The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures

This book, volume 6 in the Studies in Medieval Mysticism series out of D. S. Brewer, proves to be a worthy addition to an exemplary series of monographs developing under the keen eyes of editors Anne Clark Bartlett and Rosalyn Voaden. One of the perennial and most pressing challenges for Julian scholars is the question of what Julian did or didn’t read (or hear), as her texts are notoriously reticent in naming sources or explicitly citing Latin or vernacular textual influences. This question has been brought to the fore in recent years by the Watson and Jenkins edition (2006) of Julian’s writings, which, unlike the Colledge and Walsh edition (1978), gives considerable attention in the notes to parallels in the Middle English devotional tradition. Likewise, Dutton’s focus on Julian’s texts in relation to devotional compilations reflects a growing interest among scholars in the nature and development of medieval collections of texts, distinguished as either miscellanies, anthologies, or compilations. Dutton clearly defines these somewhat slippery terms in her introduction. Julian’s text, the book argues, imitates compilation texts “both in its structure and in its attitude towards auctoritas” toward three ends: to enforce authorial anonymity, to present the divine voice as the ultimate auctor, and to open the words of the Revelation to the appropriation of the “evenchristian” reader (5).

The first chapter, “Ordinatio and Compilatio and the Revelation’s Apparatus,” considers the chapter divisions, chapter headings, and table of contents. Dutton examines the table of contents in the Long Text of the Revelation in comparison with The Chastising of God’s Children, Speculum Christiani, and Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God, opening with a helpful history of the table of contents in medieval England. Through a close reading of the table of contents (no small feat), Dutton suggests that it was written by Julian. This clarity and confidence about the contents of the Revelation, together with the fact that the table is integral to the structure of the text in the numbering of the chapters in all long text witnesses, and the practice in the chapter headings of referring to the table of contents, which attributes authority to the table, are arguments for Julian’s authorial hand (44). The chapter headings, however, do not seem to originate with the author, Dutton suggests. Though their origins might be murky, [End Page 251] changes in the ordinatio prove that different adaptations of the Long Text were intended for different types of readers, distinguishing the academic from the devotional reader.

“Voices in the Revelation and the Gestures of Compilation,” the second chapter, zeroes in on the use of specific linguistic “markers” to signal textual borrowings. By identifying these marks of compilation in The Chastising, Speculum, and Contemplations, Dutton convincingly demonstrates the presence of similar markings in Julian’s text. She concludes that “a number of the techniques by which compilers shaped their texts to guide their readers are exploited by Julian to facilitate interpretation of her text” and that “compilers’ techniques of citation and ventriloquism are adopted and adapted in the presentation of the divine voice and that of the recipient of divine revelation” (85). Beyond her examination of Julian’s text, significant discussions of the auxiliary vernacular compilations contribute to our understanding of The Chastising, Speculum, and Contemplations, for which scholarly work is fairly scant.

The dialogic, late fourteenth-century Lyf of Soule provides the point of comparison for chapter 3, “Dialogue in Compilation.” In the Long Text Dutton explores the extremely complex interplay of the voices of Julian “then” (having just experienced the visions, Julian-the-questing-believer), Julian “now” (twenty years later, Julian-the-inspired-believer), Christ, and the reader. One of the most important points she makes is that “it is in fact the teaching of holy church which is in—occasionally rather confrontational—dialogue with Christ. By appropriating the teaching of holy church, Julian makes it possible, through an open ventriloquism...