Ancrene Wisse and Women’s Work for Spiritual Growth

Abstract

Ancrene Wisse describes the medieval devotional concern on work as a valid means for spiritual salvation. Depicting women’s domestic chores as imageries to be used for confession and penance, Ancrene Wisse demonstrates that the intellectual labors of the anchoresses maintaining their enclosure are indebted to manual labor. More importantly, the maidservants’ work enables the practice of enclosure and contributes to the spiritual goal of anchoritism. The servants’ work visualizes the virtues of the anchoress to the community, promotes enclosure to the public, and enables teaching as a shared form of work between the servants and the anchoress. Thus, Ancrene Wisse opens up a discussion of the relation between women, work, and spiritual development in medieval England.

1. Introduction

Work for medieval women, particularly when the work is related to the labor of childbirth and childrearing, is bound to be seen as recompense for sin previously committed, rather than as a means for self-elevation and spiritual growth. Other forms of medieval women’s work do not receive enough scholarly attention due to a lack of evidence and materials. However, the wills of prosperous laity leaving bequests to anchoresses and their servants can open some doors to provide insights on how women’s service work was perceived in medieval religious lives. In York, in 1394, the merchant John Croxton left grants to many anchoresses, including one for “an anchoress in Thorganby as well as for her maid” (Warren 1985, p. 243). In 1406 and 1415, respectively, Stephen le Scrope and his heir Henry le Scrope, the Lords Scrope of Marsham, left bequests for Elizabeth, a servant to Margaret de Kirkeby, anchorite of Hampole (Warren 1985, pp. 212–13). The famous Julian of Norwich is mentioned in two wills: A citizen of Norwich, Thomas Emund left her twelve pence, along with “eight pence to Sarah, living with her”; John Plumpton left “forty pence to the anchoress in the church of St. Julian’s, Conesford, in Norwich, and twelve pence to her maid”, and the same amount to her “former maid, Alice” (Watson and Jenkins 2006, pp. 432–33). This evidence shows that the servants in anchorholds were seen as entities deserving mention alongside their mistresses, and remembering and supporting the servants and the anchoresses would help the donors’ souls in securing a place in Heaven.

The roles of anchoritic maidservants depicted in manuals such as Ancrene Wisse demonstrate how important work and workers were for anchoritic spirituality and its role in the medieval English religious scene.1 AW is a thirteenth-century guidebook for early-career anchoresses that enjoyed a wide circulation across England and the continent throughout the rest of the Middle Ages.2 This all-important text on medieval devotional careers favored by women depicts the anchorhold as a site for labor, by both the servants and the anchoresses, that aims for a common goal of heavenly reward. This paper argues that anchoritic spirituality is depicted as a form of work that the anchoresses perform for their vocation and religious duty to the larger community, which is enabled by the more conventional, manual labor performed by the servants, whose presence enables anchoritism. If work is defined as activities carried out for productivity—of grain, livestock, money, or spiritual rewards, in the case of devotional careers such as monasticism and anchoritism—the labor of childbirth and childrearing is not mentioned because the AW’s initial readers would have foregone marriage and childbirth. Moreover, such work in the Middle Ages was seen not as labor but as “duties given to women by nature” and a punishment for Eve’s sin (Goldberg and Martin 2009, p. 176). With the burden of Eve’s sin set aside because the original target audience of AW was no longer involved in childbearing and -rearing, the AW can focus on utilizing other forms of work performed by women, both intellectual and manual, as means for cultivating higher devotion.

This paper emphasizes the significance of work in a devotional context, focusing first on monasticism’s treatment of manual and intellectual labor. Despite the differences between monasticism and anchoritism, the two devotional lifestyles both emphasize the spiritual value of work. Thus, this paper discusses how the intellectual labor of the anchoress in maintaining her enclosure, which has been a frequent focus of many studies of AW, is guided by imagery and anecdotes related to manual work and chores. The service labor performed by the maidservants enables and promotes this endeavor to achieve the common goal of religious perfection. As a site of work for women, the anchorhold depicted in AW provides an angle to consider medieval English women and the religious value of their work in a broader range of social class.

