The pioneering works of Rotha Mary Clay (1914) and Ann K. Warren (1985), respectively entitled The hermits and anchorites of England and Anchorites and their patrons in medieval England, firmly established the importance of the phenomenon of anchoritism – religious enclosure – in medieval England. Recent years have seen a continuation of interest in medieval English anchoritism. However this collection for the first time brings together the fruits of research of scholars working on religious enclosure in various regions of Europe, allowing for a comparative study of the nature – or rather the ‘multiple nature’ – of the enclosed life and the differences and similarities in various European regions across a chronological range. Nine papers consider the anchoritic tradition in the Low Countries (Anneke Mulder-Bakker), German-speaking regions (Gabriela Signori), Italy (Mario Sensi), Spain (Gregoria Cavero Domínguez), France (Paulette L'Hermite-Leclercq), England (Mari Hughes-Edwards), Ireland (Colman Ó Clabaigh), Scotland (Anna McHugh) and Wales (Liz Herbert McAvoy). One thing that emerges clearly from the papers is that there is a divergence in the nature and range of the source material. In many areas, such as France, anchoritism is well attested in a range of documentary, archaeological and literary traces; in others, such as Ireland and Scotland it is not, though in Ireland the references – comparatively few though they might be – do point to the anchorite as a familiar figure on the cultural landscape of the Middle Ages. The German-speaking lands produced vitae of a number of medieval anchorites, most of who lived in the shadow of monastic houses which kept alive their memory; similar material is not forthcoming from elsewhere. Peculiar to England is a large body of instructional writing for hermits and anchorites. The essays throw light on issues such as the nature of the eremitical calling; the lifestyle of hermits and anchorites; their relationship to society; and the social class, background and gender of anchorites. There is overwhelming evidence from many regions – in the Low Countries for instance – for the predominance of women in the anchoritic phenomenon, yet in Wales the movement appears to have been male and institutional. This is an important collection of essays in an area of burgeoning interest to scholars.