CHAPTER IV

HERMITS AND ANCHORITES

There is one branch of ecclesiastical history which has been curiously neglected, that, namely, concerned with the anchorite, ankret, anchoress, or ankress. That is to say, it is generally concluded that a hermit and an anchorite are the same persons. One might as well think that a monk is the same as a friar.

There was nothing to prevent a hermit setting up his cell wherever he pleased; yet there were certain places where a hermitage was a recognised institution, and the hermit was, so to speak, presented as to a living. Thus, there was a hermitage outside the City wall at Aldgate, one at Bishopsgate, one at Cripplegate, one at Charing Cross, one at St. Laurence Jewry; a hermitage was often found at a bridge, and by the roadside, in a forest, or in any place not too secluded, because a hermit lived upon alms, and had therefore of necessity to reside near the haunts of men. The character and reputation of the hermitage depended entirely upon the character of the occupant, and therefore varied from time to time. William of Langland speaks of “fals hermits,”—“But these hermits who build their dwelling by the highway, of yore were workmen, weavers and tailors, and carters’ knaves, and graceless clerks. They kept full hungry house and had much want, long labour and little earning, and at last espied that liars in friars’ clothing had fat cheeks. Therefore these unlearned knaves left their labour and clothed themselves in cloaks like clerks, or as if they were of some Order, or else prophets.”

Hermitages were not occupied continuously; if one hermit died, his cell was vacated, and not necessarily filled up. A few of these hermitages remain, as, for example, that of Warkworth, which is a very striking monument. On the other hand, an anchorite was a recluse; he was shut up and separated from the world; he never came out of his cell. Before a man or woman was allowed to become an anchorite he had to obtain a license from the Bishop, who also required of the Rector or Vicar of his church, of the Abbot or Prior of the House, that the anchorite should be properly supplied with food. The hermit was free to roam—_solivagus_; the anchorite was shut up—_conclusus_. The difference between the hermit and the anchorite is drawn clearly by R. Sharpe (_Calendar of Wills_, ii. 33).

“An Anchorite’s cell—or ankerhold, as it was sometimes called—was usually in or near a church, although not always: it was so situate that the recluse might see the altar and hear the service, and its door was locked and often walled up, one or more iron-barred windows being left open by which he could receive the Communion and the necessaries of life. He was often a priest and much resorted to as a confessor, as, indeed, were also some hermits. The latter, however, commonly followed a trade or occupation.

Although anchorites were not hermits, ankerholds were sometimes called hermitages, and the distinction between the two classes of religious is not always preserved in the Husting wills. Thus we have in one will a reference made to the tenement of the hermit of Cripplegate—a hermitage founded by Mary de St. Pol, Countess of Pembroke, for the soul of her unfortunate husband Aylmer de Valence—and in another a bequest made to the anchorite at Cripplegate, as well as to the anchorite at Holborn. That both classes were held in high esteem by the citizens of London is shown by the numerous bequests made to every anchorite and every hermit in or near London. Besides the anchorites or hermits at Cripplegate and Holborn, we have special mention made of the hermit in the meadows beyond the Thames, the hermit near Charing Cross, and the hermit near Bishopsgate: the anchorite living in the Church of St. Peter, Cornhill; Friar John Ingram, the anchorite near the hospital of St. Katharine in the neighbourhood of the Tower, previously described in the will of Geoffrey Patrik (1371) as the hermit living at a place called ‘le Swannesnest’ near the Tower; and, in the same will, Friar Richard de Swepeston, the hermit near the Church of St. Laurence in the Jewry, and Geoffrey his companion. The mention of a companion for a hermit seems incongruous, but it appears from a rule for solitaries drawn up by Grimlaic, an anchorite priest in the ninth century, or perhaps somewhat later, that several were permitted to dwell together in one enclosure and have communication by a window, provided the cell of every one was separate.”

Of ankresses there were many. Such was Juliana of Norwich, whose book of Ejaculations has been preserved: such was the anchoress of Bishopsgate, who received 40s. a year from the Sheriffs of London. Such was Christina of St. Alban’s: such were the anchoresses of St. Giles, St. Benedict, and St. Mary de Manny.

The frequent mention in the _Calendar of Wills_ of the anchorites in and around London shows that there were always many of these _inclusi_, and that they were held in great respect; but since men, evidently not wealthy, left money to all, it is certain that there were not anchorites and ankresses attached to every church. So few of the old London churches are left that it is impossible to look to them for much information on this point. It is said that traces of the anchorite’s cell may still be seen in the Inner Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, but for my own part I have failed to distinguish them. They should be part of the ruins of St. Catherine’s Chapel. If, however, we turn to the village churches about the country, we find indications which point to the anchorite’s cell as well as to other things.

