From the no-pics daughter: In the 1700s rich people in England would pay hermits to come live on their property. "Garden Hermits".
They were provided with basic ("rustic"?) room and board paid, but they had to live as true hermit - no going into town to drink, no shaving off their beard, etc. I'd never heard that before. I looked and found this article that talks about it:
"The Honorable Charles Hamilton, an 18th-century British aristocrat and member of Parliament, was explicit in his advertisement. The ornamental hermit he was recruiting to live in the sprawling gardens at his Painshill estate in Cobham, England, must be silent, never speaking to the servants who brought him his daily meals. He must wear a goat’s hair robe and never cut his hair, nails or beard. Shoes were out of the question.
If and only if the hermit fulfilled the terms of his contract, living in solitary contemplation without stepping foot outside of the estate for seven years, he would be rewarded with £500 to £700 (around $95,000 to $130,000 today)."
So, rich people decided for a time to decorate their expansive gardens with actual people, living as hermits.
www.smithsonianmag.com
en.wikipedia.org
They were provided with basic ("rustic"?) room and board paid, but they had to live as true hermit - no going into town to drink, no shaving off their beard, etc. I'd never heard that before. I looked and found this article that talks about it:
"The Honorable Charles Hamilton, an 18th-century British aristocrat and member of Parliament, was explicit in his advertisement. The ornamental hermit he was recruiting to live in the sprawling gardens at his Painshill estate in Cobham, England, must be silent, never speaking to the servants who brought him his daily meals. He must wear a goat’s hair robe and never cut his hair, nails or beard. Shoes were out of the question.
If and only if the hermit fulfilled the terms of his contract, living in solitary contemplation without stepping foot outside of the estate for seven years, he would be rewarded with £500 to £700 (around $95,000 to $130,000 today)."
So, rich people decided for a time to decorate their expansive gardens with actual people, living as hermits.
Ornamental Hermits Were 18th-Century England's Must-Have Garden Accessory
Wealthy landowners hired men who agreed to live in isolation on their estates for as long as seven years
