“We are what we eat” (the French author Brillat-Savarin). Let’s try to apply this to a monkish diet. Being a monk implies a modest, controlled diet. But was it always so? The diet laid down by the Rule of St Benedict in the 6th century was certainly ascetic, but by the 16th century monks were lampooned as fat and avaricious. We are on a journey from a 6th century ideal to the excesses of the 16th century. This is sometimes called the Middle Ages. It is outside my scope (and ability) to start before the Norman invasion in 1066 when my namesake Harold Godwin got the arrow in the eye and sadly we have to finish in 1539 with Henry VIII’s land grab. So this post will be looking at the early ideal of monastic diet and part two how and why this changed from the 11th to the 16th centuries.. We will be mainly concerned with Benedictine houses but also bring in trends from some other Orders for comparison.
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| Refectory at Walsingham today |
How can we tell what their diet was like?
First there are the rules which are written down and supposed to be followed. The prime example is the 6th century Rule of St Benedict, written for south Italian monks.
Then there are records from the accounts of individual monasteries. These were kept by the Cellarer, whose job it was to manage the food supply.
There are manor records of supplies sent to the monasteries from their farms.
Outside visitations to monasteries by local bishops, papal legates or official inspections by Monastic superiors can give us evidence of infringements.
Excavations of monastic sites can produce food remains, giving vital evidence of what was eaten. Even more revealing are excavated skeletons of the inmates. For example, brilliant research about 3 smaller London houses in the early 16th century and in Westminster Abbey give us a real sense of their lifestyle. It is a long way from the original Rule!
The 6th century Rule of St Benedict came from southern Italy and was attuned to their climate. It was intended to support them in manual work, coping with extreme heat and keep them in good health. It laid down one main meal a day in winter (around midday) and a second smaller one in the early evening of the longer summer days, from Easter until September. The main meal was to have two cooked dishes - alternatives. A third dish containing raw vegetables might be added. A pound of bread was to be allowed for each monk plus the liquid wine/beer allowance. No flesh meat except for those in the Infirmary who really needed it to keep up their strength. This was interpreted as no flesh meat from quadrupeds at first this seemed by some to also include poultry and waterfowl (ducks, swans, geese).This was not everybody’s view and two legged birds were deemed acceptable to eat in some communities.
Over the 6th to the 11th centuries practices varied across Europe. Meat was eaten sometimes somewhere. The problem with the Rule is that it is not prescriptive and in this lack of clarity (something we hear a lot about in our 21st century world) communities reached their own conclusions. Fish were therefore ok ; fowls have 2 feet so they were ok. This process went on all through our period of study. Fresh meat did not include offal so sausages and fritters were ok.
We should approach it from Benedict’s likely intentions. He specified a frugal diet but he did not want to make life impossible. Some manual work might have been involved in the hot Italian summer. He made some allowance for this. The sick needed special care. He allowed for that The monastic life he expected was demanding and rigorous. Think of chanting all 150 psalms in a week... A pound of bread is substantial and so was the “liquid bread”(beer) At first it is likely that the main meal was vegetable or cereal based with some additions of egg, cheese or fish on special occasions. The meat prohibition was also to do with controlling their passions. It was believed that meat aroused the senses - especially the sexual ones. This was one of the justifications of the awful regular bleeding that went on. This could be as often as 4 times a year, where the monk would lose several pints of blood probably removed via a vein or artery in the arm or neck.
This idea of a connection between what we eat and the senses is not dead. I can remember Stanley Green, an eccentric who used to go up and down London’s Oxford Street from 1968 to 1993 with a placard and leaflets saying “Less lust by less protein ”.
After the Norman Conquest diet was likely more strictly controlled than in the previous Saxon monasteries. It became common to start the day after Prime, the first office of the monastic day, with a light breakfast (mixtum) of bread and beer. Then the usual pattern of main meal ( which likely featured pulses eg lentil stew, or pottage, or vegetables eg braised cabbage or leeks, and local herbs. Then a lighter supper.
In 1219 the General Chapter of Benedictines was held in St Albans and it addressed dietary obligations. I presume and hope we set a good example at that time! St Albans still maintained the strict application of one meal a day in the winter time. Abbot William of Trumpington (1214-1235)enforced it in the early 13th century.
As other monastic Orders were founded they usually wanted to go back to the so-called original lifestyle. Perhaps most prominent were the Cistercians in the early 12th century. When the friars started out from the 1220s they too were ascetic and ate simply. Perhaps they would collect together the foods collected from their begging and concoct a soup. When they got their own buildings they would have had fresh food from their garden or field. They may not have been entirely veggie because we know Francis encouraged them to have a good plate of meat to celebrate Christmas.
Some Orders followed the Rule of St Augustine of Hippo dating from about 400. The Praemonstratensian canons followed this in 1120 and the Augustinians in 1256. It is not prescriptive but recommends fasting and abstinence in proportion to the strength of the individual. The diet was frugal and probably meatless.
Change came in as increasingly Benedictine meals were supplemented by extra pittances as they were called. A local benefactor might provide for one of these. They were like treats : maybe better white bread, special fish, an egg dish. By this method new recipes were tried out. It was also becoming common to no longer regard the prescribed two main dishes as alternatives. It is easy to see how the number of dishes eaten began to creep up. E.g. 1150 the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds had 35 occasions to have these! But I am straying into part two of this post about Diet…
These are some of the books consulted :
Bottomley, F. Abbey explorer’s guide (Otley, 1995)
Braun, H. English abbeys {London, 1971)
Clark, J.G.
Benedictines in the Middle Ages (Woodridge, 2011)
Clark, J.G.
and Preest, D. eds. Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans (Boydell Press, 2019)
Crossley,
F.H. The English abbey 3rd ed, (London,1949)
Freeman, M.
St Albans, a history. (Lancaster, 2008)
Goodman, R.
et al Tudor monastery farm : life in rural England 500 years ago (London,
2013)
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and dying in England, the monastic experience, 1100—1540 (Oxford, 193)
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in the Medieval cloister (London, 2009)
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hospitality : the Benedictines in England c1070 to c1250 (Boydell Press)
Knowles, D.
Religious Orders in England vol 1-3 (Cambridge, 2008)
Leroux-Dhuys,
J-F. Cistercian abbeys : history and
architecture (Cologne, 1998)
McAleavey,
T. Life in a Medieval abbey
(London, 1995)
Parry, A.
ed. Rule of St Benedict (Leominster, 1990)
Paston-Williams,
S. Art of dining : a history of cooking and eating.(Oxford, 1996)
Rosewell, R
The Medieval monastery (Oxford, 2011)
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abbot and the rule : religious life at St Albans 1290-1349 (Aldershot,
2002)
Strong, R. Feast
: a history of grand eating. (London, 2002)
Williams,
D.H. The Cistercians in the early Middle Ages (1998)
Woolgar, Culture of food in England 1200-1500 (
Yale, 2016)
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