Thus, it is not uncommon to find in the chancel of many churches built before the fifteenth century low side windows, sometimes with shutters, sometimes without. These are commonly called lepers’ windows, and one is told how the lepers, forbidden to enter the church, were allowed to assist in the mass by looking through the window at the altar. The Cambridge Camden Society called them lychnoscopes.

As regards the theory of the lepers, we must remember the rigid laws concerning the separation of leprous persons: they were not allowed to enter inns, churches, mills, or bakehouses; they were not to touch healthy persons; they were not to eat with healthy persons; they were not to wash in streams; they were not to walk in narrow footpaths; they wore a distinctive dress, and they carried a clapper to give warning of their approach. There were also lazar-houses for their residence, no less than ninety-five of the first class in England, besides smaller ones. With these regulations, what room was there for an isolated leper in a village? Where would he live? How would he live? Where there were small lazar-houses the lepers’ window is conceivable, but not in the little village where the leper could not be allowed to live at all. So that for most of these villages we may discard the theory of the lepers’ squint altogether.

A valuable paper on the low side windows of certain Surrey churches may be found in the _Transactions of the Surrey Archæological Society_ (vol. xiv. part ii.), in which the writer gives drawings of many of these windows with detailed descriptions, and shows that they served one of two purposes—either for the confessional, in which case the priest sat within the church and the penitent knelt without; he proves that the practice was common in these churches where the only other place of confession was “behind the veil,” _i.e._ in the chancel. The other purpose was for the anchorite to take part in the service through this window. There are indications in some of the churches that a cell formerly existed against the church wall, _e.g._ the marks of a peat-roof in the wall. In one church, that of Hurtly, near Rainham, the cell itself remains to this day.

The writer observes that these low side windows are not found in churches built during the second half of the fifteenth century. He attributes this to the decay into which the friars, who had formerly been the favourite confessors, had fallen. In another place, I have shown that the practice of making bequests to the friars, hermits, and anchorites of London gradually decayed and finally ceased during the same period. May we not believe that the decay of the respect formerly paid to the religious of all kinds affected the demand for anchorites and therefore the supply? It is surely reasonable to believe that when the calling or profession of an _inclusus_ was no longer attended by the general belief in superior sanctity, one attraction, perhaps the principal one, towards the life would no longer exist, while it is certain that the knowledge and the proof of such a belief would be a powerful support and a certain encouragement to the anchorite in enduring the lonely vigils, the frosts and cold, the silence of the night, the visits and the mockeries and the terror of the Fiend, and all the miseries of the cell, which he was never to leave until death called him forth.

In my book on “Westminster” I have described the consecration of a recluse—supposing, without any historical foundation, that the Sub-prior was ready to take the place of the late anchorite. The manner of the consecration is supposed to be described by one of the monks:—

“The Sub-prior, being a priest, was taken into the choir, where he prostrated himself with bare feet. The Abbot and three of the brethren who were priests having taken their places, the Cantor began the service with the responsory, _Beati in melius_, after which the Abbot and assistants before the altar sang with the choir certain Psalms fourteen in number. After the Psalms followed a Litany, the choir singing after each clause, _Ora pro eo_. The Litany finished, the Abbot advanced towards the prostrate brother bearing a crucifix, a thurible, and holy water, and, standing over him, he thrice sprinkled him with water, censed him, and prayed over him. The Abbot then raised the candidate with his own hands, and gave him two lighted tapers, at the same time admonishing him to remain steadfast in the love of God. Then the candidate, standing, listened to the Deacon, who read first from the prophet Isaiah, next the Gospel according to Saint Luke, as on the Festival of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. After this the new garments which he was to put on were blessed. The candidate then took the vows, which were three only, and those the same as the vows at profession, viz. of chastity, of obedience, and of steadfastness.

The candidate next kneeled at the altar, and, kissing it three times, repeated each time the words _Suscipe me, Domine_, etc., the choir responding. This done he offered the two tapers at the altar, and again kneeled while the Abbot removed his monastic frock and clothed him with the garments newly blessed. Then followed a service of prayer. It was the _Veni Creator_, with the _Paternoster_ and _Et ne nos_. The Abbot then, standing on the north side of the altar, preached to the brethren and to the congregation assembled, commending the new recluse to their prayers. The candidate then himself sang the mass of the Holy Ghost.

We had now completed that part of the consecration which takes place in the church. The Abbot then took the new recluse by the hand and led him down the nave of the church, followed by the choir and all the brethren, unto the little door leading into the West Cloister. The church was filled with people to see the sight. A new recluse is not seen every day. There were the _domicellae_, the maidens of the Queen, come from the Palace; there were knights and pages, and even men-at-arms; there were sanctuary men, women, and children; men with hawks upon their wrists; men with dogs; merchants from the wool staple; girls of wanton looks from the streets and taverns beyond the walls. The hawks jangled their bells, the dogs barked, the women chattered, the men talked loudly, the girls looked at the brothers as they passed, and whispered and laughed: and I heard one brother say to another that this was a thing which would make the Sub-prior return to the monastery an he saw it. And all alike craned their necks to see the man who was going to be shut up in a narrow cell for the rest of his days.

