Anchorite

Use in the book

The earliest selected account sets the problem in the quantity of diet. “Others offend in overmuch fasting”: Burton reports Guianerius’s experience of anchorites and monks allegedly driven mad through immoderate fasting, alongside night waking. The claim concerns excess, and the hostile description “that superstitious rank” is Burton’s polemical framing. It should not be turned into a neutral verdict on religious reclusion or a statement that every fast produces madness. The following appeal to Hippocrates continues the comparison between too sparing and excessive diets.

In the solitude chapter, the emphasis changes from food to the conditions imposed by a rule of life. Burton classifies excessive solitude as a cause as well as a symptom of melancholy, then places prescribed religious withdrawal among its enforced forms; the causal concern is not a condemnation of every retirement. Students, monks, friars and anchorites “must abandon all company” and retire to a cell. Burton adopts Bale and Hospinian’s hostile description of such retreat as superstitious idleness. Yet the later paragraphs are not a minor exception: he praises properly used meditation, objects to indiscriminate destruction of abbeys, and imagines houses in which people could study, enjoy better company and serve God. His favourable reference to “some truly devoted Monks of old” prevents enforced reclusion from becoming his only model of religious retirement.

The pride discussion turns apparent self-denial against itself. Monks, hermits and “Anachorites” can despise titles and honours while becoming proud of that contempt. Burton’s targets think themselves free; his accusation is that they remain inwardly captive to self-admiration. The next paragraph’s Augustine quotation and “self-conceit of sanctity,” followed by Seneca’s warning against conspicuous austerity, explain the mechanism. The issue is not that humble clothing necessarily conceals pride, but that renunciation does not by itself prove freedom from it. Burton’s sweeping application to ascetics remains part of the polemic.

A different register appears in the dietary cure. Burton admires the “prodigious temperance of some Hermites, Anachorites, and fathers of the Church,” placing their lives beside abstemious pagans, philosophers, rulers and Luigi Cornaro. Jerome and Athanasius are among the named writers of these exemplary lives. The following paragraph makes the argumentative step explicit: these people voluntarily restrained themselves while healthy; how much more, Burton asks, should illness prompt restraint? This admiration follows his concession that the diet helpful to one person may be harmful to another. Praise of particular exemplars is therefore not a universal prescription for the same ascetic regime.

Consolation for imprisonment supplies another favourable use. The question how many monks, friars and anchorites abandon the world helps argue that an imposed confinement can be used for contemplation and study. “mortifie thy self” then addresses the prisoner, not the anchorites as a group. At the opposite pole, religious melancholy returns to the dangers of excessive deprivation: anchorites occur in a claim about visions’ bodily or environmental precursors and in a description of people who think they converse with spirits after prolonged fasting. Burton combines those explanations with the Devil’s exploitation of the circumstances. His explicit defence of moderate, seasonable fasting and beneficial contemplation must accompany the accusation.

The singular “that Anchorite” belongs to a different kind of evidence: a reported individual whose reaction to the sight of a woman illustrates one extreme in a sequence of contrasting dispositions. “Yet some again” introduces aversion after proneness to love. It does not make the alleged reaction a defining property of anchorites. Together these uses show a stable noun carrying markedly different valuations, rather than a term whose meaning is simply saint or fanatic.

Related entries

Solitude, for imposed withdrawal and useful contemplation; Mortification, for the discipline invoked in the prison consolation; Fasting, for restraint and excess; Self love, for pride in renunciation; Celibacy and vows, for monastic status and institutions.

Places to read

1. Subsection 2 The Quantity of Food as a Cause · paragraphs 34–36excessive fasting in the reported medical account.
2. Subsection 6 Excessive Exercise as a Cause, and How It Acts. Solitude and Idleness · paragraphs 1–19the anchorite passage, the defence of useful religious houses, and the return to destructive solitude.
3. Subsection 14 Self-Love, Vainglory, Praise, Honour, Excessive Applause, Pride, Too Much Joy, and So on, as Causes · paragraphs 43–48the anchorite accusation and the ensuing warning about conspicuous austerity.
4. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraphs 28–30the individual example and the contrasting dispositions around it.
5. Subsection 2. Diet Corrected in Quantity · paragraphs 20–25the admired group, framed by individual variation and voluntary restraint.
6. Member 4 Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Imprisonment and Banishment · paragraphs 35–39reclusion in the consolation for imprisonment; the final printed page number 327 is a misprint for 340.
7. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 3–13religious visions, deprivation, demonic agency and the limits Burton places on his criticism.

