The historian Janina Ramirez has suggested that their use of Middle English was a sensible choice, considering the inexplicable nature of what they were attempting to describe, as they could 'couch their theological ruminations more as personal encounters with the divine'. Her life was contemporaneous with four other English mystics-Walter Hilton, Richard Rolle, Margery Kempe, and the unknown author of the work known as The Cloude of Unknowyng-all of whom wrote in the vernacular.

It is more likely that they read and wrote in Middle English, their vernacular language, as Julian did. In the 14th century, women in England were generally barred from high-status clerical positions or other authoritative roles such as teaching, and their knowledge of Latin, the lingua franca of the day, would have been limited. It is the first book in English known to have been written by a woman. This is the understanding, simply as I can say it, of this blessed word: Lo, how I loved thee. This shewed our good Lord for to make us glad and merry.Revelations of Divine Love is unique, as no other work written by an English anchoress seems to have survived. How should it now be that thou shouldst anything pray that pleaseth me but that I should full gladly grant it thee? For my pleasing is thy holiness and thine endless joy and bliss with me. And now is all my bitter pain and all my hard travail turned to endless joy and bliss to me and to thee. And with this our good Lord said full blissfully: Lo, how that I loved thee,as if He had said: My darling, behold and see thy Lord, thy God that is thy Maker and thine endless joy, see what satisfying and bliss I have in thy salvation and for my love rejoice with me.Īnd also, for more understanding, this blessed word was said: Lo, how I loved thee! Behold and see that I loved thee so much ere I died for thee that I would die for thee and now I have died for thee and suffered willingly that which I may. And with the sweet beholding He shewed His blessed heart even cloven in two.Īnd with this sweet enjoying, He shewed unto mine understanding, in part, the blessed Godhead, stirring then the poor soul to understand, as it may be said, that is, to think on, the endless Love that was without beginning, and is, and shall be ever. And therewith He brought to mind His dearworthy blood and precious water which he let pour all out for love. And then he shewed a fair, delectable place, and large enough for all mankind that shall be saved to rest in peace and in love. With His sweet looking He led forth the understanding of His creature by the same wound into His Side within. THEN with a glad cheer our Lord looked unto His Side and beheld, rejoicing. “Our Lord looked unto His Side, and beheld, rejoicing….

Revelations of divine love book