OFTEN RANKING LAST in the order of the bodily senses, touch was frequently associated with baseness and carnality; it therefore needed careful guardianship. A notable example of the anxiety surrounding this sense comes from the thirteenth-century guide for anchoresses, Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses). In a section of the text concerning touch or feeling (felunge), the author juxtaposes the fleshly suffering of the Lord incarnate with the daily sacrifices required of the anchoresses, in order to reinforce the high standards they must meet: “God's hands were nailed to the cross; by those nails I entreat you, anchoresses […] keep your hands inside your windows!” (Godes honden weren ineilet o rode; þurh þe ilke neiles Ich halsi ow, ancres […] haldeþ ower honden inwið ower þurles!) He is disgusted by the thought of even writing about the “fondling or any kind of touching between a man and an anchoress” (honlunge oðer ei felunge bitweone mon ant ancre) as if the very portrayal of such an act could inspire sensual transgression. Yet, later in the text, he encourages his female readers to “flee” (flih) in meditation or “creep” (creop) in supplication into the open wound in Christ's hand, “dug into by the blunt nails” on the cross (idoluen wið þe dulle neiles). By imaginatively enclosing herself within the saviour's wound, the reader of Ancrene Wisse is urged to create an additional barrier between the outside world and her inner purity. Ironically, the anchoress could evoke the visceral image of Christ's wounded flesh to escape the carnal. The example suggests that touch, per se, was not always associated with moral corruption: if the heart was pure, the hands could also be clean.

Ancrene Wisse's discussion of the five outer senses—how they should be guarded and directed towards a spiritually edifying purpose—has prompted some critical reflection on anchoritic touch. While Alexandra Barratt somewhat reductively viewed the text's evocation of Christ's hand wound as an “excuse for a bizarre and macabre conclusion in which anchoresses are warned to keep their hands to themselves,” later work by Catherine Innes-Parker, Elizabeth Robertson, and Nicholas Hoffman has explored the nuanced portrayal of touch as a gateway for both sin and salvation.