Hermit

Whilst anchorites are frequently considered to be a type of religious hermit, unlike hermits they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting for permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches.

Historically, the word referred to a Christian hermit's total isolation from the world, with examples including Symeon of Trier, who lived within the great Roman gate Porta Nigra with permission from the Archbishop of Trier, or Theophan the Recluse, the 19th-century Orthodox Christian monk who was later glorified as a saint.

A hermitage most authentically refers to a place where a hermit lives in seclusion from the world, or a building or settlement where a person or a group of people lived religiously, in seclusion.

The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD.

The order has its own rule, called the Statutes, and their life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism.

950-1025/27). His reform sought to renew and integrate the eremitical tradition of monastic life with that of the cenobium.

2) Anchorites, or hermits, who, after long successful training in a monastery, are now coping single-handedly, with only God for their help.[[File:Benedictus - Regula, Anno domini MCCCCLXXXXV die XXVII otubrio - 2472028 ib00310000 TMD MASTER IMG Scan00011.tif|thumb|Regula, 1495]]

For the next fifteen years, Anthony remained in the area, spending the first years as the disciple of another local hermit.

A cell is a small room used by a hermit, monk, nun or anchorite to live and as a devotional space.

Chief among Robert's followers included Alberic, a former hermit from the nearby forest of Colan, and Stephen Harding, a member of an Anglo-Saxon noble family which had been ruined as a result of the Norman conquest of England.