precepts, the anchorite lay at the very centre of the community. The anchorhold has been called a communal "womb" from which would emerge an idealised sense of a community's reborn potential as Christians and as human subjects.

Influential texts

An idea of their daily routine can be gleaned from an anchoritic rule. The most widely known today is the early 13th-century text known as Ancrene Wisse. Another, less widely known, example is the rule known as De Institutione Inclusarum written

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