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JULIAN of LIÈGE (c.1192–1258), champion of the Feast of Corpus Christi. Born at Retinnes, near Liège, and bereft of her wealthy parents, she was placed in the Augustinian convent and leprosarium of Mont Cornillon, near Liège, where she made rapid spiritual progress and experienced visions. Once professed (1206), she devoted all her energies to securing the establishment of a Feast of Corpus Christi. In 1230 she became superior; but meeting with great opposition in the convent, she was forced to leave and took refuge in the city of Liège. Here, through the intervention of a recluse at St Martin’s church, she won to her cause John of Lausanne, one of the canons, who secured in turn the warm interest of James Pantaléon, then Archdeacon of Liège and later Pope Urban IV.
The Bishop of Liège having obtained her restoration for a brief space, the feast was formally proclaimed in 1246, to be observed in the diocese of Liège for the next year. But the Bishop died (16 Oct. 1246) before the year was up; the feast was not repeated in Juliana’s lifetime; and she herself was again exiled and passed the last years of her life first in a monastery near Namur and later as a recluse at Fosses. The real reward of her efforts was the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi after her death by Urban IV in 1264. Her cult was confirmed by Pope Pius IX in 1869. Feast day, 5 Apr.
Latin tr. of contemporary Fr. Life (1258–62) in AASS, Apr. 1 (1675), pp. 443–77. Crit. edn., with modern Fr. tr., by J.-P. Delville (Université Catholique de Louvain, Publications de l’Institut d’Études Médiévales, Textes, Études, Congrès, 19/2; Louvain, 1999). Later Lives by U. Berlière, OSB (anon., Namur, 1884), G. Simenon (Brussels, 1946), J. Coenen (Bruges, 1946), and J. Cottiaux (Liège, 1991). E. Denis, La Vraie Histoire de sainte Julienne de Liége et l’institution de la Fête-Dieu (Tournai, 1935). F. Baix and C. Lambot, OSB, La Dévotion à l’eucharistie et VIIe centenaire de la Fête-Dieu (Namur, 1946), passim. See also other works cited s.v. corpus christi.
Walters, Barbara R., Vincent Justus Corrigan and Peter T. Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006; cloth; pp. xviii, 562; R.R.P. US$77.00; ISBN 9780271029245.
Jean-Pierre , Delville, Vie de Sainte Julienne de Cornillon,Critical Edition, vol. 2 of Fête-Dieu (1246-1996) Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d'études médiévales de l’Universite Catholique de Louvain, 1999), 138 n. 665.1999,
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