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Anchoress: Holy Women In Walls

MrRING

MrRING

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This is a strange old practice. First heard about it when I booked this film for my old theatre:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0106271/

What's an Anchoress, exactly? A concise definition, from a blogger who calls themselves an anchoress:

http://theanchoressonline.com/
In the middle ages an Anchorite or Anchoress was a man or woman who lived in a small, sealed room inside a church, where they would have visual access to the Sanctuary and to Holy Communion. Often there was also a small side window at which the Anchorite could converse with visitors, give counsel, receive foods, etc. Usually an Anchorite was rather a mystical and wise sort of person, steeped in prayer.
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A specific one was Julian of Norwich:

http://www.carlmccolman.com/wsu-julian.htm
The Anchoress Julian of Norwich was born in late 1342, and may have lived well into the fifteenth century, dying around 1412. We know very few details about her life; in fact, we do not know even know her real name. At some point in her life she became an anchoress -- a vowed solitary who lived a life devoted to prayer and meditation, confined to a cell adjoining a church. In her case, Julian's cell adjoined the church of St. Julian in Norwich, from which we get her pseudonym. Virtually nothing is known about her aside from what she writes -- and she reveals little about herself, preferring instead to talk about her "courteous" God. In her writing (the first book written by a woman in English), Julian reveals a profound level of mystical wisdom and insight that, over six hundred years later, remains on the cutting edge of Christian theology.

We do know that when she was 30, in May 1373, she became deathly ill, and while on her supposed deathbed she received a series of vivid, profound visions or "showings" -- sixteen visions in which Divine love was revealed to her. She recovered from her illness, and subsequently wrote two books about her experience: a short text presumably written not long after the experience, and a longer text, written twenty years later, which reveals the maturing of a deeply reflective mind.

Julian is best known for her optimism ("All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well"), and also for her repeated insistence of naming both God and Christ as "mother." Her theology of the motherhood of God is an anticipation of, and inspiration for, much of the most creative theological and spiritual thought of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One of the loveliest stories from Julian's collection of visions involves a point where she was asked to hold something little, no bigger than a hazelnut. When she asks God what this is, she is told "It is all that exists." She marvels that this thing could even continue to exist, so small and delicate it appears. She then realizes the reason the universe continues to exist is because "God made it, God loves it, and God keeps it." This sums up Julian's optimistic, visionary theology -- a theology where the love of God is expressed not in terms of law and duty, but in terms of joy and heartfelt compassion.
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Any idea of how many Anchoresses existed in the past, a ballpark figure? Are any of their dwellings open to the public?
 
Not sure if we are getting things confused, but an anchorite/anchoress is normally held to be anyone retiring to a life of religious seclusion (if memory serves me) - yet the version you are talking about reminds of (vaguely) the practice of walling in a priest or a nun in (but allowing them food and communion etc) for the purpose of taking on the sins of the parish or something equally bizarro christian.
 
An Anchoress discovered at York Barbican.

A skeleton found during excavations at a site in York in 2007 is believed to be a medieval religious hermit.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have identified the remains as possibly being those of Lady Isabel German, who died in the 15th Century. Hers was one of 667 complete skeletons discovered in a dig at the site of a former church at the York Barbican. Archaeologist Dr Lauren McIntyre said Lady German would have been "a highly significant figure" in the community.

She was an anchoress, a woman who was walled into a cell to live a life of prayer and contemplation, who lived at All Saints Church in Fishergate in York, the researchers said.

The skeleton was found in the apse of the church foundations, a small room located behind the altar, where only clergy or wealthy people were buried.

Dr McIntyre said the woman had septic arthritis and advanced venereal syphilis, which would have left her disfigured.

"Lady German lived in a period of history where we typically think of there being a strong association between visible and disfiguring illnesses and sin, with that type of suffering seen as a punishment from God," Dr McIntyre said. "Such severe disease could also have been viewed positively, being sent by God to grant martyr-like status to someone special."

But she said Lady German may also have chosen "to devote herself to a life of solitude as a way to remain autonomous and in control of her own destiny".

The skeletons excavated at York Barbican dated to the Roman, Medieval, and Civil War eras.

Lady German's story will feature in an episode of Digging for Britain to be broadcast on 12 February at 20:00 GMT on BBC Two.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-64571638
 
Wasn't there an anchorite in Hunchback of Notre Dame? Been a while since I read it ...
 
A clip from the Anchoress film that started this thread off (who it turns out was the one mentioned by SimonBurchell)
Anchoress is a 1993 British drama film directed by Chris Newby. The screenplay is partly based on accounts of an historical female anchorite, Christine Carpenter, who was walled into her anchorhold in a village church in Shere, Surrey, in southern England, in 1329. The story revolves around the girl's mystical visions of the Virgin Mary, the local reeve who wants to marry her, and the priest who walls her into his village church and his dislike of her mother, a midwife whom he regards as a witch. Fun fact: Natalie Morse, who plays Christine, had previously played the skipping girl counting the stars in Drowning by Numbers, directed by Peter Greenaway.
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A few other fun bits:

Exploring Shere in the Surrey Hills​

Continuing my exploration into the Villages, History and Oddities in the County of Surrey in England and in this Vlog, I’ve returned to the well-known Village of Shere, one of the many Hamlets within the Surrey Hills of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Although a bit noisy, I visit the 12th Century St James Church and tell the fascinating Tale of Christine Carpenter, the Medieval ‘Anchoress of Shere’
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Anchorites: Life in Spiritual Self-Isolation​

This week, Danièle talks about anchorites, men and women who enclosed themselves for life to contemplate their religious beliefs. She also explores some of the work of Julian of Norwich, perhaps the most famous anchorite of the Middle Ages.
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Iris said:
Dr McIntyre said the woman had septic arthritis and advanced venereal syphilis, which would have left her disfigured.
I was wondering how she would have got syphilis.
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Which anchorite was he talking about? It can't have been the one at Shere, since as far as I know syphilis didn't arrive in Europe until centuries later... there was speculation it may have been introduced from the New World.
 
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