The ankret’s cell is on the south side of the Infirmary Cloister. It is built of stone, being twelve feet long, eight feet broad, and with an arched roof about ten feet high. On the side of the church there is a narrow opening by which the occupant can hear mass and can see the elevation in the Chapel of St. Catherine. On the other side is a grating by which he can receive his food and converse with the world. But it is too high up for him to see out of it; therefore he has nothing to look upon but the walls of his cell. This morning the west side had been broken down in order to remove the body of the dead man and to cleanse the cell for the new-comer. So, while we gathered round in a circle, and the people stood behind us, the Abbot entered the cell, and censed it, and sprinkled it with holy water, singing more Psalms and more prayers. When he came forth the recluse himself entered, saying aloud: _Hæc requies mea in seculum seculi_. The choir sang another Psalm. Then the Abbot sprinkled dust upon the head of the recluse with the words beginning _De terra plasmasti_.

This done, the _Operarius cum suis operariis_ replaced the stones and built up the wall anew. And then, singing another Psalm, we went back to the cloister, leaving the Sub-prior to begin his lifelong imprisonment. A stone bench for bed, his frock for blanket, a crucifix, and no other furniture. In the cold nights that followed, lying in my bed in the dormitory, I often bethought myself of the former Sub-prior alone in his dark cell, with Devils whispering temptation through the grating (Devils always assail every new recluse), well-nigh frozen, praying with trembling lips and chattering teeth. No, I am not worthy. Such things are too high for me.”

It seems as if, for a period of some hundred years, every monastic house and many churches possessed a recluse, man or woman. They were specially bound to pray for the House or the Church, probably for the parish as well. They frequently arrived at a reputation of the highest sanctity; they were consulted as an oracle. Thus Richard the Second, before he started on his dangerous journey to put down the rebellion, consulted the anchorite of Westminster. So also Henry the Fifth spent the night after his father’s funeral in weeping, prayer, and confession with the anchorite’s successor.

The anchorite’s cell was not always of the same shape or form. Sometimes it was partly or wholly underground; sometimes a grated window communicated with the outside and enabled the occupier to see and to be seen; sometimes the grated window was too high for the anchorite to see his visitors or to be seen by them. In the nunnery of Marmoustin at Tours there was an anchorite’s cell in which the occupant was totally secluded; at Royston there was a subterranean cell to which there was an approach from the outside and an opening on the top. The approach was probably blocked up when the recluse entered the cell and all communications were through the upper opening. At Bengeo, Herts. (see Appendix VII.), the anchorite’s cell consisted of a wooden hut placed against the north-east end of the chancel. It was eight feet long and six feet high; there was a recess in the wall for the anchorite’s bed and seat; there was an entrance into the church; perhaps the anchorite was a chantry priest.

Sometimes there were two ankresses living in the churchyard, but not in the same cell. Henry the Fourth before his accession to the throne endowed an anchorite’s cell in a village of Lancashire. The ankress very often took care of the church and kept it clean. As regards London, the bequests to anchorites are numerous. We read of ankresses at St. Michael’s and St. Giles, Cornhill; at St. Giles, St. Benedict, and St. Mary Manny, we read of a lady getting so many square feet of ground for the purpose of building an anchorite’s cell; we read of anchorites at St. Albans, St. Giles, and Westminster Abbey.

One of the earliest Old English works is the _Ancren Reiwle_ or Rule for Anchorites. It was written for three ladies who had resolved upon adopting the recluse life in a village in Dorsetshire. The author is doubtful. It was perhaps Richard Poor, Bishop successively of Chichester, Salisbury, and Durham, in which case it is older than 1237, the year of Richard Poor’s death; or else by Simon of Ghent, a native of London, Archdeacon of Oxford, 1284, Bishop of Salisbury, 1297. He died in 1315. The dates are of importance, because the recluse life would not seem to have become common before the middle of the thirteenth century, and it would further seem to have fallen into disuse by the end of the fourteenth century. The work itself seems to show that these ladies were adopting a new thing, or at least an unusual thing.

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, we must remember that in every Monastic House, and in most churches, the cell of the anchorite was built against the chancel wall with an opening to allow the occupant to “see God,” _i.e._ to witness the elevation of the mass every day; that at all hours of the day and night were to be heard the prayers, the praises, the ejaculations, the groans of the man or woman thus buried alive.

