In Peter Abelard's Letter of Direction to Abbess Heloise (the so-
called "rule", altho' there's no evidence to suggest that it was ever
adopted in this form at the Paraclete, but I digress...) insists that
monastic wine should be watered. This may be to prevent over-
indulgence, or for ascetic reasons (Abelard wanted the Paraclete
nuns to eat day-old bread, which was not to be made exclusively from
the finest wheat.
A note, though, about quantities: the ration of beer at later
medieval monasteries sounds particularly heroic (gallons, usually),
but it was probably a smaller gallon than used now in the UK (the
imperial gallon (eight 20 ounce pints) was adopted during Victoria
reign) and probably closer to the American gallon of eight 16 ounce
pints [or about 5.5 imperial pints a day, which isn't much more than
consumed by most British grad students :-) ]
The beer would have been fairly weak, too, and not like the
strong Trappist beers (modern Belgian Trappists themselves drink
a much weaker beer in the monastery, selling the stronger brews to
grateful historians), and to quote Dom David Knowles: "One also has
to account for the total absence of tea and coffee..."
jon
J. M. B. PORTER
Department of History : University of Nottingham
University Park : Nottingham : NG7 2RD : England
t: + 115 951 3639 f: + 115 951 5948
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