The Solitary in her Community

In both the earlier A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and the longer A Revelation of Love, Julian of Norwich relates that she was denied a specific revelation concerning the spiritual destiny of a close friend or relative:

From the passage in A Vision alone, it might be inferred that Julian is seeking information about whether or not this woman will go to heaven. In A Revelation, this passage is subtly reworded so that we no longer know that the person is female: ‘I desired to wit of a serteyn creature that I loved if it shulde continue in good leving, which I hoped by the grace of God was begonne’ (Revelation, 35.2–3). At the same time, however, we are given additional information about her: evidently, like Julian, she has committed her life to divine service in some way. And the nature of Julian's request is also specified, since it is now clear that she is enquiring about her friend's state of grace in her lifetime, rather than after her death. Both versions agree, however, that Julian was denied this knowledge on the grounds that it was a ‘specialle thinge’ (Vision, 16.17; Revelation, 35.7), or as A Revelation puts it, a ‘singular desyer’ (Revelation, 35.4), a desire to know about an individual rather than a general truth.