ORDER AND RULE
Clay, Rotha Mary., The Hermits and Anchorites of England. Methuen & Co., London. 1914.
From: http://www.historyfish.net/anchorites/clay_anchorites_eight.html
VIII. ORDER AND RULE
What sawest thou before thee when didst vow thyself to this manner of life?
—Rule of St. Aelred.
Do you now ask what rule ye anchoresses should observe? Ye should by all
means, with all your might and all your strength, keep well the inward rule, and
for its sake the outward. . . . The outward rule may be changed and varied
according to every one’s state and circumstances . . . it is only a slave to help
the lady to rule the heart.—Ancren Riwle.
The eremitical life, it has been truly said, “was once a career, and not the abdication of all careers”. Recluses were therefore set apart for their vocation, whether they were regular or secular clergy, nuns, or men and women who had as yet taken no vows. A monk might become a hermit by permission of his abbot, but he could only be admitted to the order of an anchorite by the joint consent of his superior and of the bishop. A lay person required the sanction of the bishop before taking either step.
I. HERMITS
The place of the hermit in the ecclesiastical system is hard to define. There were many kinds of solitaries—all, perhaps, of a less conventional and canonical type than other churchmen,—but all, in theory at least, recognized by the Church. Some were in close touch with a monastery. The monk Bartholomew and the lay-brother Godric were both under the ægis of the Benedictine house of Durham, the prior of which exercised the right to “create” hermits. The secular clerk naturally turned to the bishop for licence, institution, or ordination. He might be admitted to minor orders, or even to full orders if the cell were sufficiently endowed for it to be accounted a benefice. Robert of Lilbourne, for example, after being made successively acolyte, sub-deacon, and deacon, was ordained priest on the “title” of five marks a year from his patron, Robert de Hawkwell. Unlettered hermits were also licensed, for episcopal recog-
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nition was required even by civil law. The vagrancy statute of 1388 exempts “approved hermits having letters testimonial of their ordinaries.”1 Such approval is frequently entered in episcopal records, e.g. the Bishop of Sarum gave J. Spensar letters testimonial that he had received the habit [the clothing, and therefore state, of a Hermit].
The ceremony of receiving the habit was a feature in the Office of Benediction (Appendix B). The candidate appeared before the bishop, bare-headed and barefoot, carrying on his left arm the scapular and other garments suitable to the profession of a hermit. During the service the old garments were put off, and the new ones, after being blessed, were put on with appropriate prayers. The hermit signed a deed of profession, made a vow, and received a charge as to his future manner of living.
Some English hermits belonged to a branch of Augustinians2 called “the Order of St. Paul the first Hermit”. In 1431 Richard Spechysley took the following vow at Hartlebury :—
y[I] Rychard Spechysley sengleman not wedded promytte and solempne a wowe make to god, to hys blessed moder Marie, and all the seyntes of heuene yn presence of your reverent Fadyr yn cryst Thomas by the grace of god busshopp of Worcestr fulle and hole purpose of chastity perpetually to be kept by me after the Rule of seynt poule yn name of the fadyr and sone and holy gost amen et faciat heremita cruce super cedulam.
Similar instances occur elsewhere, but chiefly within the last fifty years of hermit-life in England ; e.g. Robert Michyll and John Smith were professed before the Bishop of Ely in 1494 ; John Ferys took the vow at Norwich(1504) ; John Colebrant received the habit from the Bishop of Rochester (1509). Geoffrey Middleton, Richard Fury, and Nicholas Heage, all of Sarum diocese, likewise joined this Order. The Lydence Pontifical (1521) contains the special service for admission into the Order of St. Paul3 (see Appendix B). The habit worn by its members is shown in Fig. 6.
Various Rules of Life are extant, including the following :—
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(a) Regula Heremitarum (Cambridge MS.), sometimes ascribed to Richard Rolle.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.—Hermit of the Order of St. Paul.]
[Download a 1,211KB JPG of this image.]
(b) De pauperate, statu, et vita Heremitarum (Bodleian MS., fourteenth century).
(c) Rule, called “of Pope Celestine,” a manuscript which
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belonged to the House of St. Mark, Bristol. It begins : ‘‘Thyes are the notable rewles of the lyfe heremiticalle . . . made by Pope Celestine”. The preface and much of the matter are similar to (b).
(d) Rule, called “of Pope Linus” (Lambeth MS., fifteenth century, bound as fly-leaf into a Carmelite work). It begins : “Lyne owre holy fadyr [Pope][sic] of Rome he ordeyned thys rowle to all solytary men that takys the degre of an heremyte” ; and ends : “ Thys is ye charge of an hermygtis lyffe”.
