OF THOSE ENGLISH AUTHORS deemed to be participants in ‘the medieval mystical tradition’, Julian of Norwich is arguably the most opaque. Richard Rolle and Walter Hilton are recognised historical figures, the Cloud-author leaves us with undeniable clues as to his identity, and Margery Kempe is explicit in her autobiographical references. Further, while we can locate Rolle within the girovagus tradition in which he places himself, while we can read Hilton as heir to a form of Augustinian spirituality, while we can speculate legitimately on the Pseudo-Dionysian affinities of the Cloud-author and while Margery's Book foregrounds the influence of continental hagiography and insular devotion, we are provided with only the most minimal frame of reference in approaching Julian. She allows us little personal information (the few self-referential remarks that the Short Text contains are deleted in the Long Text) and such frames as have been constructed by scholars and readers are inevitably speculative. Indeed, we are not even in possession of her proper name.

In such a climate, it is extremely difficult to contextualise Julian's Revelations without feeling that one is doing violence to a deliberately self-deprecating author, who desired that attention was focused on her message and not on its literary sources, let alone on herself. However, while not denying that Julian's text is what it says it is (a revelation from a divinity outside time, space and language), it is surely legitimate for the scholar to speculate on the context within which this revelation was received.