Pro anacorita —Identifying Individuality in London’s Anchorites, 1200–1550

Abstract

Anchorites, Christian recluses who lived in cells typically attached to the sides of ecclesiastical structures, were a fixture of ascetic religious life in medieval Northwestern Europe, especially England. However, despite anchorites’ prominent place in Christian society throughout the Middle Ages, they have been markedly understudied by historians. This project, which focuses on the anchorites found within the bounds of the City of London—that is, the area of London largely surrounded by the Roman wall—addresses this lacuna by establishing what can be known about individual anchorites in London from 1200–1550 and exploring how London’s parish geography factored into the roles and lives of anchorites. Through rhetorical analysis of lay/merchant wills, anchorite wills, royal decrees and bequests, Church approvals of enclosures, and Henry VIII’s Chantry Certificates, this study will illuminate the unique religiosity of the medieval world of recluses, as well as attempt to give anchorites, especially female anchorites, something rarely afforded to them—treatment as individuals.