Canon 603: A Complete Departure from "Traditional Eremitical Life"?

Unity is NOT uniformity!!
Celebrate Canon 603!

[[Dear Sister, I was looking for a post where you wrote about canon 603 as not being a complete departure from the tradition of eremitical life through the ages but couldn't find it. Do you have the link? At the same time, I wondered if you could recommend some books that show hermits were often committed to eremitical life in the hands of their bishops or something similar. (I know it isn't exactly "in the hands of" like canon 603 or religious profession but I am not sure what to call it.) Was it typical throughout the centuries for hermits to be given permission by the church to live as a hermit? What about wearing habits, writing Rules, being "vetted" by others, and things like that? Also, if there was oversight over hermits, what makes canon 603 different as you claim it is?]]

Thanks for your questions. Yes, I will find the link to the post you asked about. I can't recall the title right off hand, but I should be able to find it. I can recommend several books that speak of hermits and anchorites and their relation with their church and bishop. What is clear from these is that even though C. 603 is new in the sense of it being a part of universal law, it continues a trend that existed well into the Middle Ages and after as well, namely, that of having hermits be licensed to present themselves as hermit, to wear an eremitical habit, to beg for alms, and even to preach. 

Two books I would recommend are, Hermits and Anchorites in England 1200-1550  trans. by E.A. Jones. This book is an anthology of many records of things like Rules, rites of enclosure used, characteristics of the life, failures, visions, sleeping and dreaming, clothing, daily routine, preparation and discernment of vocations, licensing by bishops, certificates of profession, renegades and charlatans, letters of protection and safe passage, etc, etc, right on up to dissolution under Henry VIII et al. It gives good anecdotal evidence for the institutional involvement with anchorites and hermits in England during these 350 years. The second is The Call of the Desert by Peter F Anson, a good overview of eremitical life to the early 20th C. There are several other on anchoritic life by Liz McAvoy and one by Anneke Mulder-Bakker Lives of the Anchoresses, The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe, that I would also recommend depending on your specific interests, but these latter tend to be pricey

One observation in Jones' book is helpful in debunking the notion that c 603 is some sort of betrayal of past eremitical practice, and in responding, at least as a beginning, to your questions:

[[The outline and character of the anchoritic life were more or less established by the point at which this book begins (1200 CE). Enclosure was now expected to be strict and irrevocable. The role of the bishop in approving and supervising the vocation had been asserted and passed into usual practice, and was underlined by the prominent part he took in the process of enclosure (Chapters 2-6). . .[and later, when dealing with the eremitical vocation per se, the author writes,] This is the context for a suite of measures that seemed to have been designed to put the hermit vocation on a secure canonical foundation to match that already in place for anchorites, The examination of candidates and testing of their vocation, profession ceremonies, and rules or guides for living --- all of which already existed for anchorites in 1215 -- started to be provided [for hermits] around the beginnings of the fifteenth century. (For more on this, see Chapter VI.)]]

So in England, anchorites and anchoresses in the Catholic church participated in mutual discernment processes and were supervised by bishops by around 1200 CE. Hermits (always male and more itinerant than anchorites)  participated in similar processes by the 1400s. This was true of the granting and wearing of habits, rules, nature of the cell or hermitage, upkeep, health, etc. For instance, in other situations (other countries, or times) with regard to the habit, a mentor granted the habit when s/he thought the candidate was ready to take on the responsibilities of what was a public vocation (I say public here not only because it was not a merely private decision, but because it witnessed to certain values and did so under supervision). If the candidate failed to live eremitical life well, the permission to wear the habit was removed.  (This was true of the Desert fathers and Mothers in the 300s-500s as well and others have noted similar practices through the centuries.) And note well that this book references merely one small period of time in the history of the Church's varying attempts to adequately come to terms with this often-problematical but clear gift of the Holy Spirit! Given the varied presentations of and motivations for eremitical life (or those for claiming one was a hermit) there was no single attempt at dealing with eremitical vocation, but many over the course of the centuries). It is important to understand this when trying to gauge whether canon 603 is a betrayal of solitary eremitical life as "traditionally lived".  

There were good reasons for all of these steps taken by the church. Usually, bishops licensed hermits and in this way sometimes gave them the right to beg or to be seen as appropriate recipients of benefactors' assistance and charity. Sometimes they licensed them to preach. The wearing of the habit (which only modified contemporary dress some, remember, or added this or that symbolic piece of clothes or accouterment --- like a pilgrim's badge, etc.) facilitated access to others and a sense that the person could be trusted over the more ordinary beggar, and so forth. Professions, it seems, were carefully undertaken and recorded, especially in certain settings; this was a matter of safety for all concerned as was the discernment or "vetting" process during this time. Each diocese and/or bishop adopted steps that protected the anchorites or hermits (not to mention the dioceses, bishops, and parish churches to which such persons were attached), and which also allowed the vocation itself to be and be seen as credible, and dealt with changing situations and conditions on the ground. 

As I have written before, the difference between Canon 603 and the various canons, statutes, and diocesan guidelines is that Canon 603 is universal in nature. It is meant for the whole Church and is binding on every diocese, every bishop, and every canonical solitary hermit. This means the learning curve regarding this vocation is broad and can be approached in a more systematic way as dioceses contribute their (new) knowledge and experience to assist others without such. One of the things c 603 signifies is a central ecclesial vision of eremitical life that, within certain limits, is also incredibly flexible and can be individualized according to the conditions and needs of the diocese and the hermit in question. At the same time, individualization remains subsumed under the broad,  central, and accepted vision of a solitary eremitical life so that individuality is also constrained and invited to transcendence in light of something larger than itself.

Please note, I can't locate the post you asked about so it may have been shifted to draft mode somehow. I also lost a couple of posts accidentally last week and don't know how that happened --- they are gone forever though, and one still needs to be re-written out of whole cloth (I need to recover the questions first). Let's hope that is not true for this post! I will keep looking and if I find it I'll add the link at the top of this article. Please check back occasionally, won't you?