Christina of Markyate. ed. Talbot. Richard Rolle's community of hermits,
including the anchoress Margaret, who came to live in his cell after his
death and had already moved at least twice, needing episcopal permission to
do so. Plus Hildegard came first to Jutta, who I think was a solitary beside
a men's abbey, then later Hildegard and the women's community which had
grown around them, moved away from the men. Goscelin writes to a nun who
fled from Wilton and became an anchoress on the Continent. The best scholar
on English hermits and anchoresses is Rotha Clay. Birgitta of Sweden's
Spanish maid, Prasseda, became an anchoress, I think outside Siena. It is
possible that Julian's maid, Agnes, also did. And St Umilta of Faenza and
Florence, was first a nun, then an anchoress, then an abbess, and she
preached, or certainly wrote, splendid sermons which survive, Lorenzetti
painting her life and miracles, Orcagna sculpting her, Giovanni Pisano
finishing the building of her convent she began. I've got an account of her
at my Juliansite, but cannot give the colour plates, except in a separate
hard copy booklet, because of reproduction copyright costs. They are
stunning, like having a video-cam in the Middle Ages, complete architectural
detail being shown of convents, cities, anchorholds, shrines, embroidered
altar frontals, even down to the rings on buildings for tying up horses to,
and the ways roof beams are constructed, plus costuming, plus portrait, one
doesn't need perspective, one's got everything else.
But I had really meant to share with the list the following, for, though
they are earlier than Gary Dickson's cut-off dates they still influenced
later hermits. Irish hermits abound on the European Continent. Einsiedeln,
above Zurich, was founded by the Irish hermit St Meinrad, and later, in his
hut, appeared a Black Virgin, still the centre of a flourishing pilgrimage
cult. (That abbey then founded St Meinrad's in the Mid-West.) And the same
happened here in my corner of Tuscany. Remember George telling us of the
pilgrim St Donato who showed up in the town square of Fiesole so they
elected him Bishop. At the same time a family of Irish pilgrims came, St
Martin founding the church of St Martin at Ponte a Mensola, where Bernard
Berenson's I Tatti is, his brother St Andrew living as a hermit above
Fiesole until he was summoned by St Donato to be his Archdeacon in 829, and
who went eventually to his brother's St Martin's, at Ponte a Mensola, to
die, and their sister, St Bridget, founding Santa Brigida, off into the
hills a greater distance. Then, in 1484, the Virgin appeared at St Andrew's
hermitage, telling two shepherdesses to tell Florence to study the Bible.
When the children were disbelieved the Virgin told everyone what she had
earlier said was correct. St Andrew's Hermitage/Virgin appearing to
shepherdesses is at the Oratorio Santuario Madonna delle Grazie al Sasso, on
the road to Santa Brigida, and St Andrew's cell was later occupied by Ven.
Bernardino da Firenze, and is now a monastery. I was there yesterday for the
Easter Monday Mass and so was able to piece this story together and see St
Andrew's hermitage. The whole place is a delight, its architecture, its
paintings, its setting.
At 13.26 01/04/97 +0000, you wrote:
>I was interested in an entry in George's 29th March daily festal calendar,
>viz.:
>
>* Diemoda or Diemut, virgin (c. 1130)
>- friend of the celebrated recluse, Herluka of Epfach, she
>in turn lived as a solitary, in a cell adjoining an abbey
>church; she passed her time as a scribe
>
>QUERY: How many solitary sisters, anchoresses, were there after c.1000 and
>before the 14thc.?
>
>Cf. A SELECT LIST OF HERMITS, HOLY MEN & WANDERPREDIGER, c.1050-1130
>
>Bernard of Tiron
>Bruno of Cologne
>Geoffrey Babion
>Geraud of Salles
>Henry of Lausanne
>John Gualbert
>Norbert of Xanten
>Peter the Hermit
>Peter Damian
>Peter Igneus
>Raoul de la Fustaye
>Robert of Arbrissel
>Robert of Molesme
>Romuald
>Stephen of Muret
>Stephen of Obazine
>Vitalis of Savigny
>William Firmat
>
>This list is by no means complete; but it contains many of the more famous
>names. It would be nice to draw up a similar list for women. Naturally,
>there would be very few, if any, 'wandering preachers' amongst them.
>
>But I'd like to see if any female solitaries went on to found monastic
>houses during this same period the way that male hermits often did.
>
>Gary Dickson
>University of Edinburgh
>
>
>
____
Julia Bolton Holloway, Hermit of the Holy Family
via del Partigiano 16, Montebeni, 50014 FIESOLE, ITALY
http://members.aol.com/juliansite/Juliansite.htm
Gregory on Benedict: 'quia animae videnti Creatorem angusta est omnis creatura'.
Julian of Norwich: 'For a soul that seth the Maker of al thyng, all that is
made semyth fulle lytylle'.
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