Society and Enclosure: Maps of Experience

One could be forgiven for interpreting these disembodied words from Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love as the representation of the experiences of an anchoress following the act of enclosure. The door to her cell has been sealed and she is left with a sense of her own separation from the ugliness of the world and with an awareness of the brightness of the crucified Christ who alone remains with her. As the physical darkness of the anchorhold descends, so her consciousness begins to merge with the illuminated crucifix and we feel we are witnessing the approach to spiritual union of the anchoress with Christ. Yet, restored to its context, this passage describes not the mystical experience of the anchoress but that of a mortally ill woman of thirty whose mother has summoned the priest to deliver the last rites as her life ebbs away (41). The woman holds centre stage in this sickroom drama, her proximity to death diminishing her eyesight and paralysing her body.