In this edition

“Anachorites” becomes “anchorites”, and “Anchorites” becomes “anchorites”. These three examples normalize the spelling consistently. Across the wider selection, however, the rendering varies: “Anchorites” becomes “Hermits” and “hermits”, while “that Anchorite” becomes “that hermit”. The contextual English makes the religious recluse intelligible without creating a new original spelling. “Hermites, Anachorites” becomes “hermits or anchorites”; the supplied or belongs to the modernization’s coordination, not to the individual noun.

These passages already contribute to earlier discussions of fasting, solitude, self-love and monastic life. The complementary compact routes include Fasting, superstitiosus under Religion and superstition, Self-conceit of sanctity, Temperance under Complexion and temperament, and monk under Celibacy and vows. Here the organizing question is the religious-recluse noun and its changing use, not the discovery of previously unattested passages.

anchorite; anachorite

A religious recluse, withdrawing from ordinary worldly society for a devotional life. The noun identifies the person’s way of life; approval or condemnation comes from the local argument.

Original text: “Anchorites, Monks”. In the modern column: “Hermits, monks”. Religious recluses named alongside monks in a reported account of excessive fasting. The causal account is attributed to Guianerius; immoderate limits the fasting, frequently is not always, and superstitious rank is Burton’s hostile characterization. Anchorites is rendered Hermits; Monks supplies monks. This is a broader English equivalent, not evidence that the original prints hermits.

Original text: “Students, Monks, Friers, Anchorites”. In the modern column: “students, monks, friars and anchorites”. Religious recluses whose prescribed way of life is said to require separation from society. Must belongs to the rules Burton attributes to these lives, not to an instruction issued to the reader. The hostile monastic description is qualified later by his defence of useful religious houses. The four nouns correspond in order; the modern adds a coordinating and. Anchorites is retained as anchorites.

Original text: “Monkes, Hermites, Anachorites”. In the modern column: “monks, hermits and anchorites”. Religious recluses included in Burton’s accusation that renunciation can become a form of pride. The supposed freedom is what the targets think; Burton asserts the contrary. His superlative pride charge belongs to polemic, not an impartial description of all ascetics. Anachorites corresponds to anchorites, separately from Hermites/hermits; the original’s two nouns are not collapsed here.

Original text: “that Anchorite”. In the modern column: “that hermit”. A particular religious recluse used as a reported example of aversion to women. Yet some again introduces contrasting cases after proneness to love. The alleged cold palsy is reported, not a diagnosis independently established here. Singular Anchorite is rendered singular hermit; that preserves the particular exemplum rather than naming the whole class.

Original text: “some Hermites, Anachorites, and fathers of the Church”. In the modern column: “some hermits, anchorites and Fathers of the Church”. Religious recluses among the admired examples of exceptional temperance. Some restricts the praise. Burton argues from admired voluntary restraint in health to the obligations of sick people in the following paragraph; his promise of remedy is historical dietary counsel. Some and the three-member list are retained; Anachorites supplies anchorites, not the adjacent hermits or Fathers.

Original text: “Monks and Friers, Anchorites”. In the modern column: “monks, friars and hermits”. Religious recluses used as examples of deliberately leaving worldly society. A rhetorical question supports consolation for imprisonment. The following imperative addresses the prisoner; it is not evidence that every anchorite is imprisoned. Anchorites is rendered hermits, while Monks and Friers supply monks and friars; list punctuation is regularized.

Original text: “Hermites, Anachorites”. In the modern column: “hermits or anchorites”. Religious recluses in Burton’s generalization about religious visions and their bodily or environmental precursors. Never...but is Burton’s sweeping assertion. The causes, forerunners or concomitants are alternatives; he does not make fasting the sole necessary cause. The Devil is alleged to exploit these circumstances; moderate fasting and useful contemplation are separately defended. Anachorites supplies anchorites; the supplied modern makes the relation of the two nouns explicit with or.

Original text: “Monkes, Anachorites, and the like”. In the modern column: “Monks, anchorites and the like”. Religious recluses included in an account of bodily depletion and supposed encounters after prolonged fasting. They think scopes the alleged hearing and conversation, rather than establishing external beings. Burton combines physiological explanation with demonic agency; this is not modern medical advice. Anachorites remains anchorites; and the like preserves the list’s open-ended extension.