2. Work for the Anchoress

2.1. Work in Monasticism

Work, intellectual or manual, was a key element in monasticism because work enabled the monks to realize their professional goal of living a life serving God; similarly, work is an important element in realizing anchoritic spirituality. Monasticism’s emphasis on work is revealed in the most famous of monastic guides, The Rule of St. Benedict. Listing virtues that the monks must demonstrate in their love for God, The Rule of St. Benedict states that “the tools of the spiritual craft” will result in receiving “the reward God himself promised” (Venarde 2011, pp. 35, 37). The good works in which the monks are expected to partake are related to the cultivation of inner virtues (loving God and neighbors, keeping the seven deadly sins at bay, and gladly partaking in holy reading and prayer) but depicted as if they are labor carried out in “workshops” of the “cloisters of the monastery and stability in the community” (Venarde 2011, p. 37). Benedict prescribes manual labor at set times to combat idleness: “… the brothers should be occupied at set times in manual labor, and again at other times in divine reading” (Venarde 2011, p. 161). As such, Benedict considers manual and intellectual labor to be “an essential way to attain humanity’s goal” of being united with God (Ranft 2006, p. 26). Work can replace some duties of the monks; Benedict mentions that a brother who cannot get to the oratory on time due to work can pay his service where he was working (Venarde 2011, p. 167). In the eleventh century, Peter Damian continued the Benedictine emphasis on work: according to Damian, “Work in all numerous forms and types is the means by which humanity maintains its relationship with the world, and, as such, work is the means by which humans fulfill their potential to become one with the sacred” (Ranft 2006, p. 71). As such, Damian’s argument of work’s importance for the community impacted many monastic orders. Cistercians, who were popular for housing laybrothers and laysisters, considered the laybrothers to be full members: “Each individual has a distinct job peculiar to oneself is declared, and all work, be it manual, intellectual, or spiritual, benefits the individual and the community equally” (Ranft 2006, p. 81). Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, qualified that “[m]anual labor would be the necessary means to the end of sustaining life only if no other licit means were available”, but work was considered to play a significant part in spirituality, both within the monastery and without (Hanson 2024, p. 9).3

2.2. Work in Ancrene Wisse: Domestic Chores and Intellectual Labor

Previous AW scholarship has focused on the nature of enclosure as relating to the anchoress’s internal development; such readings consider anchoritism to be intellectual, devotional work that requires extensive meditation, reading, and praying. Most of the anchoress’s intellectual work has to do with ensuring that she stays enclosed, despite the circumstances that make complete enclosure impossible or very difficult to achieve. According to Mari Hughes-Edwards, “[e]arlier guidance suggests many strategies to safeguard enclosure, all of which trade in fear and imply that enclosure is, paradoxically, an experience of fundamental insecurity” (Hughes-Edwards 2012, p. 39). Similarly, Victoria Blud states that the world outside the anchorite enables the anchorite to create and re-create her own enclosure, by working as an “‘abjected outside’ that lives in the subject in the form of ‘its own founding repudiation’” (Blud 2017, p. 41). Such scholarship acknowledges that anchoritism as a religious career was closely related to the lay community, perhaps more so than monasticisms that formed their own community within the walls of the monastery.

The anchorhold’s position away from, but close to, the lay community explains the anchoress’s duty as a spiritual role model for the people. The primary goal of an anchoress, according to the AW’s author, is to keep herself “pure and unspotted from the world more than other religious” (AW p. 4); in doing so, the anchoress is ironically required to remember images of secular world and the work of women. According to Bella Millett, AW’s self-distinction from monasticism comes from “the broader European movement of reform reflected in James [of Vitry]’s works, a movement impatient with the deficiencies of the contemporary clergy (both religious and secular), closely involved with preaching and pastoral care, and actively supporting the development of extra-monastic forms of religious life” (Millett 2002, p. 71). In such a context, the anchoress was expected to perform a non-monastic form of devotion that would inspire the secular community interested in improved spirituality. As spiritual figures more closely related to the local community than the monks who formed their own community within the walls of the monastery, anchorites’ job requires them to help the community achieve salvation and higher spirituality by practicing their enclosure well. The AW’s writer says that the anchorites “ought to lead such a holy life that all Holy Church—that is, Christian people—can lean on them and be supported by them, and that they should hold it up with their holiness of life and their blessed prayers” (AW p. 56). The anchoress is responsible for supporting the whole community of Christians through her spiritual career and must be mindful of her duty: “If she breaks that commitment, she should consider who she is defrauding, and how persistently—because she never stops; the anchor-house and her name are constantly proclaiming this commitment, even when she is asleep” (AW p. 56).

