What is the role of solitude in Christian history? Medievalist Hetta Howes comments on the allure of enclosure, how seeking solitude supports community, and what these ancient lives reveal about our modern search for connection. “Even those moments of solitude that she’s carving for herself are surprisingly sociable.” This episode is part 1 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of loneliness, solitude, and being alone. Medieval Anchoresses and Women Mystics sought a life of solitude with and for God—what about their vocation might illuminate our perspectives on loneliness, isolation, and solitude today? In this episode, Hetta Howes joins Macie Bridge to explore the extraordinary lives of medieval women mystics, including Julian of Norwich and Marjorie Kempe. Drawing from her book Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women, Howes illuminates how these women lived in literal and spiritual solitude—sometimes sealed in stone anchorages, sometimes carving sacred space in the midst of family and community. Together they consider the physical and spiritual demands of enclosure, the sociable windows of anchorages, and the simultaneous human longing for both solitude and companionship. Across the centuries, these women invite us to think anew about loneliness, vocation, and the need for community—even in devotion to God. Helpful Links and Resources * Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women – Hetta Howes: [https://www.amazon.com/Poet-Mystic-Widow-Wife-Extraordinary/dp/1529419556](https://www.amazon.com/Poet-Mystic-Widow-Wife-Extraordinary/dp/1529419556) * Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Classics): [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295509/revelations-of-divine-love-by-julian-of-norwich/](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295509/revelations-of-divine-love-by-julian-of-norwich/) * The Book of Margery Kempe (Oxford World’s Classics): [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-book-of-margery-kempe-9780199538362](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-book-of-margery-kempe-9780199538362) Episode Highlights 1. “An anchorage is a small cell, usually joined to a church… and the idea was that you would never leave that place alive again.” 2. “Sometimes you do come across these things and you’re like, oh, maybe the cultural consciousness was so different that they had a different language for loneliness.” 3. “Marjorie frames herself as a figure who is constantly looking for connection—sometimes finding it, but often being rejected in really painful ways.” 4. “Even those moments of solitude that she’s carving for herself are surprisingly sociable.” 5. “What I’ve learned from them is the importance of community—that even solitary professions absolutely rely on other people.” About Hetta Howes Hetta Howes is a Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City St. George’s, University of London. She specializes in the literature of the Middle Ages, with particular focus on medieval women writers, mysticism, and representations of gender and devotion. Her most recent book is Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women (2024). Show Notes Solitude and Sanctity * Howes introduces her research on medieval women mystics and writers (Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Christine de Pizan, Marie de France). * Exploration of the anchoritic life—cells built into church walls where women lived sealed from the world. * The paradox of solitude: enclosure for God that still required connection for survival. The Anchorite’s World * Anchorages included small windows—to the church, the street, and for food—balancing isolation with limited engagement. * Guidebooks warned women against gossip and temptation, revealing anxiety about sociability and holiness. * “Why have a window to the world if you’re not ever going to converse with it?” Loneliness and Boredom * Loneliness rarely appears in medieval texts; boredom and idleness were greater concerns. * “Boredom comes up as a concept much more often than loneliness.” * Modern readers project our loneliness onto them; their silence might reveal difference, not absence. Julian and Marjorie * Julian’s quiet solitude contrasts with Marjorie’s noisy, emotional piety. * Marjorie Kempe’s “roarings” and unconventional piety challenged norms; she lived in the world but sought holiness. * “I wish you were enclosed in a house of stone”—a critique of her refusal to conform. Solitude and Community * Even in seclusion, anchorites served others—praying, advising, maintaining windows to the world. * Julian’s writings reveal care for all Christians; her solitude was intercessory, not selfish. * Howes connects medieval community to our modern digital and emotional isolation. Modern Reflections * Howes parallels her own experience of digital overload and motherhood with the medieval longing for quiet focus. * “As amazing as the digital can be, it’s eroding so much.” * She cautions against idolizing solitude but affirms its value for clarity and grounding. Production Notes * This podcast featured Hetta Howes * Interview by Macie Bridge * Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa * Production Assistance by Alexa Rollow, Emily Brookfield, and Hope Chun * A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School [https://faith.yale.edu/about](https://faith.yale.edu/about) * Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: [https://faith.yale.edu/give](https://faith.yale.edu/give)
What is the role of solitude in Christian history? Medievalist Hetta Howes comments on the allure of enclosure, how seeking solitude supports community, and what these ancient lives reveal about our modern search for connection.
“Even those moments of solitude that she’s carving for herself are surprisingly sociable.”
This episode is part 1 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of loneliness, solitude, and being alone.
Medieval Anchoresses and Women Mystics sought a life of solitude with and for God—what about their vocation might illuminate our perspectives on loneliness, isolation, and solitude today?
In this episode, Hetta Howes joins Macie Bridge to explore the extraordinary lives of medieval women mystics, including Julian of Norwich and Marjorie Kempee. Drawing from her book Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women, Howes illuminates how these women lived in literal and spiritual solitude—sometimes sealed in stone anchorages, sometimes carving sacred space in the midst of family and community. Together they consider the physical and spiritual demands of enclosure, the sociable windows of anchorages, and the simultaneous human longing for both solitude and companionship. Across the centuries, these women invite us to think anew about loneliness, vocation, and the need for community—even in devotion to God.
Helpful Links and Resources
Episode Highlights
About Hetta Howes
Hetta Howes is a Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City St. George’s, University of London. She specializes in the literature of the Middle Ages, with particular focus on medieval women writers, mysticism, and representations of gender and devotion. Her most recent book is Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women (2024).
