THE SHEWINGS OF JULIAN OF NORWICH: FOOTNOTES

2 Off, Of.

3 pretious . . . thornys, precious crowning with thorns.

5 sheweings, revelations.

6 onyd, joined, made one; discolloureing, discoloring.

7 deareworthy, precious, excellent.

11 fend, fiend.

12 worshippfull, honorable; blissed, blessed.

13 wele, well-being, joy; wo, woe.

14 sekirness, sureness, certainty.

15 be, by; irkehede, irritation.

16 ghostly, spiritual; arn, are; also sekirly, as securely.

17 cruelle, cruel.

18 likeing, pleasure, gratification; of the herde, because of the hard.

19 rewfull, rueful; will, desires.

20 solacid and myrthid, comforted and made happy; whan, when; fullhede, fulfillment, fullness.

21-22 His blissefull . . . enjoyand, His blessed heart, joyful even as it is cloven in two.

22-23 hey . . . moder, high spiritual vision of His precious mother.

25 gret nobleth of all things makyng, great nobility of all things in their creation; man makeyng, man's making, i.e., the human constitution.

26 pretious asseth, precious satisfaction (see note); man, man's.

28 be, by.

30 feith and trowthe, faith and truth; wete His privityes, know His secrets.

31 longyth, belongs, is appropriate for.

32 ground, foundation; beseekeing, beseeching.

33 sekir, sure; large, generous.

34 likyth Him, are pleasing to Him.

37 mede, mead, reward.

38 wonyth, dwells.

39 reuland and geveand, ruling and giving.

40 saveand and keepeand, saving and keeping.

41 cowde no letter, knew no letters, could not read; or, possibly, did not know Latin.

43 mende of, attention to, understanding, realization.

43-44 sekenesse, sickness.

45 methought, it seemed to me; sume feleing in, some feeling of.

46 be, by.

50 seene, saw; peynes, pains.

51 ner, nor.

52 fro, from.

53 trew minde in, true understanding of.

54-55 sekenesse so herde as to deth, a deathly sickness.

55 underfongyn, receive.

56 weneing, supposing.

57 seyen, saw; eardtly, earthly.

58 ghostly, spiritual.

59 fends, fiends.

61 lyven, live; worshippe, honor.

64 wotith, know.

68 very, true, genuine.

70 fro, from.

72 yers, years.

74 wened not a levyd, believed I would not live; langorid, languished.

75 wened, thought, supposed.

76 youngith, youth.

77 sweeme, a pity, regret.

77-78 me lekid to levin for, it gave me pleasure to live for.

78 ne, nor; aferd, afraid.

81 methought, it seemed to me; in reward of, in comparison with.

84 feleing, feeling.

85 God will, God's will, i.e., at God's disposal; durid, endured.

86 dede fro, dead from; middis, middle; stered, prompted, took a notion.

87 underlenand, leaning with support from beneath.

89 by than, by the time that.

89-90 I had sett my eyen, my eyes were fixed in the death stare.

90 sett, placed.

91 browte, brought; Louke, look

92 Methought, It seemed to me; eyen, eyes; sett, fixed.

93 Hevyn, Heaven.

94 dede, did.

95 duren to loke, be able to look; forth than, straight ahead rather than.

96 derke, dark.

97 wiste, knew.

98 mekil, much.

99 fends, fiends; party, part.

100 onethys, scarcely; ony feleing, any feeling; onde, breath.

100-01 went sothly, truly thought.

101 passid, died.

102 hele, well.

103 party, part; aforn, before.

104 privy, mysterious; kinde, nature.

105 levyn, live.

106 lever a be, rather have been.

109 minde, understanding, realization.

110 longeing, longing (possibly belonging).

111 kinde, natural, kindly.

112 would beene a dedely man, was willing to be a mortal person

114 rede blode trekelyn, red blood trickling.

115 freisly, afresh; ryth, right; that, when.

116 thornys, thorns.

118 ony mene, any intermediary.

119 herte, heart.

124 appereith, appears.

124-25 Benedicite, Domine, Blessed be Thou, Lord.

125 meneing, intention.

126 astonyed, astonished.

127 reverend and dredfull, revered and awe inspiring; homley, intimate, familiar (see note); synfull creture liveing, sinful creature living.

129 of fends or I dyed, by fiends before I died.

131 enow, enough; ya, yeah, indeed; leving, living; ageyn, against.

133 understondyng, mind.

134 waxen, grown.

135 wan, when.

136 party, part.

141 sothly, truly; mare, more.

144 homely, intimate.

146 wrappeth . . . becloseth us, winds about us, embraces us, and entirely encloses us.

149 hesil nutt, hazel nut.

151 lesten, last.

154 the being, existence.

157-58 substantially onyd, integrally joined.

158 ne very, nor true.

160 littlehede, smallness.

160-61 to nowtyn . . . made, value as nothing everything created.

161 howe, have (see note); unmade, without creator.

162 herete, heart; sekyn, seek.

164-65 Him liketh, it pleases Him.

166 nowted, stripped.

167 Whan, When.

169 sily, innocent, simple.

170 kinde yernings, natural yearning.

172 enow, enough.

175 arn, are.

180 lerne, teach; clevyn, cleave.

181 mende, mind.

182 menys, means, intermediaries.

183 sothly, truly.

184 clevyn, cleave.

185 menys, means, intermediaries.

187 hole, whole.

187-88 failith right nowte, nothing at all fails.

190 deareworthy, precious, excellent.

192 moder love, mother's love.

193 bare, bore.

198 wole, well (intensive); fele, many.

199 mene, means; kinde, nature; toke, took.

200 menys, means, helps; aforn, before; cum, come.

204-05 quickyth, gives life to.

206 nerest . . . grace, nearest in nature and most ready in grace.

208 beclosyd, enclosed; dispite of, contempt for.

209 longyth in kinde, belongs in nature.

211 bonys, bones.

212 herte, heart; bouke, trunk; arn, are.

213 ya, indeed; wasten and weren, waste and wear.

214 hole, whole.

216 herete, heart.

217 spedyth, prospers.

219 wetyn, know; mekyl, greatly

222 onenestimable, inestimable.

226 blyn, cease.

231 lest, least; his, its (the soul's).

233 his even Cristen, the soul's fellow Christians.

234 to lerne us, to teach us.

236 hey, high.

239 in reward of, in comparison with.

242 lesting, lasting.

242-43 bledeing of the hede, bleeding of the head.

243 blode, blood.

244 semand . . . veynis, seeming as if it had come out of the veins.

245 browne rede, deep (shining) red

248 plenteoushede, plenitude.

249 dropys, drops; evys, eaves; showre of reyne, shower of rain.

250 bodily witte, natural intelligence.

250-51 roundhede, roundness;

251 heryng, herring.

254 dropys of evese, drops from eaves.

255 hidouse, hideous.

257 curtes, courteous.

258 likeing, happiness, pleasure.

259 opyn, open.

261 glad cheere, both prive and partie, cheerful expression, both in private and in public.

266 manys, man's.

270-72 And . . . may, And our Lord wills this, that we desire and have faith, rejoice and take pleasure, comfort and console ourselves as we may.

276 weten, know.

277 govyn, given.

277-78 govyn of, given by.

278 mede, mead, reward.

282 goven, given.

285 be than, until.

287 Benedicite, Domine, Blessed be Thou, Lord.

288 toknys, tokens, signs.

290 bene, be.

292 wete, know.

294 seith, sees.

295 semith, seems.

300 stinted, stopped.

302 ell, else.

303 mekil sterid, much stirred; even Cristen, fellow Christians.

304 they, them.

306 domys day, judgment day; went a deid, expected to have died.

307 deith, dies; demyd, judged.

308 thei lovid, they loved.

308-09 make hem to have mende, make them realize.

310 went have, thought to have; mervil, strange.

310-11 sweeme . . . should leven, partly a pity, for I thought this vision was shown in order to benefit the living.

312 even Cristen, fellow Christians; lernyd, taught, instructed.

314 levyn, believe (see note).

315 curtes, courteous.

316 wolde shewyn, would show.

317-18 on to you all, to you, one and all.

320 hem, those.

321 wote, know.

323 sekir, sure.

326 onehede, unity

328 on . . . sight, one (whole) in my sight; hat, has.

334 hem, those; save, saved, i.e., achieve salvation.

335 leve, believe; levith, believes.

339 diligens, diligence.

342 hopinly, openly.

343 wolde, wish to.

346 henge, hung.

348 sollowing, soiling (see note); langoryng, languishing, lingering; mo, more.

350 ere, ear; overrede, overun.

351 tuther, other; therewhiles, meanwhile.

352 swemely, sorrowfully, fearfully.

355 sowte, sought.

356 sekyn, seek.

356-57 And . . . Him, If we see anything of Him.

357 sterid, stirred, prompted; sekyn, seek.

358 sowte, sought.

361 see ground, bottom of the sea.

362 dalis . . . wrekke, green dales, seeming as if it were grown over with moss, with wrak.

367 levyn, believe; thowe that us thinkeith, although we think.

369 abedyn, abided, waited for; trosted, trusted.

370 low, humble; sprets, spirits.

371 travel, travail; mornand, dredfull, mourning, fearful.

374 dede hame, skin, slough; mortal covering (fig., flesh).

378 reulihede and lenehede, piteousness and thinness.

379 stondyng, understanding that.

385 be synne, through sin.

386 And that made, And He who made.

388 overpassing, transcendence.

390 geynmakyng, remaking.

391 dedely, mortal.

393-94 dede hame, skin, slough, mortal covering (fig., flesh).

395 owen to trowen, ought to believe.

396 travel, travail.

399 chere, expression.

400 rewfull and dedely, rueful and like death.

401 lernyng, teaching.

402 ful mekyl, very much; sekyn, seek.

404 sekyng, seeking.

407 travel, travail.

408 God wille, God's will.

409-10 have him, conduct itself.

415 mown, may; on, one.

416-17 The sekyng . . . Church, The seeking is common; that is available in the discretion and teaching of Holy Church which every soul may have, and ought to have, by God's grace.

419 slauth, sloth; throw, through.

420 onskilful, senseless, unreasonable; veyne, vain.

421 gruching, grudging; ageyns, against.

422 thred, third.

425 swith sodeyn, very sudden; trowid, believed; hend, courteous.

426 mot, may.

427 poynte, point.

428 with avisement, thoughtfully, with full clarity.

431 be happe, ne be aventure, by chance nor by accident.

435 unwetyng, unknowing.

436 ben happis and aventures, are chances and accidents.

438 me behovith nedes to grant, I must concede.

441 sekir, certain.

442 dede, deed.

443 wold, would; wold shewen, would show.

448 ben al, is all; feilith nougte, nothing fails.

454 demyng, judgment.

459 heiest, highest.

463 or, before.

472 me behovyd nedis to assenten, I must necessarily assent.

473-74 seming of the scorgyng, seaming, furrowing, of the scourging (see note).

477 should a, should have.

478 migt, might; avisement, clarity.

479 sigt, sight.

480 al on blode and a passid over aboute, bloody all over and have passed entirely over it.

484 licur, liquor.

486 it is our kinde, it is of the same nature as our own.

489 braste her bands, burst their bonds.

490 longyd, belonged; curte, courte.

495 it nedith, it is needed.

498 er, before.

499 conable, suitable.

500 migte, might.

501 formys, forms.

502 menening, referring to.

506 ascappyn, escape; worshipply be, honorably by.

507 attemyd, esteemed.

508 mech, much.

510 migte, might; tokyn, taken.

511 wreth, wrath.

515 onmigte, powerlessness.

516 sigte, sight; I lauhyd migtily, I laughed mightily; lauhyn, laugh.

517 likeing, pleasure.

518-19 lauhyn, lawhyn, laugh.

522 sothfastnes, truth.

524 sadhede, sober mood; game, joy.

525 arneste, earnest, seriousness.

526 arneste, earnestly.

529 done, do.

530 dampnid, damned.

531 hose, whose.

532 invye, envy.

537 clepid, called.

540 to solacyn, to make comfortable.

544 thanke, thanks.

553 reme, realm.

554 leking, pleasing; underfongyn, received; rigte, right.

557 hem, those; her yongith, their youth.

559 on day, one day's.

561 lever, readier, more inclined.

562 soveren gostly lekyng, sovereign spiritual delight.

565 lestenid, lasted.

566 irkenes of, irriation with.

567 onethis, scarcely; leve, live.

570 mycti, mighty.

571 desesid me, made me uneasy.

573 dyvers, different.

577 spedeful, efficacious.

580 manys, man's.

582 soden, sudden.

585 passand, passing.

590 sithen, after.

591 langoring, languishing.

591-92 dede . . . browne blew, deathly to blue, and after a duller blue.

594-95 tho . . . clange, those that before were fresh, red, and pleasant in my eyes. This was a grievous change to see, this deep dying, and also the nose shriveled.

596 lifely, life-like.

598 Rode, Cross; harre, keen, fierce.

600 migte, might.

602 Blodeleshede, Bloodlessness.

607 party after party, step by step; dryande, drying.

609 pynyng, torture, suffering.

610 than I seid, when I said.

612 clongen, withered; peteuous, pitiable.

613 deyand, dying.

616 threst, thirst.

619 bonys, bones.

620 wryngyng of the naylys, twisting, drilling in, of the nails; weyte, weight.

623 wrangyng, twisting.

624 bakyn, baked.

625 clyngand, clinging; deyand, dying.