Such intellectual labor is by no means leisure. Valerie L. Garver warns against defining medieval labor as “a form of productive activity for gain”, because of the importance of religion and devotional award in medieval culture: “Was prayer a form of work, especially for those living in convents and monasteries where it comprised a principal daily activity that many medieval Christians believed could result in spiritual and/or material gain?” (Garver 2019, pp. 2–3). Similarly, the AW indicates that the anchoress is involved in communal labor of “anchoring” the community to the church, a duty that she must perform night and day. Since the spiritual authority that the recluses achieved came from their enclosed status, making sure to stay enclosed is at the forefront of the AW’s guidance. The author is aware that complete enclosure and separation from the worldly are impossible and emphasizes that the anchorite must work hard to keep herself as enclosed as possible. As Christopher Cannon argues, “the injunction to separate oneself from worldly things the better to devote oneself to God was itself a means to denying those connections with other people (that ‘community’) which a better spirituality was itself meant to perfect … precisely because [the anchorite] could not move, she both required contact with others (in order to obtain food) and had no means to escape anyone who sought her out” (Cannon 2003, p. 110). This paradox shows religious solitude to be “a relative term insofar as it suggested a solitary but not socially or physically isolated mode of living” (Davis 2008, p. 31). It becomes the work cut out for the anchoress as she controls her senses and body while serving her role as an exemplary devotional figure to the community that supports her.

Within the anchorhold, the AW’s author argues, the anchoress must strive to not become lax in pursuing devotion; the remedy is to work hard to keep her senses under control. Like the monks working to combat sloth, the anchoress is required to stay vigilant and diligent against sloth. Reading was considered to be a means for self-development throughout the Middle Ages. The late medieval English boom of devotional books attests to this ongoing mode of self-development through reading and meditation.4 Reading is described as manual work, as the AW quotes Jerome: “‘Holy reading should be always in your hands; sleep should overcome you as you look at it, and the holy page should support your drooping head.’ So you should read assiduously and at length. Anything, however, can be overdone; moderation is always best” (AW p. 109, emphasis added). Any physical toil is recommended in moderation in the AW, including heavy work, mortification of the flesh, and abstinence from food: “[an anchoress] should tame her flesh well, as soon as she feels that it is running too wild, with fasting, with keeping vigil, with hair-shirts, with heavy labor, with hard scourgings—wisely, however, and with discretion”(AW p. 54).5 Such warning against excessive physical toil is attached to reading, which is, in turn, a remedy against sloth; thus, the AW perceives reading as work in which the anchoresses must partake with their hands and minds, to succeed in their vocations. This emphasis on reading as work connects the anchoritic spiritual practice to the secular world, further advancing the AW’s appeal to non-anchoritic readers.

Emphasis on work as a valid means for spiritual advancement is highlighted in the AW’s teaching of confession. In Part 5 of the AW, which describes the proper ways of confession, the writer uses examples of manual labor as model behaviors for confessing sin and achieving salvation. The domestic chores conventionally performed by women, such as cleaning, washing, and sewing, are described in detail to explain the proper way of confession. Since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 mandated yearly confession for all Christians, a proper means for examining oneself and confessing had become of paramount importance in pastoral care. Considering the importance of confession in post-Lateran IV Christianity, it is no surprise that the AW devotes a separate chapter to how to make a proper confession.6 In depicting the proper methods of confession that are “relevant to everybody alike” (AW p. 129), the AW’s author refers to household chores carried out by women to visualize the thoroughness with which confession must be performed:

Confession must be complete: that is, everything from childhood on should be confessed to one person. When a poor widow wants to clean her house, first of all she gathers the worst of the dirt on a heap, and then clears it out. Then she comes back again and makes another heap of what was left earlier, and clears that out as well. Then if the fine dust is rising in clouds, she sprinkles water on it, and sweeps it out after all the rest. In the same way, anyone making confession should clear out the smaller things after the major ones.

