“An Anchorite’s cell—or ankerhold, as it was sometimes called—was usually in or near a church, although not always: it was so situate that the recluse might see the altar and hear the service, and its door was locked and often walled up, one or more iron-barred windows being left open by which he could receive the Communion and the necessaries of life. He was often a priest and much resorted to as a confessor, as, indeed, were also some hermits. The latter, however, commonly followed a trade or occupation. Although anchorites were not hermits, ankerholds were sometimes called hermitages, and the distinction between the two classes of religious is not always preserved in the Husting wills. Thus we have in one will a reference made to the tenement of the hermit of Cripplegate—a hermitage founded by Mary de St. Pol, Countess of Pembroke, for the soul of her unfortunate husband Aylmer de Valence—and in another a bequest made to the anchorite at Cripplegate, as well as to the anchorite at Holborn. That both classes were held in high esteem by the citizens of London is shown by the numerous bequests made to every anchorite and every hermit in or near London. Besides the anchorites or hermits at Cripplegate and Holborn, we have special mention made of the hermit in the meadows beyond the Thames, the hermit near Charing Cross, and the hermit near Bishopsgate: the anchorite living in the Church of St. Peter, Cornhill; Friar John Ingram, the anchorite near the hospital of St. Katharine in the neighbourhood of the Tower, previously described in the will of Geoffrey Patrik (1371) as the hermit living at a place called ‘le Swannesnest’ near the Tower; and, in the same will, Friar Richard de Swepeston, the hermit near the Church of St. Laurence in the Jewry, and Geoffrey his companion. The mention of a companion for a hermit seems incongruous, but it appears from a rule for solitaries drawn up by Grimlaic, an anchorite priest in the ninth century, or perhaps somewhat later, that several were permitted to dwell together in one enclosure and have communication by a window, provided the cell of every one was separate.” Of ankresses there were many. Such was Juliana of Norwich, whose book of Ejaculations has been preserved: such was the anchoress of Bishopsgate, who received 40s. a year from the Sheriffs of London. Such was Christina of St. Alban’s: such were the anchoresses of St. Giles, St. Benedict, and St. Mary de Manny.