Anchorites and Hermits.

From the end of the eleventh and throughout the twelfth centuries, groups of religious began to react against the extravagant growth and development of monastic orders like that at Cluny. The desire for a return to primitive Christian experience was now reflected in monastic practices. New religious orders seeking quiet, solitude, poverty and simplicity began to appear, likely in reaction against the highly liturgized and richly endowed Benedictine monasteries. While some twelfth-century secular communities supported the hermit-like activity of anchorites who chose to live a spiritual existence in a cell that was often located outside the village or even attached to the structure of a church, some individual monks began leaving their communities to take up the solitary lives of hermits completely removed from the rest of society. In northern Italy during the early eleventh century, eremitic...