On Mon, 9 Dec 1996 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> I think you must mean bread, meal? and wine?
Professor Elder's Cistercians may have been more virtuous, but Beatriz
Miranda is correct to suggest that late medieval Benedictines were meat
eaters. A nice bit of casuistry allowed the eating of meaty foods (e.g.
foods prepared with offal) in the refectory, and of flesh meats in the
misericord where the prohibition of meat was deemed inoperative. Monks
dined in one or the other room by rota, thus observing Bendict XII's
legislation that at least half the community must dine in the refectory.
Barbara Harvey documents the diet and dining arrangements at Westminster
Abbey in fascinating detail in Living and Dying in England, 34-71. She
calculates that an individual monk ate flesh meat in the misericord about
75 days in the year, and meaty foods in the refectory on about the same
number of days. Quantities seem to have been quite large. The charts on
p. 57 suggest that outside Advent and Lent meat contributed about 17% of
the average energy value of the monk's diet at Westminster at the end of the
15th c. and fish an additional 6%. These are her figures:
Percentage contribution of different foods to the energy value of the
diet of the monks of Westminster, c. 1495-c. 1525
Average day outside Lent and Advent
Bread 35.0
Ale and wine 25.0
Fish 6.0
Meat 17.0
Suet 7.0
Vegetables 0.5
Milk and cheese 4.0
Eggs 4.5
Oatmeal and flour 1.0
In Lent the lack of meat, eggs and dairy foods is made up for by
increased consumption of fish (18%), bread and alcohol. There's also a
chart for Advent.
--
Paul Chandler || Yarra Theological Union
[log in to unmask] || Melbourne College of Divinity
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