Of her parentage and early home we know nothing: but perhaps her own exquisite picture of Motherhood--of its natural (its "kind") love and wisdom and knowledge--is taken partly from memory, with that of the kindly nurse, and the child, which by nature loveth the Mother and each of the other children, and of the training by Mother and Teacher until the child is brought up to "the Father's bliss" (lxi.-lxiii.). The title "Lady," "Dame" or "Madame" was commonly accorded to anchoresses, nuns, and others that had had education in a Convent.[4] Julian, no doubt, was of gentle birth, and she would probably be sent to the Convent of Carrow for her education. There she would receive from the Benedictine nuns the usual instruction in reading, writing, Latin, French, and fine needlework, and especially in that Common Christian Belief to which she was always in her faithful heart and steadfast will so loyal,--"the Common Teaching of Holy Church in which I was afore informed and grounded, and with all my will having in use and understanding" (xlvi.). It is most likely that Julian received at Carrow the consecration of a Benedictine nun; for it was usual, though not necessary, for anchoresses to belong to one or other of the Religious Orders. The more or less solitary life of the anchorite or hermit, the anchoress or recluse, had at this time, as earlier, many followers in the country parts and large towns of England. Few of the "reclusoria" or women's anchorholds were in the open country or forest-lands like those that we come upon in Medieval romances, but many churches of the villages and towns had attached to them a timber or stone "cell"--a little house of two or three rooms inhabited by a recluse who never left it, and one servant, or two, for errands and protection. Occasionally a little group of recluses lived together like those three young sisters of the Thirteenth Century for whom the _Ancren Riwle_, a Rule or Counsel for "Ancres," was at their own request composed. The recluse's chamber seems to have generally had three windows: one looking into the adjoining Church, so that she could take part in the Services there; another communicating with one of those rooms under the keeping of her "maidens," in which occasionally a guest might be entertained; and a third--the "parlour" window--opening to the outside, to which all might come that desired to speak with her. According to the _Ancren Riwle_ the covering-screen for this audience-window was a curtain of double cloth, black with a cross of white through which the sunshine would penetrate--sign of the Dayspring from on high. This screen could of course be drawn back when the recluse 'held a parliament' with any that came to her.[5]