626-31 And . . . moysture, And in the beginning, while the flesh was still fresh and bleeding, the constant piercing of the thorns made the wounds wide. And furthermore, I saw that the sweet skin and the tender flesh, with the hair and the blood, were raised and loosened out from the bone with the thorns, where it [the skin] was pierced through in many pieces; [it was] like a cloth that is sagging, as if it would very soon have fallen off because of its heaviness and looseness, while it had natural moisture.
634 pety, pity.

635 ben, be.

636 dreyen, dry; stynte, diminish, stop; weyte, weight.

637 abute, about.

638 tother, other.

639 cloderyd, clotted.

640 smal, thin; ronkyllid, wrinkled.

641 a tannyd . . . akynned, a tanned color like a dry board when it is scorched

643 dryengs, dryings.

644 eyr, air.

645 askyd licour, needed moisture.

646 mynystid, ministered.

648 clyngand, withering up.

650 clyngyng dryand, withering drying.

651 peynd, made to suffer, tortured; thingke, think.

653 wiste, knew.

654 onys, once; mynde, realization

657-59 Than . . . praydd it, Then I thought, I knew very little what payne it was that I was asking for, and like a wretch I repented, thinking if I had known what it would be, I would have been loath to have prayed for it.

661 despeyr, despair.

667 onyd, joined.

667-68 mekylhede, greatness.

668 continyyd, continued.

669 fulsomely, abundantly; fully.

671 panys, pains.

676 onyng, empathy, union.

679 faledyn, failed; hyr, their.

680 thir, their; ther, their

681-82 than . . . faylon with Hym, then because of their nature they necessarily failed with Him; penys, pains.

684 feyling, failing.

685 privy kepyng, mysterious care.

686 on, one.

687 paynym, pagan.

689 ell, else.

690 auter, altar.

694 nawted, made nothing, a cipher.

696 wold a lokyd, would have looked; weste, knew.

698 uggyng, horror.

699 profir, proposition.

700 feyth, faith.

701 desesyd me, made me uneasy.

704 lever a ben, rather have been; domys day, judgment day

707 lerid, taught.

709 chase, chose.

710 hat be, has been.

711 done so, do so; chesyn, choose.

712 repentid me, repentid, changed my mind; wiste, known.

713 me had be loth, I should have been loath.

714 grutching and daming, grudging and curse.

715 wilful choys, deliberate choice.

716 tho be, those are.

721 chase, chose.

722 soverayn, sovereign; hede, heed.

723 onyd into, made one with.

727 langring, languishing.

729 allonly, only.

732 shamly, dispitous, shameful, pitiless.

734 sean, seen.

736 heyte and noblyth, height and nobility.

738 lothhede, loathing.

740 mannys, man's.

741 manys, man's.

747 ches, chose; desyr, desire.

748 wel payeyng, much satisfaction.

750 passyng, transcendent.

756 wet, expected to; ryth, right.

757 be semyng, by appearances.

759 chere, countenance, expression.

761 agreefe, sorrow.

762 menyng, intention, disposition, understanding.

769-70 should us agrevyn, would make us sad.

771-72 desese and travel, distress and labor.

772 frelete askyth, frailty requires.

777 payd, pleased, satisfied.

778 gramercy, thank you.

779 payde, pleased.

780-81 I myht suffre, I might suffer.

781 lifte, lifted.

782 gretly mervelyd, made to marvel greatly.

788 mede, reward.

788-89 Fader . . . mede, Father might have given Him no reward.

792 beyeng, buying (fig., redemption).

793 corone, crown.

799 diligens, diligence.

800 sotly, truly.

801 coude, could.

803 al thynkyth Him, He considers all; in reward of, considering.

804 sesin, cease.

808 creature, human.

823 plesance, pleasure.

824 lykyng, enjoyment.

826 thred, third.

827 curtes, courteous.

830 semys of the scorgyng, weals from the scourging (see note 473-74).

831 that, that which.

833 Goddys, God's.

839 upriste on Esterne morow, resurrection on Easter morning.

841 wil, desires.

845 wroute, wrought.

849 enow, enough.

850 ell, else.

851 mend, mind; gevere, giver.

853 solacyn, give solace to, please.

856 solacid, satisfied.

861 bawte, bought (fig., redeemed).

886 ryte, right.

888 wold se, would wish to see.

899 lerid . . . hirr, taught to long to see her.

903 gramercy, thank you.

904 wend a seen hir, expected to have seen her.

912 gove, given.

914 tymys, times.

931 letted, hindered.

934 forseyng, foreseeing; lettid, prevented.

935 a be, have been; steryng, agitation.

938 behovabil, necessary; fits in (see note 936).

942 in party nowtid, partly despised.

946 wern, were.

949 afferd, afraid.

960 sythen, since.

972 reuth, ruth, pity; ech, each.

974 lakid, blamed; rapyd, abused.

975 lettyn, prevent, lessen.

976 heynen, raise.

977 tobreke, utterly shatter.

982 nowting, humiliation.

989-90 gruching and dispeir, grudging and despair.

992 childer, children.

993 swemly, sadly.

996 esyd, eased.

1000 asyeth, reparation.

1001 manys, man's.

1003 sythe, since.

1007 hopyn, open; lite, luminous, without burden.

1009 councellid, counseled.

1011 onjoyeth, takes pleasure.

1014 sperid, barred, closed.

1022 owen, ought.

1035 threst, thirst.

1040 hole, whole.

1042 amenst, as concerns (see note).

1044 heyned ne lownyd, raised nor lowered.

1047 anemst, concerning.

1055 onpassible, impassible.

1056 threst, thirst.

1058 cum, come.

1064-65 thow . . . properties, And [this is true] even though longing and pity are two separate qualities.

1068 secyn, cease.

1071 On, one.

1073 On, one; wetyn, understand.

1079 loke, look; morning, mourning.

1085 trostily, trustfully.

1092 pesid, made peaceful.

1100 peynt, point.

1102 herth, earth.

1103 ethen, heathen.

1106 And stondyng, And this being so.

1108 That, What.

1110 stedfasty, steadfastly.

1111 sadly levyn, firmly believe.

1118 to maken prefe, to try to prove out, to test; longyth, belongs.

1122 coude, knew, could learn.

1134 deden Hym to ded, put Him to death.

1136 lered, taught.

1137 hopyng, hoping.

1144 besyn us, busy ourselves.

1146 to, two; privityes, secrets, mysteries.

1153-55 For al . . . Holy Church, For all that is helpful to us to know and understand, our Lord will [make it His] will most courteously to show us what it is [what these things are] by and through all the preaching and teaching of Holy Church.

1163 ageyn, against; thred, third.

1170 freindful mene, friendly intermediary.

1180 peynte, point.

1181 rythful, righteous.

1192 seith, sees; sowlys, souls.

1197 secyn, cease.

1206 dredful, reverent.

1211 His holy, His saints.

1217 trostily, with trust, confidence.

1221 hat to, has for.

1224 leven, believe.

1225 owe we, we ought.

1234 her, here.

1238 clepyth us, calls out to us; Entend, Attend, Listen.

1249 fele, many, several.

1250 heygh, high.

1253 myschevis, troubles, evils; to meken us, to make us meek.

1263 entendyn, attend, pay attention.

1267 concyvid a softe drede, conceived a quiet fear.

1274 Ryth, Just; bestly, bestial.

1276 yll, evil.

1277 that that Hym lykyt, that which pleases Him.

1283 goven, given.

1290 lift, lifted.

1299 hende neybor, courteous, affable neighbor.

1310 chousyn, chosen.

1311-13 al forbetyth . . . Helle, beats down man and woman and makes them irritated with themselves, so much that sometimes, in their own view, they think themselves worthy of nothing but to sink into Hell.

1317 ymage, image.

1318 domysman, judge.

1330 menys, means, ways.

1332 helyd, healed.

1338 mede, reward; underfongyn, receive.

1340 dispeir, despair.

1342 beand and werkand, existing and working.

1345 fel and fers, evil and fierce; and so mech . . . the more, and in as much as our need is [great] the more [He defends us].

1347 severayn, sovereign.

1348 privily, inwardly.

1353 consciens, conscience.

1355 frendful, friendly.

1365 leven, live.

1370 chargyn, charge, set down.

1374 the lother . . . synne, the more loath he is to sin.

1378 to haten, to be hated.

1380 And we gevyn, If we give.

1383 lawis, laws; tawth, taught.

1384 ageyn, in opposition to.

1392 Lordis, Lord's.

1398 besekyng, prayer, beseeching; sythen, after.

1405 for an impossible, as an impossibility, a logical absurdity.

1417 tresour, treasury; His holy, His saints.

1422 inderly, earnestly.

1439 felyth, feels.

1440 grece, grace.

1457 taryen and peyn, delay and trouble.

1458 leve, believe.

1460 trosten, trust.

1467 mytys, powers.

1468 will, desires.

1468-69 our stede . . . wonynge, our standing place and our dwelling.

1472 agen byeing, redemption.

1476 deds, deeds.

1477 dede, deed.

1482 dette, debt.

1486 other, either.

1494 diligens, diligence.

1499 onyth, binds, unites; thow, though.

1501 will, desires.

1502 ablith, makes able, fits the individual for.

1504 steryth, prompts, stirs.

1507 And thou besekyst, And you beseech.

1513 eur, your (see note).

1519 steryth, inspires.

1522 ablyng, fitting.

1524 buxum, obedient.

1526 nedys wherfore we prayen, that we need to pray.

1527 seying, seeing.

1529 fulsome, abundant; mytys, powers.

1530 continuate, continual.

1533 hey, high, great; wonyng, dwelling place.

1535 continuat, continual.

1540 fulsomely, completely, to the full; seand, seeing.

1541 feland, feeling; heryng, hearing.

1542 swelowyng, swallowing.

1544 leven, live; dedly, mortal.

1555 commend, coming.

1556-57 soverain, severeyn, sovereyn, sovereign.

1558 made, created, i.e., not self-generated.

1561 in reward of, in comparison with.

1562 onethys, scarcely; owte, anything; clertye, clarity.

1565-66 hoole and save, whole and safe.

1568 medyllid, mixed.

1578 cowd nowte, could not; dome, judgment.

1582 cowth, could.

1585 levyn, leave (see note).

1587 longyth . . . knoyn it, pertains to me to know it truly.

1604 encrecin and wexen be forthing, increase and grow with the helping.

1613-14 And . . . me, And this way of looking at things stayed with me.

1616 encrese and resyn, increase and rise.

1637 yeele me, yield myself.

1638 owyth, ought to do.

1639 longen, pertain; On, One.

1648 no, not.

1649 sumdel, something.

1651-52 frelte and overcummyng, frailty and defeats.

1652 onmyte and onwise, powerless and foolish.

1654 sey, saw.

1655 mischevous, ill.

1660 morning, mourning.

1673 contrarioust, contrariness, perversity.

1674 rote, root.

1675 traveylid, belabored.

1677 wonnyng, dwelling.

1679 buxum, obedient.

1681 sow, saw.

1682 all, else; frowardness and a contrarioste, perversity and an opposition.

1685 contrariuste, contrariness.

1688 cowth, could.

1691 turnyng . . . good, turning everything to good for us.

1696 of us, away from us.

1697 cessyth, ceases.

1699 propirte, quality.

1720 seyth, sees.

1728 a touch, a bit; stede, standing place.

1732 wretches, times of wretchedness.

1733-34 buxumhede, obedience.

1734 stede, place.

1745 domys, judgments; pessible, at peace.

1779 awer, trouble (see note).

1781 eryn, err.

1785 makyn . . . it, make me courageous enough to ask this.

1792 Ho, Who.

1793 sen, see.

1794 mystily, obscurely, as if through a mist; symbolically (see note).

1795 botryn, both.

1804 rynnith, runs.

1805 slade, valley.

1813 brosyng, bruising.

1816 stonyed, stunned, astonished; mend, mind; luf, love.

1820 lang, long.

1830 nobleth, nobility, honor.

1834 skyl, reasonable.

1835 reward . . . drede, compensate him for this attack and for his fear.

1837 hole, wholeness, health; And ell, Or else.

1850 aret, attributed.

1852 mystye, symbolic, obscure (see note to line 1794).

1855 sumdele, somewhat.

1860 depart, separate.

1861 owe, ought.

1862 trostyn, trust.

1865 monethis, months.

1866 hede, heed.

1868 mysty and indifferent, unclear and irrelevant; assend, assented.

1872 sate, sat; tho, the.

1875 havyng, behavior.

1876 onlothfulhede, alacrity, good will.

1882 stonyed, stunned, stricken.

1884 lettid, hindered.

1895 syde, long, ample.

1896 sad, dignified.

1897 fulsomely featours, full, regular features.

1899 hey ward, high refuge.

1901 on to, in two.

1902 medlur, mixture.

1907 lofly, lovely.

1915 is this to menyn, means this; cyte, city, site.

1918 adyten him, prepare for him, assign to him.

1919 abeydand, waiting for; medlid, mingled.

1922 eyen, eyes.

1932 fornempts, right before; asyd, aside; lift, left.

1933 kirtle, coat, tunic; sengil, single; died with swete, stained with sweat.

1934 streyte fittyng, skimpy, close.

1935 weryd up, worn out.

1949 mete, food.

1953 myte . . . don, might be that the servant should do.

1955 delvyn and dykyn, digging and ditching; swinkin, working; swetyn, sweating.

1959-60 dygte this mete, prepared this food.

1967 dygte, prepared.

1973 rythful, fittingly; nerehede, closeness.

1980 slade, valley.

1994 anempts, pertains to.

1996 Hym, Himself.

2000 steytehede, skimpiness.

2001 waring, wearing; defaceing of swete, disfigurement of the sweat; travel, labor.

2022 privities, secrets.

2030 sore, physical pain.

2030-31 also swithe, at once.

2031 stod dredfully, stood in awe.

2032 even ryth, on the righthand of God.

2035 woon, achieved, won.

2039 sweppys, blows; scorgis, whippings.

2041 hedepanne, skull.

2048 rote, rout, i.e., throng, company of souls.

2052 streyte, scanty.

2054 wyde and syde, ample and long; than was than, than was then.

2056 medlur, mixture.

2059 sete, seat, site.

2060 unornely, without ornament, plainly.

2063 tho, the.

2071 cety, city.

2072 adyte, assigned.

2079-80 medlur bothen, mixture both.

2081 mischefe, harm, damage; deyand, dying.

2085 onethys, scarcely.

2090 medle, mixture.

2092 ilke, same.

2096 falyn, fall.

2099 grutchin ther agen, complain against it.

2100 duryin, endure.

2101 medlur, mixed state.

2103 us updrawand, drawing us up.

2106 wonand, dwelling; yemand, guiding, caring for.

2121 in our Lord menyng, in our Lord's view.

2124 be, by.

2127 gon, go.

2128-29 on syd . . . feblehede, one side falling too low, inclining to despair, nor on the other hand being too reckless, as if we did not care at all, but nakedly knowing our fragility.

2132 For otherwise . . . man, For the vision of God differs from the vision of man, and the vision of man, from the vision of God.

2146 asseth, atonement.

2163 awer, concern (see note 1779).

2174 ageyn byeng, redemption.

2191 slyppe, slime; medlid and gaderid, mingled and gathered.

2205 sotil, subtle.

2210 departing, division, separation.

2211 hesy, easy; trowen, believe.

2214 owe, ought.

2234 command, coming.

2239 berith, carries.

2248 feithyn, believe.

2251 we . . . sensual, we are made a physical, living being; as swithe, just as quickly.

2252 cure, care.

2256 abylith, enables.

2258 sensualite, concrete and bodily existence (see note 2250-51).

2259 cite, city.

2260 se, see, official domain.

2282 sotil, subtle.

2284 for the mene profir, on the basis of the intermediary's suggestion.

2287 ridier to us, more easy for us.

2291 of fulhede, for complete [understanding].

2293-94 Whither and, Whether if.

2296 mene, the medium.

2299 rotid, rooted.

2300 comenyng and daliance, mutuality and communion, i.e., familiar conversation.

2303 clepid, called, designated.

2304 cyte, city.

2313-15 For . . . substance, For until our soul has its full power, we cannot be entirely holy, and that is [can happen then] because our psycho-physical being by the power of Christ's passion is [then] brought up to the substance.

2318 heyhede, elevation; kindhede, natural placement. See note 2318.

2320 incres, increase.

2329 connyng of, knowledge of.

2331-33 For. . . spirite, For in our first creation, God gave us fully all we need [in this life], and also greater goods such as we may receive only in our spirit.

2335 There, Where.

2344 diverssetis, diversity.

2351 adyte, assigned.

2366 renued, renewed.

2380 lerand His loris, learning His lore.

2386 at onys, at once.

2404 yeldyng, repayment, harvest.

2419 kepid ondepartid, kept together.

2424 thred, third.

2429 perfitt, perfect.

2472 impropried to, embodied in.

2477 forthspreadyng, amplification.

2488 rayhid Him and dyte Him, arrayed and prepared Himself.

2495 throwes, times, torments.

2497 makyn aseth to, fully satisfy.

2522 bristinid, broken, beaten severely.

2538 bend payd, be satisfied (or, yield, pleased).

2539 And, If.

2551 assay, trial.

2572 al swithe, at once.

2578-79 blissid comon, blessed community.

2587 not . . . Child, nothing to do at all but see about the salvation of her child. .

2592 dispits, humiliations.

2606 rialtie, royalty.

2628 sothly, truly.

2630 shynand, shining.

2632 mone, lament.

2643 fordreth, fosters, helps.

2663 beyng, being, existence.

2678 semyt, seems.

2682 oggley, ugly; bolned quave of styngand myre, swollen heaving of stinking mire.

2685 bolnehede, swelling.

2687 belevith, stays, is left.

2690 severen, sovereign, the greatest possible.

2691 behest, promise.

2692 behoting, promise.

2705 behests, promises.

2712 trosty, in trust, without doubt.

2718 had . . . lovid of God, possessed infinitely by those whom God loves.

2719 mon, may.

2742 ich, each.

2748 lestid folowand, were going on consecutively; or, were perpetually in my mind.

2749 langiren, languish.

2752 hevyed, heaved, tossed.

2754 ferid, fared.

2755 leuhe . . . inderly, laughed loud and heartily.

2756 blode fast, bled profusely.

2758 recleshede, recklessness.

2760 shrevyn, absolved, shriven.

2761 levyn, believe.

2763 fole, fool.

2768 gan to slepyn, went to sleep.

2772 steknes, speckles, stitches (see note).

2773 rode, red; evisid, clipped.

2774 thounys, temples;shrewd, wicked.

2797 gemeth, guides.

2814 makar, maker.

2815 cite, city.

2831 leve, believe.

2845-46 And . . . more, And soon after all was closed, and I saw no more.

2850 parlement, debate.

2853 bidding of beds, praying of beads, i.e., saying the rosary.

2863 soverain, sovereign, the best possible.

2874 byddand, commanding.

2889-90 festyn it feyfully, fasten it faithfully.

2896 persivyn, understand.

2906 utter, outer.

2908 cheres, countenances.

2915 beer, endure.

2919 medlarid the thord, mingles the third.

2928 cleerty, clarity; feland, feeling.

2931 medled with ony, mixed with any.

2944 al He halsith us, He embraces us entirely.

2954 myrkehede, darkness.

2977 rith, exactly.

2978 sumdele, something.

2980-81 on . . . hevily, one is impatience or sloth, for we endure our trouble and pains heavily.

2999 astynten, stop.

3015 afray, sudden attack.

3031 thei arn rotid, they are rooted.

3045 moder barme, mother's bosom.

3050 medlid, mixed.

3059 us feile, we fail in.

3065 neden, are needed.

3066 threist, thirst.

3067 His holy, His saints.

3068 lively, living.

3087 tremelyn and quakyn, tremble and quake.

3089 tremeland and quakand, trembling and quaking.

3107 travellyn, work.

3128 behotist, promised.

3130 slauth, sloth; lesyng, losing.

3143 brynnyt, burns.

3146 flen, flee.

3148 neyghen, draw near to.

3148-49 shrewid peyne, wicked, i.e., severe pain.

3162-63 Accuse . . . demandand that, Do not accuse yourself too much, deciding that.

3171 gaf, gave.

3232 alsa, also.

3241 recles, careless.

3247 beseyn us, busy ourselves.

3249 swemefully, piteously.

3250 hath hast, has haste (i.e., is eager to).

3274 swemefully, sorrowfully.

3280 leve . . . Him, fail to keep Him in mind.

3282 swemely and monyng, sorrowful and lamenting.

3296 reynand, reigning.

3299 wonnyth, dwells.

3310 mede, reward.

3318 the agens, you against.

3321 customably, customarily, habitually.

3323 clevand, cleaving; seand, seeing.

3324 wittand, knowing.

3332 lyt, light.

3361 clerte, clarity.

3367 sperid, closed off; suich, such.

3389 beforn that, before.

3399-3400 merkness, darkness.

3424 heretique, heretic.

THE SHEWINGS OF JULIAN OF NORWICH: NOTES

Abbreviations:

C&W        A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, ed. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978. [Includes both short and long versions.]

S1        London. British Library MS Sloane 2499. [Base text for this edition of the longer version.]

S2        London. British Library MS Sloane 3705.

P        Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale MS Fonds anglais 40. [Base text for the longer version in C&W.]

A        London. British Library MS Additional 37790. [Base text for the short version in C&W.]


Chapter I

The shorter version gives no preliminary summary. If not editorial, this outline supports other evidence that Julian not only added to her book but also reconsidered it as a whole. Internal references directing readers to past or future passages (e.g., in chapters 17 and 56) also indicate that she reviewed the whole work as a whole. The shorter version lacks such referrals.

4 the Trinite. S1 thee.

11 pretious. S1 barely legible. P precious.

16 also. S1 aso. P also.

26-27 and of the pretious asseth that He hath made for man synne. Asseth, "satisfaction," "compensation," or "amends," is both a legal and an ecclesiastical term. John A. Alford includes it in his Piers Plowman: A Glossary of Legal Diction (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer/Boydell & Brewer, 1988), pp. 10-11, directing readers to English Wycliffite Sermons, ed. Anne Hudson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 1, 497-99, for an entire sermon on the place of asseth in the economy of salvation. Mona Logarbo in "Salvation Theology in Julian of Norwich: Sin, Forgiveness, and Redemption in the Revelations," Thought 61 (1986), 374, points to derivation from OF assez which had its roots in Latin ad satis; she defines asseth in Julian as "that which makes sufficient"; what is sufficient for Julian, Logarbo indicates, is Christ's achieved filling in of the breach between God and humanity caused by the "great harm" of Adam's sin.

29 make wele. S1 make wle.

38 wonyth. S1 marginal gloss: dwelleth.


Chapter II

Eight chapter headings refer to Julian in the third person, those for chapters 2, 8, 9, 50, 51, 66, 69, and 81. All headings may be editorial, and those for chapters 9 and 81 almost certainly are, referring, as they do, to "the mekenes of this woman" and "this blissid woman."

42 the eighth day of May. P gives May 13 as the date.

44-45 three wounds. The shorter text adds a reference to Saint Cecelia: "For the thirde, I harde a man telle of halye kyrke of the storye of Saynte Cecylle. In the whilke schewynge I undyrstode that sche hadde thre woundys with a swerde in the nekke, with the whilke sche pynede to the dede. By the styrrynge of this I conseyvede a myghty desyre, prayande oure lorde god that he wolde grawnte me thre woundys . . ." [For the third, I heard a man tell of holy church's story of Saint Cecelia, from which account I understood that she had three wounds with a sword in her neck, with which she suffered till death. By this inspiration I conceived a mighty desire, praying our Lord God that He would grant me three wounds] (fol. 97v). This single mention of a normal and specific mode of receiving information is of hearing, not reading. Riehle believes that the request for three wounds and for physical illness owes something to women mystics on the continent whose writings may have reached England; the parallels he gives are approximate (pp. 28-30).

50 and suffer with Him. The shorter version adds, "not withstandynge that I leevyd sadlye alle the peynes of cryste as halye kyrke schewys & techys, & also the payntyngys of crucyfexes that er made be the grace of god aftere the techynge of haly kyrke to the lyknes of crystes passyoun, als farfurthe as manys witte maye reche" [notwithstanding that I firmly believed all the pains of Christ just as holy church shows and teaches, and also the paintings of crucifixes that are made to the likeness of Christ's passion, as far as man's intelligence may reach, by the grace of God, and after the teaching of holy church] (fol. 97r). Commentators cite this passage as evidence that religious art affects the images of the showings. For the possibility that "payntyngys" may be a neo-Platonic term, see C&W, I, 202, and the article cited there by G. V. Smithers, "Two Typological Terms in the Ancrene Riwle," Medium Aevum 34 (1965), 126-28.
   Julian's desire to be in effect a fellow witness of the Crucifixion would not be unusual in the affective piety of the fourteenth century. Richard Rolle, the earlier fourteenth-century mystic, wrote a "Meditations on the Passion" in which the speaker attempts to view the events of Christ's last hours from arrest to entombment as if they were unfolding before his eyes in sequence (English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Hope Emily Allen [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931], pp. 17-36). The popular pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi (13th century) initiated and sustained many similar devotions. See Jantzen for a sketch of precedents and the role of monastic reading technique as an influence upon the development of such devotion (pp. 56-58). What is unusual about Julian's petition is the form its granting took. For the theme of Christ's suffering as it figures in the writings of female mystics in particular, see Petroff, pp. 9-16. For the distinctive caste of Julian's treatment of this theme, see Bhattacharji, pp. 85-88.

64 seying. S2; S1 sey. P's syntax is too different to furnish the word.

69 willfull longing to God. In medieval psychology the will was the faculty which could choose and love. Will and willful are specific, weighted words in Julian, usually carrying the sense of a sustained intentionality, a fully conscious choosing. See lines 85, 167-68, 225-28, and 2710-12 as typical examples. Though the request for a critical illness to death is the one that startles, to a great extent this third part of her third request, the desired willful longing to God, constitutes the core subject of the Shewings which also illustrates it. Longing may mean either yearning or belonging, and Julian's use frequently captures both definitions.


Chapter III

77 sweeme. S1 marginal gloss: regret.

89 My curate was sent for. A is more circumstantial: "thay that were with me sente for the persoun, my curette, to be atte myne endynge [the parson, my curate, to be at my end]. He come, and a childe with hym, and brought a crosse & be thanne I hadde sette myne eyenn [eyes], and myght nought speke. The persone sette the crosse before my face, and sayde: 'Dowghtter, I have brought the [thee] the ymage of thy sauioure"' (fol. 98r).

99 After this the other party of my body began to dyen. A reports, "Myne handdys felle downe on aythere syde, and also for vnpowere my heede satylde downe" [went limp] (fol. 98r).

100 onethys. S1 marginal gloss: scarcely.

onde. S1 marginal gloss: winde.

106 lever. S1 marginal gloss: rather.


Chapter IV

126-27 that He that is so reverend and dredfull will be so homley. Homeliness is a favorite item in Julian's vocabulary. Along with courteous, it describes God's personal, loving attitude toward the individual soul. English mystics may also use homely in passages on intimate communion of the soul with the divine. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing writes that some aspirants do not reach "ravisching" - mystic union - "with-outyn moche & longe goostly excersise," but that others "ben so sotyl [subtle] in grace & in spirit, & so homely with God in this grace of contemplacion, that thei mowe [may] have it [i.e., God's presence] when thei wolen [wish to]" (ed. Phyllis Hodgson, EETS o.s. 218, 1944; rev. 1973 [London: Oxford University Press, 1981], p. 126). Compare The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Meech and Allen, p. 90. According to Riehle, homeliness translates familiaritas, which Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) introduced into theological language to describe the mystical union of the soul and God (pp. 97-99). S1 here glosses homely in the margin as familiar. Julian sometimes uses the word in its specialized sense, sometimes colloquially.

129 or. S1 marginal gloss: before.

139 hir maker. S1 his. S2 agrees with P's her.

143 manhood. P; S1 omits.


Chapter V

145 for us. P to our helpe.

146-47 wrappeth us . . . tender love. S1 is intermittently blotched by ink that has soaked through from the other side of the page. P expands the clause: wrappeth us and wyndeth us, halseth us and all becloseth us, hangeth about us for tender love.

151 lesten. S1 marginal gloss: last.

152 it might suddenly have fallen to nowte for littil. The short text continues, "In this blyssede revelacion god schewyd me thre noughtes of whilke noughttes [showed me three naughts, of which naughts] this is the fyrste that was schewyd me. Of this nedes ilke [each] man and woman to hafe knawynge that desyres to lyeve contemplatyfelye [live as a contemplative], that hym lyke to nought alle thynge that es made for to hafe the love of god that es unmade" (fol. 99v). This passage implies that Julian may have written the short text with contemplatives in mind as her primary audience. The other "naughts" are probably sin and the devil (C&W, I, 215).

161 howe. P have. S1 marginal gloss: know. It is tempting to follow the marginal gloss and to emend howe to knowe, so that the sense would be more parallel with the have knoweing in line 160. As is, for to love and howe God that is unmade seems to mean "in order to love and have (possess, obtain) God who is without creator."

175-76 touchen the will. S1 marginal gloss: agreeing to his will.

Chapter VI

207 oure God. P; S1 omits.

207-08 that hath us all in Himselfe beclosyd. P adds: "A man goyth vppe ryght and the soule of his body is sparyde [closed], as a purse fulle feyer. And whan it is tyme of his nescessery, it is openyde and sparyde ayen [again] fulle honestly. And that it is he that doyth this it is schewed ther wher he seyth, he comyth downe to vs to the lowest parte of oure nede" (fol. 12r). C&W offers the translation "cooked, digested food" for soule from OE sufol (II, 306). A. M. Allchin comments, "Julian is so integrated in herself, so penetrated throughout her being by this conviction of the all-encompassing goodness of God, that she can speak quite simply of the processes of the digestion and evacuation of food as ways in which God serves us. There are few spiritual writers who have spoken so directly and so naturally on this subject" (pp. 37-38).

209 simplest office that to. to P; S1 do.

212 bouke. S1 marginal gloss: Bulke.

216 herete. S1 marginal gloss: heart.

226 blyn. S1 marginal gloss: cease, leave fr.

233 even Cristen. S1 marginal gloss: Xstian neighbour.


Chapter VII

235 the hey. S1 they hey.

241-51 In all the tyme . . . spreadeing on the forehead. In the course of an argument that cultural representations may be constitutive of the mystic's experience, Laurie A. Finke writes that this passage hints of an intense meditation upon a visual image (for instance, in a book of hours) in which particular details "lose their relationship to the whole composition and begin to remind her of other inanimate objects. As she traces the brushstrokes, following the change in color from brownish red to bright red, finally vanishing from the canvas, other images - pellets, raindrops, herring's scales - suggest themselves to her, transforming the suffering into an artistic vision, a representation that seems self-conscious in its artifice" (Feminist Theory, Women's Writing [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992], p. 97). Without taking anything from the absorbed intensity that Finke observes, the possibility also exists that this is simply another example of Julian's free use of everyday surroundings. Campbell has noted that fish, especially herring, may have formed a major source of wealth for Norwich as early as the eleventh century. A charter of between 1114 and 1160 records a render of at least 2,000 herring owed by a house in the city, and herring pies were among the renders which Norwich owed to the Crown in the thirteenth century (p. 7). My own sense of the passage is that this is an effort to communicate, to get the vision down exactly as remembered.

244 semand. S1 marginal gloss: seeming.

252 mynde. P; S1 omits.

258-59 He shewid this opyn example. Nuth regards this as an intimation of the lord and servant parable of chapter 51, pointing out that, like that parable, this and other passages that feature a lord or king in relation to a servant or subject appear only in the long text (p. 31).

266 hart. P; S1 partially illegible.


Chapter VIII

290 that ever was, is, and ever shal bene. This is the first of Julian's several echoes of the doxology: "Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." Among many instances, see lines 815-16 and 836-37. This is the only familiar liturgical formula that Julian resorts to continually. She would have heard it at mass. J. P. H. Clark notes Julian's attribution of might, wisdom, and love to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively as the common appropriation based on Augustine and developed by the scholastics ("Fiducia," p. 225).

303 sterid. S1 marginal gloss: stirr'd.

306 domys day. Two doomsdays await the soul; Julian refers to the individual judgment of the soul at the individual's moment of dying; at the apocalyptic doomsday at the end of time, souls and bodies will be reunited for a final, confirming, general judgment.

310 mervil. S1 marginal gloss: strange.

314 levyn. S1 marginal gloss: leave of. The word may be glossed either believe or leave. In the first case, Julian says that since God intends the revelation not for herself alone but also for all her even Christians, they should believe it. In the second case, she urges that Christians use her report of her beholding merely as a crutch, discarding it for beholding God Himself. See also notes to lines 1585 and 2876.


Chapter IX

328-32 And God hat made al . . . and God is in al. In A this passages continues into Julian's apology (or apologia) for addressing fellow Christians as a teacher even though she is a woman (fols. 100v-101r), given below, Appendix A.

330-32 For in mankynd . . . and God is in al. This is Julian's first statement of an inclusiveness that binds God and human souls, creator, creatures, and creation, in an interpenetrating reality.

335 But in al thing I leve as Holy Church levith, preachith, and teachith. This is the first of Julian's affirmations of accordance with the Church's teaching.

leve. S1 gloss: beleeve.


Chapter X

348 sollowing. A reads sowlynge (fol. 101v), which C&W gives as "to soil," derived from OF suill(i)er, soill(i)er. For Biblical background, see C&W II, 324.

351 it vanyssched. P; S1 omits.

355 For I saw Him and sowte Hym. S1: For I saw him sowte; marginal gloss: sowght. P: And thus I saw him and sought him.

363-65 Than I understode . . . harme. S1 marginal gloss: NB. This nota bene annotation is comparable to marginal hands in earlier medieval manuscripts, which call the user's attention to passages some reader favored.

364 is with. P; S1 illegible.

366-67 will that. P; S1 illegible.

370 sprets. S1 marginal gloss: spirits.

375 the holy vernacle of Rome. According to the legend of the vernicle, St. Veronica's kerchief became impressed with an exact image of the face of the suffering Christ when she compassionately wiped His face as He carried the cross to Calvary. Preserved at St. Peter's in Rome, the cloth became an object of pilgrimage. C&W discusses Julian's use of the vernicle, gives an account the devotion's currency in fourteenth-century England, and provides a bibliography (I, 53-55).

395 owen to trowen. S1 marginal gloss: We ought to believe.

400 rewfull. P; S1 reuly.

403 this wrought. P: this is wrought.

404 fyndyng is. S1 reads fyndyng is is.

425 full. S1 marginal gloss: very.


Chapter XI

440-41 For He is . . . no synne. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

467 meneing. S1 marginal gloss: speaking.

Chapter XII

With dazzling rapidity, Julian moves in this chapter from the specific showing of the scourging to the cosmic theaters of God's redemptive blood, earth, heaven, and hell. The shift is also one from literal to typological to anagogical levels of allegory, as the transitions from blood to water, to generic liquid, and back to blood whip to a rhetorical peroration. But all this is guided by a specific, self-reflexive note on her associative process, "And than cam to my minde" (481).

473-74 seming of the scorgyng. The seming or furrowing is from gashes; Glasscoe's glossary gives weals. "Appearance" is surely one translation of seming, but derivation from seam, a furrow, groove, or gash from a long, incised wound is equally a possibility. Either makes sense. The MED cites Julian in giving "gash" for seam.

479 if it had be so in kind and in substance. Elizabeth N. Evasdaughter calls attention to the hypothetical phrasing; Julian noticed an "edge" between her visions and the ordinary perceived world and did not require that what was seen in them correspond to what would have been seen in non-visionary circumstances (p. 204).

480 it should have made the bed al on blode and a passid over aboute. Maria R. Lichtmann points to the "charged," "taboo" aspect of this profuse bleeding, an outpouring made even more taboo, she observes, when comparing its overflowing of boundaries to the necessity for containment of fluidity stressed in Talmudic texts (pp. 15, 18, note 11). Lichtmann's basic argument is that unlike those spiritual writers who wish to escape the prison of body, Julian regards the body as the locus of spiritual enlightenment, developing both an epistemology, the body as a vehicle for knowing God, and a theology of the body (p. 17). Elizabeth Robertson comments on this passage and compares Julian's "extraordinary and idiosyncratically female uses of blood imagery" with Richard Rolle's meditation upon Christ's blood (pp. 154-56).

483 hys. P; S1 is. to wassch us. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XIII encres. S1 marginal gloss: encrease.

505-06 all sent of salvation. Marion Glasscoe comments that sent is used in a "common medieval context of divine dispensation and refers to those ordained by God to salvation" ("Visions and Revisions," 112).

510-11 But in God may be no wreth, as to my syte. Perhaps an implied contrast to the devil's malicious attitude, this comment can only be inferentially linked with what goes before; the theme will be taken up more fully in chapter 48.

518 seen. P; S1 ben.

522 sothfastnes. S1 marginal gloss: veracity, constancy.

524 game. P; S1 same.


Chapter XIV servants. S2; S1 servats.

546 that him. S1 that him hym.

554 underfongyn. S1 marginal gloss: received.

561 the lever he is to serve Him . . . his life. Here and in similar passages, the Paris manuscript gives she as the pronoun for the soul to S1's he or it. Perhaps because of Latin anima, the medieval pronoun for the soul is frequently feminine. The phrase the dayes of his is lightly crossed through in S1.


Chapter XV

564 was in al peace. S1 reads was was.

567 onethis. S1 marginal gloss: scarcely.

574-76 I migte have seid with Seynt Paul . . . I perish. See Romans 8:35: "Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?"; Matt. 8:25: "And they came to him and awakened him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish"; and Matt. 14:30: "he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: Lord, save me." The passages from Matthew are conflated. Julian's references to the Bible are not so direct or so pervasive as those of most Middle English mystics; one gets the impression that Hilton would have no text without the Bible. Colledge and Walsh, whose appendices include a thorough one on Julian's Biblical allusions, regard her independence as a clue that she made her own translations from the Vulgate. Though she might have used a Wycliffite translation, her wording is not close to the only ones known to have been in circulation in her time. Other possibilities are a Wycliffite Bible unknown to us or an Anglo-French translation. They conclude that her own translating is most probable. ("Editing Julian of Norwich's Revelations," pp. 408-11). See also Pelphrey's appendix in Love Was His Meaning on the influence of Scripture, pp. 331-49. The evidence is also consistent with Biblical familiarity through hearing and quotation from memory.

587 folow. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XVI

594-95 swemful. S1 marginal gloss: strange gastly.

597 same. P; S1 eche. Eche makes sense, but Julian elsewhere indicates that she is aware that Christ, in fact, died but once. See A, fol. 103v.

597-99 For that same tyme . . . sigte. S1 marginal gloss: NB. This is the only physical manifestion of the showings given a nota bene. Although cold is frequently a feature of representations of the Crucifixion in the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, the notice of a harsh wind is rare, if not unique, among them.

598 wonder. P; S1 wond.

606 and peynfully dreyden up all the lively spirits of Crists fleshe. Vincent J. DiMarco's note to Chaucer's Knight's Tale A.2743-56 is helpful: "According to the physiology developed from Galen, there were three kinds of virtues (otherwise called spirits) that operate most of the body's vital processes: the natural, situated in the liver; the vital, localized chiefly in the heart; and the animal, operating through the brain" (The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson [Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987], p. 839.) For passages where Chaucer chooses spirit rather than virtue, see The Knight's Tale A.1369 and The Book of the Duchess 489. Among Chaucerian cases, these are the most obviously physiological, Julian's context here. DiMarco notes Bartholomaeus Anglicus as a contemporary source. See On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa's Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour and others, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 1, 103-08 (Book 3, chapters 14-16). Bartholomaeus credits Constantinus Africanus (d. 1097) as his authority; Chaucer readers will recall that as well as Galen, the second century Greek ("Galyen" A.431), "Constantyn" is among the numerous authorities known to the doctour of physik (A.433). Though her lively spirits seems to translate the vertues vitales standing in the Trevisa Bartholomaeus, it is doubtful if the work could have been known to Julian. Trevisa was a contemporary of Julian's, finishing his translation in 1398-99. But though there were numerous Latin manuscripts of Bartholomaeus available in the fourteenth century, the new English remained scarce, apparently until a printing in 1495 by Wynkyn De Worde. On the whole matter of physiological spirits, see also Walter Clyde Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, 2nd rev. ed (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1960), pp. 140-45 and 203-06.


Chapter XVII S1 misnumbers as 18.

624 heire. S1 marginal gloss: haire.

629 thorow. P; S1 thowe.

645 askyd. P; S1 asky.

651 thingke P; S1 thynyn.

652 for it may not be told. The short text is more expansive here, including that Julian's mother and others were at her bedside: "Swilke paynes I sawe that alle es to litelle that y can telle or saye, for itt maye nought be tolde, botte ylke saule aftere the sayinge of saynte Pawle schulde feele in hym that in criste Jhesu. This schewynge of criste paynes fillyd me fulle of paynes, For I wate weele he suffrede nought botte anes botte as he walde schewe yt me and fylle me with mynde as I hadde desyrede before. My modere that stode emangys othere and behelde me lyftyd uppe hir hande before me face to lokke mynn eyenn for sche wenyd I had bene dede or els I hadde dyede and this encrysyd mekille my sorowe, for nought withstandynge alle my paynes, I wolde nought hafe beenn lettyd for loove that I hadde in hym" [I saw such pains that all I can tell or say is too little, for they may not be told; but each soul, after the saying of Saint Paul, should feel in him what Jesus Christ felt. This showing of the pains of Christ filled me full of pain, for I know well He suffered but once; but He wished to show this to me and fill me with full knowledge, as I had desired before. My mother, who stood among others and beheld me, lifted up her hand before my face to close my eyes, for she thought I was dead, or else had just died. And this increased my sorrow much, for notwithstanding all my pains, I did not want to be stopped (from seeing the showing) because of the love I had in Him.] (fol. 103v).

661 is. P; S1 omits.

663 sothfastly. S1 marginal gloss: assuredly.

664 so. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XVIII with. S2; S1 omits.

687 Sain Dionyse of France. Tradition had gathered about the mid-third century career of Saint Dionysius or Denis of France, apostle and martyr in Gaul, the lives of two other figures, the Dionysius of Acts 17 converted by St. Paul (Dionysius the Areopagite) and the late fifth- or early sixth- century author of mystical tracts, pseudo-Dionysius, who assigned his work to the apostolic contemporary. Julian gives to her figure the inscription "To the unknown God" which Paul finds at Athens and claims as a reference to Christ. The Cloud of Unknowing author translated writings of pseudo-Dionysius. Although not all are persuaded, it has been suggested that familiarity with pseudo-Dionysius marks Julian's thought (Reynolds, "Some Literary," pp. 23-24). Classified as possibly pseudo-Dionysian are the seeing of God in a point (427-28); the statement that all kinds flow out of God (2600-04); and the special use of touch (e.g., 1237, 2317, and 3346).

689-90 kynde. auter. S1 marginal glosses: nature. Alter.

Chapter XX

727-33 And thus saw I . . . dethe. A usual reading of this passage would regard it as a trope. Denise Levertov's "On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX" enforces the difficult, literal reading. See Breathing the Water (New York: New Directions, 1984), pp. 68-69.

740 mannys. P; S1 manny.


Chapter XXI Crosse. S1 capitalizes Cross throughout this chapter.

756 wet. Perhaps P's wende is preferable.


Chapter XXII The ninth Revelation is of the. The, of S2; S1 he, o.

785 bodyly. S1 dodyly. P bodely.

787 mede. S1 marginal gloss: reward.

792 beyeng. S1 marginal gloss: buying.

798 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.


Chapter XXIII

843 lykyng. S1 marginal gloss: liking.

847 And. P; S1 Ad.


Chapter XXIV two. S2; S1 tw.

871 that is to mene. S1 marginal gloss: conceive.

878 have. P; S1 hay.


Chapter XXV

915 conceyvyd. P; S1 grevid.


Chapter XXVI

917 Lorde. P; S1 Lodd. And after this. The short version reads: "And eftyr this oure lorde schewyd hym to me mare gloryfyed as to my syght than I sawe hym before, and in this was I lerede that ilke saule contemplatyfe to whilke es gyffenn to luke and seke god schalle se hire and passe vnto god by contemplacioun" [And after this our Lord showed Himself to me more glorified in my sight than I had seen Him before, and in this I was taught that to each contemplative soul to whom it is given to look and seek God shall see her and pass to God by contemplation] (fol. 106r). In the short text there is no chapter division at this point; C&W refers hire to Mary above, citing a belief that one's last days may be graced by a vision of Mary occurring in a prayer frequently inscribed in French books of hours (I, 243). Though the pronoun in this passage is probably not evidence of the fact, elsewhere Julian clearly advances feminine aspects of divinity.

918-19 I was lernyd that our soule shal never have rest til it comith to Hym. As a number of commentators have observed, the language recalls St. Augustine's fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te [you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you (Confessions, 1.1)]. Reynolds places Augustine as second only to the Vulgate Bible as an influence upon Julian ("Some Literary," p. 22).


Chapter XXVII

Chapter 27 is headed as 28 in S1. This chapter begins the discussion of sin that is quoted in T. S. Eliot's "Little Gidding." According to Loretta Lucido Johnson's work in progress, Eliot became acquainted with Julian when as an undergraduate he read W. R. Inge's Studies of English Mystics (1906). At that time he also read Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism (1911) and took notes upon it (Helen Gardner, The Composition of Four Quartets [New York: Oxford University Press, 1978], p. 69, note 82). Eliot later met Underhill and also May Sinclair, whose Defence of Idealism: Some Questions and Conclusions (New York: Macmillan, 1917) refers to Julian several times. (See esp. pp. 240-89.) Eliot reviewed some of Sinclair's work, and they met socially, according to Johnson's dissertation, T. S. Eliot's "Criterion," 1922-1939, Columbia University, 1980, pp. 13-15. Underhill was also a contributor to Criterion. Julian's writing therefore reached deeply into Eliot's past when he retrieved it in the early forties for three passages in "Little Gidding" (lines 166-68, 196-99, and 255-56). The quotations from Julian are a revision; early drafts show in their place a readaptation of the familiar Eucharistic prayer "Anima Christi." When he substituted Julian's "Sin is behovely" he needed to identify the lines (and also one from The Cloud of Unknowing) for his correspondent, friend, and consultant, John Hayward. Gardner's book includes an excerpt from the Hayward correspondence in which Eliot says that he read "Juliana" in the Cressy edition in a reprint published "where, do you think? Why, in St. Louis, Mo." (p. 7l). For details on the revision see Gardner, pp. 69-71 and pp. 201-24. Susan McCaslin reviews Eliot's choice of Julian with the further suggestion that in selecting Julian for a representation of the English mystical life, he has retrieved a writer whose experience and movements of thought between concrete and abstract parallel his own imaginative movements in their dealings with time's relation to eternity ("Vision and Revision in Four Quartets: T. S. Eliot and Julian of Norwich," Mystics Quarterly 12 [1986], 172).

936 without reason and discretion. A adds, ". . . of fulle grete pryde. & neverthelesse Jhesu in this visioun enfourmede me of alle that me neded. I saye nought that me nedes na mare techynge, for oure lorde with the schewynge of this hase lefte me to haly kyrke [holy church], and I am hungery and thyrstye and nedy and synfulle and freele, & wilfully submyttes me to the techynge of haly kyrke with alle myne even crystenn in to the ende of my lyfe. He aunswerde be this worde, and sayde: "Synne is behovelye . . ." (fol. 106r). Watkin glosses behovely, usually translated necessary, "has its part in the Divine economy of good" (p. 22). Sheila Upjohn translates, "Sin is behovely - it had to be -" in In Love Enclosed: More Daily Readings with Julian of Norwich, ed. Robert Llewelyn (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), p. 29. I owe my acquaintance with Upjohn's clear translations from Julian to Rose Ronan Halpern and Mary Daley Ronan.

950-51 But I saw not synne, for I beleve it hath no manner of substance ne no party of being. That evil is a privation of good, a nothingness, rather than a part of creation was a common philosophical proposition which could have come to Julian from several sources, among them St. Augustine (see Confessions 3.7 and 7.12-16) or Boethius (Consolation 4.2); Colledge and Walsh have proposed that Julian just may have read Chaucer's translation of Boethius ("Editing Julian of Norwich's Revelations," p. 422).

Substance is technical and philosophical here, referring to the core reality of any manifestation, material or spiritual. Substance is the inner actuality independent of external changes. Later, Julian will assert that our natural substance is always kept safe in God (1565-66 and 1597-98), and even that there is no difference between God and our substance (2221), quickly re-stating: "God is God, and our substance is a creture in God" (2222-23). The "fullest substance" is the "blissid soule of Criste" (2203). Earlier uses of the word informed by this meaning occur at lines 157-58, "substantially onyd," and line 668, "a substance of kynd love."

960 sythen. P; S1 seith.


Chapter XXVIII

974 lakid. S1 marginal gloss: not liked of, from the dutch word lackon, to dispraise, to blame, being the opposit to the D. word prijsen, to praise.


Chapter XXIX

994 menyng. S1 marginal gloss: thought.

1000 asyeth. S1 marginal gloss: satisfaction.


Chapter XXX

1008 mankynde. P; S1 mankyd.

1009 councellid. S1 counellid. P counceylyd.

1015 privy councell. The OED gives Barbour's Bruce, 1375, as its first instance of privy council to designate a group of private counsellors to the sovereign. Julian's quick troping of a political term new in the vernacular indicates an absorbing mind, or it may merely signal that she knew Latin. James F. Baldwin's The King's Council in England during the Middle Ages (1913; rpt. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965) notes that the terms secretum consilium and privatum consilium appear in official records from the first quarter of the century; French equivalents such as le privé counseil also became current at this time. The term did not refer to the more powerful ancestor of the present British institution, but simply to a royal council secretly summoned (p. 105). Julian's diction is politically allusive. In this passage, it is an added force that "ryal lordship" referred to real and great, not titular, power in the daily world. The positioning of lord and servant in chapter 51 speaks to daily power relations with which Julian would expect any conceivable audience to identify. Even a term like courtesy, so frequent in her Shewings, was tinged by the existence of courts which functioned as real centers of power, sources of support, and cultural models.


Chapter XXXI

1033 shalle. P; S1 sha.

1040 fully. P; S1 filly.

1042 amenst. Probably for anemst, "concerning," as in line 1047 and after. S1 reads amenst the God the godhede. S1 marginal gloss: as concerning, or w[i]th respect unto.


Chapter XXXII

1077 dedes. S1 dedse. P dedys.

1078 harmes. P; S1 harmy.

1094-96 This is the grete dede . . . wele. S1 marginal gloss: NB. Several commentators have speculated that the great deed planned from time's beginning to be known only at time's end is universal salvation. Although she concludes that "Julian does not, strictly speaking, teach a doctrine of universal salvation," Joan Nuth assembles anew the evidence for such a possibility (pp. 162-69).

1099 growndid. S1 gowndid. P groundyd.


Chapter XXXIII

1118 prefe. P; S1 privy.

that. S1 reads that that, reiterating the word at the end of the MS line with an abbreviation at the head of the next line. The scribe does the same thing with the that in line 1123.

1123 that. S1 reads that that.

1133 But I saw not so propirly specyfyed the Jewes. Julian discriminates between what her visions tell her and what she understands to be the church's teaching. She does not contradict the second, but her showings simply do not include cursed Jews; and she says they do not. The devil is within her imaging of the spiritual world, but damned souls are not. She gives no evidence that she participated in the anti-Semitism of her time and place. The first legend of Jewish ritual child murder comes from Norwich, that of St. William, d. 1144. "The mutiliated body of this twelve-year-old boy was found in a wood outside Norwich; five years later it was alleged that he was a victim of ritual murder by Jews. The authorities seem not to have credited the story; but the common people did, and William was venerated locally as a martyr" (Donald Attwater, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints [Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1965], p. 342). Chaucer readers will recall "yonge Hugh of Lyncoln" (d. 1255) "slayn also / With cursed Jewes," whom the Prioress apostrophizes as she closes a similar, later story (VII.684-85). England had expelled its Jews in 1290. There had been a Jewish community in Norwich from about 1144; Jews gave the city its "only early physicians" (Walter Rye, Some Historical Essays Chiefly Relating to Norfolk, Part II [Norwich: H.W. Hunt, 1926], p. 136). They did not have an easy time there. See V.D. Lipman, The Jews of Medieval Norwich (London: Jewish Historical Society, 1967) for an account of the community. The story of William and accounts of other episodes of Christian conflicts with the Jewish community during the some hundred and fifty years of its existence are given on pp. 49-64.

1135 dampnyd. P; S1 dampny.


Chapter XLV


Chapter XXXIV

1153 we may. P; S1 me way.

1158-59 He is the techyng, He is the techer, He is the leryd. For a survey of Christ as teacher in Julian and a compressed account of the background tradition see Sister Ritamary Bradley, "Christ, the Teacher."

1161 seke. P; S1 seky.

Chapter XXXV

1166 Hys. P; S1 hss.

1167 a certeyn creature that I lovid. The short text does not give the information that the person in whom Julian takes an interest had begun in "good lyvyng," but does indicate that this beloved soul was a woman: "And when God alle myghttye hadde schewed me plentyuouslye and fully of his goodnesse, I desyred of a certayne persoun that I lovyd howe it schulde be with hire. And in this desyre I lettyd [hampered] myselfe, for I was noght taught in this tyme" (fol. 108r). It has been proposed that the person may have been a child, Emma, the daughter of Sir Miles Stapleton, whose house was visible from the cell window of Saint Julian's church, according to Robert Flood. Lady Emma Stapleton later was a recluse at White Friars Priory (1421-42). Flood imagines the circumstances of Julian's concern for this neighbor child, who would have traveled the road past the cell on her way to another of the Stapleton residences: "Doubtless she had many conversations with the lady through her window . . ." (p. 39). Of course any such identification is speculative. Flood's small book (see Introduction, p. 9, note 12), is an attractive, affectionate effort to propose for Julian's words literal details of the precise local world of their utterance as well as a report of the church structure, which Flood studied before the bombing of 1942.

1178 Hymselfe. S1 hymsef.

1188 by. P; S1 omits.

1189 onto. S1 reads onto to.

1191 Hymselfe. S1 hymsef.

werks. S1 weks. P workes.

1192 soule that seith. that. P; S1 the.

1198-1200 And by His sufferaunce we fallyn. . . . And be mercy and grace we arn reysid. Pelphrey writes that Julian uses neither of the chief versions of progress in spiritual life offered in medieval mystical theology, ascent (as in the image of Hilton's scale) or the triadic stages of purgation, illumination, and union with God. She does not speak about ascent or about distinctions in spirituality, but offers the image of falling and rising with the falls also benefitting the soul. A theology of falling and rising is developed through chapters 47-49 and 61-85 (Love Was His Meaning, pp. 199-204). For summing statements, see lines 2080-81, 3138-42, and 3333-35.

1199 sufferaunce. P; S1 suffranc.


Chapter XXXVI known. S2. S1 kowen.

1204 Hymselfe. S1 hymsef.

1209 shalle. P; S1 sha.

1216 He. P; S1 omits.

1229 shalle. P; S1 sha.

1233-34 matter of mekenes . . . matter to enjoyen in me. In their translation of the long text, Colledge and Walsh indicate that Julian uses matter in its philosophical sense as the primary stuff of creation "to which form is to be given" (Julian of Norwich: Showings, p. 239, note 163). Panichelli refers matter in this passage to the antecedent sin, and sets this dialectically against the view that sin has no "manner substance ne no party of being" which Julian has advanced in chapter 27 (pp. 304-05; p. 310).

1238-39 Lete be al thi love . . . thi salvation. Margaret Gascoigne, member of the seventeenth-century Benedictine community which almost certainly is responsible for the writing of S1 and P, quotes these lines and identifies them as being by "a deere childe of thine . . . Julian the Ankress" (see Introduction above, pp. 15-16). She follows the P reading, "Lett me aloone, my derwurdy chylde" (fol. 65v). C&W suggest that the P reading can be understood as "Do not seek to hinder me," with precedent for the phrase in Exodus 32:9-10 (II, 439). The S1 reading may be understood as "Allow all your love to come into its full existence," or as "Let alone - have done with - lesser attachments and loves." The second possibility would reinforce the folly of "beholdying of the reprovyd," which is the immediate context of this divine locution.

1240 Lordys. P; S1 Lods.

1245 we. P; S1 omits.

1259 for sorrow. for. P; S1 omits.


Chapter XXXVII

1264 that. S1 tha.

1273-74 For in every soule that shal be savid is a godly wil that never assentid to synne ne never shal. The statement has been called heretical (e.g., Hudleston, pp. xxiii-iv, and Wolters, pp. 37-38). See Hanshell's essay for a review of the question, and Clark, "Fiducia," for precedents in Cassian and William of St. Thierry (p. 218). See also Judith Lang, "'The Godly Wylle' in Julian of Norwich," The Downside Review, 102 (1984), 163-74; del Mastro (1988), pp. 84-93; Gilchrist, pp. 77-88; and C&W I, 254, note 9, and II, 443, note 15.

1278-79 as wele. as. P; S1 a.


Chapter XXXVIII

1287-88 the goodnes of God suffrith never that soul to synne that shal come there. P reads: that soule to synne fynally that shalle come ther. Without fynally, Julian appears to be stating that God does not permit a Christian to sin at all. Pelphrey, opposing a suggestion that fynally may have been a scribal insertion, observes that without this, the sentence contradicts what Julian says elsewhere, that she has been given to understand that she and her even-Christians will sin (Love Was His Meaning, pp. 275-76).

1288 but which synne shal be rewardid . . . made knowen. Charles Cummings comments upon Julian's insights as analogous to Christ's appearance to Thomas, with wounds in hands and side, the risen Christ standing in continuity with the historical Jesus. Julian's insight amounts to a "safeguard of individual identity. The continuity of the individual person is preserved, with his or her unique identity shaped through life by failures as well as triumphs. . . . The total reality of sinful as well as virtuous deeds remains a fact of personal history and world history. It is the same, historical, sinful, forgiven person who is predestined, called, justified and glorified" ("Wounded in Glory," Mystics Quarterly 10 [1984], 74-75).

1293 Thomas of Inde. S2. A agrees. Variations in S1 and in P offer different examples of how manuscript variations may occur. S1 reads those of Inde, a contraction of Thomas in the copy text evidently responsible for this Mandevillian aura. The Paris manuscript gives Thomas and Jude. Here the scribe evidently transcribes the i/j and the minims of u/n from copy, perhaps accurately, but less probably, as j and n. So far as we know, Jude's life was blameless; the doubter's journey to India long formed a part of his tradition. Saint John of Beverley's story is told in Bede. Julian clearly relishes the heavenly fame of her neighbor and the immortal survival of his local identity. There are fewer local persons in the longer text - her mother and the child accompanying her curate disappear. The designation of the beloved of chapter 35 has been changed from "person" to "creature." But although Saint Cecilia is excised, the long text includes more anecdotal material drawn from church or Biblical legend, the stories of "Sain Dionyse of France," Pilate, the vernicle, and this neighboring saint.

1296 party. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XXXIX

1311 and noyith him in his owne syte. The temperate noyith may indicate, as suggested in C&W, that the S1 scribe mistook a noght in the exemplar; the A reading in the corresponding passage is noghtes (I, 256 and II, 449). The P reading is purgyth. There is, however, something psychologically appropriate about noyith. Further, the Middle English shades into stronger meanings than does our annoy, including impair, damage, and distress.

1315 tunyd. P has a more probable turned, but a musical metaphor is not impossible.

1318 undertakyth. P; S1 underforgyth. S1 marginal gloss: undergoeth.

1322 wil be cast in. P reads we be cast in, which may be preferable. The wil of S1, however, is a more powerful corrective to the popular impression that Julian is unrealistically optimistic.

Chapter XL we. S2; S1 omits.

1355 He. P offers it, making the soul the one who has been in pain and prison.

1358 onyd. P; S1 onye.

1379-80 For a kynde soule hath non helle but synne. P adds, "For alle is good but syn and nought is yvell but synne." The short text includes this statement and continues, "Synne es nowthere deed no lykynge, botte when a saule cheses wilfully synne, that is payne, as fore his god, atte the ende he hase ryght nought" [Sin is neither deed nor inclination, but when a soul chooses sin wilfully, that is payne, and as to his good (or, before his God), at the end he has absolutely nothing] (fol. 109r).

1382 wyllyng. P; S1 willy.

1387 evyn. P; S1 evn.

1388 hate. P; S1 hatenly.

1390 God. P; S1 omits.


Chapter XLI

1391 After this, our Lord shewid for prayers. The short text differs in many details in the discussion of prayer, including reference to the common daily prayers said by lay people: "and in this we say Pater noster, Ave, and Crede with devocioun as god wille gyffe it" (fol. 109v). With the bidding of beads mentioned in the long text's account of the apparition of the fiend (chapter 69) and a reserved attitude toward "menes" (chapter 6), these constitute Julian's reflections on ordinary prayer. Molinari discusses Julian's teachings on contemplative prayer (Love Was His Meaning, pp. 73-139). Pelphrey's dis- cussion of Julian's theology of prayer (pp. 214-54) supplements Molinari.

1397 shewed. P; S1 swewid.

1404 And in the sixth reason. The seeming skip from one to six may be partly explained as follows: The first reason, stated comprehensively, is that the Lord is "ground of thi besekyng," which also serves as a heading for a subset, the four clauses that follow, which are reasons 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The interrogative, "How shuld it than be?" with its implied answer, is the sixth reason and the conclusion of the reasoning process. Julian's designation of the first reason as "And thou besekyst it" remains a problem.

1413 onyd. P; S1 ony.

1425 febelnes. P; S1 febihede. Perhaps febilhede would be preferable.

1431 discrecion. P; S1 illegible.

1432 fifteenth Revelation. P; S1 fifth.

1433 aforn. S1 for aforn.

1434 Thankyng is a new, inward knowing. Thankyng. P; S1 thakyng. See Father John-Julian, OJN, "Thankyng in Julian," Mystics Quarterly, 15 (1989), 70-74, for the view that the etymological link that thank shares with think (OE thencan) informs this passage and others (e.g., line 1012) where Julian speaks of thanking. Using P's true for new, and amending lovely to lowley, he translates thankyng in this passage as "a steadfast, inner awareness with great veneration and humble awe, which turns us with all our strength towards the deeds to which our good Lord guides us" (72). The link with think seems especially valuable as an example of Julian's way with words, although the P reading and the emendation conventionalize the more spiky, difficult, and rewarding, S1 reading thakyng (throbbing, beating).


Chapter XLII

1475 to. P; S1 omits.

1477 the dede that is now in doyng. This on-going deed is not the eschatological deed that is to make all things well ultimately (chapter 30). See Hanshell, pp. 80-81, and Pelphrey, Love Was His Meaning, pp. 295-305.

1486 other. S1 has a squiggle over the o which might suggest owther or nother. S2 reads either.

Chapter XLIII

1513 Hymselfe. P; S1 hymsefe. eur. P gives oure, S2 our. The scribe of S has written eur above a canceled but still legible the. Eur, an infrequent form of eower, is the indefinite your, equivalent to one's. Pronoun shifts are common in Middle English. Compare the movement from first to third to a second person thyselfe in lines 408-11 above, and, more jarringly, the my of line 3110 below.

1513-16 But whan . . .syte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1516 unperceyvable. P; S1 onperciable.

1541 fulsomly. P; S1 fusumly.

1545 strengthyth. P; S1 stengtneth.

1565 kynde substance. See note 950-51.

1569 is herd. is. P; S1 omits.

1583 Hymselfe. S1 hymseff.

1585 I myte in no way levyn the lower dome. Levyn could mean either "believe" or "leave" and make satisfactory sense, but to translate "leave" sharpens Julian's sense of dilemma, evident also in her acceptance of damnation as a doctrine and her vision's resistance to offering "sight" of this idea. "Believe" is attractive in that it would confirm Julian's loyalty, after a single backsliding (see chapter 66) to her vision's authority, but such a translation would tendentiously contradict other affirmations, such as those in lines 334-38 and 1611-17, of adherence to church teaching. On the two "domes" of God and of the church, see Pelphrey, Love Was His Meaning, pp. 295-99. For a succinct outline of Julian's apparent divergences from "popular under-standing" of the Church's teaching, see M. L. del Mastro (1988).

1596 kyndly. P; S1 kyndy.

1597 kindly substance. See note 950-51.


Chapter XLVI

1599-1600 But our passand life . . . what ourself is. The place of the concept of self in the Shewings is discussed by Ritamary Bradley, "Perception of Self in Julian of Norwich's Showings," The Downside Review 104 (1986), 227-39.

1604 forthing. S1 foething. P fortheryng.

1615 liken. S1 marginal gloss: loven.

1616 encrese. P; S1 encrecy.

1621 I saw sothfastly that our Lord was never wroth. Robert Llewelyn discusses as basic to Julian's theology the passages in which she says she sees no wrath in God ("Woman of Consolation and Strength," Julian: Woman of Our Day, ed. Llewelyn, pp. 121-39).

1625-26 God is the goodnes . . . goodnes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter XLVII

1649-50 But how I understode . . . grace. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1676 is. P; S1 omits.


Chapter XLVIII

1681 wrath. P; S1 illegible.

1681-82 For I sow no wrath . . . love. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1692-94 Mercy . . . lif. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1699 moderhode. P; S1 moderid.

1714-15 And whan I saw all this . . . wasten our wreth. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter XLIX

1734-35 For I saw . . . God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1737 agaynst. P; S1 ageys.

1749 oureselfe. P; S1 ourseffe.

1757 cum. S1 cun; P come.


Chapter L

1767 knowyng. P; S1 kowyng.

1779 awer. The definitions given here, trouble, and at 2163, concern, are contextual. Awer may come from awerden (OE) which means to harm or destroy. The MED yields awer-mod, "a disposition to do harm, ill-will," citing Ormulum, line 4720 (c. 1200). Perhaps in the late fourteenth century, a local variant meant being troubled oneself rather than troubling others. S2, which modernizes words from S1 a number of times, lets awer stand in both passages. P gives feer.


Chapter LI

This chapter is the longest and most significant addition to the long text, its parable of the lord and the servant Julian's most searching consideration of sin and evil. With its explication, the parable adds one-seventh to the length of the text. Most writers on Julian conclude that the reason for its omission from the shorter text resides in her need to ponder the "mysty" example. The unfolding of the vision in her understanding took "nere twenty yeres." Readers may see in the "example" and in Julian's analysis a compact, striking fable of theodicy, but Julian refers it only to sin. Julian gives her own vision a full four-level allegoresis with typological, tropological, and anagogical levels as well as the literal one. See Patricia Mary Vinje on Julian as an allegorical writer. For a discussion of the status of the parable as a showing and its links to Julian's themes, see Glasscoe, "Means of Showing," pp. 167-75. Sister Anna Maria Reynolds (1984), pp. 118-25, discusses the chapter as a "concise and accurate" summary of salvation history.

