RELIGIOUS LIFE 65

was very far from being restricted to affairs within
the abbey walls. Through its Abbot it had
a spokesman in the House of Lords. There were
cells dependant on the abbey and often at a distance.
The Abbot had a number of residences in the
country and one in London. The abbey itself had
numerous possessions of land and manors in many
parts of the country. This was a principal source
of revenue. St. Mary's Abbey also had jurisdiction
over many churches, not only in York and Yorkshire,
but in other counties as well. The other monastic
institutions and the Minster and some of the hospitals,
for example St. Leonard's, had similar rights of
jurisdiction and the ownership of land, property,
and churches.

In some of the churchyards there lived anchorites,
anchoresses, and hermits. These were individuals
who chose to live a solitary life spent in prayer and
religious work. Anchorites led a life of strict
seclusion, for they were literally shut in their cells,
from the world. They did not, however, eschew all
intercourse with others, for their solitary lives of
devotion, and in some cases of study, gave them a
reputation for wisdom that led people to seek them
for their advice. Permission was given by the
Church authorities to those who took up this mode
of life, the assumption of which formed part of a
special service. The Pontifical of Archbishop Bain-
bridge, who held the see from 1508 to 1514, contains
an office for the Enclosing of an Anchorite. Hermits
lived in less strict seclusion. Their aims were similar,
but they went about in the world doing good works.
One of the worst features of the religious
decadence of the Middle Ages was the craftiness
of such spurious types of men as those whom
Chaucer "painted in the Pardoner and the Somonour,