(AW p. 119)

The poor widow’s work is celebrated for its thoroughness and orderliness, and for its utility in spirituality. The all-important Christian duty of confessing thoroughly is taught using the images of a poor woman working efficiently to keep her house clean and tidy. Since confession, as the author acknowledges, is the part where the author explicitly refers to non-anchoritic readers and anchoresses alike, it seems that the author perceived women’s domestic chores as example that could have a vivid impact on both groups of his target audience. This decision adds a religious significance to the domestic labor commonly performed by women. The same chapter stresses that confessions must be performed frequently, asking the readers “Will a piece of woven cloth be properly bleached if it is dipped in water once? A dirty one thoroughly washed?” (AW pp. 122–23) Washing, a work explicitly performed by women, is invoked as vivid imagery to teach the readers the proper method for confessing and thereby achieving spiritual perfection (Leyser 1995, p. 151). In utilizing images related to women’s domestic labor, the work continues the devotional tradition of celebrating work as a key channel for spiritual development. Just as the women in secular domestic settings work hard to do their job of washing and cleaning well, the anchoress and any other aspiring Christians must do their work well by confessing their sins well and thoroughly. The images related to domestic chores that highlight the proper means of confession strengthen the connection between anchoritism and work, adding to the appeal of the manual to its non-anchoritic readers.

Having utilized work as a valid, recommended image based on which readers can learn ways of proper confession, the AW refers to work-related images to teach penance. In depicting penance as a pilgrimage, the author connects such travel to “travail” and work, stating “People have to go out to work; home is the place for resting” (AW p. 135). Home being the “kingdom of heaven”, life on Earth must be seen as a site for work, so that the penitents can bear pain and shame for the rest that they will receive in Heaven. Penitence must be about toil and work: “And we sinful wretches want to ascend easily to heaven, which is so high above us and of such great value; and it is impossible to put up a little cottage without labor, or have a pair of lace-up shoes without paying for them!” (AW p. 137) Thus, the AW refers to Aelred of Rievaulx’s list of proper penance: “mortification of the flesh by fasting, by vigils, by scourgings, by coarse clothing, hard beds, by illness, by heavy labor” (AW p. 139). What “heavy labor” signifies is not mentioned in the AW, but the author adds another image related to domestic chores to describe the need for penance: “In the midst of pleasures and ease and physical comfort, who was ever chaste? Who has constantly fed the fire inside her and not burned? If a pot is boiling fiercely, doesn’t it need to be partly emptied, or have cold water poured into it, and the fire removed? The pot of the belly, boiling from food, and more from drink, is such a close neighbour to that insubordinate part of the body that it shares the burning of its heat with it” (AW p. 139). Women’s work in washing, cooking, and keeping the fire is invoked as images for devotional teaching that, when observed, can elevate the readers’ spiritual status.

2.3. Work in Ancrene Wisse: Servants’ Domestic–Anchoritic Work

The AW’s symbolic use of work images is connected to the actual works carried out by the anchoress. The chapter on confession lists the sins specific to an anchoress that are closely related to household management work, implying that anchoritism as a career was a combination of intellectual, spiritual, and manual labor. In addition to performing her spiritual works wrong, like “breaking times of silence, sitting too long at the window, saying the Hours incorrectly, without concentrating, or at the wrong time”, bad household management is also listed as a sin that the anchoress must take care to confess: “spilling crumbs or ale, letting things go mouldy, rusty, or rotten, leaving clothes undarned, damp with rain, or unwashed, breaking cups or plates, or not taking enough care of anything that you are working with or are supposed to look after” (AW p. 130). All such works are domestic chores expected of women; while records on the work performed by women are scarce, P. J. P. Goldberg’s study on women’s work in later medieval England suggests what would have been expected as women’s chores in the past centuries: girls who worked in trade households could pick up skills of the trade, but they were also expected to perform works such as “needlecraft, brewing, baking, and the preparation of foods, washing clothes, and dealing in the market place or shop” (Goldberg 1992, p. 193).7 In addition to the household management work depicted as points for confession when performed poorly, the outer rule in Part 8 of the AW describes the anchoress’s work in relation to her community. As any sort of prohibition reflects actuality, the manual reveals how the anchorhold was likely a space for work, both devotional and manual:

Do not carry on any business. An anchoress who is a tradeswoman—that is, who buys to sell at a profit—is selling her to the tradesman of hell. However, she may, on her director’s advice, sell things she makes to supply her needs. Holy men once supported themselves by the work of their hands.

(AW p. 158)

Do not make any purses to win friends, except for those people your director allows, or caps or silk ribbons or laces, without permission; but cut out and sew and mend church vestments and clothes for the poor.

(AW p. 160)

Help yourselves with your own labor as far as you possibly can, to clothe and, if necessary, feed both yourself and those who work for you.

