THE RECLUSE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 78, 2 April 1923, Page 8

THE RECLUSE

WOMEN HERMITS OF THE, PAST GOSSIP IN THE MIDDLE AGES. It was by no means unnmal for women to become hermits in the Middle Ages. The idea that, their life thereafter was one of tomb-like solitude and selfmortification is probably quite erroneous. Though a few religious enthusiasts may have inflicted great hardships and tortures upon themselves and been strong enough to continue them, says the "Manchester Guardian," the very Imjg number of anchoresses, as they were called, shows' that people of average mind inclined to the life,' and it is certain that no unnatural demands were irade on .their nioral strength. It is even possible that the recluse was not always confined to her cell, though this was customary. The cell, too, was not too cramped or austere in its jixomraodation. It often consisted of two or three rooms, and might have a garden attached. Many such enclosures Have been identified in connection with churches, against which they were often built. A window between cell and church allowed the recluse to receive the sacrament and hear the service. , •

It seemE. strange to learn that these cells were/yery numerous in towns, in London, Norwich, York, Shrewsbury. Sometimes wealthy people built and endowed cells and retained the right of nomination to them. The inhabitants were not always professed nuns, though they often were. They were supposed to subsist largely on alms, but they might sometimes depend on the convent io which they were attached. They were also to give in alms what they could spare in money and kind. Sometimes they had two servants to wait on them, "one to go abroad and one to stay at home." They might keep a cow, "but no other animal, save only a cat." They might not engage in the education of girls, "lest the love for your pupils come between you and God." But it is to be feared that frail humankind did not always rise to the transcendental standards of thought and immunity prescribed for it. She obeyed the.letter of the rule, indeed, but a second window of her dwelling communicated with the churchyard or street, and the many temptations which this offered could not always be resisted. At this window, which was unglazed, there hung a black curtain with a white cross to indicate a recluse, and it was not moved for conversation ("A peering anchoress who is always thrusting her head outward is like an untamed bird in a cage"), though the hermit might - put out her hand to give to a beggar. Yet gossip through this window seems to have been her besetting sin. 'Men say of anchoresses that almost every one hath an old woman to feed her ears, a prating gosaip who tells her all the tales of the land, a magpie that chatters to her of all she sees and hears."

It woujd indeed seem to us nowadays that her occupations might fail to give the recluse sufficient human interest, for her pursuits were' principally the embroidering of vestments, reading of .devotional books, writing and illuminating texts. Yet her room was a comfortable place. Besides her embroidery frame arid table there would be her roomy, carved armchair, a bright wood fire on her hearth in winter, with perhaps her cat purring beside it. The walls were sometimes painted brightly with pictures oi devotional subjects. At the ' east end was her little altar. Recluses could entertain guests with certain . restrictions, but, not at their own table, and all conversation had to be held, again, through what was called the. parlour window (window pour parler). One of our principal sources of knowledge concerning the rule, of',life of recluses is the "Ancren Riwle" (Rule for Anchoresses), a prose work dating from ! the early thirteenth century, about the earliest document we have which deals with instruction for. women. It is of "considerable length, and gives detailed rules for every aspect of devotional life. It paints the ideas of Heaven and eartti in symbols which arc usual in medieval mystical writings, but does not disdain to discuss, as may be guessed fn.'m the quotations above, the most trivial details 1 of everyday circumstance and activity.