Little is known about the life of Julian outside of what is found in her book. She describes herself as “a simple, uneducated creature" (42), which in Julian's time and place may have meant that she did not speak Latin, or—like many women at that time—could not read and write; it is possible that a scribe wrote down her visions from her dictation. Julian took the name by which we know her today upon becoming an anchorite at St. Julian's Church in Norwich, England, during the latter part of her life. From another medieval work, The Book of Margery Kempe, we learn that Julian acted as a spiritual advisor during this period. The date of Julian's death is unknown, but she is mentioned in various wills as late as 1416 and may have lived past 1420. 

At the time Julian received her showings, she was probably a devout laywoman living in the city of Norwich in eastern England. She tells us that she was thirty-and-a-half years old when she fell ill and received the showings. In the Short Text of the Revelations, Julian mentions that her own mother was present at her bedside during her sickness.

Yet Julian does not reveal very much of her personal life in her book, urging her readers to pay attention to the revelations themselves rather than the “poor being” who received them.