Anchorites or Anchorets were, in the early church, a class of religious persons who generally passed their lives in cells, from which they never removed. Their habitations were, in many instances, entirely separated from the abodes of other men, sometimes in the depth of wildernesses, in pits or caverns; at other times several of these individuals ... Found on http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/browse/CXAA.HTM