Julian of Norwich: Autobiography and Theology

Julian's Revelations considered as autobiography and theology, shedding new light on one of the outstanding figures of the medieval English church.

Julian's Revelations is remarkable for its theological breadth and boldness, and for its sympathetic awareness of the demands of life as lived. Yet Julian was not a theologian, but a lay person writing out of her personal experience. This study seeks to present a rounded view of her writing by considering the implications of the autobiographical in relation to the theological and vice versa. It explores the relationship between Julian's predicamentas a writer who must derive her authority from experience rather than ecclesiastical office and the precise character of her theology as it issues from that predicament; it argues that Julian's mature writing, by integrating notions of creation, incarnation, ecclesiology and personal spirituality in a single coherent vision, achieves a vigorous affirmation of the person as such in the sustaining context of the Church.

CHRISTOPHER ABBOTT gained his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester.