Imagining the World of Julian of Norwich: The Ram in the Thicket

In 1373, a thirty-year-old woman had a near-death experience. The account she wrote down is the first book in the English language that we know for sure was written by a woman.

We know her now as Julian of Norwich.

Her book records a luminous vision of a loving God in whom there is no wrath. Who Himself suffers alongside humanity in the flesh of Jesus. Who is both Father and Mother. Who in the face of all that is broken in the world, will somehow in the end make all things well. The text is all about the vision, and Julian's faith that it was revealed not just for herself, but for the good of her fellow Christians. She tells us almost nothing of the circumstances of her own life.

Margery Kempe was thirty years her junior. The Book of Margery Kempe is all about the circumstances of her own life, all the time: an "as-told-to" account apparently recorded by an anonymous priest. It's another staple of the feminist canon of medieval literature. Margery was the Tammy Faye Baker of her day. She fell down wailing in churches at the sight of the crucifix. "Madam, Jesus is long since dead," an exasperated priest once told her. She was repeatedly accused of heresy. A crowd hounded her through the streets of Canterbury.

She may have suffered from severe post-partum depression. In any case, her book tells us she went mad and had to be restrained by the servants to keep her from doing herself harm. One day Jesus sat down on her bed, healed her, and told her to take Him as her lover. Once you've heard that from the Son of God, are you going to look back? She swore off sex with her husband after bearing fourteen children, and insisted on getting a bishop to receive her vow of chastity.

She went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her companions ditched her and refused to let her back on the boat. She found herself stranded and homeless in Rome. She eventually made it back to the town of Lynn in Norfolk, where her family enjoyed prominence.

In 1413, when Julian was 70, they met.

What, in God's name, would that have been like?

I mean, what was it really like, in the middle of a prosperous and complex medieval city? Where rival factions were struggling for political and economic control? Where a thriving Jewish community had disappeared 120 years earlier but was still remembered? Where accusations of heresy were widespread and had potentially deadly consequences? I've been obsessing about those questions for years.

The Ram in the Thicket is the novel I've written to answer to those questions for myself. I've never had much patience with romanticized notions of the lives of medieval religious women. I'm convinced Julian saw the world around her with eyes wide open, and was nobody's fool. I'm a retired professor of medieval literature. I gave seminars where we read Julian's and Margery's books. I walked the streets of Norwich to get a better feeling for the city. (Ending up plastered one afternoon, before I knew it, on really deadly cider, in a pub that's been open since the 13th century. And then, the worse for wear, staggering over to Evensong at the Cathedral.)

In posts here, I'll share short sketches of local details and historical background. I'll also talk about why I think the active imagination of historical fiction is just as important as archival research when we want to reach out and touch the past. Before long, The Ram in the Thicket: A Novel of Medieval Norwich will be available for purchase.

Needless to say, I'll let you know about that.