the Crucifix at St Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome. He returned to Norwich, England, as a Cardinal and was studying and writing the Defense of Birgitta 's canonization on the basis of her Revelationes, at precisely the dates when Julian tells us she is writing her XVI Showings of Love. The arguments can go both ways.

The joy of editing Julian with computer, all I now possess of worldly wealth, is finding this dense web throughout of scriptural allusion, emmeshed with the Bible on almost every folio, and also this delicate yet strong webbing throughout, backwards and forwards, like Wisdom , God's Daughter, and God's Son, who play at his side, sweetly ordering all things, in games of death and life, salvation and eternity, Julian's text living to tell us the tale, century upon century, unraveling and knitting linearity into Logos.
 

Notes

+ Sister Pamela has shared with me Gillespie, Vincent and Maggie Ross. '"With Mekenesse aske Perseverantly": On Reading Julian of Norwich'. Mystics Quarterly 30 (September/December 2004) 122-137, a similar exploring of Julian in lectio divina.

For this was the pearl of great price for which I hazarded all, to edit it in Julian's own context of prayer. I gave up my Professorship, taking early retirement to enter my convent school's Community of the Holy Family, and my Citizenship, selling my home and giving what I had to those in need, in particular to Catholic Penitente women students at my university. The Anglican Mother Foundress, Agnes Mason , C.H.F., of my Community had stressed the need for scriptural study in the original languages of Greek and Hebrew, and also the study of the women mystics, she herself translating Teresa of Avila's Foundations for Cambridge University Press, she had likewise stressed education of excellence for women and the reconciliation of Catholicism and Anglicanism. I repaired and shelved the convent's learned books, studying them in the early hours of the morning before ringing the Angelus for the Community, finding I did indeed need Hebrew in order to edit Julian of Norwich. Before my coming home to England in 1992 I had already sought information in 1990 on studying for the Lambeth Diploma in Theology, a tradition in my Community for nearly a century. Again there was no answer for a very long time, a much longer time.

++ Suddenly in the midst of my work, when my dear and now dead colleague and I were discussing the rhetoric and the seamlessness of the Westminster text, the Manuscript was taken from the Cathedral, we were forbidden to see it, and another had it to himself at the Abbey. Later I found that arrangement was made by the Director of the Lambeth, not for scholarly reasons but for financial ones. A long story involving the Charity Commission, many brother bishops, the shutting down of theological libraries and women's foundations and taking their endowments of millions of pounds, also much else that I won't go into here. The archdeacon sent me into exile. His parting comment, 'It's no fault of yours. It's the Lord's doing'.

If I had not had Julian's text to edit and read each day, in one unheated room, I could not have survived that trauma. It was only through her words that my faith could be restored - that God is Resurrected.
 
 

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