e eighth
century--refers by name to several, as to Hemgils, who, as a religious
solitary (_solitarius_), passed the latter portion of his life
sustained by coarse bread and cold water; and to Wicbert,[108] who,
"multos annos in Hibernia peregrinus anchoreticam in magna perfectione
vitam egerat."[109] Reginald of Durham has left a work on the life,
penances, medical and other miracles, of the celebrated St. Godric, who,
during the twelfth century, lived for about forty years as an anchorite
in the hermitage of Finchale, on the river Weir, near Durham.[110] The
same author speaks of, as contemporary holy hermits, St. Elric of
Walsingham, and an anchorite at Yareshale, on the Derwent.[111][112] A
succession of hermits occupied a cell near Norham.[113] Small islands
appear to have been specially selected by the early anchorets for their
heremitical retreats. Hereberct, the friend of St. Cuthbert, lived,
according to Bede, an anchoret life upon one of the islands in the lake
of Derwentwater; and St. Cuthbert himself, Ethelwald, and Felgeld, when
they aspired to the rank of anchoretish perfection (gradum anchoreticae
sublimitatis), successively betook themselves for this purpose to Farne,
on the coast of Northumberland, a small isle about eight or nine miles
south of Lindisfarne.[114] Among other anchorets who subsequently lived
on Farne, Reginald incidentally mentions Aelric, Bartholomew, and
Aelwin.[115] On Coquet Island, lying also off the Northumbrian coast,
St. Henry the Dane led the life of a religious hermit, and died about
the year 1120.[116] Inchcolm is not the only island in the Firth of
Forth which is hallowed by the reputation of having been the residence
of anchorets, seeking for scenes in which they might practise
uninterrupted devotion. Thus, St. Baldred or Balther lived for some
time, during the course of the seventh century, as a religious recluse,
upon the rugged and precipitous island of the Bass, as stated by Boece,
Leslie, Dempster,[117] etc., and, as we know with more certainty from a
poem written--upwards now of one thousand years ago--by a native of this
country, the celebrated Alcuin.[118] The followers of the order of St.
Columba who desired to follow a more ascetic life than that which the
society of his religious houses and monasteries afforded to its ordinary
members, sometimes withdrew (observes Dr. Reeves[120]) to a solitary
place in the neighbourhood of the monastery, where they enjoyed
undistur