A female anchorite; a woman who lived as a religious hermit, usually enclosed in a cell attached to a church.
From 'anchorite' (a hermit) with the feminine suffix '-ess.' 'Anchorite' comes from Greek 'anachōreō' meaning 'to retire/withdraw.'
Medieval ancresses were women sealed into tiny cells in church walls to live lives of prayer—they were so respected that Julian of Norwich, who wrote the first known book by an English woman, was an ancress.
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