ICON JULIAN OF NORWICH SMALL 4X5

Very few details are known about the life of Julian of Norwich. She was an anchoress who lived in a special cell attached to the parish church of St. Julian, which may account for her name. She was the first woman to write a book in English. Some feel that she originally belonged to a community of Benedictine nuns because she had more formal learning than most women of her day. Others feel that because her writings show such a deep understanding of what it means to be a mother, she was a laywoman who may have lost her husband and children when the plague swept through Norwich in 1361.