Between 1100 and 1539 at least 414 women in England elected to serve God by becoming anchoresses, that is, by spending their lives in a cell, or anchorhold, often attached to a parish church.The candidate anchoress had to convince her bishop that she was mentally suited to lifelong confinement; at the enclosure ceremony, the Office of the Dead was intoned to signify symbolic death and burial.Though symbolically dead to the world, anchoresses had opportunities that were unavailable to them when they were “alive.” Donors supplied their material needs, while a servant, or servants, brought them food, drink, clean clothes, etc., and likewise emptied the chamber pot and took away dirty laundry. Though their days were unhampered by the formal rules that structured the lives of monks or nuns, guidebooks enjoined anchoresses to regulate themselves.The myriad “don’ts” enumerated in such guides indicate the possibilities open to the “dead”: the anchoress should not entertain guests, teach children, run a business, or accept monetary donations; she could own a cat, but no livestock (“It is a hateful thing, Christ knows, when people in a town complain about an anchoress’ animals!”).It is little wonder that the clergy sought to thus regulate anchoritic behavior, for living beside the parish church meant being in the center of the community. A frivolous anchoress who whiled away her time gossiping might herself become the subject of gossip; a pious anchoress could accrue such renown that her moral standing might rival the parish priest’s; an anchoress who accepted money from devout laypeople would have the means to compete with the priest for influence and prestige within the parish.

Anchoritism may have inspired the fantasies of Romantic-era novelists who depicted women buried alive in church walls as punishment for some transgression.It certainly inspired, from the late twentieth century onwards, a particularly rich scholarship.Feminist scholars, in particular, have sought to elucidate the appeal of the anchoritic vocation for women. Far from being a death sentence, becoming an anchoress gave women an option besides marriage or a convent, one that conferred esteem and allowed for considerable intellectual and spiritual freedom. Indeed, enclosure could be, paradoxically, liberating: it gave the anchoress “a room of her own”; instead of isolating her from the community, it allowed her, to a significant extent, to participate in communal life on her own terms.