Hermits around the web – Hermitary
news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
The Telegraph includes an article titled “Medieval manuscript discovered in Shropshire school” about the recent diuscovery of a manuscript of medieval hermit Richard Rolle; article subtitled “Writings of hermit and ‘neglected literary great’ may have outsold Chaucer in the 14th century. Article available by subscription only.
URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/20/medieval-manuscript-discovered-shropshire-school/
The Tablet offers an historical item titled: “Move over St George – meet the pitchfork-wielding dragon slayer venerated by Augustinians like Pope Leo.”
A University of Cambridge historian has uncovered details of a medieval pitchfork-wielding hermit who is venerated by Augustinians for [defeating the dragon” by purifying putrid air and restoring a swampy valley in Tuscany to peak fertility.’ “
URL: https://hermitary.com/around/wp-admin/post.php?post=2788&action=edit
Related item from Cambridge University: “Wild Medieval Saints.”
URL: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/wild-medieval-saints
MONK, a magazine that explores “the relationship or link between spirituaity and creativity” includes in its October 2022 issue an extensive, intensive, and fruitful interview with British writer and hermit Sara Maitland, which primarily explores solitude in Christianity, but also in psychology, in women, and in old age.
URL: https://monk.gallery/interviews/sara-maitland-into-the-wilderness/
Audio segment dated 1961, from the BBC program “Voice of the People,” is titled “York’s Hermit on 30 Years of Solitude.” The BBC interviewer speaks (about 6 min.) with :
“Brother Walter Wilman, a religious recluse who has spent the past 30 years living in a tiny cell adjoined to the Church of All Saints in York.”
The “tiny cell” is what was historically called an “anchorhold.”
The Sri Lankan Guardian offers a succinct essay about the British-born Harold Musson, who became the Sri Lankan Buddhist hermit Nanavira Thera and prolific writer on the intersection of Buddhism and modern existentialism. Was his life and death anomalous tragedy? “Nanavira likely saw the situation differently,” notes the author.
URL: https://slguardian.org/buddhism-nanavira-thera-the-hermit-of-bundala/
See also the Hermitary review of the book The Hermit of Bundala by Hiriko Nansuci.