Medieval Anchorites in their Communities ed. by Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy

Abstract

Reviewed by: Medieval Anchorites in their Communities ed. by Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy Krizstina Ilko Medieval Anchorites in their Communities, ed. Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy ( Cambridge: D.S. Brewer 2017) xiv + 254 pp. The intention of this volume, namely to observe solitary anchorites through their relationships to communities, proves not only to be an entertaining and imaginative idea but also a productive scholarly contribution to the field. Edited by Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy, the volume contains an introduction and twelve papers that were originally presented at a conference on anchorites in Gregynog in 2015. The admirable aim of the conference and this subsequent volume is to challenge the traditional scope of research on anchorites, which is concerned with problems extraneous to society. While there has already been interest—and not only recent interest—in reinterpreting the activity of anchorites through their connection with society, this volume illuminates effectively that anchorites did not exist only on the peripheries but dwelled in the very heart of society. The first paper, written by E. A. Jones, explores a wide range of anchorholds, and some of them, such as anchorites living in castles, represent neglected but extremely fascinating settings. Hermits could be found on the liminal spaces of urban society, attached to city walls and gates, and also on royal domains, such as forests, where the hermitages enhanced "the mystique of the hunting environment" (26). Moreover, Jones investigates their role in rites of passage, such as their transformative counseling of Henry V or Richard II at momentous events of their reigns. The volume is divided after the initial study into three sections, and the first focuses on "Religious Communities." While female anchorites were usually known to be attached to parishes and nunneries, Cate Gunn argues that one particular female anchorite could have been enclosed in a male Benedictine priory at Colne. While there is only scarce archaeological evidence for a cell that was probably wooden being attached to the church, the evidence of three charters signed at Colne by "Robert son of the female recluse" supports her argument. Hagiographical tradition suggests that the solitary life made the anchorites also especially likely to encounter angels and that their distinguished lives also reserved a special celestial place for them. The paper of Sophie [End Page 242] Sawicka-Sykes contextualizes how anchorites followed the vita angelica, and, depending on their different hagiographical roots, she differentiates between the so-called "Spatio-Celestial" and the "Biblico-Celestial" models. The study by Andrew Thornton investigates what Grimlaicus' Regula Solitariorum can inform us about the eremitical practice within a Benedictine community. It is useful that Thornton highlights the contradictions and fuzzy points of this quite important text that was the first rule written for those who wished to retire to a solitary life in a coenobium. The next two studies, which began the second part of the papers entitled "Lay Communities," dwell into the purgatorial intercessor role of anchorites. The world "purgatoire" itself in English first occurs in Ancrene Wisse, a thirteenth-century anchoritic guide. Clarck Drieshen focuses on A Revelation, a fifteenth-century text that describes how an anchoritic intercessor helps to release a deceased nun's soul from purgatory. Drieshen argues that the ambiguities of the text, which previously gave ground for debate about the identities of the two women, helped the readers to identify themselves with the text, which helped to strengthen bonds between conventual and lay communities. The study by Michelle M. Sauer explores how, besides the institution of chantry chapels for the wealthier layers of society, anchorites meant a more affordable way to obtain prayers and reduce someone's time in purgatory. Sauer moreover fits the patronage of anchorites into the complex culture of gift-giving within medieval friendship—which apparently extended beyond death. In the next study written by Clare M. Dowding, the focus is on the relationship of anchorites with the parish community, for which Dowding made use of a surprisingly understudied source for researching anchorites: churchwarden accounts. These accounts sketch a sophisticated interaction between the anchorite and the parish and demonstrate that anchorites often contributed financially to their churches and parish community, having chosen "a solitary and...