(e) Episcopal Charge, or form of living [paid employment] (Pontifical, sixteenth century, see Appendix B).
These documents contain directions about times of labour, eating, sleep, silence, and worship. Obedience in the monastic sense was not required. “The hermit should make obedience to God alone, because he himself is abbot, prior, and prefect in the cloister of his heart.” To Almighty God he may, if he so desire, vow poverty and chastity before the bishop, but not by any man’s commandment. Minute instructions are given as to the repetition of the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and Angelic Salutation, at the set hours. He was to hear Mass daily, if possible, and to be houselled [administered the Eucharist] once a week. Regulations concerning food, dress, etc., are referred to in the chapters which follow.
Although celibacy was doubtless customary among those professed as hermits, it was not obligatory. It is recorded that “John Shenton, Armett, and hys wyffe” took charge of the ornaments of the chapel at Derbybridge (1488). Nor is this a mere instance of laxity of discipline. When it was notified to Archbishop Arundel that Adam Cressevill, after taking a hermit’s vow, had married a certain Margaret, the archbishop adjudged that the reception of such a habit did not de jure bring upon any one a tacit or express profession of religion, nor include in itself holy orders, so as to preclude a subsequent contract of “marriage which was instituted in Paradise”. The Adam of 1405 was, therefore, declared to be effectually bound and held to the observance of the marriage.4
In theory, the solitary was canonically appointed and
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placed under definite rule, but every age has its free-lances. The difficulties connected with due order and discipline were as old as sixth-century monachism. The Benedictine Rule declares that there were not only hermits trained in the monastery, but also self-appointed ones, some of whom roamed from cell to cell. Self-constituted or wandering solitaries were bound to interfere with parochial, monastic, or episcopal rights. When Archbishop Thurstan was granting a charter to the priory of Holy Trinity, York, he inserted this clause : “Let no hermit or anyone else presume to construct a chapel or oratory of any kind within the territory of that parish church, without the permission and free consent of the prior and chapter”.5
The Church prohibited hermits of irregular life or belief. About the year 1231 the Bishop of Lincoln excommunicated Elias, a monk notorious for excesses, and a chaplain was admitted in his place to Mirabel hermitage in Stockerston. In 1334, heresy and schism are recorded both in north and south. The Archbishop of York issued a mandate forbidding anyone to listen to the teaching of Henry de Staunton, hermit.6 The Bishop of Exeter took proceedings against a peculiar person named William, who had set himself up as a hermit at St. David’s chapel in Ashprington.7 Two years later Ranulf, an apostate friar, being “a heretic in the habit of a hermit,” was examined by theologians, and convicted of holding false doctrines ; but the prisoner was released by death.8
Sometimes, indeed, the habit was assumed by mere beggars :—
“William Blakeney, shetilmaker . . . was brought into the Guildhall . . . for that, whereas he was able to work for his food and raiment, he . . . went about there, barefooted and with long hair, under the guise of sanctity, and pretended to be a hermit, saying that he was such, and that he had made pilgrimage . . . and under colour of falsehood he had received many good things from divers people.”
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The impostor, who had lived by fraud for six years, was condemned to the pillory (1412).9
The desire to be independent of authority led some persons to seek the solitary life. William Stapleton, clerk, left St. Benet’s, Holme (where, as he confesses, he had often been punished for laziness), went to London, and purchased from Cardinal Wolsey a dispensation to be a hermit. The truth was, that his whole mind was set on necromancy. He used enchantments in digging for hidden treasure, and practiced spirit-raising. When he returned to Norfolk and showed his licence, his friends motioned him to go about his “science” again, saying they would help him to his habit. This runaway monk was intimate with Wolsey (to whom, in 1528, his long letter is addressed), Cromwell, More, and the Duke of Norfolk. Whether he became solitary or sorcerer does not appear.10
Even authorized hermits were apt to upset the parochial system, if persons resorted to their chapels to the neglect of their parish church. A long-standing grievance at Hinxton was met by an agreement between the vicar, wardens, and parishioners, and William Popeley, hermit of Whytford Bridge. Tithes and dues were commuted for fixed oblations at the principal feasts, when the bridge-chaplain must, like all other parishioners, make his oblations. The vicar was to say mass yearly at St. Anne’s chapel, and in return for his labour, should receive 4d. and a good dinner from the hermit.