The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Church chat

All shall be well

20/1/2021

Four years ago – in that previous life of somewhat hazy memory – I devised the January Literary Hour on Invisible Women – Significant Writers (NB: 2 years before Caroline Criado-Perez seemingly ‘borrowed’ my ‘nvisible Women’ title for her book!).

Mostly I focussed on women writers who’d been first in some way, but had been somewhat neglected, side-lined or forgotten, that is, had become invisible.

One of my selected writers was Julian of Norwich, who had in fact chosen to be invisible, by becoming an anchoress. What made me think of her again now, is realising she lived through another deadly pandemic, the mid 14th century Black Death, yet she managed to retain her trust in a divine wisdom that ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’

‘Julian’ became not only invisible, but also anonymous. No-one knows her birth name as she assumed the name of the Norwich church to which her anchorage was attached.
A manuscript copy of her writing, dated 1413 (now in the British Library) began:

“Here es a vision schewed be the goodenes of god to a devoute woman and hir name es Julyan that is recluse atte Norwyche and zitt ys on lyfe anno domini millesimo ccccxiii”

This was the shorter version of her later book ‘Revelations of Divine Love,’ written in middle-English around 1395, which was the first book in the English language known to have been written by a woman. Her manuscripts were carefully preserved and copied by Benedictine nuns and were later published by a Benedictine monk in 1670. However, this book remained generally ‘invisible’ until 1901, when the longer version was translated into modern English by Grace Warrack.

Perhaps we could see Julian as not only a mystic, but a medieval proto-feminist, given that she sometimes referred to ‘Mother God… mother in grace and mother in nature’ = “moder substantial” and “moder sensual.”

During a grave illness in 1373 she suffered a near-death experience in which she received sixteen “shewings” – ie visions or revelations. She said heaven opened to her, and she wrote:

“God said not, ‘thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased … but said ‘thou shalt not be overcome”

If ever there was a time to hang on to these words it is now, remembering and praying for all those presently suffering from this 21st century pandemic.

Let us truly hope that All Shall Be Well.