Show Notes
Solitude and Sanctity
The Anchorite’s World
Loneliness and Boredom
Julian and Marjorie
Solitude and Community
Modern Reflections
Production Notes
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Evan Rosa: From the Yale Center For Faith and Culture, this is for the life of the world. A podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity.
Hetta Howes: An Anchorage is a small cell, not always, but usually adjoin to a church on the side. And the idea was that it was one of the most venerated forms of Christian devotion at the time. The idea being that to become an Anchorite, you professed yourself dead to the world. You were. Kind of moving on to the next life, the sort of afterlife and turning your back on daily preoccupations, uh, temptations.
Putting a line between yourself and the outside world and really turning your eyes to God and to heaven. It was a time to think, to contemplate, but it was also quite demanding in terms of things like fasting, prayer cycles. It wasn't supposed to be easy. That was kind of the. Point, but at the heart of the experience was solitude, the idea of being on your own so that you can really focus wholeheartedly on God.
Marjorie frames herself as a figure who is constantly looking for connect. Sometimes finding it, but sometimes it being rejected in really painful ways. And her sort of imaginings are often about finding this sort of spiritual community. She's not managing to find on earth. For someone who insisted on keeping within the world, she know she wants to remain married.
She's still a mother, she's. Still going on pilgrimage, visiting people. So many of the book is her conversations with other people, but there's a really strong sense out of her feeling isolated, but it's hard not to read, um, the text and feel her loneliness.
Macie Bridge: I'm Macie Bridge with the Yale Center For Faith and Culture, and this is solo, a series on solitude, loneliness, and being alone.
Imagine this. It's the 14th century, perhaps a dreary gray November day in the European countryside, and you approach a small stone structure built onto the side of your local parish. As you approach, you locate a. Small window. The path to this window is well trodden. You lift your face to the opening and peer inside, it's dimly lit in there, and probably damp as your eyes adjust.
You're met by the cells. Inhabitant. You've just interrupted her praying. No, you're. Snooping on a prisoner. You're visiting the local anchors. She's chosen this life. There's literally no way out of her cell. She'll live the rest of her days in prayer being sustained by her parish community and holding conversation with people like you.
If you ask nicely, she might even agree to pray for you. So why might this strange, vaguely horrifying fairytale like imagining from ages past. Be worth us dwelling on today. Well, in the last three episodes of this series, we've been discussing loneliness from a variety of angles, but one through line that keeps surfacing is this idea of solitude as not.
Just a good thing, but a potential necessity for flourishing lives of faith and for stronger senses of ourselves in God. In order to understand the ways we think about and treat solitude. Today, I wanted to dive deeper into the role of solitude in Christian history, and what better way to do that than to spend some time with the medieval mystic.
Some of whom were called to lives of vocational solitude lived out in Anchorages, and some of whom lived their own versions of spiritual solitude. Today I'm joined by Heda House lecturer in Medieval and early modern literature and. At the University of London, jumping from ideas captured in her latest book, poet Mystic Widow Wife, the extraordinary lives of medieval women.
Heda brings to the podcast her expertise in recovering the lost and neglected writers from the Middle Ages, particularly those of religious women. In this episode, we discuss. The concept of the Anchorage in medieval Europe and the vocations of two 14th century women mystics Julian of Norwich and Marjorie Kemp, who are called to differing lives of solitude.
Illuminating the realities of their vocations of heda helps us to distinguish where we might project our own 21st century. Expectations and emotions onto the histories of these women. Whether you're previously familiar with the figures of Julian and Marjorie or not, you're in for a number of surprising facts in this episode as we look backwards to think about our own experiences of being alone today and tomorrow.
Thanks for listening today, HEDA. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Hetta Howes: Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to get your invitation.
Macie Bridge: I am truly just giddy to be bringing your perspective as a medieval list into this series on solitude and loneliness, both to be able to tap into this incredibly rich history of Christians approaching vocational solitude, um, in many different forms, but also, and probably especially to get to chat with you about the ladies, the medieval women mystics who hold such a special place in my heart.
And I've so enjoyed reading your writing on them so far. So. Really thrilled to have you here with us. Um, I'm wondering if to kick us off, you might introduce us a little bit to the scope of your research and where these medieval women and their searches for religious vocation, um, fall into your research.
Hetta Howes: Yes. So I have been studying medieval women since I was an undergraduate at university. I remember coming across Marjorie Kemp and Julian Norwich, who are two English mystics for the first time in. Cambridge and then my college was Newham College, which is an all women's college and I just found a book on the shelf and started reading it and um, and that sort of started a love affair that I've had with medieval women writers ever since.
Really, in terms of the scope of my research, my most recent book. Is poet, mystic, widow, wife, the extraordinary lives of medieval women, and that is quite representative, I would say, of scope in terms of time. So my expertise is 1200, 1500, and that book looks at a wide range of different women. But my academic research primarily focuses on religious women, so mystic, but also as we can get into what that means later.
And I'm particularly interested in how they talk about themselves, how male writers talk to and about them. How they conceive of themselves and how they manage to use that to. Gain a closer connection to God. So that's where I'm coming at in terms of my research. So the book looks at four women in particular, so Julian of Norwich and Marjorie Kemp, both of whom are mystics.
Um, and then Kristin de Pizan, who's a French writer, and Maria Defra, who's a French writer. The thing that ties 'em all together is that they all write, and actually in terms of mystics in the Middle Ages, they're fascinating for anyone interested in the writing of women because they often do leave accounts of their visions.
So it's really rare to get women writing in the middle Ages, and a lot of the mystics are actually dictating to men anyway, but at least we're getting something from them. Whereas a lot of ordinary women just didn't have the sort of power or leverage to be writing down or the education to be writing down their experiences.