(AW p. 160)

Such references indicate the chores performed by the anchoress within the enclosure, the poor performance of which is a sin that must be confessed. In this regard, the anchoritic attitude towards work was not dissimilar to that of monasticism in emphasizing labor as a part of devotional life. While women’s domestic chores were not particularly appreciated in the Middle Ages due to the subservient position of women in society, the works assigned to women were the forms of labor available for anchoresses in their cells. Such work becomes part of the anchoress’s duties needed in her calling, demonstrating that manual labor was a part of anchoritic spirituality, and that to become a good anchoress one had to be a good worker.

The AW’s labor-related imagery is important in validating work in its own right, but it becomes especially meaningful when the devotional life filled with such work is indebted to the service labor of anchoritic servants. According to Ann K. Warren, “[s]ervants of anchorites, themselves quasi-religious working without pay save their maintenance, at times succeeded their employers in the anchorhold, indicating that even those so lowly, when deemed worthy, could have their turn as ascetics” (Warren 1985, p. 26). Warren mentions a proof of such inheritance in fifteenth-century Germany, when the servant to an anchoress in Hildesheim, who had taken care of the anchoress for thirty years, was seen as “having a de jure right to succeed the reclusorium” (Warren 1985, p. 26, n. 18). Such instances indicate that the servants of anchorites, not dissimilar to the laybrothers and laysisters of Cistercian monasteries, could continue in their service as a meaningful spiritual vocation. In anchoritic circumstances, the underappreciated, underpaid service work of women becomes essential work that forms the foundation of anchoritism.8

The AW depicts that the anchorite’s solitariness and detachment from the outer world is the very premise of anchoritism. Nevertheless, enclosure could not be achieved without a regular interaction with someone who would carry out the essential work to keep the anchoress alive and praying. The enclosure of the anchoress signifies her solitary status, but the reality of anchoritism shows that she was in a position dependent upon others, requiring support from the local community and benefactors, as well as a closer, personal communication with the anchoritic servants whose labor is essential for the success of anchoritic spirituality.9 Aelred of Rievaulx’s De Institutione Inclusarum (A Rule of Life for a Recluse), a guide to anchoritic life written for his sister, describes the roles of the servants as follows:

Choose for yourself some elderly woman, not someone who is quarrelsome or unsettled or given to idle gossip; a good woman with a well-established reputation for virtue. She is to keep the door of your cell, and, as she thinks right, to admit or refuse visitors; and to receive and look after whatever provisions are needed. She should have under her a strong girl capable of heavy work, to fetch wood and water, cook vegetables and, when ill-health demands it, to prepare more nourishing food. She must be kept under strict discipline, lest, by her frivolous behavior she desecrate your holy dwelling-place and so bring God’s name and your own vocation into contempt.

(Aelred of Rievaulx 2010, p. 49)

The anchoress might be symbolically dead to the world, but her goal is to live a life of devotion as a recluse, not to die in the first few days of her enclosure. Servants are unavoidable for the solitary recluse because their work—receiving and looking after provisions, fetching wood and water from the market or well, cooking and procuring foodstuff when needed—is indispensable for human survival.

The external servant’s duty is to perform the necessary work while performing enclosure at the same time, so that the public, as they see the maid, would be assured of the anchorite’s virtues. Since an anchoress is recommended to not show off her model behavior and good heart to the public (AW p. 57), she must rely on other signs that indicate her devotion and spiritual value to others. For inner devotion to be acknowledged and believed by others, there had to be perceivable, measurable traits of devotion that were socially agreed upon as indications for the inner devotion of an individual. The anchor-house itself, situated at the local church with its always-closed curtains on the windows, and the absence of “garrulous old gossip” at the window or the sound of the “loud peals of laughter” from the recluse would ensure the public that the anchoress is not a gossiping type, and that she is dedicated to her spiritual career and thereby deserving of the community’s support (Aelred of Rievaulx 2010, p. 46). For people approaching the anchorhold and requesting communication with the anchoress, the presence of maidservants performing their designated work would be a stronger reminder of the anchorite’s devotion and authority. While the work of the maidservants might not have varied greatly from that of maidservants in secular households, their work as performances of devotion would have had a great significance for showing to the world that the anchoritic premises were being kept well. The servants help the anchoress to live a holy life of prayers with their work; more importantly, their work inside and outside the anchorhold functions as a publicized reminder of the anchorite’s spirituality.

