Nov., 1892. CELLS AND HERMITAGES IN WORCESTERSHIRE. 
258 
unanimous wish. By the thirteenth century these recluses 
had become numerous in Worcestershire, and William 
de Beauchamp, in 1298, left the sum of 4s. “ to every 
anchoret in Worcester and the parts adjacent.” Traces of 
them are found in wills, where various sums are bequeathed 
to them, until nearly the time of the Reformation, and a 
memorandum occurs in a book of one of the Priors of Wor¬ 
cester, “for brycks, lyme, and sonde, to ye repa’con of ye 
anckras bowse (reparation of the anchoret’s house) by ye 
charnel house ex devocione, xs.” This cell near the charnel 
house may have been either attached to that house or an 
enclosure over the north porch of the cathedral, where for 
many centuries apartments were evidently occupied either in 
this way or by some officers belonging to that edifice, as in 
the present day. At the church of Stoke Prior and many 
other churches in this diocese there was an apartment, gene¬ 
rally over the porch, which is supposed to have been a domus 
inclusorum , but these cells must not be confounded with the 
chambers of priests, sacristans, or persons appointed to watch 
over chapels and costly shrines. Sometimes the chambers 
were so constructed as to allow the recluses to see the altar 
of the church to which they belonged, as well as to hear its 
services; and not unfrequently they were like tombs, from 
their purposely contracted dimensions—that in which St. 
Dunstan immured himself having been only 5ft. long, 2|ft. 
wide, and not high enough to stand upright in. I must, 
however, not detain you on this branch of the subject, which 
might be indefinitely extended, and so let us pass on to 
consider the hermitages. 
“ Aged the sires who dwelled such caves within— 
Head-shaking sages prone to moralize, 
And him disciple who made there his inn. 
Their cheeks were hollow, slender was their size, 
And ever on the ground they bent their eyes. 
One book they had—the book of holy lore, 
Against the wall the cross stood leaning-wise, 
A table small a skull and cross-bones bore, 
And bosky ivy hid the bell above the door.” 
It seems that hermits were subject to episcopal rule, as 
in 1481 Thomas Polton, Bishop of Worcester, licensed 
Richard Spetcliley to be a hermit. These licenses were as 
much a matter of episcopal business as were the presentations 
to livings. I have a copy of the vow taken by Richard 
Spetcliley, in which he promises to observe perpetual chastity 
“ after the rewle of seynt poule.” 
Blackstone Rock, on which we now stand, is one of the most 
interesting relics we have in the county, as associated with 
hermits, for here is not the simple hole or cell which formed 