So if you're kind of looking to find out more about. What women were thinking or feeling or doing at this time period. They're a really good place to start because we do have a much more of a record coming from them, um, than we do from say, just sort of an ordinary woman. But it's tricky because often their writing is really specifically about that religious experience.
So if you're trying to find what were they actually feeling. Sometimes that requires either a bit of, uh, reading between the lines or never knowing because they just write so differently to the way we do. We're so used to literature now being quite confessional, but in many ways it was important for 'em to strip themselves away from the writing.
Of course, there are exceptions to that role, and we can come back to that if you like.
Macie Bridge: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I, as you touched on also with. Their writing being, uh, often filtered through the male scribe that they were working with as well. And that's another element there. Would you define for our audience how you think of what is an anchorage?
I wanna start there as we, let's get into Julian first and this kind of, this very concrete concept of. Solitude in a literal physical sense. What is an anchorage? Why did churches have them? What was the draw to them?
Hetta Howes: Yeah, so an anchor Anchorage is a small cell, usually, not always, but usually a join to a church on the side.
It might just be one room. It might be a couple of rooms, but it's normally very small. It would have, usually about three windows. One would be into the church. So whoever was occupying it could see, um, the church services happening and receive the sacraments. Another would be out onto the street, and a third would be to pass through waste and also receive food.
Often they did have, or even live with servants or one servant for, for that reason. So that was the kind of practicalities of what an anchorage was. The people occupying these were called Anite. They were men, an caresses if they were women. And the idea was that it was one of the most venerated forms of Christian devotion at the time.
The idea being that to become an anite by an, you sort of professed yourself dead to the world. You were kind of moving on to the next life, the sort of afterlife and turning your back on daily. Temptations. Putting a sort of line between yourself and the outside world and really turning your eyes to to God and to heaven.
It was a time to think, to contemplate, but it was also quite demanding in terms of things like fasting. Prayer cycles. Um, it wasn't supposed to be easy. That was kind of the point. Sometimes an an would be completely alone. Sometimes they might have, you know, if there were a few rooms, there might be one or two others, and they're sort of small semi community.
But at the heart of the experience was solitude. So there's sort of a few different kind of ideas for christianism that underpin the vocation. So enclosure being set aside from the rest of the world. Chastity not having sex. Orthodoxy, making sure you weren't doing anything controversial with your thinking.
So the idea that you're punishing your body for God and, and sort of self iation, things like that. Contemplative thinking about God in a sort of more elevated way, and then of course, solitude, the idea of being on your own so that you can really focus wholeheartedly on. God, it wasn't easy to become an Anite or anco 'cause it's such a privileged vocation and because it was, the idea was your chosen, um, and, and sort of a bit special if you are one, you had to petition to the church.
You needed some money because you would have to pay the church to keep you for the rest of your life because you wouldn't be bringing in any income. So usually it would be sort of Aris. Classic men and women, noble men or women or someone who's done something so incredible that their church offers to support them.
Anyway, interestingly, in England it became really popular from like the 13th to 14th centuries. You get around 200 ish. I mean, it's hard to exactly quantify and it becomes especially popular throughout Europe amongst women, which is interesting. So it's, it's a really punishing way of life, and it's a way of life that.
When I teach students, they're always alarmed by, because it sounds awful, like you're basically shutting yourself away in a cell forever. Some the funeral rights will be read over you often before you were sometimes literally bricked in, sometimes just symbolically closed in. And the idea was that you would never leave that place alive again.
You would essentially be buried there when you died. So it's, it's pretty, it's pretty grim, but I, I think there are some more, um, positive aspects of it. But yes, in terms of what it is and what it means, that's the main facts I think.
Macie Bridge: And do you understand this? Iteration of vocational solitude as it comes up in Anchorages in medieval times and Middle Ages.
Uh, was this influenced by the more ancient history of the desert mothers and fathers?
Hetta Howes: Yes, absolutely. Which is interesting that you mentioned desert mothers there and there absolutely were women who were involved in that early idea of kind of literally escaping to the desert and thinking about God.
But it was quite a male monastic tradition in the way it's talked about. It was the, the ones we tend to remember in men. The more famous ones, it was more popular amongst men. And also the language of it often turns around this idea of being a warrior for God or a warrior for Christ. So it's quite male rhetoric.
Interestingly, in guidebooks, Frank Caresses that we get throughout the Middle Ages in multiple languages, but Matiz is largely, largely the English ones. We get that rhetoric used but directed at women. So this idea that women become, in some way, warriors for Christ as well, in taking out this vocation that it is a kind of.
Active fight against the assailing of the world and this idea that it's not enough to enclose yourself physically. If your mind is busy or you'll still engage too much with the outside world, then you're not doing it properly and that there will be constant temptation and seduction of the outside world that you need to actively fight against.
So you're sort of engaged in warfare on behalf of God as part of patient, and that that links really directly back to the Desert Fathers and mother. And indeed that lifestyle is referenced in a number of Antic guidebook. Um, Anisa being one of the most famous ones. It's a 13th century guidebook for a community, a small community of SSEs, and it talks about kind of the desert fathers and then throughout S'S rhetoric of them fighting the devil.
Macie Bridge: Wow. Fascinating. Okay. So the transition we see into this in the Middle Ages is in some ways bringing women into this lifestyle more significantly. So one of the things that I found really surprising as I was reading your book was as I've studied Julian and some of the mystics a little bit myself, you imagine the anchor rides in this cell, as you described, very alone, very closed off, but you were describing how that window out to the public.
