This chapter not only draws a new fluid into the conversation (blood) but also a new kind of text – namely, devotional writings by women. The previous chapters of this book have focused on male authors and female readers, revealing the tensions between access and regulation which are attendant on this genre and frequently articulated with reference to water. This chapter, in contrast, will demonstrate how the devotional accounts of women like Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe can offer a special kind of access to the divine, which is created through the intermingling of water and blood. The first half of this chapter will establish the importance of water and blood as a pairing in the medieval imagination and show how these contribute to depictions of the two fluids in descriptions of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ. The second part will analyse the writings of Julian of Norwich, to show how the pairing of blood and water in her writings is repeatedly used to reflect on, or articulate, access to the divine. In the third and final part, a comparison of De institutione inclusarum and The Book of Margery Kempe will be used to argue that water and blood are used, very deliberately, to present a reciprocal relationship between saviour and saved, which serves to make readers feel more involved in the Passion of Christ and therefore their own salvation.

As the gospels tell us, Christ offered his ‘blood of the new testament’ for his disciples to drink at the Last Supper ‘unto remission of sins’ (Matthew 26:28). His blood, a symbol of his suffering on behalf of mankind’s sin, saturates late-medieval devotional prose and verse concerned with the Passion and plays a significant role in religious practice, not least because it is central to the Eucharist, one of the most important Christian sacraments.