An anchorite
or anchoress withdrew from the community and led a solitary, prayerful and
ascetic (anachoretic) life. The earliest anchorites, an early form of
monasticism, included John-the-Baptist and Anthony living in the Egyptian
desert in the 3rd century. In England religious recluses were first recorded
in the 10th century.[1] Anchorites and various kinds of solitaries occurred
throughout medieval Europe. Anchoritism became very
common in England during the 13th to 16th centuries before Reformation terminated
the tradition.
|
Century
|
Female
|
Male
|
Gender
unknown
|
Total
|
Total
known sites
|
|
12th
|
48
|
30
|
18
|
96
|
77
|
|
13th
|
123
|
37
|
38
|
198
|
175
|
|
14th
|
96
|
41
|
77
|
214
|
171
|
|
15th
|
110
|
66
|
28
|
204
|
139
|
|
16th
|
37
|
27
|
4
|
68
|
49
|
Number of
documented anchorites, A. K. Warren, 1985,.[2] There have been 780 recorded English recluses from 601 sites between
1100 and the end of the Middle Ages. They were 414 female solitaries, 201 males
and 165 of unknown gender. It appears there were more anchoresses
than anchorites (4:1 in the 13th-century). The dearth of records
suggests there may have been substantially more.[3]
The anchorite usually lived permanently[4] enclosed
in a cell called an anchorhold. Some anchorites moved freely between several cells
and some were in houses. An anchorhold was usually attached to a church or
cathedral and usually located on the north side. Some occupied cells connected
to houses and castles or castle walls and some were near monasteries. The
anchorite house at Chester-le-Street had four cells and was exceptional.
Generally, the cell was small (an average of 4 metres square), contained a bed,
a chamber pot and a small altar, but rarely had a window. Commonly, those against
a church had a squint or opening to view the altar; the anchorite would want to
view the raising of the host in the Eucharist. Often the cell was adjoined to another room in which a
servant could assist the anchorite especially in providing a frugal meal. Sometimes
local people would converse with the anchorite through a small opening in the
wall. The anchorite was seen as a wise person able to offer spiritual guidance.
Indeed, many who chose to be immured were of high status and were respected. They
also had financial security which was considered necessary. The anchorite was
independent of the church, but answerable to the bishop. Early anchorholds were
predominantly in rural areas and in makeshift timber buildings. By the 14th
century they were stone houses. By the 16th century anchorholds had become ‘an
integral element of the ecclesiastical topography of medieval towns.’[5] It was
common for wills to contain donations for a local anchorite.
The
anchorite might have held their isolation to be a way to avoid hell and by
intense prayer a way to join Christ.[6] It was like
being perpetually in Lent, that is, isolation avoiding temptation and preparing
for ultimate death. Indeed, unlike hermits, before they entered their cell anchorites
received a rite of consecration that resembled a funeral. They would
be seen as dead to the world, a type of living saint. During the late
medieval period it was often a pious, lay woman. Some had terminal diseases and
this was a positive way to see their end-life and have a form of martyrdom.
There is some evidence of when they died, they were buried within the apse of
the church near to the altar. 13 English guides giving instruction on how
anchorites are to be made, supported and behave are extant. There were four key
ideals: enclosure, comparative solitude, chastity and orthodoxy;[7] the idea
of a solitary being unstable and heretical is wrong. Some anchorites suffered,
but this was not the intention and most likely applied only to a minority. Some
anchorite-priests pursued scholarly or copyist work in their cells.
Perhaps, the most well-known anchorite was
Cuthbert isolated on Farne island and well described by Bede. Another is Billfrith
at Lindisfarne who adorned the Lindisfarne Gospels with gold and gems. In the
late 7th century, Guthlac left the monastery in Repton and for 15 to 20 years
lived isolated on an island in the Lincolnshire Fens. A folklore story has Chad
living as a hermit and living on the milk of a doe. This myth has been modified
to locate the hermitage at Stowe.
Recent research has emphasised
that little is known how the anchorite lived and practised their vocation. It
is clear that much of the surviving evidence presents anchoritism as highly
esteemed by the surrounding community, a community which, after all, enabled
the vocation to exist and persist in both economic and practical terms.[8]
Anchorholds
have been identified in churches in Staffordshire and Shropshire. There
is a mention of Simon, a longstanding hermit, being translated in 1222 from
Lichfield to Dunstable, but he could have been isolating in a cave, house or
cell and not be attached to a church.[9] Two hermits were allowed
by Matilda to settle a mile to the south of Beaudesert (at Radmoor?) and were
given land for pasture on Cannock Chase early in the 12th century. In the register of Bishop Walter Langton, in 1311,
Emma Sprenghose was found suitable to be an anchoress in a house close to St
George’s chapel, Shrewsbury. In 1315, Iseult de Hungerford was admitted into
the same house. The house was said to have other anchorites.[10] The
register of Bishop Roger de Northburgh, 1322–1358, (sometimes de
Norbury) included appointments of priest anchorites being made 1357–1374.[11] It is not clear where the
priest anchorites were sent. In 1360,
the prior of Maxstoke was commissioned by Bishop Stretton to enclose Brother
Roger de Henorebarwe as an anchorite in the chapel of Maryhall. In 1363, Bishop Stretton inducted a friar at St.
John's, Chester, into an anchorite's cell in the churchyard.[12] In 1423, John Grace an
anchorite friar from Coventry, preached on three days to the canons in the
Cathedral Close.[13]
John Woodcoat, a chaplain, in 1457, was asked to hear the confessions of an
anchorite at Polesworth.[14] The River Anker runs
through Polesworth and its name is said to derive from two anchorholds
close-by. In 1509, the bishop suffragan shut up Joan Hythe, a nun from Derby,
in a cell at the church in Macclesfield.[15] An anchorhold with an aumbry
in the wall, seems to have existed on the northern side of St. Chad's chancel
at Stafford.[16]
The inference is medieval bishops in the diocese were sympathetic to
anchoritism.
