Berners, Juliana

Related Category: English Literature to 1499: Biographies

(bŭr´nərz, bärnz), supposed early 15th-century author of a popular verse treatise on hunting. The treatise is included in The Book of St. Albans (1486), a collection treating the arts of heraldry, hawking, and field sports. If Juliana was the author, she is one of the earliest women writers in English; although tradition designates her the prioress of a nunnery in Hertfordshire, nothing is actually known of her life.

See facsimile edition with introduction by W. Blades (1881).