"This Precious Stone is Jesus": Agate in Ancrene Wisse

Ancrene Wisse, or the "Guide for Anchoresses," is a thirteenth-century religious text that outlines monastic rule for its namesakes. Taking a vow of chastity, obedience, and stability of abode, anchoresses opted to live out the remainder of their lives as recluses in solitary enclosures often crafted of stone. The materiality of the anchorhold enclosure is reflected throughout Ancrene Wisse in its thirty-one references to stone. Among these references, the agate is marked as a metaphor for Jesus Christ. Complicating this metaphor, however, is the fact that medieval audiences also understood eagle-stones and adder-stones as substitutes for agates, further extending the metaphor of Christ. To understand and analyze the physicality and interpretations of these stones, this essay draws upon lapidary traditions and Ancrene Wisse's discourses on stones to determine how the agate became a material object that signified anchoritic enclosure.