Julian was born in the city of Norwich around 1343. She was 30 years old when, paralysed and resigned to death, she received a set of visions or ‘revelations’. She would go on to make a full recovery, but her life had been changed forever. When she returned to health, she chose to be enclosed as an anchoress, and received the last rites before being holed up in a single room for the rest of her life. She spent another three decades or more in her cell, contemplating the visions she had received and writing her remarkable book, which is the first known text by a woman in English.