Almost
certainly in the 13th or 14th-century there were anchorites in cells adjoining
the cathedral or in the Close, but there is no documentary evidence. The
involvement of bishops of Lichfield in the 14th and 15th centuries in
anchoritism, especially Bishop Walter Langton, supports this notion. It raises
the question, if present, where were the cells. One good possibility are the
three small chambers on the south side of the Lady Chapel built by Bishop
Langton. The cells are small and in line sight with the altar in the Lady Chapel.
All three chambers are 1.7 m (5 feet 9 inches) wide internally. The eastern and
western chambers are shorter (2. 6 m or 8 feet 8 inches long) and the middle
chamber is longer (3.9 m or 13 feet long). The roofs are groined with stone
ribs and bosses. The middle chamber has a small door to the eastern chamber; it
passes –through a buttress and is 1 m (3 feet 3 inches) thick. This chamber was
once accessible to the outside by a door.
John Snape’s
map 1781 has an engraving of the cathedral and appears to show a path leading
from the eastern chamber door.
It has been thought the chambers were
built for the tomb of Walter de Langton the originator and funder of the
chapel, but he was instead buried on the south side near the high altar. Maddison
conjectured whether the chambers were originally sacristies or had a tomb
intention, but then admits their purpose was open to question.[17] He also pointed out the
usual practice of a Lady Chapel being seen as a separate building sometimes
entered through a low arch and cited 7 other cathedrals. Cox[18] suggested various priests
who might have been buried within the chambers. He also surmised whether they
were chantry chapels but comes to no certain conclusion. After Reformation the
‘little cells in the wall of the Lady Chapel may have been occupied by the
ecclesiastics who watched the shrine.’[19] The chambers have clearly
teased historians as to their purpose.
South side of Lady Chapel in Dugdale's Monasticum Anglicanum Vol 6 part 3, pages 1238–9. Note the outside access door for the eastern most chamber. Note changes of access within chambers; the earliest drawing has no inter-doorways, the 1989 version appears to be different regarding internal doorways
whereas the 1891 is more accurate in regard to the current arrangement. Under the three chambers is an undercroft roofed by a pointed tunnel vault.
Exterior of
third chamber showing the new stone where there was a door. Note the slit
window to the undercroft. Was there a stoup on the ledge inside the archway?
The most plausible purpose for
the exceptional chambers would be for an anchorite, or more likely a
priest-anchorite. Such a solitary could have occupied the middle chamber with welfare
provided from the western chamber. Visitors wanting spiritual guidance could
not enter the cathedral by the main doors, but would access an anchorite-priest
by the small door into the eastern chamber. It might be the priest was one of a
team of acolytes on a rota. The undercroft could have been for sleeping and
sanitation. The chambers are the closest to the southeast gate and the Dam
Street entrance from the town. It means any citizen could access a priest
through a wall opening without entering the main body of the cathedral.
Doorway from
middle chamber to eastern chamber (now a storeroom).
It would be unlikely for the name of any anchorite-priest to
appear in any Dean and Chapter document since the appointment was entirely the
work of the bishop. Furthermore, the anchorite would be considered separate
from any cathedral or diocesan arrangement. It explains the obscurity of these
individuals and why more is known from the architecture of their cell, if it
still exists. The existence of three chambers, an undercroft and external door built
by Bishop Langton, the lack of information as to their purpose and their
location near the town gate point to their use for anchoritism. Also, the
enthusiasm for the following two bishops, Northburgh and Stretton, for anchoritism
points to their placement of solitaries in or near the cathedral.
[1]
T. Licence, Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950–1200, (Oxford:
2011). Also, T Licence, ‘Evidence of recluses in eleventh-century England’, in
M Godden and S Keynes (eds), Anglo-Saxon England, (2007),36.
[2]
A. K. Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England. (Oakland:
1985).
[3]
E. A. Jones, Hermits and
anchorites in England, 1200–1550. (Manchester: 2019), 7.
[4]
There are known examples where the anchorite left or was removed.
[5]
R Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism, (Leicester:
1995), 183.
[6]
Ibid, A cell of enclosure was equated with
prison into which the anchorite propelled himself for fear of hell and for love
of Christ.
[7]
M. Hughes-Edwards, Reading Medieval Anchoritism, (Cardiff:2012).
[9]
R. M. Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England. (London: 1914). 142.
[10]
J. B. Huges, The episcopate of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and
Lichfield, 1296-1321, with a calendar of his register. Ph.D. Thesis for the
University of Nottingham, 1992, 684, 697.
[11]
Ibid, 24. Also E. Hobhouse ed. Registers of Roger de Norbury, Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry, from 1322 to 1358, William Salt Archaeological
Society, (1880), 286.
[13]
W. Beresford, Diocesan histories. Lichfield. (London: 1883), 154. Also
T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of
the church and city of Lichfield.
(London: 1806), 285.
[14]
Ibid W. Beresford (1883),168
[17]
J. Maddison, ‘Building at Lichfield Cathedral during the episcopate of Walter
Langton, 1296–1321.’ In Medieval archaeology and architecture at Lichfield,
XIII, The British Archaeological Association, (1993), 71.
[18]
J. C. Cox, ‘The mortuary chapels of Lichfield Cathedral,’ Journal of the
Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, (1879), 1, 116–126.
