It’s a major pattern in religious history. It was no accident that the move to vernacular theology and increasing theological concern to all occurred at the same time. Just as language opened up theology to the masses, so the theology within these works pointed to a God benevolent to all, irrespective of status. In an era of democratization, both politically and with access to information, one of the most striking features of these early vernacular theologians is their expansive visions of God’s love. “The use of vernacular theology is an implicit statement of freedom from the language established by a centralized hierarchical authority.” These wider trends coalesced into new waves of religiosity. Political culture, too, began to question divine monarchs, and people started to resist the hegemony of the Medieval Papacy. Vernacular bible translations and theological reflection opened up an entirely new milieu. The Western world as a whole was rapidly changing. Lay people had no direct access to the Bible or works of theology before this shift. This shift was more monumental, on par with the push in the same century to begin translations of the Bible into vernacular languages. Vernacular theology, one of the three main types of Medieval theology in Denys Turner’s paradigm (the other two are Academic - think Aquinas - and Monastic - think Bonaventure or Bernard of Clairvaux), didn’t simply result in a shift in the language of one’s writing. Some historical context will help us to glean from Julian’s wisdom. Julian of Norwich is the prime English example of this shift to writing in one’s usual language, and the trend finds its voice on continental Europe through figures like Meister Eckhart (German) and Marguerite Porete (French), two figures we’ll learn about in later posts. The 14th century saw a Europe-wide turn to the vernacular (that is, the common language of one’s area rather than Latin) which resulted in the first flowering of incredible theological works. It’s often that which is different from us which affords us the most help. But for precisely these reasons, and the fact that her Revelations of Divine Love ( public library) is both a spiritual classic and the first surviving work in English by a female author, we should take her seriously. This is a radical departure from the type of life that accords with our modern sensibilities. As an “anchoress” - derived from the Greek meaning “one who has retreated from the world” - Julian sought to live an extremely ascetic, contemplative life. 1342-1416) spent most of her adult life in a cell attached to a church in Norwich, England.
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