46. THE HERMITS AND ANCHORITES OF LONDON
Hermits are so different from anchorites, the
first being free to wander as they would and the
others being actually inclosed in the cell, (fn. 1) that at
first it seems impossible that any difficulty could
arise in distinguishing the two kinds of devotees.
Yet it is not always easy to make the distinction,
for the word hermitage is constantly used with
the meaning of anker-hold, (fn. 2) and a recluse is sometimes styled hermit. (fn. 3) There is no doubt, however, that both were to be found in London
during the middle ages, for bequests to 'every
hermit and recluse in London and the suburbs' (fn. 4)
were by no means rare, and Edward III in 1370
gave of his alms 13s. 4d. each to three hermits
and eight anchorites in London and the suburbs. (fn. 4a)
There were at least two places in or near the
City wall where hermits at one time lived. A
cell at Bishopsgate was certainly first occupied by
hermits although afterwards by anchorites. The
king in 1346 granted to Robert, the hermit of
Bishopsgate, his protection for a year while collecting alms in divers parts of England. (fn. 5) The
same hermitage had been given by the king to a
hermit named John de Warwyk four years previously, (fn. 6) and a hermit in 1361 seems still to have
been the occupant. (fn. 7) In 1370, however, a bequest was made to the anchorite of Bishopsgate, (fn. 8)
and in 1426 mention occurs of a woman recluse
there. (fn. 9) An anchoress of that place is said by
Stow to have received 40s. a year from the sheriffs
of London. (fn. 10)
The hermitage of Cripplegate appears to
have been an earlier and more important foundation. It was in existence in the reign of
John, who ordered an inquiry about a house
which had belonged to Warin the hermit of Cripplegate. (fn. 11) The advowson in the thirteenth
century belonged to the king, (fn. 12) so that the hermitage may have been founded by the crown,
but if this is not the case, at any rate it owed
much to royal grants and protection. A lane and
an area near the City wall had been given by the
king at some time previous to 1272 for the
enlargement of the chapel of St. James (fn. 13) which
formed part of the hermitage, and Edward I on
several occasions appointed wardens to keep the
goods of this chapel from spoliation on the death
of the hermit. (fn. 14) In 1300 the king granted the
custody to William de Rogate, one of Prince
Edward's clerks, (fn. 15) on condition that he found a
chaplain to celebrate in the chapel for the king,
and that he increased the income of the place by
two marks a year. Possibly the resources of the
chapel were not very large even then, for a certain Thomas de Wyreford, the chaplain of a
hermitage by Cripplegate, was accused, and found
guilty before the bishop of London in 1311, of
encroaching on the rights of St. Olave's Silver
Street: he had heard confessions and administered
sacraments without sufficient authority, and had
proclaimed an indulgence to those visiting his
hermitage. (fn. 16)
The practice of casting the responsibility of the
chapel on a keeper was continued by Edward II, (fn. 17)
apparently with unsatisfactory results, since in
1330 it was said that through the negligence
of these keepers the chapel with its ornaments
and the houses belonging to the hermitage had
not been properly maintained, (fn. 18) and at last the
king in 1341 made over his rights to the abbot
of Garendon. (fn. 19) A second chaplain was added in
1347 when Mary de St. Pol, countess of Pembroke, founded in St. James' a chantry for the
soul of her late husband, Aymer de Valence,
endowing it with a tenement in Fleet Street and
another in Sherbourne Lane. (fn. 20)
The history of the chapel from the time it became a cell of Garendon is uneventful.
On the suppression of the abbey in 1536 it
came into the king's hands again (fn. 21) and was sold
by him in 1543 to William Lambe, (fn. 22) who left
it in 1580 to the Clothworkers' Company with
sufficient property to pay a minister to officiate
there. (fn. 23)
Hermits of Cripplegate
Warin, died 1205 (fn. 24)
Robert de St. Laurence, appointed by
Henry III, occurs 1275 (fn. 25) and 1289, (fn. 26) died
1291 (fn. 27)
William de Wynterburn, appointed 1291, (fn. 28)
resigned 1296 (fn. 29)
John de Bello, appointed 1296 (fn. 30)
Thomas de Wyreford, occurs 1311 (fn. 31)
Alan Chauns, appointed 1332 (?) (fn. 32)
John de Flytewyk, appointed and resigned
1341 (fn. 33)
The fifteenth-century seal (fn. 34) is a pointed oval.
St. James is here represented standing in a
canopied niche, with a sprig of foliage on each
side; in his right hand he holds a book, in his
left an escallop. In the base, under a roundheaded arch, an ecclesiastic kneels in prayer.
Legend:—
S' SCU IACOBI APOSTOLI INFRA CREPULGAT.'
A certain William 'le Ermite' or 'le Heremite' disposed of property in the parish of
St. Clement Danes in 1265–6 (fn. 35) and 1268–9, (fn. 36)
but his hermitage, of course, was not necessarily
in that neighbourhood.