Just as the anchorite is expected to shut off her senses to the outer world, similar behavior is imposed on the maidservant. When she is out doing her necessary work, she must take up a series of actions that symbolically prevent the senses from absorbing the secular world. The enactment of enclosure required of the maidservant involves controlling her sight, hearing, and speech: “As she goes on her way she should recite her prayers, and should not stop to chat with anyone, man or woman, or sit down or stand about more than she can possibly help before she comes home” (AW, pp. 161–62). The prayers are meant to fill her tongue and ears and prevent her from taking in the noise and gossip. The external servant’s outfit is to be another indicator of her career and is meant to cover the maidservant as much as possible so that the outer world would not see a human body but, rather, certain clothing worn in certain ways. Like the curtain that the anchorite must keep closed on her window, the maidservants are expected to be hidden behind their outfits:

Their hair should be cut short, and their head-cloths sit low on the forehead … their overdresses should be stitched up high, and without a brooch. No man should see them without a cloak, or bareheaded. They should keep their eyes lowered … The cut of their clothes, and their dress in general, should be of a kind that makes it obvious what way of life they have chosen.

(AW, p. 162)

The younger servant, whose virtues are subject to scrutiny because of her necessary movement outside the anchorhold, performs the essential tasks that cannot be carried out within the enclosure. In the process, she is also expected to perform the enclosure itself by guarding her own senses. The guidelines for the outside servant connect her to the lifestyle and aspirations of a recluse, so that they are seen as part of the anchorhold that functions as it should, concealed from the world as much as possible and focused on a life of devotion.

Inside the anchorhold, the servants’ work would have been crucial for keeping the anchorite’s enclosure, and in assuring the virtue of the anchorite to her visitors. The guest-greeting duty of the servants keeps the anchorite’s five senses in check, so that her enclosure and devotion will not be disturbed by stimulation from the outer world. The AW’s author tells his audience to put the maidservant in between them and their interaction with the outside community: “… when you have to go to your parlor window, find out from your maid who it is that has come, because it may be the kind of person to whom you should make your excuses” (AW, p. 27). When the visitor is indeed someone that the anchorite must meet in person, her maidservant should greet the guests: “If anyone has a valued guest, she should see that her maids, as it were in her place, entertain her well; and she shall have permission to open her window once or twice, and make gestures of welcome towards her” (AW, p. 29). In this interaction, the guest—who would have been important enough to be allowed inside the cell—would have seen the servant first, performing the duty of guest-greeting in the anchorite’s stead. Guest-greeting is a form of women’s domestic work that is slightly better depicted in medieval works, likely because such performance as a hostess was the job of women in domestic settings. St. Martha, sister to St. Mary and Lazarus, is depicted as the “venerable hostess and most devoted servant of the Son of God” whose ministry at inviting Jesus and preparing feasts for him has won her honor as a saintly figure, even if she did not have the best place of her sister Mary, who sat at the knee of Jesus to hear his words (Mycoff 1987, p. 28).10 While the AW admonishes the anchoress to follow the path of Mary in Part 8, the work nevertheless acknowledges that someone had to perform the role of Martha—and the older servant of the anchorhold is that someone. Hughes-Edwards defines the older domestic servant as the anchorhold’s “doorkeeper and controller of the boundary line between both worlds”, who enables the outside world to look into the enclosure and be assured of the anchorite’s virtue (Hughes-Edwards 2012, p. 45). Taking up the domestic work frequently allotted to women in secular households, the servant has the power to determine the scope of the enclosure.

The servants, like their mistress, are seen as partaking in anchoritism for the spiritual benefits that it can reap. The AW states

It is not proper that any anchoress’s servant should ask for a fixed wage, apart from food and clothing enough for her to manage on, and the mercy of God. Nor should any servant be afraid that God will let her down, whatever may happen to the anchoress. If the external maids serve the anchoress as they are supposed to, their reward will be the exalted bliss of heaven.

(AW, p. 163)

Thus, the servants share the goal of the anchoress, whose job is to stay enclosed for the love of God, foregoing material comforts. Reminding the readers of Part 1, which offers prayer plans for the anchoress, Part 8 of the AW prescribes a series of prayers to be said around the servants’ work schedule: “If she is illiterate, she should say her Hours with Our Fathers and Hail Marys, and do whatever work she is told to do without complaining” (AW, p. 162). While the servants are expected to perform their work without complaint and be ready to hear and receive orders from the anchoress, they are also expected to keep to the Hours and pray. Mealtimes are another occasion for work and prayer for the servants, as they are recommended to remember the spiritual goals of the anchoritic life and the benefactors that enable it, in addition to their own divine blessing.

