In eighteenth - century England , an plebeian , bearded old man living at the bottom of your garden was the must - have fashion accessory for wealthy elites . The hermits - for - hire would be promote to preen as a druid and made to live in a improvised grotto on the attribute where the landholder could care for them , conversate with them , or merely see them for their entertainment .
Heaps of selective information about this unknown universe can be found inThe Hermit in the Garden : From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnomewritten by Gordon Campbell , an Emeritus Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester in the UK .
Professor Campbell ’s book explains how this practice may seem ludicrous , risible , or perhaps vicious by today ’s standards , but it was a very serious topic in the Georgian epoch .
“A hermit in meditation: the hermit of Warkworth, Northumbria” depicted in a wood engraving by Luke Clennell (1781-1840). Image credit: Luke Clennell/Wellcome Collection (public domain).
Needless to say , being an cosmetic solitudinarian sound like a pretty execrable line of work . The place was often assigned to agricultural workers or the great unwashed whose problem was to maintain the estate ’s garden . Along with acting like a eldritch mixture of a favourite , a confidant , and a servant , the hermit was there to act as a live embodiment of melancholy for the ample and privileged .
A verbal description of a imposing home in Shropshire publish in 1784 explain how the attribute features a " well - plan little bungalow , which is a hermit ’s summer residence . ”
" You pull a bell , and attain entree , ” it add . “ The hermit is in the main in a sitting bearing , with a table before him , on which is a skull , the emblem of ethics , an hourglass , a book , and a duo of spectacles . The venerable barefooted Father , whose name is Francis , ( if awake ) always rises up at the overture of strangers . He seems about 90 years of age , yet has all his sense to admiration . He is so-so conversant , and far from being unpolite . "
Garden gnomes became popular in late-18th century Germany. Image credit: Eddie Jordan Photos/Shutterstock.com
Another story from 1797 read : ” The anchorite is never to leave alone the place , or hold conversation with anyone for seven class during which he is neither to wash himself or cleanse himself in any way whatever , but is to let his whisker and nails both on hands and foot , uprise as long as nature will permit them ” .
The origins of hired solitary are unclear , but Campbell said it can be loosely traced back to theRomanemperor Hadrian and his villa at Tivoli , present - day Italy , which feature a secluded structure built for a undivided somebody to back out and meditate in .
The 18th - hundred fad of rent solitary is often credited to Charles V ( 1500 to 1558 CE ) , the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain , who expend some of his last class on Earth in a monastery that was home to an ordination of hermit monastic . Thanks to this royal approving , it became somewhat in trend to give up earthly possessions , commit your lifetime to spiritual rumination , and become a hermit .
Whatever its origins , the practice had almost wholly disappeared by the 19th hundred . As Campbell ’s book explain , “ the garden solitudinarian germinate from the antiquarian druid and eventually declined into the garden dwarf . ”
The physique of the gardengnomebecame especially democratic in late 18th - hundred Germany . While it ’s considered to be a address to the mythological European thought of unseen “ small people ” who inhabit underground , Campbell believes the garden dwarf is also a nod to the bearded old beau who once lived as lease troglodyte .
