Mystical systems
Anchorite
Direct answer
Anchorite: An anchorite, or anchoress if a woman, was a medieval Christian recluse who vowed to live out life enclosed in a single cell, usually built against the wall of a church.
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At a glance
- Also called
- anchoress, anchorhold
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Asceticism, Desert Fathers, Great Silence, Stylite
An anchorite, or anchoress if a woman, was a medieval Christian recluse who vowed to live out life enclosed in a single cell, usually built against the wall of a church.
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What is the difference between an anchorite and a hermit?
Anchorite comes from the Greek anachorein, to withdraw. In the early church it meant any hermit. In medieval Europe it came to mean something narrower: a man or woman who, with the bishop's leave, was shut into a small cell called an anchorhold and promised never to leave it. The rite of enclosure borrowed prayers from the burial service, since the recluse was counted dead to the world.
The cell commonly had three openings: one into the church to follow the Mass, one to a servant who brought food, and one, curtained, through which people came for counsel. Anchorites prayed, read, sewed or copied books, and were supported by gifts. England had several hundred between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, and women outnumbered men.
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What sets Anchorite apart
The anchorite's mark is stability pushed to its limit: one room, for life, by vow. Unlike a monk, the recluse belonged to no community, and unlike a hermit, could not walk away. A bishop examined candidates and checked that an income was in place before he would enclose anyone, because a starving recluse would be his charge. The cell's window on the street made many of them local advisers, and Margery Kempe records travelling to Norwich about 1413 to consult Julian.
- Word: Greek anachoretes, one who has withdrawn; feminine anchoress
- The cell: an anchorhold, most often built against a parish church
- Church window: called a squint, giving a view of the altar
- Guidebook: Ancrene Wisse, written in English in the early thirteenth century
- Best known: Julian of Norwich, born about 1343 and still living in 1416
- End in England: the dissolution of the religious houses in the 1530s
Often mistaken for something else: A hermit kept the freedom of the road and might mend bridges or guide travellers; an anchorite was fixed to one cell by a lifelong vow and a bishop's rite.
The story behind Anchorite
The Ancrene Wisse, a guide written in English in the early thirteenth century for three sisters living as anchoresses, sets out their day and warns against too harsh a regime. The best known anchoress is Julian of Norwich, born about 1343, whose Revelations of Divine Love is the earliest surviving book in English known to be by a woman. In England the life ended with the dissolution of the religious houses under Henry VIII in the 1530s.
Why Anchorite matters
The anchorhold put a hermit in the middle of a town, which made the recluse a counsellor to neighbours as well as a person of prayer.
How to read Anchorite
Writers on medieval religion use the word for enclosed solitaries; readers meet it most often in connection with Julian of Norwich.
Anchorite in practice: an example
A visitor to Norwich can stand in the rebuilt cell at St Julian's church, where townspeople once came to a curtained window for advice.
Where readings of Anchorite go wrong
Enclosure was licensed and supervised by a bishop, with support arranged first. It was never simply shutting oneself away.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- anchoress, anchorite meaning, anchorhold, medieval anchorite, anchorite vs hermit
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is the difference between an anchorite and a hermit?
A hermit lived alone but could move about, work and travel. An anchorite took a vow to stay in one cell for life, was enclosed by a bishop with a formal rite, and depended on others for food.
Were anchorites really walled in?
The door was closed or blocked after the rite of enclosure and the recluse did not go out, but the cell had windows to the church and to the street. Some anchorholds had more than one room and a small garden.
Who was the most famous anchoress?
Julian of Norwich, who lived in a cell at St Julian's church in Norwich from the late fourteenth century and wrote Revelations of Divine Love about visions she had in 1373.