If they do not know the graces for meals, they should say in their place Our Father beforehand, and Hail Mary, and after the meal also, with a Creed as well, and finally say as follows: “May Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one almighty God, grant our mistress his grace in ever-increasing measure, and allow both her and us to make a good end. May he recompense all our present benefactors and have mercy on their souls, on the souls of our past benefactors, and on all Christian souls”.

(AW, p. 163)

The prayer after meals implies the servants’ devotional role in the anchorhold: they first pray for their mistress the anchorite, asking for a “good end” for all members of the anchorhold. This shows their shared devotional goals; the anchoress and her maids are on the same ship in their spiritual careers. More importantly, the servants remember and pray for the benefactors that have done them good, as well as for “all Christian souls”. The servants, whose work brings them closer to the lay community to which the anchoress must become a model of devotion, partake in the public duty of the anchoress by praying for the benefactors, past and present, and for the whole Christian community. This is another indication that the maidservants were considered to be essential for the success of the anchoritic career.

2.4. Teaching as Shared Work

As workers joined in a common cause, the servants and the anchoress perform the roles of advice-giver and teacher. The servants enable an anchoress to be a teacher, and as a result they can partake in teaching a select member of the laity. Although the AW’s author firmly prohibits the anchoress from teaching men and having scholarly conversation, he nevertheless states that some teaching and advice-giving must be performed by the anchoress.11 One distinct pastoral duty of the anchorite is for her servants: urging anchorites to never preach, the AW states that the anchorite is different from church officials in that she is only responsible for herself and her maids (AW, pp. 29–30). Taking care of the maidservants’ welfare is the duty of the anchoress, as it will prevent any harm that could be caused by the errant maidservants.12 In addition to providing them with appropriate food, shelter, and clothes, the anchorite must teach the maidservants how to live a life befitting an anchoress’s servant. Thus, the anchoress must read the last subsection of the outer rule to her servants “once a week until they are familiar with them”, because “if they sin through [the anchoress’] neglect, [the anchoress] will be called to account for it before the high judge” (AW, p. 163). Concerning the language of teaching in the AW, Janne Skaffari points out how this last part describes the anchoress as “the active party who may lead and guide others”: “Although she obviously cannot be a confessor, schrifte, the anchoress is to the maid what the male meistre … is to her” (Skaffari 2009, p. 50). While still forbidden to preach, have scholarly discussions with a man, or open a school, the anchorite can teach her maids; the diligence of the anchorite in teaching the maidservants will result in their spiritual salvation, which will add to the reputation of the anchorhold.

This teaching, for the benefit of both the anchoress and her servants, is delegated to the servants, as they are allowed to teach girls who do not have the benefit of the “women’s teaching” offered by the anchoress to her servants (AW, p. 163). The AW’s writer grants that the anchorite’s maid can teach a young girl if circumstances require it, indicating that women teaching other women in certain circumstances was an accepted form of work happening in the anchorhold: “An anchoress should not degenerate into a schoolteacher, or turn the anchor-house into a children’s school. Her maid may give instruction to some other girl if she would be at risk being taught with men or boys” (AW, pp. 160–61). Considering that the authority of many anchoresses came from giving spiritual advice, the servant’s teaching of young girls, no matter how limited the circumstances might be that make this teaching acceptable, would indicate that the servant has that authority to give guidance and education to a marginalized population of society. In such regard, the servants’ work encompasses the true extent of the Holy Church that the anchoress must support.