1794 full mystily. Late Middle English blends OE mist and ME mystike to give mystily, "conveyed darkly and symbolically, after the manner of Scriptural parables" (C&W II, 513).

1796 syght. P; S1 sgte.

1810 that. P; S1 the.

1829-30 a ledying . . . enjoyen. P's reading is easier to follow: "a ledyng of my understandyng in to the lorde, in restoryng whych I saw hym hyely enjoy. . . ."

1835 reward. P; S1 illegible.

mayme. P; S1 maine.

1866ff. It longyth to the. . . . Julian outlines a method and proceeds to analyze the showing in accordance with it, much as a Jungian-trained psychologist would lead a client to "work" a dream. R. H. Thouless in The Lady Julian: A Psychological Study (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and New York: Macmillan, 1924), pp. 81-84, was, so far as I know, the first to notice the resemblance to clinical dream analysis. Nuth finds a basis for Julian's method in the monastic practice of lectio divina, meditating upon details of a reading (p. 36).

1868-69 seeing. P; S1 omits.

1884 blyndyd. P; S1 blindhed.

1890 knowyng. P; S1 kowyng.

1893 bryngen. S1 brynen. P bryng.

1896 The color of his cloth was blew as asure. In the ante-reliquary chapel of Norwich Cathedral, the vaulting has at its crown a small medallion with a figure of Christ in a blue mantle. The painting scheme is put at 1325 by E. W. Tristram in English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955), p. 230. Blues were, of course, particularly clear and brilliant in the illuminated manuscripts of the period. Later, Julian sees Christ himself in a medley of colors, and notes that they are more glorious than the robe of the lord as God the Father (2054-57). Pelphrey finds the image of Christ's new, multi-colored garment reminiscent of the emerald rainbow surrounding the throne of Christ in Revelations 4:3 and the garment of the Son of Man in Revelations 1:13 (p. 197).

1905 the Fadir. the P; S1 omits.

1913 Notwithstonding I saw. S1 here has ne saw. P, more comprehensibly, omits ne.

1925 al. S1 a; P all.

1937 lord. P; S1 Lodd.

1938-39 And inward . . . to hym. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1946 that is to sey. that. P; S1 tha.

1950 a man. S1 reads a a man.

1965 groundyd. P; S1 grounld.

1984 understode. S1 undestode; P understonde.

1985 that. P; S1 tha.

1986 Lord. S1 Lod. P Lorde.

1999 The which kirtle. P reads wyth, white. now. P reads noght, possibly correct. However, the now compresses the human and divine identities of God's Son, looking forward to His ascension, and anticipating the nows of lines 2058-59.

2003 I stond before The in Adams kirtle. For background on this figure, see Grayson.

2012 shall. P; S1 sha.

2021 Lordis. S1 Lodis. P Lordys.

2029 wombe. P; S1 wonbe.

2032 even. S1 eve. P evyn.

2041 pecys. P; S1 pets.

2045 mankynd. S1 mankyd. P mankynde.

2052 streyte. P; S1 steyte.


Chapter LII mother. S2; S1 bother. perfectly as in heaven. S2; S1 omits.

2074-75 God enjoyeth that He is our moder. This theme, anticipated in line 1699, is here introduced almost casually, embedded in other relationships of the soul to God which are traditional analogies of varying currency which in Julian seem to stand half-way between figurative and literal. The theme will close in chapter 83 when in a Trinitarian sentence Julian refers to the light, "our Moder, Criste" (3355-56). Intensive treatment of the motherhood of Christ comes in chapters 57-63. For discussion of doctrinal, devotional, and rhetorical aspects of the motherhood of Christ in the tradition that preceded her and in The Shewings, see Heimmel, Brrresen, Bynum, Cabassut, McLaughlin, McNamer, Molinari (esp. pp. 169-86), Pelphrey (esp. pp. 84-89), and Bradley, "The Motherhood Theme."

2080-81 We have in us . . . deyand. See note 1198-1200.

2122-24 But we may wele be grace kepe us from the synnes which will ledyn us to endles paynes . . . and eschewen venial. The distinction is between mortal and venial sin, mortal sins being so grave in nature and undertaken so deliberately and whole-heartedly, that one suffices to damn an uncontrite soul. Venial sins are less critical deviations, almost inescapable ones, from love of God and neighbor.

2123 paynes. S1 payes. P payne.

2139 never. S1 neve.

2145 two. P; S1 tw.

2146 asseth. S1 marginal gloss: propitiation.


Chapter LIII ruthfulhede. In view of lines 2170 and 2173 the word should perhaps be rythfulhede. S2 reads ruthfulnes, however.

2162-67 And in this that I have now seyd . . . in the syte of God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2163 grete. P; S1 gre.

2166 evermore. S1 evemore. P evyr more.

2169 Lord. S1 Lod. P Lorde.

2177-88 For I saw . . . knitt to God. For the biblical basis, see especially Eph. 1:3-10 and Col. 1:12-20.

2181-84 The Mid-Person . . . without begynnyng. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2187 the myte of. Repeated in S1.

2202 ever. S1 eve; P evyr. mankynd. S1 makynd. P mankynde.

2205 which knott is sotil. It is possible, if no more than that, that Julian contributed to Donne's "the subtle knot which makes us man" ("The Ecstasy"). Julian's work was saved and copied in circles which would have been congenial to his recusant ancestors.

that it is onyd. P; S1 that is onyd.

2207-08 that al the soules . . . in this holyhede. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

Chapter LIV For the use of substance in this chapter, see note 950-51.

2210 departing. S1 marginal gloss: difference.

2211-14 For it is full hesy. . . savid be Crist. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2217-18 And hey understonding . . . our soule. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2221-23 And I saw no difference . . . creture in God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2225-26 The hey goodnes. . . and He in us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2230-31 our sensual soule. See note 2250-51.

2232-34 For it is not ell . . . which we se not. S1 marginal gloss: NB Fides quid.


Chapter LV

2241 His Fader. his. P; S1 ha.

2247-48 And notwithstanding . . . than in erth. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2250-51 And what tyme that our soule is inspirid into our body. "Julian distinguishes between 'the substance' of the soul grounded and dwelling in God and 'the sensuality' of the soul in which God dwells. The sensuality is the soul as informing the body, its life principle and the subject of our psycho-physical experience. It begins to exist 'what time our soul is inspired in our body"' (Watkin, p. 17). For a recent comment on "sensualyte" in Julian, see Lichtmann. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2251 as. P; S1 aso.

2260 in which se. Julian is referring to the center of authority in a bishop's jurisdiction. She uses various figures of location - home, city, seat, see - to denote God's abiding presence in the human soul.

2276 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2284 I myte not, for the mene profir. A friendly voice had proposed to Julian who is gazing upon the image of Christ crucified that she look up to "His Fader," a suggestion which she declines (lines 696-706).


Chapter LVI

2287-90 And thuss I saw . . . to whom it is onyd. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2294-97 God is nerer . . . shall never departyn. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2298-99 For our soule sittith in God in very rest . . . endles love. S1 marginal gloss: NB. The seated soul is at rest, as Julian says not only of the human soul seated in Christ but also of the soul of Christ reciprocally seated in the human soul (lines 2298-2306). The theme of the soul as Christ's seat reappears: "And this was a singlar joy and bliss to me, that I saw Him sitten" (lines 2825-26). See also lines 2375-77 and 2791-97. Riehle discusses the popularity of the image of God sitting in the soul in medieval mysticism and most particularly among English writers, where allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs 2:3 informed the theme as did emphasis on the help a seated position gives for full meditative concentration (pp. 132-36). James Walsh in "God's Homely Loving: St. John and Julian of Norwich on the Divine Indwelling," The Month, n.s. 19 (1958), 164-72, discusses the Johannine basis of Julian's passage. See also J. P. H. Clark, "Nature, Grace and the Trinity in Julian of Norwich," The Downside Review, 100 (1982), 203-20. The key Biblical passage is John 15:4. Julian, of course, is aware that souls are not literally seated, and takes care to make that unmistakable when she says of the Father as lord and the Son as servant, "But it is not ment that the Son syttith on the ryte hond, syde be syde, as on man sittith be another in this lif, for ther is no such syttyng, as to my syte, in the Trinite" (lines 2066-68).

2302-04 And anempts our substaunce and sensualite . . . God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2303 substaunce. P; S1 substane.

2307-09 And I saw . . . our own soule. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2315 substance. P; S1 substane.

2316-17 I had in partie touching. C&W: "The word is technical, belonging to the vocabulary of the spiritual senses, and frequently employed by Julian to convey that she is being directly affected and moved by the Holy Spirit to experience the reality of God, in a way which is above intellectual comprehension, but which accompanies and supports some form of inner seeing" (II, 573-74, note to 38). For other examples see lines 1237 and, especially, 3346. See note 687 above for the possible influence of pseudo-Dionysius.

2318 heyhede. Thus S1, with the marginal gloss: kindhede. P reads kyndnesse which seems more likely in view of the reliance upon the idea of "kindhede" in this passage. S2 confirms S1's heyhede, and the gloss kindhede. "Substantial heyhede" and "substantial kindhede" are informed here by the philosophical sense of substance. See note 950-51.

2320-22 For in kind . . . fulfilling. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2330 werkynges. P; S1 wekyng.

Chapter LVII substance. S2; S1 subsance. In chapters LVII-LXIII the scribe of S1 fre-quently (but not always) capitalizes the words Moder and Moderhede. The visual effect in reading the manuscript is quite striking in that the masculine pronouns for God are not capitalized. Some of the effect is muted in the present edition in that I have followed the policy of the Middle English Texts Series and thus capitalized personal pronouns and titles for God. But I have followed the manuscript's capitalization of Moder and Moderhede in these chapters, given the possibility that the practice might reflect scribal intention or, perhaps, even Julian's authority.

2334-35 And anempts our substance . . . worship. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2335 I. P; S1 omits.

2341 godhede. S1 marginal gloss: goodnes.

2347 in. P; S1 is.

2374 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2380 kepyng. P; S1 kepid.

2381 substance. S1 substane. P substaunce.


Chapter LVIII

2387 Hymself. S1 hymseffe.

2400 kyndly. S1 kindy. P kyndely.

2404 yeldyng. P; S1 reldyng.

2424 thred. S1 tred. P thurde.

2430 gevyng. P; S1 vefyng.

2430-32 And our substance . . . al goodnes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2433 is hole. S reads is is hole.

2436 wretchidnes. S1 wretchidns. P wrechydnesse.


Chapter LIX

2439-41 which manner of bliss we myte never had ne known . . . wherby we have this bliss. This is Julian's version of the fortunate fall.

2462 wyllyth. P; S1 omits.

2475 taken. P takyng. The reference is to the Incarnation. See lines 2470-71.


Chapter LX

2488 rayhid. For arrayed, the S2 reading; P has arayed.

2491 but. P; S1 omits.

2497 aseth. S1 marginal gloss: satisfaction.

2511 tenth. S1, S2, and P read ninth. However, the quotation following is from the tenth showing. See chapter 24.

2522-23 she suffrid that it be bristinid in brekyng downe of vices. This is as close as Julian comes to using motherhood to figure a God who judges and disciplines as well as creates and loves. Others had occasionally developed the image severely. The thirteenth-century mystic Gertrude of Helfta sees God as a mother who loves but also tests, to the point of frightening the strayed child back into her arms by wearing terrifying masks (Bynum, pp. 189-90). In fact the word bristinid is very strong, appearing chiefly in violent contexts. See MED s.v.

2527-28 our dett that we owen, be Gods biddyng. The transfer of the fourth commandment's obligation from human to divine parent accords with the longer version's deletion of reference to Julian's own mother.


Chapter LXI

2533 kyndelyth. P; S1 kydelyth.

2538 to bend payd with Him. Thus S1; P has a less resonant be for bend.

2539 And we fallen, hastily He reysith us. See note 1198-1200.

2540 strenthyd. P; S1 stengtid.

2544-47 And than wene we . . . ourselfe. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2555-57 For therby . . . not profitt us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2558 syth. S1 marginal gloss: afterwards.

2560 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2570 myselfe. S1 reads myselfe my.

2572 al swithe. S1 marginal gloss: immediately or all on a sudden.

2573-74 For if He sen . . . for love. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2583 foode of mercy. P offers flode for foode.

2588 to don it. it. P; S1 us.

Chapter LXII

2593 myght. P; S1 my.

2600 that is to sey. S1 that it is to sey.

2605-07 For of all kyndes . . . worshipp. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2616 begynnyng. S1 begynnig; P begynyng.


Chapter LXIII

2619 bryngen. S1 byngen. P bryng.

2629 sothly. S1 sothy; P trewly.

2631 techyth. P; S1 tehith.

2635 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2643 fordreth. P; S1 foethes.

2649 other. P; S1 othe.

2658-60 Thus I understode . . . be grace. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXIV God wil we take. we take S2; S1 omits we.

2682 a bolned quave of styngand myre. The S1 marginal gloss gives "puffed up" for bolned and "a quaggmire," for quave. P's "a swylge stynkyng myrre" helps with "styngand."

2684 swyft. P; S1 swifie.

2687 I. P; S1 omits.

2691 yf. S1's reading. S2 joins P in reading that. That does accord with a security which Julian seems to feel throughout.

2703 over. P reads evyr.


Chapter LXV

2710-12 And thus I understode . . . that grace. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2716-17 This reverens . . . is knitt. S1 marginal gloss: Timor domini quid.

2725 himselfe. S1 himseffe. P them selfe.

2728-30 For it is His will . . . lovith. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2729-30 he shall not dredyn but Him that he lovith. P gives the reading she here. See note 561 above.