Was actually in many ways a very bubbly and distracting for some source of social engagement. How do we understand that alongside what these women were trying to do in. Focusing their solitude, focusing their attention towards guide in this form.
Hetta Howes: Such a good question. So for a long time I think historians have tended to focus on the solitude and this idea of being completely separate from the outside world.
And the reasons for doing so are obvious. The cells are kind of enclosed and the guidebooks. Talk a lot about shutting yourself away and being alone and solitude being so central. But what the guidebooks also do a lot of is warning, usually women in particular, against sort of the dangers of things like gossip of meeting to men, to often, even if they're priests of having too much to do with the outside world.
And it's a little bit like the lady death protest too much if, if it, if it were true that no anchors were doing these things. Then they probably wouldn't need reminding not to, although perhaps it also speaks to this sort of more misogynistic male fears about what women are capable of and get up to is, is the flip side of the argument.
However, it is true that a big part or at least a part of tism, of the vocation of Tism is that you have a duty to others, to your sort of Christian family. So you are exalted and you're separate. If people come to visit you, you should be giving them guidance. You should be giving them blessing. You should be offering prayers on behalf of people.
You still are needing to take sacraments. You're needing to kind of give confession yourself. And as you say, this window becomes really important here. Why have a window to the outside world if you're not ever going to converse with the outside world? Mm-hmm. So on the one hand, there's this sort of ideal.
Of enclosure, solitude not being part of the world. But then there's also this other part of it that is okay, but you do need to still be a part of the world because you're not actually dead. It's on your way. You're sort of on the threshold between the two worlds, and you have a duty as a sort of venerated Christian person to others.
And I think what we see in the guidebooks then. The authors themselves grappling with this, and it seems that as time goes on, like as we get towards the 14th century, there's much more acceptance, acknowledgement, and encouragement about the sociable side of things, whereas the earlier guides tend to be more anxious about.
The sociable side if you want of, of being at ans. So El Arrivo writes one of the earliest anchor critic guides in English. He was an abbot from Yorkshire near where I grew up actually. That's how I came across in first. I used to go visit with my granny. He kind of offers all kinds of anxiety ridden advice to Anes and um, I've got a quote written down, which I love that I always pull out for this.
So he says. This is a kind of his imagining of the worst kind of anchors at her window will be seated. Some garous old gossip, pouring idle tails into her ears. The recluse, all the wild is dissolved in laughter and the poison she drinks with such delight spreads throughout her body. So a very evocative, but this fear of women gossiping and not taking what they're doing seriously, and it is really specific to women.
This particular advice, he has this worry that they'll get. Sidetracked and this window will stop being a vehicle for carrying out their vocation and will start being a way that they can sort of give into temptation and let the outside world in too much and, um, sort of get carried away, gossiping. But I just love this.
It's such a, it's such a drama queen quote to me, like, this girl, so woman and the poison spread into our body, but for our, that, you know, it really was, that was a really, you know, it was. I was really worried about it, but I mean, it froze now, which is, uh, so silly.
Macie Bridge: Yes. Hilarious. So then that brings me to the question on the flip side, I, as you're talking about these guidebooks, um, and I'm wondering for a figure that, that we know some of such as Julian mm-hmm.
Where we know of her visions, we don't necessarily know of. Her emotional experience, as you were saying, was loneliness. A fear for anchor rights as they entered into this lifestyle? Was it a concern on any level we have, as you're saying, this concern about being too social? Mm-hmm. Was a fear of being lonely, something that they were actively trying to overcome in accepting this lifestyle and choosing to enter into an anchorage?
Or is loneliness not really a concept that comes up?
Hetta Howes: So, I mean, it must have been his answer surely. And you do get some. Evidence that even if it isn't explicitly saying that it was a concern, suggest, I mean, Hildegard, a beginner is a really famous example. She was briefly an anchors with another woman for a time, and then sort of made the move once Jutter died to leave the Anchorage and go set up a community, which suggests that she didn't want to be alone anymore and was yearning for something else.
And certainly her writings throughout her life suggests that she really relied on. The community that she had and that she set up and her network. So that would suggest, but because of this. Difference in genre that I mentioned at the start. This difference in a way of writing. You know, we're so used to now to saying how we feel all the time, and you do get some women writers saying how they feel in the middle ages.
Christina Pizan, a French writer, is a really good example. She writes very beautifully about her grief at losing her husband, for example, how she feels when her children leave home. Kind of all kinds of, sort of little insights we get into her life when it comes to anchor esses. We get almost nothing because what remains is either them writing about their visions, them writing letters to men in the church who they're trying to.
Give the impression of being a good anchor too, even if they sometimes acknowledge fears and anxieties and guidebooks telling them how they should be living their lives. We very rarely, if ever, get anything much about how they were actually feeling. So Julian of Norwich, you mentioned Julian of Norwich, like you say, tells us literally.
Like three or four things about herself and we can get some other little nuggets from elsewhere. A side note, I think it's really interesting how many people have tried to give her a backstory that involves her being very lonely, like her losing all her family in the plague, and therefore that she might as well go be an anchor.
It's almost like we can't conceive of someone doing this unless they had had a great loss, but she tells us very little about her feelings. I think one thing that comes up quite often in guidebooks is advice on how to not be bored. So interestingly, boredom comes up as a concept much more often than loneliness haven't been able to find.
In the time, I mean, I can't remember ever coming across loneliness being expressed. I've been digging around since I got your email and I can't find anything. It might be in a month or two. I email you like, I found something we have to do, like an extra bit of the podcast or something, but it's not something that I am finding.
