While diving into historical archives recently, I stumbled upon a story so bizarre that I initially dismissed as satire.
But this was very much real: in 18th-century Europe, the ultra-wealthy were obsessed with hiring real people to live as decorative hermits on their estates.
Picture this: You’re filthy rich, with a sprawling estate, and you think to yourself, “Hmm, something’s missing in my baroque garden. The fountains are lovely, the hedges perfectly trimmed… Ah, I know! I’ll hire someone to live here as a hermit!”
These “ornamental hermits” (yes, that’s the actual historical term) weren’t just people down on their luck taking odd jobs. This was a legitimate profession with strict contractual obligations.
The job requirements would make today’s most demanding employers blush: grow a long, unkempt beard, wear a specific roughspun robe, never wash, live in a purpose-built hermitage (usually a rustic hut or cave), and avoid all human contact except when silently nodding at garden visitors.
The trend began as part of the 18th-century Romantic movement when European aristocrats became obsessed with all things melancholic and contemplative. Having your own personal hermit was the ultimate garden accessory – like a living, breathing garden gnome, but with philosophical gravitas.
Some contracts lasted several years, and the pay could be quite generous. One particularly well-documented case from 1786 offered £700 (equivalent to roughly $150,000 today) for seven years of hermit service. The catch? If the hermit broke character or was caught socializing in the local pub, they’d forfeit the entire sum.
This wasn’t just some fringe fad. Wealthy estate owners across England, Germany, and France jumped on the hermit bandwagon. Those who couldn’t afford (or find) a real hermit would sometimes fake it by building empty hermitages filled with props: a pair of glasses on a table, an open book, a half-eaten meal. Some even installed mechanical hermits – early automata that would emerge from their huts when visitors approached.
The practice reveals something fascinating about human nature and class dynamics. The aristocracy was so removed from reality that they viewed poverty and solitude as romantic lifestyle choices rather than hardships. They effectively commercialized suffering, turning it into a form of entertainment.
What’s particularly ironic is that these fake hermits were paid to embody virtues their employers supposedly admired – simplicity, contemplation, rejection of worldly pleasures – while the estate owners themselves lived in excessive luxury. It’s like buying authenticity by the hour.
The tradition gradually died out in the early 19th century, as the Romantic movement gave way to Victorian sensibilities. Today, it survives only as a curious footnote in history, a reminder of humanity’s endless capacity for bizarre social experiments.
I find myself wondering what those hermits thought about their unusual profession. Did they see it as easy money for essentially being left alone? Did they develop genuine philosophical insights during their years of enforced solitude? Unfortunately, few if any firsthand accounts from the hermits themselves survive – their stories, like their lives, remain shrouded in mystery.
Next time you see a garden gnome, remember: it could have been a real person. And somewhere out there, in some overgrown English garden, a crumbling hermitage might still stand – a monument to one of history’s strangest jobs.
The weirdest part? If some tech billionaire announced tomorrow they were hiring a professional hermit for their estate, I’m not entirely sure we’d be that surprised. Maybe we haven’t changed as much as we’d like to think.
