Author: Tom Licence
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Price: £55
Isbn: 9780199592364

In his anticlerical work The Devil a Monk Would Be: A Survey of Sex & Celibacy in Religion (1942, re-issued 2003), T Clifton Longworth included a chapter entitled ‘Some English Hermitages and their Story’. Drawing attention to the many legends of walled-up monks and nuns, he observed: “Very little research has so far been devoted to this fascinating topic” and expressed hopes that a detailed study would one day be undertaken of those he considered hapless victims of religious oppression.

Hermits & Recluses in English Society 950–1200, by Dr Tom Licence, more than fulfils this hope, but in the process expunges the woeful misconceptions and popular myths Longworth perpetuated. Dispensing with legend and prejudice, Licence embarks upon a penetrating examin­ation of the lives of hermits and recluses (known collectively as anchorites) and the social forces that caused them to proliferate in 12th-century England. Anchorites became so numerous that they were an “omnipresent” feature of the mediæval landscape.

While Longworth portrayed anchorites as victims, Licence presents them as powerful figures providing 12th-century life and culture with an essential reference point. Hermits’ extreme rejection of materialism was seen as the path to spiritual salvation. They were perceived as living the optimal religious life, with the most exemplary revered as saints. They represented “the type of imagined persona by which society gave form and substance to notions of virtue, holiness and renunciation.” Everyone from royalty to peasants sought them out for guidance, but they were more than gurus. Hermits represented a bridge between the world and eternity, acting as guardians against legions of demons swarming at the perilous margins of human settlements.

Hermits prepared themselves for eternity by disciplining their minds and bodies. Extreme self-denial and flagellation, perceived as punishments or acts of penitence, were considered necessary to quash physical and mental desires so communion with Heaven could occur. While hermits retained relative freedom of movement, recluses imposed even greater restrictions upon themselves, voluntarily entering tiny cells within which they stayed for life. When fire or marauders threatened, they remained unmoved, accepting physical death as a form of martyr­dom. There was no shortage of volunteers, particularly on the part of women. Some cells were in towers, but many were wooden shacks annexed to churches. Some were built on cemeteries so the occup­ant could pray ceaselessly for the souls of the dead.

Reading of the acts of self-denial which might extend over decades, it is amazing that many anchorites survived as long as they did; many more succumbed. One is reminded of the holy men of India and Tibet who mortify themselves, and the practices of indigenous shamans who undergo privations of the flesh before developing visionary abilities. Unsurprisingly, boredom afflicted hermits and some died of it. Many hermits read and wrote extensively; some went fishing or founded religious communities with the followers they attracted.

Many and varied were the reas­ons why an individual adopted this arduous life. For some it was as a result of a convers­ion experience or a vision, for others a protest against society and in the cases of women as a conscious choice to escape a decreed role, such as avoiding a forced marriage. Others simply did not fit in elsewhere. The author also explores the impact of the Norman conquest, the rise of monasticism, moves towards a market economy, and changing attitudes to spirituality and the perceived status of the individual human in the mediæval Cosmos.

Ultimately, the extreme privat­ions to which hermits subjected themselves were questioned, and a more gentle approach to existence gained currency. It was realised that living life could present just as many spiritual challenges as retreating from it, with the route to salvation lying in actions amid society in the present rather than isolated preparation for the hereafter.

This excellent book is prim­arily an academic text for mediæval scholars. It may prove a challenge for a casual reader, but apply just a scintilla of the concentration of a hermit and you will prevail!

I found myself wondering what lessons hermits hold for our society. An easy comparison might be with the hippies of the 1960s, the free economy movement today and vegans such as the recent author of The Moneyless Man. But a more telling parallel at the opposite end of our social spectrum is suggested implicitly at one point in this book, where the author calls hermits the bankers of the spiritual capital of their age.

Has not our own obsessively materialistic culture produced financiers and lawyers who, like hermits, spend the bulk of their lives shut away in offices of brick and concrete, foregoing ordinary pleasures? Today’s monied hermits commune via electronic altars with the abstract and impersonal forces of international capital. Like hermits of old, they too often succumb prematurely to diseases linked to their lifestyles. Our financial hermit class meet every failure with exhortations for yet more economic effort and sacrifice by the community, with the promised future rewards remaining elusive and illusory.