Much of it at all. And if I've, so I think that's revealing in itself that you would imagine, we would imagine as 21st century people, regardless of whether we're spiritual or religious or not, that to be facing this experience would be frightening in terms of being alone and being lonely. Mm-hmm. Whether.
It was a fear of anxiety for medieval women, but they framed it differently, like boredom as opposed to loneliness. Whether they felt like they needed to suppress those feelings in order to fully commit themselves to lives. It's really been playing with my mind the last week or so, 'cause I've thought about solitude a lot, but it hasn't ever really occurred to me in the way that it should actually.
How rare loneliness is directly. Talked about or expressed or considered idleness? Yes, idleness comes up constantly this worry that if women are too idle or men are too idle, then they might have sinful thoughts worrying too much about daily things as opposed to God and devotion. But yeah, you would expect there to be like a whole chapter on when you're feeling lonely, this is what you should do in the guide.
Yes. Or some sort of mention from Julian about being lonely.
Macie Bridge: I think you're absolutely right that there's something to be learned in the omission of that and are not having records of that. And I do think, perhaps even my own impulse to wonder about that Yeah. Is a reflection of what we are experiencing currently in our world and projecting our own needs and wants and desires onto.
What would it be like to be living as, yeah. These women where I imagine being lonely, but perhaps for them is not the case.
Hetta Howes: I'm very interested by this line of thought of what draws connections between us in the past world, because I feel strongly that whether someone was living hundreds of years ago or now, ultimately a lot of the sort of fundamentals of being a person are presumably the same.
That's how I tend to think about history. But sometimes you do come across these things and you're like, oh, maybe the cultural consciousness or the way of thinking about things was so different. Either they didn't feel this way or they did, but they had a different language for it, a different way of coping with it.
I can't wrap my head around the idea of facing that kind of life or being in it and not feeling lonely at times. And I'm not certain that they didn't just because it's not in the text. There's so much frustratingly when you suddenly medieval women that you're just like, it's not there. I want it to be, but it's not.
And it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist, but it is interesting to me that it's the first thing we would think of. Is loneliness really, and it's doesn't seem to be on the radar of the material we have in the way one might expect.
Macie Bridge: Sure. I even wonder, I'm thinking of, I think a lot of representations of Julian that I've witnessed suggest she might have had a cat.
Hetta Howes: Yes.
Macie Bridge: Is that correct? And I'm wondering now, is that because we don't want her to be alone?
Hetta Howes: Yes. We want us to have a companion. Yeah. I mean that's, you know, and, and there's other quests that had pets as well. Usually cats actually, because I guess they're kind. Solitary creatures too, so they kind of come in and out.
But the guidebook I mentioned earlier of Anisa was written for an anchor critic community. They had think multiple caps, so you feel like you would want some kind of companionship, surely. And a lot of this sort of fictional account that imagine what the life of someone like Julian nor will be like. And there's been some really good ones in recent years.
Do. Take loneliness up as a huge theme because I think that's how we would conceptualize it
Macie Bridge: before we share the rest of today's episode. Here's what's coming up next time in our limited series solo,
Lydia Dugdale: and he started weeping. And he said, someone finally saw me, someone finally saw me. I've been in this hospital for 20 years and I didn't think anyone ever saw me. And I think that, that that's the message on loneliness, which is that we are in a world where sometimes it's we ourselves, sometimes it's the neighbor next door, sometimes it's, you know, a colleague at work or.
The checkout person at the grocery store, how can we see each other and connect in a meaningful way where people feel seen and, and not a superficial sort of seeing, but seeing in a way that touches hearts and transforms lives. And so I think that's the challenge. I, again, none of us does it perfectly, but I think that we can aspire to do it better and the more we practice.
The better we get and the more we practice, the more other people will engage in that sort of outreach, if you will. And I think it will help to mend some wounds in this very broken world.
Macie Bridge: Glad you're with us now. Back to the episode.
Well, speaking of project. Our own experiences from where we stand today in the 21st century onto these medieval women. That was part of why I wanted to move towards Marjorie Kemp as well. Marjorie holds such a special place in my heart. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be her same. And I think part of that for me is because she didn't have this.
Formal religious, vocational setting. She wasn't in an anchorage and she didn't take vows and was living into her calling in a way that also influenced the rest of her life and these very typical vocational roles of medieval women. Um, and she was constantly negotiating that and constantly living into tension with that.
And I think that we maybe have a lot to learn from her. And you've, you mentioned in, uh, some. I found an article that you had written, and then also it comes up a little bit in, in, um, this last book that Marjorie, in some ways creates her own types of solitude. Would you share a little bit about just your research and Marjorie perhaps give our audience a little bit of a background on Marjorie if they haven't encountered her before?
Hetta Howes: She is also my favorite. I think I've referred to her elsewhere as like the Marmite of medieval women. You either love or you hate, and I'm definitely in the love camp, but we find that in her book too. So Marjorie Kemp was a contemporary of Julian. She lived at the same time as Julian of Norwich. They'd met actually Marjorie Kemp.
Recounts going to see Julian Fred Vice. So brief mention, but it's definitely Julian Norwich. And Julian is very kind to her, actually. She was a pretty normal woman. She was a daughter of a pretty well to do emerging middle class MP in Lynn, now Kings Lynn. She married ever so slightly beneath her to a man called John Kemp.
Mm-hmm. And they had a shocking amount of children. I think it was 14. Jesus Christ. And she, yep. She had like a good marriage with her husband. She, she was perhaps a little bit occupied. She refers to herself as being quite vain, interested in fashion, maybe liked sex a bit too much with her husband, which I mean, I don't think that's a bad thing.