3. Work and Devotion in the Middle Ages: Post-AW Evidence

The high bliss of Heaven that the women’s diligent work can bring was an established hagiographical motif in medieval Europe. Outside England, the “servant-saint” was found in medieval hagiography from as early as the eleventh century, in the life of the noble-born Gunthild of Suffersheim, who was forced into service (Goodich 1985, p. 121). Many of the servant girls described in such texts perform the domestic chores that any other female servant would have performed: some aristocratic female saints, such as Margaret of Hungary (1243–70), “willingly carried water, lit the fire, washed the dishes and other utensils, and cooked”, as well as taking up “kitchen duties, including cleaning fish and other unpleasant, but necessary, tasks” (Goodich 1985, p. 134). While such saints are not English examples, they are roughly contemporary with the AW and indicate the spiritual significance given to women’s physical labors that are not often celebrated as important. Even though women’s domestic chores of cleaning, cooking, marketing, and general homemaking were not seen as worthy labors, especially because they were performed by lower classes, such work receives a new significance in medieval hagiography. One popular servant saint, St. Zita of Lucca, seems to have enjoyed a cult following in medieval England as well, as indicated by evidence such as a Middle English fragment of her life and records of pilgrimage in honor of her (Turville-Petre 1991; Frankis 1992; Sutcliffe 1993). The anchoritic servants might be seen as another such example of domestic workers from low social backgrounds, receiving higher authority in a devotional context. The cult of St. Zita in Europe, and later in medieval England, shows that marginalized groups favored saints with whom they could immediately identify; the humble, working background of St. Zita itself was appeal enough for some lay members of the church (Sutcliffe 1993, p. 87). Because of the lack of evidence, no scholarship can prove with certainty that the AW’s description of servants’ work has inspired other female domestic servants to join service in anchoritic contexts. Nevertheless, the AW’s depiction of service work and anchoritic life indicates that the work performed by the maidservants and shared to some extent by the anchoress was essential in sustaining anchoritism. The fact that work performs such a crucial role in achieving perfection could lead to a re-evaluation of the devotional value of traditionally feminine work in medieval society.

Later medieval England also bore witness to women’s work being used as a channel for practicing spirituality. Although the AW refers to almsgiving as an act of giving away things that the anchorite has received from others, almsgiving in many medieval households that were not highly affluent would have involved work in producing materials to be given out in charity. Focusing on women’s religious work in late medieval Norwich that was inspired by the popularization of incarnational piety, Carole Hill found that secular women in Norwich in late medieval England invested significant time and energy in performing the Seven Works of Mercy. Among these works, “[f]eeding … in its broader sense of management, planning, purchase, preparation and service, was a woman’s designated role in the household. Higher status women would oversee these activities, but others, especially the artisanal classes, did everything themselves” (Hill 2017, p. 125). Hill describes the household accounts of Katherine de Norwich from 1336 to 1337:

In a literal and measured sense they record Katherine’s “treasury of merit” and her keen awareness of it, as well as revealing her wealth, status and sense of obligation to the destitute. The accounts demonstrate that she was a committed exponent of the first work on a daily basis, giving doles of food: apart from feeing a large household, with many regular additional dinner guests … Katherine daily supplied thirteen paupers with bread and herring in some form.

(Hill 2017, p. 125)

Women like Katherine de Norwich would have spent great time and effort in preparing food, feeding others, and cleaning up afterwards—all works that would have been performed by female workers like the anchoress’s servants. Working to heighten devotion was a major concern for all Christians of the Middle Ages, even if they were not professionally religious. Finding means to practice devotion in their daily lives, the women of Norwich utilized their work; the less-appreciated domestic chores thus became a way to remember Christ and pursue spirituality. Similarly, the AW reveals the devotional significance attached to a woman’s daily chores within the anchorhold, with the anchoresses utilizing images of women’s work to meditate upon and partaking in the works themselves, while the servants worked to achieve and promote the deep devotion of the anchoritic women.

4. Conclusions

Observing the anchorhold as a site for work performed by women for their spiritual elevation and communal benefit, this paper suggests that the AW should be read as a text that depicts work as a crucial factor in anchoritic devotion, increasing its appeal for the non-monastic, active-life readers aiming for spiritual perfection. Both the anchoress and her servants are described as workers, performing intellectual, devotional, and manual work to maintain their livelihood and practice enclosed spirituality. Due to the anchoress’s close relation to the secular life, a complete severing of relations from the lay community was impossible; the AW recommends that its anchoritic readers invoke images of work performed in domestic settings to heighten their spirituality. Thus, work images are invoked for devotional practices such as confession, which, in turn, would have influenced secular readers of the AW seeking to learn proper ways of penance. The household chores performed by the maidservants and the anchoress expand to another form of labor, of teaching, which firmly establishes the anchorhold as part of medieval English devotional life. In the process, the AW informs us of the non-monetary significance of women’s domestic work, and it suggests a way in which such unappreciated work can achieve spiritual authority. The women of Norwich in late medieval England, practicing devotion with their work, could be seen as following this practice of spiritual growth through domestic chores. By revisiting the human dynamic within the anchorhold, a revaluation of the practical, domestic work performed by lower-class women in the medieval anchoritic context can begin, which can then be expanded to work performed by medieval women in other devotional circumstances.