A hermit is mentioned twice in the fourteenth
century as living near the church of St. Lawrence
Jewry, in 1361, (fn. 37) and in 1371 when a bequest
was made to Richard de Swepeston by name and
to Geoffrey his companion. (fn. 38)
There was also in 1361 a hermit at Charing
Cross, whose cell must have been the hermitage
known in the fifteenth century as the chapel of
St. Katharine. (fn. 39)
The profession of hermit lent itself easily to
fraud, and the impostor who in 1412 was
sentenced to the pillory for pretending to be a
hermit (fn. 40) was probably not the only one of his
kind. He is described as going about 'barefooted and with long hair, under the guise of sanctity
. . . . . saying that he had made pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, Rome, Venice and the city of Seville
in Spain; and under colour of such falsehood he
had and received many good things from divers
persons, to the defrauding and in manifest deceit
of all the people.' No such inducement to
deceive offered itself in the case of the anchorites,
who had to obtain the licence of the bishop to
become recluses and whose cells were generally
attached either to a parish church or to a religious house (fn. 41) in order to ensure them the
means of subsistence, for in an unfrequented
place they might have starved.
Katharine wife of William Hardel constructed
for herself in 1227 an anker-hold by the chapel
of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, (fn. 42) and mention is
made in 1228 of an anchorite by the church
of 'All Saints Colman,' (fn. 43) and in 1255 of an
'inclusa' of St. Margaret Pattens. (fn. 43a)
Behind the chapel of St. Peter at the Tower
of London there was an anker-hold known as the
hermitage of St. Eustace, mentioned as early as
1236, when the king ordered a penny to be paid
every day to the recluse of this place, of which
he was patron. (fn. 44) On one occasion it was
granted by Henry III to a woman, Idonia de
Boclaund, (fn. 45) but in 1371 it was held by a
man. (fn. 46)
At the latter date there was another cell in
the immediate neighbourhood, for the Swansnest, the abode of John Ingram, an anchorite (fn. 47)
in 1371 and 1380, (fn. 48) was close to St. Katharine's
Hospital.
A cell was built in the turret of the wall
near Aldgate by a recluse named John (fn. 49) who
was living there in 1257–8, (fn. 50) but in 1325
the place seems to have survived in name only. (fn. 51)
It is true Simon Appulby, priest, made his
profession as an anchorite in 1513 before the
bishop of London in the priory of Holy Trinity, (fn. 52)
which must have been quite close to the spot,
and this would argue that the cell had not
disappeared; it is however more likely that
Appulby lived in the monastery.
The ankerhold attached to the abbey of
Westminster (fn. 53) may possibly be traced back to
the thirteenth century, since Nicholas the hermit
of Westminster occurs in the Pipe Rolls from
1242 to 1245. (fn. 54) But the notices are more
frequent later. To the anchorite monk in
the church of Westminster, John Bares, citizen
of London, left 20s. by will in 1384. (fn. 55) It
is reported that the monk recluse there used
his influence to secure adherents to the party
of the lords appellant against Richard II. (fn. 56)
Henry V after his father's death confessed to
Humphrey of Lambeth, the anchorite of Westminster. (fn. 57) Sir John London, recluse in the
church of St. Peter, who figures in the list of
benefactors of Syon Monastery, (fn. 58) received a bequest of £10 in 1426 from the duke of Exeter. (fn. 59)
The cell was sometimes occupied by a woman:
Henry VI in 1443 gave an annuity of 6 marks
to the anchoress there, (fn. 60) and forty years afterwards a similar annuity was granted also to a
female recluse by Richard III. (fn. 61)
The licence of the bishop of London to Beatrice
de Meaus in 1307 to live as an anchoress near
the church of St. Peter Cornhill in a place where
anchorites used to live before (fn. 62) proves that the
cell was not then a new foundation. (fn. 63) It was
inhabited by Beatrice or by another woman in
1324, (fn. 64) but in 1345 and 1348 a male recluse was
in possession. (fn. 65)
Mention is made in 1345 of an anchorite, and
in 1361 of an anchoress at St. Benet Fink. (fn. 66)
A recluse called Lady Joan lived in St.
Clement Danes in 1426. (fn. 67)
The anchoress at Allhallows London Wall, for
whom the sum of 4 marks was received by the
wardens of the church from the bishop of London
in 1459, (fn. 68) was succeeded in a year or two by an
anchorite, William Lucas, who died about 1486.
The accounts of this church contain some interesting details concerning recluses of this kind. In
these they figure not only as the recipients of
charity but as contributors to the church.
Among other sums given by Lucas are 3s. 4d.
to church work, 2s. 8d. to 'ye makyng of ye
new bolles of laton of ye beme,' and 3s. 4d. for
painting the church. Simon, to whom the cell
was granted after Lucas' death, gave to the
church on one occasion a stand of ale, on another
32s. towards the new aisle, and in 1500–1 he
presented a chalice weighing 8 oz. An anchorite's
servant probably had to be useful in many ways,
for a payment is recorded to Simon's servant for
plastering the church wall. Simon the Anker
was the author of a treatise called The Fruit
of Redemption, printed by Wynkyn de Worde
in 1514. Since in 1532 a grant of the next
presentation was made by the Court of Common Council to an alderman, it must be
concluded that the advowson of the cell then
belonged to the City. (fn. 69) It appears to have been
suppressed in 1538, the anker-house being given
to the City swordbearer. (fn. 70)
There was also a cell attached to the Blackfriars, and here Katharine Foster lived with her
maid from 1471 to 1479. (fn. 71) It is believed that this
house is identical with that inhabited before by
an anchorite known as the hermit of New Brigge.
The place must have been occupied until the
Dissolution, for in 1548 Katharine Man, former
recluse of the Blackfriars, relinquished her right
to the anchoress-house to the commonalty and
received a pension of 20s. (fn. 72)