Um, but she, yeah, she talks about being pretty ordinary. And then after the birth of her, she had a very bad pregnancy when she, um, was pregnant with her first child. And after that. Very challenging pregnancy and labor. She started to have visions, mostly of demons actually. Um, at first they sort of were sort of hellish, taunting visions and so bad that her husband ended up having to restrain her.
Um, and she was sort of exhibiting harm to herself. And then after about a year, this culminated in a visit from Jesus. So he came and sat at her bedside and said, why have you forsaken me? And this sort of set her off on a different path. It took a bit of time, you know, it wasn't like immediately she decided to to dedicate herself to religious life, but opening years, she kept coming back to this idea of a religious vocation, having more visions of God and ultimately.
Decided she wanted to become a religious woman. However, as you kind of hinted at what's, what's fascinating about Marjorie Kemp is that she didn't go down any of the avenues. One would expect a medieval woman who wanted a religious vocation to go down. She's already married, which is a bit of a stumbling book.
She doesn't wanna become a nun. She doesn't want to become an anchors. She wants to continue being married. But not have sex with her husband anymore. She wants to kind of negotiate a vow. Celibacy wants to kind of go around on pilgrimage without her husband. She was very much not the done thing at the time and talk about God.
Now she has a lot of people who support her 'cause she dictates an account of her life and her visions to two different priests. And in that great, great bit of source material. We have more kind of personal information about Marjorie Kemp than almost any other medieval woman really because of this book.
She has supporters, but she also has a lot of detractors. People who think that she is fraudulent, that her visions aren't real. She's problematic to others for a number of reasons. She is visited by fits of weeping very regularly, which she cannot control. She tells us, and they are so loud, these fits of weeping that they're, she calls 'em roaring.
Macie Bridge: I just love it.
Hetta Howes: I know, right? Like that she is so, she's just like, I cannot contain it. And, and there's a beautiful passage actually where she talks about how she was trying to contain it so desperately and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. There's nothing she could do that she had to out, um, this sort of grief over, over the death of God really.
Death of Christ, sorry. Mm-hmm. So she disrupts church services. She disrupts sermons. You know, she annoys people with this crying. She goes on pilgrimage with some companions and they end up abandoning her because she annoys them so much because she just wants to talk about God and they wanna have a good time.
So she makes a lot of enemies and is badly treated by a lot of people. But I think really the issue that most people fundamentally have with her, when it comes down to it. Probably the reason behind her two trials for heresy, two trials she was put on is that she wasn't doing what people expected. She wasn't enclosing herself.
She wasn't taking herself outta the world. She was insisting on living a particular type of religious life out the world and sort of having a very active life. And I think a lot of the church authorities and ordinary people just didn't know what to do with that. Mm-hmm. It just wasn't the norm. It wasn't kind of a path that women were encouraged to take.
So I think she gets people hot under the collar for that reason. She's also always treading a dangerous line with teaching women. Were not allowed to teach religion or preach in the middle ages, and she is getting dangerously close to it often. So that is another reason why she gets herself in trouble.
So that was kind of a sort of overview of Marjorie and if anyone listening hasn't read it, please read the book of Marrie Kemp. It's hilarious. It's so good.
Macie Bridge: It really is hilarious. And I will say the only thing more hilarious was reading your commentary on the book of Marjorie Kemp. So the things that draw me to Marjorie in the ideas of solitude that we're thinking on are both that she, in some ways.
Naturally, but I think also in many ways she had to intentionally create these spaces to turn herself towards God. Mm-hmm. In choosing to shift her marriage radically, you wrote also she took new marriage vows to Jesus. Is that correct?
Hetta Howes: Yes.
Macie Bridge: So she. In some ways is carving space for her own religious solitude.
Hetta Howes: Yeah. So absolutely right. She, because she's picking this sort of middle way, but wanting to have a religious life, as you say, she needs to find ways of doing that. Now, a lot of historians, particularly in the 20th century, or even early 21st century, have criticized Marjorie for her baffling ways, but actually a lot of the things she's doing have precedent.
So Bridget of Sweden, who's a mystic, had also negotiated a vow, celibacy with her husband. This was not usual, but it wasn't completely unique either. And taking wedding vowels, like having a sort of quasi mystical marriage with God, a vision in which that happens was really common. I think what's interesting is on the one hand she is.
In these moments, severing some ties with the world. But on the other, she's also moving towards a, just a different type of sociability because a lot of her visions are about companionship and fellowship.
Macie Bridge: Mm-hmm.
Hetta Howes: So I think one of the most moving parts of me is when she sort of asked. Jesus what heaven is going to be like.
And she's worried 'cause she's not a virgin, scared she won't get as good a place in heaven basically. And he shows her and sort of describes this amazing procession that she'll be part of when on the day she does die. And how, you know, all the saints and all the holy family and everyone from the Bible will be there to welcome her and the angels and sort of this image of her being welcomed into a loving community.
So even those moments of solitude that she's carving for herself. Are surprisingly sociable. And we were talking obviously about loneliness, which is distinct, but related to solitude. And interestingly, loneliness seems to come up far more for Marjorie than it does for Julian. Mm-hmm. Now, I'll caveat that with, as I said before, Julian gives us almost nothing.
So she could be the loneliest person in the world and we wouldn't know, but based on the material that we have. Marjorie frames herself as a figure who is constantly looking for connection. Sometimes finding it, but sometimes it being rejected in really painful ways. And who sort of imaginings are often about finding this sort of spiritual community.
