Anchorite

In Christianity, an anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress) is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life. Anchorites are frequently considered to be a type of hermit, but unlike hermits, they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting for permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches. Also unlike hermits, anchorites were subject to a religious rite of consecration that closely resembled the funeral rite, following which they would be considered dead to the world and a type of living saint. Anchorites had a certain autonomy, as they did not answer to any ecclesiastical authority apart from bishops. The anchoritic life is one of the earliest forms of Christian monasticism. In Catholicism and Evangelical Lutheranism, heremitic life is one of the forms of consecrated life. In medieval England, the earliest recorded anchorites lived in the 11th century. Their highest number—around 200 anchorites—was recorded in the 13th century. From the 12th to the 16th centuries, female anchorites consistently outnumbered their male counterparts, sometimes by as many as four to one in the 13th century. This ratio eventually dropped to two to one in the 15th century. The sex of a high number of anchorites, however, is not recorded for these periods. Between 1536 and 1539, the dissolution of the monasteries ordered by Henry VIII of England effectively brought the anchorite tradition to an end in England.