A companion to Julian of Norwich

While the essays in the Companion work within the acknowledged limitations of information on Julian's life, and the accepted ordering of her texts, Holloway in Anchoress and cardinal, seeks to augment Julian's biography, to establish a new chronology for what she sees as three separate texts of Julian's revelations, and to chart more clearly the transmission of those texts. In her introduction to the Companion, Liz Herbert McAvoy states the volume's two purposes: to place Julian in her literary and historical context and to examine the manuscript tradition and matters of interpretation. [...]the volume is divided into two sections. The Companion's discussion of manuscripts includes Barry Windeatt's thoughtful analysis of Julian's expansions in the long text, Marleen Cré's examination of the Westminster Cathedral excerpts in the context of the entire manuscript and Elisabeth Dutton's exploration of the manuscript traditions and the influence of Augustine Baker on the seventeen-century transmission of Julian's text.