She's not managing to find on earth. Validation too is a big part of it. You know, she's wanting people to accept that she is a holy person and often people were not doing that. So validation is part of it, but I think it always strikes me reading her book. How for someone who insisted on keeping within the world, so she wants to remain married, she's still a mother, still kind of going out around the world, going on pilgrimage, visiting people, chatting with people.
So many of the book is her conversations with other people, but there's a really strong sense around of her feeling isolated or I don't think she uses a term lonely herself, but it's hard not to read. The text and feel her loneliness, so, so I think that's quite fascinating as well. I mean, even her visit to Julian, nor, yes, it's about validation, but it also feels like she's seeking some friendship as well and that's certainly what she receives.
Yeah. So that, that's something I think about with her. But I also wanted to quickly mention another favorite quote of mine that took me Yes. Years to figure out. Because I didn't understand what it meant when I first read, and it still, it still got a bit of a double meaning to be sure. But when I first read her book when I was um, sort of in my early twenties, there's, I think it's a priest.
It's certainly a holy man could be a frier, says to her, I wish you were enclosed in a house of stone. And I remember thinking, oh, he means like, I don't know if you ever have read many of theory legends, but like people are always getting shut in mountains and like a big. Stone as being rolled in front of them in medieval literature.
I was like, oh, he is just like wishing she was dead basically. And he is being colorful about how is he saying it's her? I realize and I have later confirmed that other people realize this way before me, that he may actually hear me referring really specifically to anchor. You know, I wish you were enclo in the house of stone.
Stop doing what you're doing. 'cause it's confusing everybody and it's disrupting everybody and it's not following the prescribed path. We are trying to lay out, go and become an ant then if you are so holy and so devoted to God. So want to kind of mark yourself out, go and become an ant or a nun or something, but stop doing what you're doing.
And I think that response is really telling 'cause it's partly frustration of her being out and about and disruptive in the world. This sort of solitary lonely figure in the middle of a crowd. But it's also to do with this idea of there being really. Strict paths that women were expected to take, and Marjorie is not quite committing to any of them.
Macie Bridge: I'm just fascinated by the ways that Julian's experience differs so much from Marjorie's experience in these specific ways of thinking about loneliness as well. When we think about religious life, we know that. Christianity, especially in somewhere like England in this period, was deep in the culture and was the way of life was a choice towards solitude understood as the most reverent thing to do, or was their focus on Christian community?
In the sense that I'm thinking of as we think of Christian community today, I think there's a very strong emphasis on we need each other, we need the church, we need the body of Christ in community in this way.
Hetta Howes: Yes.
Macie Bridge: How, how were they negotiating that in their. In society at large, but specifically in choices as individuals and how to show up in their faith.
Hetta Howes: Excellent question. Yeah, so I think this was tricky, right? Because it was the most venerated position really for women anyway, and also pretty high for men. I mean, to become an ancho IRAT was really sort of gold standard Christian devotion. Mm-hmm. However, there is much as there still is today, an anxiety about people turning their back on the institution of the church or feeling that they didn't need the institution of church.
And of course, if I'm gonna really oversimplify that as part of the issue, right, with the reformation in England, this sort of split between personal devotion of being war steeped in church and church institution tradition. And that is a massive oversimplification, but it feeds into it. So I think on the one hand, writers.
And theologians are trying to venerate this idea of solitude and being marked out. But if everybody was. Solitary and marked out we'd have a problem. So part of the reason they are, I think, depicted as being so special and exceptional is so that not everyone's gonna do it. It's a bit like when you read about the martyrs or something.
Like, not everyone can be a martyr, you know? We can exemplify them in these ways, but ultimately this is a revered position that is above us. And even in writings about. Certainly for Anchorite, but also actually by Julian. There's a really strong sense of community still. So in an, which I mentioned earlier, a lot of the versions 'cause it's translated or rewritten multiple times end with this idea of a community.
Of Anite across the country, the world, this idea that there are lots of satellites of sisters or brothers that are coming together because they have a shared goal, they have a shared focus, a shared way of life. So they might be solitary, but they're part of a bigger tradition. And Julian of Norwich, throughout her revelations is always concerned with even Christians.
The other Christians, you know, at the beginning of the book she says, I am writing for other Christians, so that. Other Christians can experience in some way the kind of understanding that I have reached through these visions, and she underlines that message again and again and again. The thing that's really beguiling about Julian, I think is her care for others.
She, of course, is a solitary anchor who has taken this sort of quite extreme vacation. But she painstakingly worked for possibly 20 plus years. It was a long, long time. She was working on the second version of her revelations so that she could explain as clearly as possible to others the knowledge she had received.
She really wanted to get it right and she really wanted to share it with other people because she felt she was a vehicle and a messenger and it was her duty to spread the word. Now, nobody that we know of read it in her lifetime, which bearing in mind how committed she was to that idea. Interesting. But certainly the whole text, the whole account of her revelations has at its heart this sense of a spiritual community.
I think that in part hopefully answers your question that. Community was even amongst those who chose to be solitary. But there was also, you know, a bit of, um, I think anxiety around too many people. And, and what we get towards the end of, of the Middle Ages is, is some real suspicion landing on any type of person who wasn't really following the norm.
One theory is that Julian Norwich didn't circulate her decks because by the point she was writing, there was a lot of. Anxieties over heresy, people getting in a lot of trouble for exhibiting behavior that was in some way exceptional and couldn't be justified. The Inquisition is coming, basically. Mm-hmm.
It's a kind of vibe towards the Middle Ages when a lot of these women start to get a little bit more nervous because towards the end you get a lot more. Emphasis on heresy and a lot more emphasis on orthodoxy in a sense. You know, you feel like the male church authorities like, okay, we've let these women run away with themselves too much.
