RECLUSES. — Reclusion is a form of eremitical life in which the religious imposes upon himself a solitary existence, far removed from any community or confined within a cell, avoiding as far as possible all communication with the outside world. Ancient Egypt had known the reclusion of certain priests of Serapis, but this practice bore no relation to Christian usage.
It was in the East that reclusion first appeared and became most widespread in the Church, particularly in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor; and it spread, especially from the 4th century onward, more among men than among women. Some practiced it with extreme rigor: living in a cave or a tomb, like Peter the Galatian, or in a cell that allowed neither sitting nor lying down, deprived of all light and air except what filtered through a narrow opening in the roof; in some cases, the cell, roofless, exposed the recluse to the rigors of frost and the heat of the sun. The longevity of some recluses, considering such lack of hygiene, is nothing short of miraculous. Others fasted to the point of extreme weakness. Those who left their retreat to obtain tools or draw water did so only at night. Others received food through a narrow opening at ground level, which could also serve on occasion to convey a brief spiritual exhortation to rare visitors; thus, for example, Salamanes on the banks of the Euphrates. Some even had a companion; Peter the Galatian, for instance, lived with a possessed man. There were also cases of recluses who directed a monastery from afar. But in general, their lives, lived in absolute silence, consisted almost exclusively of prayer and the reading of Scripture and the Fathers.
The West adopted the reclusive life around the 5th century, under Eastern influence, through the spread of the lives of St. Anthony and St. Hilary and thanks to the *Collationes* and the writings of Cassian. Gregory of Tours frequently recalls the existence of recluses in Gaul during the 4th century: for example, Marcius, who lived in a cave he had dug himself in the rock near Royat in Auvergne, and Hospicius, who lived near Nice, his naked body bound in iron chains and a hairshirt.
Although the rigors of the recluses were less severe in the West than in the East, certain councils nevertheless issued canons to regulate the practice. After the Councils of Vannes (463), Agde (506), Orléans (533), and Toledo (643), the Council in Trullo (692; can. 41 [Hefele-Leclercq, III, p. 568]) permitted reclusion only for monks who had spent three years in a monastery, provided they had obtained permission from the abbot and the bishop. Certain customs thus became established: from the time of St. Radegund at Poitiers, the entry of a nun into reclusion was accompanied by a true ceremony; most recluses were more or less dependent on a monastery; thus St. Benedict, when at the beginning of his religious life he shut himself in a cave. Reclusion was not always perpetual; for some, it was sometimes limited to a period of life, or to specific times of the liturgical year, or even interrupted by the need for apostolic or charitable action; in the 6th century, Eparchius, a recluse for 43 years, simultaneously directed a monastery near Angoulême; St. Senoch withdrew during Lent and from St. Martin’s Day to Christmas.
Reclusion developed even further from the 9th to the 13th centuries; it is sometimes difficult to distinguish it from eremitism in general, which was then very fashionable but about which we still know little: rules were even imposed on this deeply individualistic form of religious life, which seems paradoxical: the *Regula solitariorum* of Grimlaicus (9th century), the Rule of Æthelred of York (12th century), and the Rule of Peter the Venerable for the recluses of Cluny.
Cistercian abbeys and regular chapters considered it an honor to have at least one recluse in their vicinity and under their jurisdiction. Some, such as Robert of Arbrissel, founder of Fontevrault, became very famous. The very proliferation of recluses and hermits led Pope Innocent IV to regulate the multitude under the Rule of St. Augustine (1256). The flourishing of the mendicant orders, despite the efforts of the Spirituals, contributed to the decline of reclusion during the last two centuries of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, in France the reclusory of the Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris was inhabited until the end of the 15th century, and the life of reclusion was then exemplified by Corbie (v.); there were still recluses in Rome at the beginning of the 15th century.
From the 15th century onward, properly reclusive life was practiced only exceptionally, whereas wandering eremitism continued to find adherents until the 20th century; for example, Foucauld (v.) in the Sahara.