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Introduction The life of an anchorite was not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly. The aspirant would assuredly want to spend some time pondering his or her vocation; seeking the views of friends, family and spiritual advisers; and ensuring that all material arrangements had been put in place, before making the momentous entry into a life of strict and irrevocable enclosure. Over time, it came
This source book offers a comprehensive treatment of the solitary religious lives in England in the late Middle Ages. It covers both enclosed anchorites or recluses and freely-wandering hermits, and explores the relation between them. The sources selected for the volume are designed to complement better-known works connected with the solitary lives, such as the anchoritic guide Ancrene Wisse, or St Aelred of Rievaulx’s rule for his sister; or late medieval mystical authors including the hermit Richard Rolle or the anchorite Julian of Norwich. They illustrate the range of solitary lives that were possible in late medieval England, practical considerations around questions of material support, prescribed ideals of behaviour, and spiritual aspiration. It also covers the mechanisms and structures that were put in place by both civil and religious authorities to administer and regulate the vocations. Coverage extends into the Reformation period to include evidence for the fate of solitaries during the dissolutions and their aftermath. The material selected includes visual sources, such as manuscript illustrations, architectural plans and photographs of standing remains, as well as excerpts from texts. Most of the latter are translated here for the first time, and a significant proportion are taken from previously unpublished sources.
Inclusarum and Ancrene Wisse , continued to be read, re-copied and adapted for new generations of solitaries throughout the Middle Ages [ 12a ]. In Chapter II we considered how and from where anchorites received the material support necessary to sustain their way of life. Returning to one of those documents, the foundation of the reclusory at Whalley [ 13 ] is a particularly rich source of information
Introduction The fifteenth-century rule for anchorites, Speculum Inclusorum or Mirror for Recluses , is at pains to stress to its readers, and in particular to anyone contemplating taking on the life of an anchorite, the seriousness of such a decision. ‘After an absolute vow has been made, or this kind of life taken on with deliberation,’ the author reminds us, ‘it must of necessity be observed
thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries: with anchorites, who lived a life of strict bodily enclosure in a ‘cell’, usually attached to a parish church; and hermits, whose vocation was less clearly defined and subject to fewer constraints. It represents the first comprehensive look at the two vocations in late medieval England in more than a century. 2 The solitary lives in the West before 1200 Medieval solitaries
Introduction We do not have much information about the size and design of anchorholds or reclusories: the documents rarely give details, and standing remains or archaeological evidence are both rare and rarely straightforward to interpret. 2 Though a priest-anchorite could, in theory, be spiritually self-sufficient, cells were almost invariably attached to a larger religious establishment, where
associates (but not William the hermit) were executed for treason in 1534. 1 Another solitary was caught up in the affair. The Dominican Christopher Warener was an anchorite at Canterbury, and in 1533 was accused of having received Barton and one of her supporters at his reclusory. This he did not deny; as he says in his letter to Thomas Cromwell, he could hardly refuse to see them, since ‘I am a prisoner’. But he
bit about the religious anchorite movement in medieval Europe. Anchorites, or more usually anchoresses, withdrew from secular society, not by going into a convent or the wilderness but by confining themselves in cells built onto the sides of churches. These give architectural evidence, while some of their uses can be deduced from manuals of anchorite behaviour such as the
7 The function of material and spiritual roads in the English eremitic tradition Michelle M. Sauer Religious vocations in the Middle Ages took a wide variety of forms, from the traditional careers of cloistered monks and nuns to more unconventional choices, such as being a hermit or anchorite. While all shared the goal of becoming closer to God spiritually, the ethos and practices of each were different. Monks and nuns took formal vows, identified with an order and lived communally within established houses following established rules. Hermits and anchorites
procedures, and finally the liturgical ceremonial that were involved whenever an individual expressed the intention of becoming an anchorite. By the end of the Middle Ages, a comparable framework was in place for the vocation of hermit, though only as a much more recent development. A system of episcopal scrutiny and supervision of potential anchorites seems to have existed by the end of the twelfth century, and provides a context for the