It is difficult to understand the attraction of such a life. Probably the very horror of it attracted some minds. To be alone day and night so long as life should last, to pray continually, never to enjoy one single comfort or solace or relief from physical pain, to be always cold, always hungry, always clad in rags, always unkempt and unwashed, to have to battle every night with superstitious terrors and the invention of an excited imagination, to dwell perpetually on images of death, these things make the life so terrible that the mere merit of choosing it appeared extraordinary; the Gates of Heaven would surely be thrown open to one who had passed years of such endurance and such combat.

Picture to yourself such an anchorite. He rises slowly from his knees; his limbs are full of rheumatic pains; he straightens himself with difficulty; he advances to the grating and looks through the bars. He is a gaunt tall man, as thin as living man can be; he is clad in rags; his hair flows over his shoulders; his beard falls down to his waist; his cheeks are hollow; his shrunken eyes are like coals of fire. He prays for the Church and all the souls of those who belong to the Church, that is to say, the dead as well as the living. Great are the blessings conferred on a parish by the prayers of an anchorite! He prays all day and all night; while others sleep the anchorite is offering continual supplication. He is racked with pains; he is always cold, always hungry, always unwashed; yet he is not unhappy. He is supported by Faith undoubting; and he has consolations and compensations. The Virgin Mary sends him angels who sing carols for him alone to hear; they are a foretaste of the singing in Heaven; he is allowed even to see the gates of Heaven standing open and the blessed saints sitting on their thrones exactly like the barons at a coronation. And he is visited by devils who are always beaten back and are always returning with fresh whispers and fresh temptations. Sweet are the joys of battle! He wrestles nightly with the Fiend, and every night sends him out of the barred window screeching with rage and disappointment. Oh, the anchorite is a happy man! And sometimes he is blessed with the gift of prophecy: he knows what is coming: in the morning he remembers his vision, and perhaps the very words are taken down and preserved. He is also, if he chooses, the parish oracle: he is asked to advise on all subjects, for there is no subject into which religion cannot enter. Merchants consult him about their ventures; women about their love affairs; princes about their policy. See, there is a girl tripping over the long grass: she bears a basket; it contains a gift of food for the anchorite, such simple food as he will receive; and she comes with heightened colour because she is going to ask a question of a most delicate nature concerning a young man. In some churchyards, where the anchorite is good-humoured and popular, or where there is an ankress, the grating of a cell has been known to become a place of resort; it is said that scandals and mischievous gossip were sometimes first started outside the ankress’ cell; all the women went there to talk of what was going on in the parish; the cell became a nuisance; the parish priest spoke about it; the Bishop heard of it.

Think of the effect upon the imagination produced outside by the mere voice of the unseen solitary who, as long as he lived, would never change his clothes, nor wash himself, nor cut his hair or beard, nor look upon the face of other men, nor see the sunshine and the blue sky, nor look for any physical comfort or solace so long as life should endure. They knew he was there; they came and spoke to him; the hollow voice came out of the grave in reply; they lowered food; one day they came and heard no voice in reply; they removed the stones and looked in. God had summoned the man of long endurance; who would take his place?

I said, above, that for a hundred years there were anchorites attached to most churches. My reason for assigning this period is that the London citizens began to bequeath property to anchorites in the middle of the fourteenth century, in the year 1341, and left off the practice at the same time as they left off bequeathing property to the Friars about the year 1400. For sixty years there was a general formula with all those who had property to leave. They bequeathed small sums to their own parish church, to all the five orders of friars, to every anchorite in London, or to every anchorite, man or woman, in and about the City of London, to every hermit in London, to every leper in London, to every poor prisoner in London. The reason why the fashion of giving bequests to the maintenance of solitaries began so late and ended so quickly was, I suppose, that the practice of building anchorites’ cells became more common in the fourteenth century than it had been in former times; that men clutched at every chance of getting prayers as well as masses for their souls; that the appearance of so many newly built cells struck their imagination; that they thought the prayers of a holy anchorite must be of great efficacy inasmuch as the man not only led a saintly life but endured continual sufferings. In the same way they left money to lepers and to prisoners in order to obtain their prayers.

And the reason why the fashion of bequeathing money to anchorites suddenly ceased was that by the end of the fourteenth century the mind of London was saturated with that part of Lollardy which scoffed at hermits, friars, and monks. At the time when the House of Commons was petitioning the King to suppress all Religious Houses of every kind, the rich men of the City left off, as if by common consent, as if by a kind of conspiracy or secret resolution, the bequeathing of money to friars, hermits, and anchorites. A broad black line is drawn. No more money shall be left to these people. It would be interesting, if it were possible, to learn what became of the anchorites and the hermits. Some of them, no doubt, survived till the Reformation. Can we imagine, with the Dissolution of the Monastery, the suppression of the Anchorite? Can we imagine the old man, with his grey hair, his beard flowing to his waist, scarcely clad decently in the rags which he has worn for fifty years, with sunken cheeks and haggard face and wild eyes blinking at the light, and wondering why after so many years he is dragged out once more into the sunshine and the sight of his fellow-men?