We need to really make sure we are keeping tabs on this and micromanaging and testing a lot more, and the climate becomes much more fearful, I think.
Macie Bridge: Now that leads me to ask what may be a silly question, but moving out of the Middle Ages, at what point do we see Anchorages as a practice, this sort of structure of an Anchorage and the practice of an Anchorage?
How long do they continue for and do we still have them today? I feel like that's something I should know. I don't,
Hetta Howes: I feel like it's something I should know too. No, so they, they, they really are, they do not, um, really outlive in any real way. The reformation much like many things. Yes. Um, you know, the ref, the reformation comes along and it, and it really is seen as a sort of outdated.
In Inver Catholic practice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they don't really live that. However, there are of course, throughout history since the reformation onwards, people who live some kind of end close or hermit type existence. I was doing a. God, it feels like a thousand years ago now, but when it was locked down a podcast on solitude at my university, queen Mary, and I remember we were supposed to interview a modern sort of hermit.
I think they often prefer to be called hermits. I think an caress is so specific to being a join to a church and post reformation that just as far as I'm aware, please, if anyone knows any different, like please tell me I'm not aware. Yeah, a hundred percent. I'm not aware of, um. Anyone sort of living adjoining a church in that way.
But you do get small communities of reuses. You, reuses is another word that, that is more common now. Mm-hmm. So in that sense, the practice of being solitary, um, for God has never really gone away. It's just, I think specifically. Is really tied to its particular historical moments.
Macie Bridge: Well, that leads me into this question I wanted to ask you, which maybe can be a place that we land this conversation, which is you spend so much time with these women and these traditions.
How does what you study of these women in these practices map onto your experience of. What we have in 2025, which is a lot of people feeling both more connected than ever. You and I are speaking right now across the Atlantic, but at the same time there's a felt loss of real connection on many levels as well.
How does what you study help you to think about that and maybe what questions do these women and their experiences help you to ask about those experiences?
Hetta Howes: It's so tricky, isn't it? Because I rely so much on. Technology. I have a little girl, she's two. My parents live in France. Her granddad on the other side lives in Scotland.
We really rely on video calls to feel connected in that way. Mm-hmm. Um, I like moved out of London to a commuter town a while ago, so my phone is how I feel connected to most of my friends who live elsewhere. And then I think alongside motherhood in general, like I was on WhatsApp at like two in the morning, so my.
Group of young moms that I'd met in, in the town I live in, you know, and al someone would always respond and it was incredibly comforting. So on the one hand, obviously, you know, it's a, it's a lifesaver, but increasingly, I would say in the past two or three months, I've become a. Really worried about my phone usage and how full my brain is of nonsense all the time.
So on the one hand, you've just got the normal mental load of being a woman right? In the 21st year. So like all the sort of invisible labor that comes with being a mother that comes just with operating in the world as a woman. Mm-hmm. Um. And then to-do lists coming out my ears, constantly looking at my phone all the time, never disconnected from work, never disconnected from anything.
Always, always feeling guilty for not replying to messages, but less and less frequently actually seeing people. So I think the danger for me at the moment with the research I do is idolizing the vocation ah of syncretism. Because what I very rarely get these days sort of among of the little kids, I very rarely get alone time and I very rarely get anything approaching Headspace.
Mm-hmm. So I find it really easy, sometimes too easy when I'm sort of writing or thinking about Andres in particular to kind of Iman like go along the lines of like, wouldn't it be nice to just have like a bit of a break and like one focus as opposed to like the constant demands around us now. Of course that's an idolization.
If someone sort of transported me back in time to be an anchors tomorrow, I'd be like, well this is awful. Like, put me back. And I think as long as, I think, as long as you're aware of that, and I, and I still think it's helpful, you know, if we want to connect with these women from the past. Obviously we have to realize it was a different time and a different context, but I strongly believe, and I know other people don't agree, but I strongly believe that trying to find parallels or thinking is kind of similar to this is helpful.
I think it, it's a way in for a lot of people to sort of understand or at least get interested before they kind of get into more nuance of ideas about, about the differences and the specifics. Um, I think what I. Have learned from them is the importance of community underpinning our whole conversation, hasn't it?
That on the one hand these are solitary professions, but on the other hand they absolutely rely on lots of people. You know, if, if Julie Norridge didn't have someone to bring her food she'd staff to death in the church, if she didn't have people visiting her, she wouldn't have any kind of connection with the outside world, which would be very lonely.
Marjorie can seeks out Julian because she's looking for a kind of fellowship. We're talking about community earlier and sort of this idea of a, of a spiritual community, and I think increasingly I'm just very alert to the different communities I'm a part of. And how I can participate better in them and not just in a digital sense.
'cause as amazing as the digital can be in terms of, you know, if you've got family, you live abroad, I think it is, as you say, eroding so much. I mean, you know, me and my husband, when we finally got a daughter to bed, sit at different sides of the sofa and scroll on Instagram. You know, this is no way to live.
So to kind of be. A present part of the community, but also to try and find ways to carve out Headspace, I feel like is important and something that whenever I sort of return to these bits, I kind of try, try and think about.
Macie Bridge: Well, HEDA, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today for bringing your expertise and your energy and your enthusiasm and these incredible historical women who we all need to. Spend time thinking about to our audience today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the invitation. It was lovely to chat with you.
Evan Rosa: For The Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Hetta Howes, interview by Macie Bridge, production Assistance by Alexa Rollow, Emily Brookfield, and Hope Chun. I'm Evan Rosa and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith dot Yale dot edu and life worth living dot Yale dot edu where you can find past episodes Art of.
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