The coronavirus pandemic has caused a huge number of people to experience a unique experience of self-isolation. Someone goes through it easily, but for someone such a test seems very difficult. I would like to remember that at all times in different countries there were Companions for whom seclusion was a way of serving their faith and all people. In the Middle Ages, there were also many women who subjected themselves to real voluntary isolation from society.
Victor Hugo left us a description of such a spiritual feat in his novel Notre Dame Cathedral:
Sister Bertken Fencing, Utrecht bridge console.
Further, Hugo says that such voluntary sufferers were common in the old days:
It must be said right away that such a practice is not at all an invention of Christianity. Seclusion, though temporary, not lifelong, is also known in Buddhism, and hermitism - removal to live in desert places from ancient times existed in the religions of India, China, Japan and other countries of the East. However, it is the experience of medieval hermits that evokes a range of conflicting feelings. It is especially surprising that very often women went to this feat. Closing themselves in a cell, these people in such a peculiar way tried to alleviate the fate of all mankind, sincerely believing that their prayers save thousands of souls.
The procedure of "admission" and the very ceremony of seeing off to a cell from medieval England are well known. This ceremony was very lavish. The future hermit lay down on the floor, prayers were read over her, blessed with water and incense. Then, with solemn singing, the woman was escorted to the cell and the door was closed (or walled up) behind her - for twenty, thirty-fifty years or for life. Since this act meant the complete death of a person for the world, not everyone could become a recluse. First, the "candidate" had to meet with the bishop, in a personal conversation, he found out the motives and reasons that prompted the person to take this step. By the way, the Orthodox encyclopedia speaks of a three-year preparatory period in the monastery and the ordeals, after passing which future hermits “will give a perfect certificate that, as if not for the sake of seeking vain glory,but for the sake of the true good itself, they strive for this silence."
Fragments of medieval miniatures: "The King Consults with the Hermit" and "Fencing the Hermit".
It is known that in England the conditions for such "self-isolation" were sometimes not too strict. The hermits were cared for not only by the church, but also by many noble people. It was accepted, in modern terms, to "take patronage" over them. So, for example, King Henry III in 1245 completely took on the allowance of 27 hermits from London and the surrounding area so that they pray for the soul of his father, and Lady Margaret Beaufort in the 15th century kept the hermit Margaret White. She helped her in a very feminine way to equip some amenities in her cell: tapestries on the walls for warmth, linen, etc. After that, the noble lady often visited her "ward", talking with her. This, by the way, was the uniqueness of the seclusion. For medieval society, a person who took on the sins of the whole world became in importance equal to the highest representatives of this world, despite the fact thatwhat social status the recluse had before. Interestingly, the only animals that were allowed to brighten up the loneliness of recluses in England were cats.
Promotional video:
Lady Margaret Beauforts, Stained Glass in St. Botolf.
But the seclusion in France was really comparable to a premature descent into the grave. In tiny cells, walled up forever, sometimes there was not even an opportunity to stretch out to full height. People really agreed to a slow death in a stone cage with a single small window overlooking the street. In this hole, kind-hearted passers-by served food and water to the unfortunate, but the windows were specially made so narrow that it was impossible to shove a lot of food at once. Compared to such a voluntary confinement, the current difficulties of self-isolation begin to seem less dire.
By the way, long before the pandemic, the practice of Hikikomori - voluntary confinement at home - spread throughout the world. Probably, in the lives of these people, not much has changed in recent months.