Plotting Space and Time in the Writings of Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and the Cloud or What the Hereford Map Can Tell Us About Marian Devotion in the Late Middle Ages

Late medieval fascination with the precise plotting of space and time has been well-noted in the last decade.  Devotional literature from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has received its share of attention particularly for its appeal to a literate audience that crosses socio-economic, religious and laity, gender, and regional boundaries.  However, its argument for potentially universal appeal may be better understood as delimiting rather than containment and its instruction an attempt at teaching a way of knowing that claims to transcend what moderns would identify as the third and fourth dimensions.  Medieval writing of such seemingly disparate genres as a world map, autobiographical reflections, and a guide for mystical union with God demonstrates a shared concept of knowing that is rooted in and develops from belief in the power of the physicality of this particular woman.  Building on findings developed from recent research into the history of English books of hours and the Hereford mappamundi, this paper will investigate the relationship between Marian devotion and medieval concepts of space and time in the works of Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and the Cloud.  It will argue that Mary’s appearance in these writings not only bears witness to her transformative role in the nature of late medieval concepts of self and community, but also reveals how medieval ways of knowing about space and time are significantly tied to medieval Marian devotion.