2734 if we knowen. S1 omits we; P includes it.

2735 great. P; S1 gre.

2740 the morne. S1 reads the the morne.

2742 none of the day overpassid. Since none could here mean noon or nones, the hour of the office nones (from L nona, nine, the ninth hour of the day reckoned from sunrise), that is, about 3 p.m., it is difficult to fix the time exactly. P reads or paste for overpassid. Julian uses both clock time and canonical hours in fixing times. (See lines 2865-66.) The hour of mid-day appears as an ordinary sense of the word by the fourteenth century. Marion Glasscoe in "Time of Passion: Latent Relationships between Liturgy and Meditation in Two Middle English Mystics" (Langland, the Mystics and the Medieval English Religious Tradition: Essays in Honour of S. S. Hussey, ed. Helen Phillips [Cambridge: D. S. Brewer/Boydell & Brewer, 1990]), pp. 154-58, argues that the showings assume sharper definition when related to the liturgy of the hours. The showings began, as Julian writes at the close of chapter 65, at about 4 a.m., the hour of Lauds.

Chapter LXVI

2750 fulfillid. S1 fufillid. P fulfyllyd.

2753 peynes. S1 peyes. P paynes.

2759 that sawe. P; S1 than saw I.

2767 I lay still. I P; S1 omits.

2772 blak spots therin like blak steknes. P: blacke spottes . . . lyke frakylles. S 2: frecknes. Steknes is difficult; Glasscoe's glossary gives "speckles." The word may be from sticchen, "to stitch," or "to stick" (i.e., to fasten). ME stiche "stitch" is from OE stice, equivalent to Old Frisian steke. The OED gives steke as a Scottish or Northern form for stitch, but with examples from 1520. Contemporary personifications of pestilence sometimes were pictured with spots like small, vertical stitches or gashes; more rarely a fiend would be thus dappled, or even a suffering Christ. Judging from accounts of symptoms, the plague itself could be the source of the detail in this, Julian's only non-waking vision. For bubonic plague, the initial symptom was a blackish postule, followed by a subcutaneous hemorrhaging making the blotches purple. With fatal septiacaemic plague, a rash came within hours, and the larger "buboes" that Boccaccio describes in The Decameron, perhaps the best-known of medieval descriptions of plague symptoms, did not have time to form. Julian would have been six or seven when the Plague arrived in Norwich in January of 1349. It lasted till spring of 1350. Morbidity was extraordinary. Half of the beneficed clergy and variously one-third to fifty per cent of the secular population are estimated to have perished. See Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1983) p. 8, pp. 65-66.

2784 I askid hem that wer with me if thei felt ony stynke. James T. McIlwain conjectures that the foul smell, not perceptible to others, may have come from infected mucus membranes. He discusses the physical symptoms that Julian reports and offers possible diagnoses. For the period, Julian's account of symptoms is unusally rich, he says ("The 'Bodelye syeknes' of Julian of Norwich," Journal of Medieval History 10 [1984], 171).


Chapter LXVII

2791-92 And than our Lord . . . herte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2816 than. P; S1 that.

2819 than. P; S1 that.


Chapter LXIX S1 omits numbering this chapter. S2 gives the number.

2851 soft. S1 foft. P is onomatopoeic: "softe whystryn."

2856 that had. S1 reads that had that had.

2866 prime day. Soon after sunrise, indicated by the liturgical hour. Matins and lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline were scheduled times for common daily prayer in monastic houses. Most religious and, in the fourteenth century and usually in abbreviated forms, some devout lay people, said the hours.

2869 For therwith is the fend overcome, as our Lord Jesus Criste seid aforn. In the short version an apostrophe to sin follows, "A, wriched synne, whate ert thou?" (fol. 113r). See Appendix A. For a cogent explanation of why Julian would omit this passage, stylistically a tour de force, see C&W, I, 271.


Chapter LXX

2876 and therefore I leve it. Leve is neatly ambiguous, both "believe" and "leave" making sense. Piquantly ambiguous leaves occur also at lines 314 and 1585.

2878-80 Thus I am bounden . . . I had ravid. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2886 thereupon. P; S1 therupo.

2893 blindhede. S1 blinhede. P blyndnesse.


Chapter LXXI glad. S2; S1 gad.

2904-05 For He havith us . . . His mede. S1 marginal gloss: NB. He P; S1 be.

2912 nede. P; S1 omits.

2915 beer. P; S1 barer.

2917 agaynst. P; S1 ageys.

2922 alle manner. P; S1 alivaner.


Chapter LXXII

2925 withouten end. S1 withoutend end.

2926 never. S1 neve.

2931 medled. S1 blotched, perhaps medlid. P meddlyd.

2936-38 And thus we arn ded . . . never fro us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2949 And in this I saw matter of myrth . . . monyng. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2950 sekirness. S1 sekirne. P feythfulnes.

2957-58 This weping meneth not al . . . understondyng. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2961 stynten of. S1 stynt n of. Perhaps the reading should be stynt ne of, thus creating a neither-nor syntax.

2963 thynke. S1 thyke. P thyngk.

2964 in. S1 in in.

2967-68 I it am . . . that is all. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXIII sekenes. S2; S1 sekernes.

2976-78 For the bodily sygte, I have seid . . . sumdele. Of the nearly identical passage in the short text, Lynn Staley Johnson argues that Julian here conjures up a scribe whose activity verifies Julian's account of her visions (p. 830). Johnson believes, however, that the force of the scribal scene is mitigated in the long text because Julian has assumed a more authoritative persona in no need of an exterior scribal validation and because in the long text the position of the passage is further from the conclusion.

2978 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2980-87 That on is onpatience or slaith . . . most enclinand to these. As Julian will state again (lines 3127-32), she regards sloth as a particular obstacle in a religious vocation. By Julian's time, analysis of this capital sin had a long history. What she calls "onpatience," a restlessness exacerbated by enclosure, as much as laziness or bearing "trevell . . . hevily," remained in the continuum commentators discuss. Sloth (acedia) as a deterrent in the life of anchoritic withdrawal is discussed in the milieu of the Lower Egyptian hermits of the fourth century. On the somnolence side, Clay (Hermits and Anchorites, p. 101) calls attention to the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad, twelfth-century abbess of Landsberg, where in one illumination various climbers lose their footing from a ladder of virtues, beguiled by characteristic distractions, the knight by a horse, the anchorite ("inclusus") by a bed. The illumination is reproduced in the edition of Aristide D. Caratzas with notes and commentary by A. Straub and G. Keller (New York: Caratzas Bros., 1977), Plate LVI, p. 197. For other references in Julian see lines 418-20 and the self-criticism of lines 2665-67. The early appearance of the sin in hermitic texts is set forth by Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), pp. 2-18; see also p. 211, note 87.

S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2981 peynes. S1 peyes; P payne.

2989 Lord. S1 Lod. P Lorde.

2992 peynes. S1 peyes; P paynes.

2992-93 And the cause . . . onknoweing of love. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2997-99 For som of us leven . . . we astynten. S1 marginal gloss: NB. S1 reads we s astynten.

3006-07 And this drede . . . waykenes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3008 another. P; S1 anothe.


Chapter LXXIV

3027-28 For it may never . . . goodnes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3043 asunder. S1 asuder. P onsonder. The discussion of dread closes the short text: "Therefore it is goddes wille and oure spede that we knawe thamm thus ysundure; for god wille ever that we be sekere in luffe, & peessabille & ristefulle as he is to us, and ryght so of the same condicioun as he is to us, so wille he that we be to oure selfe and to oure even christenn. Amen. Explicit Juliane de Norwych" (fol. 115r).

3044-49 That drede . . . good, and true. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3055-56 Desir we . . mytyly. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXV and littlenes. S2; S1 lulshed; and omitted.

3064-65 I shall seyen, neden. P I shall say nede. C&W emend to I shall say (vs) nede, noting that the opening sentences of this chapter are much corrupted (p. 678).

3066-69 For the threist of God . . . longith. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3067 drawyn. P; S1 anwin.

3083-84 And evermore . . . suffrid. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3096 in. P; S1 omits.

Chapter LXXVI S1 gives only the number, not its customary abbreviation for chapter.

3106-08 And therefore it is Goddis will . . . risen redily. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3110-11 to my mynde. P reads to mynde.

3110-12 The soule . . . agayne it. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3112 agayne. P; S1 ageys.

3116 I. P; S1 omits.

3121 This blissid freind is Jhesus. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3130-32 namely in slauth . . . goodness. See note 2980-87. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXVII specially. S2; S1 speially.

3137-38 Our good Lord shewid the enmite . . . of his parte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3143 he hath. P; S1 omits he.

3148-50 I know wele . . . tendirly. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3159-61 For whan we have mend . . . that seen it. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3161 this. P; S1 omits.

3164-65 tho thou do. thou P; S1 omits thou.

3170-72 Our wey and our Hevyn . . . Hevyn. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3171 He gaf understonding. S1 reads he he.

3175-76 For our curtes Lord . . . desiren. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3180-81 And to be like our Lord . . . bliss. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3182 is. P; S1 omits.


Chapter LXXVIII

3184 of His. P; S1 is of His.

3190 hem. S1 him; P them.

3200-03 And be this meke knowing . . . one us to Him. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXIX

3245 kepith. S1 repith (?), though, if so, the e is oddly formed.

P kepyth. S2 has clepyth, which could be the preferred reading.

3247 not that we beseyn. S1 is partially illegible. P reads nott that we besy, which makes better sense.

3249 alufe. P reads aloone.

3253 shewyng. P; S1 sweing.


Chapter LXXX

3266 in the last end. This, the only apocalyptic touch in The Shewings, may indicate that Julian considers her own time the final stage of secular history before the general judgment. Belief that the last end was imminent was common in the fourteenth century.

in. P; S1 omits.

3267 wonnyth. S1 wonnyh; P dwellyth.

3270 it. P; S1 omits.

3271-72 I leve and understonde . . . not shewid me. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3276-77 And all swich . . . it is Christ in us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3286-89 But thow . . . in His syte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXXI

3298-3301 Mervelous and solemne . . . fallings. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3302 is. P; S1 omits.

3302-03 For it is the most . . . penance. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3306-09 For His love . . . as to my syte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXXII blame. S2; S1 blom. And so we. S1 reads we we.

3324 the. S1 reads the the.

3334 in falling and in ryseing. See note to lines 1198-1200.

3335 ever. S1 eve. P evyr.

3344 be. P; S1 omits.

3345 ende. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter LXXXIII clarity. S2; S1 illegible.

3348 I it am. P; S1 omits.

3349 propertees. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter LXXXIV nedefull. S2 gives medefull, an attractive reading.

3368 with. P; S1 wth.

3369 the of. of P; S1 soft.


Chapter LXXXV He never. S2; S1 he neve.

3388 P's reading also has appeal: with one voyce.

3402-03 And fifteen yer after and more I was answerid in gostly understonding. Colledge and Walsh believe this indicates that Julian began working on the long account about 1388. They further posit two editions by Julian of the long text because Chapter l's summary of the fourteenth showing does not mention the lord and servant allegory of chapter 51, and this is the only summary without reference to the revelation's visions or locutions (I, 25). Full understanding of the lord and servant showing comes in the five years between the fifteen years mentioned here and the twenty years, short of three months, mentioned in chapter 51. Perhaps discovery of another manuscript of Julian will confirm this, as the appearance of the short version corroborated Blomefield.


Chapter LXXXVI This heading has been taken as evidence that the short text is the earlier version of the Shewings. It is possible that the statement is an editor's summary of the chapter's first sentence, which could point to the future rather than to the work itself in any form.

3413 The Paris manuscript closes here with the rubric: Deo gracias. Explicit liber revelacionum Julyane anatorite Norwyche cuius anime propicietur deus. [Thanks be to God. This ends the book of revelations to Julian, anchorite of Norwich, for whose soul God be prayed.]

3417 S2 inserts: "Here end the sublime and wonderful revelations of the unutterable love of God in Jesus Christ, vouchsafed to a dear lover of his and in her to all his dear friends and lovers, whose hearts, like hers, do flame in the love of our dearest Jesu." P and the short version lack the warning following, one that is probably not authorial. Although in part conventional, such caveats can be intimidating and sometimes were meant to be. The Cloud of Unknowing opens with a very strong prohibition: "I charge thee & I beseche thee, with as moche power & vertewe as the bonde of charite is sufficient to suffre, what-so-ever thou be that this book schalt have in possession, outher [either] bi propirte outher by keping, by bering as messenger or elles bi borowing, that in as moche as in thee is by wille & avisement, neither thou rede it, ne write it, ne speke it, ne yit suffre it be red, wretyn, or spokyn, of any or to any, bot yif it be of soche one or to soche one that hath (bi thi supposing) in a trewe wille & by an hole entent, purposed him to be a parfite folower of Criste, not only in actyve levyng, bot in the sovereinnest pointe of contemplatife leving . . ." The author goes on to insist that the book must be read "al over." As for "Fleschely janglers, opyn preisers & blamers of hem-self or of any other, tithing tellers, rouners & tutilers of tales, & alle maner of pinchers" (tellers of tidings, whisperers and tale bearers, and all kinds of fault finders), he does not care if they never see the book. "For myn entent was never to write soche thing unto hem [them]. & therfore I wolde that thei medel not ther-with, neither thei ne any of thees corious lettred or lewed [learned or unlearned] men. Ye, though al that thei be ful good men of active levyng yit this mater acordeth nothing to hem" (ed. Hodgson, pp. 1-3).

3418 them. S2; S1 then.