"In England, from about the 12th to the 16th century, an estimated 780 people chose to live permanently shut up in a room attached to a church. They were called anchorites, from a Greek word meaning to “withdraw,” and most of them were women. They left little record of their lives behind, and they’re little remembered today.
But, in their way, they were powerful women. Julian of Norwich wrote the first published book attributed to a woman in all of English literature. And although they had just two or three small windows letting a sliver of the outside world into their chambers, anchorites were influential. They could give counsel from the wisdom they accrued in their contemplative lives, and in this way, have an outsized impact on the places and communities they lived in."
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-first-woman-to-publish-a-book-in-english-lived-in-a-room-attached-to-a-church-and-walled-off-from-the-rest-of-the-world
Every time is strange
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