[105] In the settlement of the vicarage of Kelvedon, Essex, when the rectory was impropriated to the abbot and convent of Westminster, in the fourteenth century, it was expressly ordered that the convent, besides providing the vicar a suitable house, should also provide a hall for receiving guests. See subsequent chapter on the Secular Clergy.
[106] From the “Officium et Legenda de Vita Ricardi Rolle.”
[107] When is not stated; he died in 1349.
[108] Afterwards it is described as a cell at a distance from the family, where he was accustomed to sit solitary and to pass his time in contemplation. In doing this Sir John Dalton and his wife were, according to the sentiment of the time, following the example of the Shunammite and her husband, who made for Elisha a little chamber on the wall, and set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick (2 Kings iv. 10). The Knight of La Tour Landry illustrates this when in one of his tales (ch. xcv.) he describes the Shunammite’s act in the language of mediæval custom: “This good woman had gret devocion unto this holy man, and required and praied hym for to come to her burghe and loged in her hous, and her husbonde and she made a chambre solitaire for this holy man, where as he might use his devocions and serve God.”
[109] Either the little window through which she communicated with the outer world, or perhaps (as suggested further on) a window between her cell and a guest-chamber in which she received visitors.
[110] A hermitage, partly of stone, partly of timber, may be seen in the beautiful MS. Egerton 1,147, f. 218 v.
[111] A very good representation of a cave hermitage may be found in the late MS. Egerton, 2,125, f. 206 v. Also in the Harl. MS. 1,527, at f. 14 v., is a hermit in a cave; and in Royal 10 E IV. f. 130, here a man is bringing the hermit food and drink.
[112] Eugene Aram’s famous murder was perpetrated within it. See Sir E. L. Bulwer’s description of the scene in his “Eugene Aram.”
[113] See view in Stukeley’s “Itin. Curios.,” pl. 14.
[114] Suggesting the room so often found over a church porch.