This summary description is so utterly opposed to all the popular notions, that we shall take pains to fortify our assertions with sufficient proofs; indeed, the whole subject is so little known that we shall illustrate it freely from all the sources at our command. And first, as it is one of our especial objects to furnish authorities for the pictorial representation of these old hermits, we shall inquire what kind of dress they did actually wear in place of the skins, or the sackcloth, with which the popular imagination has clothed them.
We should be inclined to assume a priori that the hermits would wear the habit prescribed by Papal authority for the Eremiti Augustini, which, according to Stevens, consisted of “a white garment, and a white scapular over it, when they are in the house; but in the choir, and when they go abroad, they put on, over all, a sort of cowl and a large hood, both black, the hood round before, and hanging down to the waist in a point, being girt with a black leather thong.” And in the rude woodcuts which adorn Caxton’s “Vitas Patrum,” or “Lives of the Hermits,” we do find some of the religious men in a habit which looks like a gown, with the arms coming through slits, which may be intended to represent a scapular, and with hoods and cowls of the fashion described; while others, in the same book, are in a loose gown, in shape more like that of a Benedictine. Again, in Albert Durer’s “St. Christopher,” as engraved by Mrs. Jameson, in her “Sacred and Legendary Art,” p. 445, the hermit is represented in a frock and scapular, with a cowl and hood. But in the majority of the representations of hermits which we meet with in mediæval paintings and illuminated manuscripts, the costume consists of a frock, sometimes girded, sometimes not, and over it an ample gown, like a cloak, with a hood; and in the cases where the colour of the robe is indicated, it is almost always indicated by a light brown tint.[93] It is not unlikely that there were varieties of costume among the hermits. Perhaps those who were attached to the monasteries of monks and friars, and who seem to have been usually admitted to the fraternity of the house,[94] may have worn the costume of the order to which they were attached; while priest-hermits serving chantries may have worn the usual costume of a secular priest. Bishop Poore, who died 1237, in his “Ancren Riewle,” speaks of the fashion of the dress to be worn, at least by female recluses, as indifferent. Bilney, speaking especially of the recluses in his day, just before the Reformation, says, “their apparell is indifferent, so it be dissonant from the laity.” In the woodcuts, from various sources, which illustrate this paper, the reader will see for himself how the hermits are represented by the mediæval artists, who had them constantly under their observation, and who at least tried their best to represent faithfully what they saw. The best and clearest illustration which we have been able to find of the usual costume in which the hermits are represented, we here give to the reader. It is from the figure of St. Damasus, one of the group in the fine picture of “St. Jerome,” by Cosimo Roselli (who lived from 1439 to 1506), now in the National Gallery. The hermit-saint wears a light-brown frock, and scapular, with no girdle, and, over all, a cloak and hood of the same colour, and his naked feet are protected by wooden clogs.
St. Damasus, Hermit.
Other illustrations of hermits may be found in the early fourteenth century MS. Romances Additional 10,293 f. 335, and 10,294 f. 95. In the latter case there are two hermits in one hermitage; also in Royal 16 G. vi. Illustrations of St. Anthony, which give authorities for hermit costume, and indications of what hermitages were, abound in the later MSS.; for example, in King René’s “Book of Hours” (Egerton 1,070), at f. 108, the hermit-saint is habited in a grey frock and black cloak with a T-cross on the breast; he holds bell and book and staff in his hands. In Egerton 1,149, of the middle of the fifteenth century. In Add. 15,677, of the latter part of the fifteenth century, at f. 150, is St. Anthony in brown frock and narrow scapulary, with a grey cloak and hood and a red skull cap; he holds a staff and book; his hermitage, in the background, is a building like a little chapel with a bell-cot on the gable, within a grassy enclosure fenced with a low wattled fence. Add. 18,854, of date 1525 A.D., f. 146, represents St. Anthony in a blue-grey gown and hood, holding bell, rosary, and staff, entering his hermitage, a little building with a bell-cot on the gable.
A man could not take upon himself the character of a hermit at his own pleasure. It was a regular order of religion, into which a man could not enter without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, and into which he was admitted by a formal religious service. And just as bishops do not ordain men to holy orders until they have obtained a “title,” a place in which to exercise their ministry, so bishops did not admit men to the order of Hermits until they had obtained a hermitage in which to exercise their vocation.
The form of the vow made by a hermit is here given, from the Institution Books of Norwich, lib. xiv. fo. 27a (“East Anglian,” No. 9, p. 107). “I, John Fferys, nott maridd, promyt and avowe to God, or Lady Sent Mary, and to all the seynts in heven, in the p’sence of you reverend fadre in God, Richard bishop of Norwich, the wowe of chastite, after the rule of sent paule the heremite. In the name of the fadre, sone, and holy gost. John Fferere. xiij. meii, anno dni. MLVCIIIJ. in capella de Thorpe.”
We summarize the service for habiting and blessing a hermit[95] from the pontifical of Bishop Lacy of Exeter, of the fourteenth century.[96] It begins with several psalms; then several short prayers for the incepting hermit, mentioning him by name.[97] Then follow two prayers for the benediction of his vestments, apparently for different parts of his habit; the first mentioning “hec indumenta humilitatem cordis et mundi contemptum significancia,”—these garments signifying humility of heart, and contempt of the world; the second blesses “hanc vestem pro conservande castitatis signo,”—this vestment the sign of chastity. The priest then delivers the vestments to the hermit kneeling before him, with these words, “Brother, behold we give to thee the eremitical habit (habitum heremiticum), with which we admonish thee to live henceforth chastely, soberly, and holily; in holy watchings, in fastings, in labours, in prayers, in works of mercy, that thou mayest have eternal life, and live for ever and ever.” And he receives them saying, “Behold, I receive them in the name of the Lord; and promise myself so to do according to my power, the grace of God, and of the saints, helping me.” Then he puts off his secular habit, the priest saying to him, “The Lord put off from thee the old man with his deeds;” and while he puts on his hermit’s habit, the priest says, “The Lord put on thee the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Then follow a collect and certain psalms, and finally the priest sprinkles him with holy water, and blesses him.
Men of all ranks took upon them the hermit life, and we find the popular writers of the time sometimes distinguishing among them; one is a “hermit-priest,”[98] another is a “gentle hermit,” not in the sense of the “gentle hermit of the dale,” but meaning that he was a man of gentle birth. The hermit in whose hermitage Sir Launcelot passed long time is described as a “gentle hermit, which sometime was a noble knight and a great lord of possessions, and for great goodness he hath taken him unto wilful poverty, and hath forsaken his possessions, and his name is Sir Baldwin of Britain, and he is a full noble surgeon, and a right good leech.” This was the type of hermit who was venerated by the popular superstition of the day: a great and rich man who had taken to wilful poverty, or a man who lived wild in the woods—a St. Julian, or a St. Anthony. A poor man who turned hermit, and lived a prosaic, pious, useful life, showing travellers the way through a forest, or over a bog, or across a ferry, and humbly taking their alms in return, presented nothing dramatic and striking to the popular mind; very likely, too, many men adopted the hermit life for the sake of the idleness and the alms,[99] and deserved the small repute they had.
It is àpropos of Sir Launcelot’s hermit above-mentioned that the romancer complains “for in those days it was not with the guise of hermits as it now is in these days. For there were no hermits in those days, but that they have been men of worship and prowess, and those hermits held great households, and refreshed people that were in distress.” We find the author of “Piers Ploughman” making the same complaint. We have, as in other cases, a little modernised his language:—