In an other topic more about the person sister Bertken.
The first Christian hermits appeared by the end of the 3rd century.
One of the most well known hermits, and considered to be the first one, is St. Paul of Thebes (year 250).
The persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius was the reason that he flight into the desert to preserve the faith and to lead a life of penance and prayer.
In a hermitage, one secluded him/her self from the world to love only God entirely (‘soli Deo vacare’). It was considered as a higher way of the religion life.
A heritage should be small, and had two windows.
One window should have a view at the altar, and one window on the outside of the hermit to the seal hand over food and drinks and for the fresh air, for the door was sealed.
Only in case of illness it was allowed to break the seal and to open the door
A curtain hung in front of the windows for the people were not allowed to see the hermit.
Of course also in those times rules were made, so even for the hermitage.
The Church Meeting of Frankfurt in 794 decided that a hermit needed the approval of the bishop or an abbot.
A fixed rule was drawn up about the year 900, the Regula solitariorum, by the French priest Grimlaicus, a hermit himself.
In this document rules were mentioned about the way the hermitages should be build (see above) and so on.
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There was an impressive ceremony before someone was locked up in the hermitage.
It started with a mess and songs are sung among others the Veni Creator.
Then the person, who wanted to be a hermit, was urgently asked if it is still his/her wish to become a hermit. If so, she entered the hermitage and the door was closed.
The abbot or the head of a cloister guarded the keys. The door was indeed “hermetic” (hermetisch) closed.
In fact she was now in her coffin, for she was considered to be dead for the secular life.
That’s why also the Requiem is sung.
It will astonish you that a lot of people wished to be locked up.
There was even a waiting list, or more hermits were built.
Pictures made in the St.Jacobi Church in Utrecht
