The document which we are about to quote from Whittaker's "History of Whalley" (pp. 72 and 77), illustrates many points in the history of their anchorholds. The anchorage therein mentioned was built in a parish churchyard, it depended upon a monastery, and was endowed with an allowance in money and kind from the monastery; it was founded for two recluses; they had a chaplain and servants; and the patronage was retained by the founder. The document will also give us some very curious and minute details of the domestic economy of the recluse life; and, lastly, it will give us an historical proof that the assertions of the contemporary satirists, of the laxity[146] with which the vows were sometimes kept, were not without foundation.
"In 1349, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, granted in trust to the abbot and convent of Whalley rather large endowments to support two recluses (women) in a certain place within the churchyard of the parish church of Whalley, and two women servants to attend them, there to pray for the soul of the duke, &c.; to find them seventeen ordinary loaves, and seven inferior loaves, eight gallons of better beer, and 3_d._ per week; and yearly ten large stock-fish, one bushel of oatmeal, one of rye, two gallons of oil for lamps, one pound of tallow for candles, six loads of turf, and one load of faggots; also to repair their habitations; and to find a chaplain to say mass in the chapel of these recluses daily; their successors to be nominated by the duke and his heirs. On July 6, 15th Henry VI., the king nominated Isole de Heton, widow, to be an _anachorita_ for life, _in loco ad hoc ordinato juxta ecclesiam parochialem de Whalley_. Isole, however, grew tired of the solitary life, and quitted it; for afterwards a representation was made to the king that 'divers that had been anchores and recluses in the seyd place aforetyme, have broken oute of the seyd place wherein they were reclusyd, and departyd therefrom wythout any reconsilyation;' and that Isole de Heton had broken out two years before, and was not willing to return; and that divers of the women that had been servants there had been with child. So Henry VI. dissolved the hermitage, and appointed instead two chaplains to say mass daily, &c." Whittaker thinks that the hermitage occupied the site of some cottages on the west side of the churchyard, which opened into the churchyard until he had the doors walled up.