252 CELLS AND HERMITAGES IN WORCESTERSHIRE. Nov., 1892. 
found it now for the last five years, at least, well established ; 
and whether its introduction is due to the consumption of oil 
and linseed cakes or other foreign feeding foods, I am not in a 
position to offer an opinion ; but that it is due to admixture 
with seeds I think improbable, seeing that the field itself is a 
meadow. I believe this plant was erroneously referred by 
John E. Nowers in the March number of this year’s “ Science 
Gossip ” to Ornithopus roseus, but I have since written to 
correct that statement. 
CELLS AND HERMITAGES IN WORCESTERSHIRE.* 
BY JOHN NOAKE, AUTHOR OF “THE RAMBLER,” ETC. 
There were in the Middle Ages two classes of religious 
ascetics, namely, hermits and anchorets. The hermits were 
wanderers, who took up their abode in caves and rocks in the 
banks of rivers and the vicinity of running streams, and 
generally maintained their liberty and freedom, except from 
the dominance of the bishop of the diocese. Anchorets 
were recluses, who lived immured—that is, walled up or 
locked in for life in a peculiar chamber in or near a church or 
cathedral, or sometimes in a separate dwelling with an 
oratory attached to it. Even women who had renounced the 
world, but who wished for seclusion more rigid than that 
of the nunnery, were permitted to have a chamber within the 
walls of a church, having only a grated aperture opening 
into the building, through which their food was passed and 
the Holy Sacrament administered. Occasionally the recluse 
was a criminal, who accepted of a cell as a commutation 
for death, or the punishment due to his offence. When 
sufficient materials are collected for an account of these two 
classes of ascetics a long and most interesting chapter will be 
gained for the history of Worcestershire—a county which 
contains, not only numerous hermitages, but also remains or 
traces of cells, or apartments attached to churches for the use 
of the inclusi. 
As early as the Saxon days we read of one Wolsius, a 
recluse of great reputation, who for forty years had led 
a solitary life (probably in or near to our cathedral), 
and who, by sharply reprehending that great and good 
man, Wulstan, for his obstinacy and disobedience in 
refusing the general call to accept the office of bishop 
over the Worcester flock, at length induced him to obey the 
* Head before the Worcestershire Naturalists’ Field Club, July 
12th, 1892. 
