English monasteries

by J. Charles Cox

In the same house cheese was provided daily in the refectory both at dinner and supper, from Easter until Lent began. Butter was supplied after a very limited fashion, namely on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and that only from May 1st to September 14th.

The three reformed congregations of Benedictines, Carthusians, Cluniacs, and Cistercians, all made a point of more rigid observance of the dietary rule. The Carthusians adhered to the absolute and perpetual refusal of every kind of flesh-meat right up to the dissolution; for them it was never lawful even in times of the gravest illness. The Cistercians, whose abbeys were so frequent throughout England, were in the first instance rigid in prohibiting flesh save in the infirmary. Their strictness in this respect in England for some time after their establishment is well illustrated by the following fact. In June 1246, the new conventual buildings of the great Hampshire monastery of Beaulieu were dedicated by the Bishop of Winchester at a function which was attended by the King and Queen and by a large assembly of the magnates of the realm. At the next visitation both prior and cellarer were deposed from their offices because, even on a supreme occasion of this kind, they had broken the rule by serving secular visitors with flesh in the refectory. Early in the fifteenth century power to dispense from this rule was granted for a time to Cistercian superiors; but this worked badly, and in 1485 those who desired it (even if well in health) might have meat three days in the week—namely, Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, provided they took it in a separate chamber built for the purpose, usually termed the misericorde, and not in the refectory or fratry.

By some it was pleaded that the greater coldness of England, as compared with the rest of Christendom, demanded a better diet; but this notion did not commend itself to Gilbert of Sempringham, the devout and yet very practical English founder of the essentially English order that bore his name. In the guest-houses of the Gilbertine foundations the canons were prohibited from ever eating or drinking with their guests, unless it was an Archbishop or Bishop; and as it was lawful to give obedience to a Bishop, if such a guest invited a canon to eat or drink, he might do so once or twice to avoid discourtesy. But even in the guest-houses no flesh was on any account to be served save for an Archbishop, Bishop, or Papal Legate, or in the case of real sickness. Supposing a Bishop required it, Gilbert laid down that none of his canons or lay-brothers were to prepare the meat, but the prelate’s own attendants, “for,” he adds, “in our houses nothing of the nature of flesh or blood ought ever to be eaten save by the sick, nor within the walls of the granges save by the sick and hired labourers.”

The remarkable series of obedientiary rolls of every kind pertaining to the great Benedictine priory of Durham, which have recently been printed for the Surtees’ Society in three volumes by Canon Fowler (1898-1901), throw remarkably full light on the dieting of monks in a great house whose funds were never lacking. The accounts are exceptionally complete for the year 1333-4. The cellarer’s roll contains each week’s expenditure for food. The roll begins with the week after Martinmas, when the following were the cellarer’s purchases:—1000 herrings, 6s. 9d.; a horse-load of whiting, 4s.; 7 salmon, plaice, and smelts, 4s. 2d.; pork and veal, 9s. 0½d.; 7 sucking pigs, 14 geese and 17 fowls, 7s. 4½d.; wildfowl, 3s.; butter and honey, 10d.; 48 fowls, 8s.; and 700 eggs, 42s. 6d. The following are the entries for the week that included Christmas Day:—8 horse-loads of whiting, 26s. 9d.; 2 horse-loads of plaice, smelts, and lobsters, 17s. 1d.; 2 turbots and 1 salmon, bought in the town, 6s. 9d.; veal, 3s. 2d.; 68 fowls for gifts, 5s. 4d.; 10 ducks and wildfowl, 9s. 9d.; 4 stone of cheese and 4 stone of butter, 7s. 6d.; and 12 fowls, 2s. 2d. There were no eggs bought in Christmas week, but in the following week 900 were purchased. Throughout the whole of Lent the weekly purchases were strictly confined to fish, not even eggs being allowed; the week before Lent 900 eggs were bought, and in Easter week 300. It may here be mentioned that the eggs purchased by the cellarer in the whole year amounted to 44,140. The purchases made in the second week in Lent were:—9 horse-loads of whiting, bought at the seaside and elsewhere, 43s. 6½d.; 9 fresh salmon and 3 turbot, 26s. 10d.; and 27 crabs, plaice, smelts, and mussels, 6s. 7d. The third week’s purchases were:—1000 red herrings, bought at Newcastle, 9s.; 9 horse-loads of whiting, bought at the seaside and in the town, 55s. 9d.; 2 salmon, 5s. 2d.; 80 salt fish bought at Newcastle, 16s. 6d.; and 140 salt mackerel and mussels, for the servants, 6s. 7d. Lent was evidently rigorously kept, for twice during the great fast the prior entertained an earl and his household without any change in the fish diet. This monastery was certainly fortunate in being within easy distance of the best part of England’s fishing coast. The Durham monks and their retainers and guests could always procure a considerable variety of fish diet. During this particular year, in addition to the varieties already named, the cellarer was able to supply for the tables, whelks, kippers, cod, codling, trout, skate, sturgeon, eels, lamprey, fresh herrings, and porpoise.

There must have been a very moderate and occasional use of both cheese and butter; the year’s purchase of the former only amounted to 32 stone 2 lbs., and of the latter to 25 stone. Rice, which was imported in large quantities from the East, has been mentioned as a pittance at Winchester; on two occasions in the whole year it seems to have served as a delicacy for a few at Durham, for there are two entries of the purchase of 12 lbs. of rice.

When the number of mouths to be filled at this great monastery are considered, it is obvious that the weekly purchases of the cellarer, which averaged about £5 a week, must have been wholly inadequate for the bare support of life. It is therefore a relief to find that he had a well-stocked larder of salt flesh and fish to fall back upon. In this year William Hexham, the cellarer, had in the larder 202 “Marts” or Martinmas cattle, killed and salted for winter and subsequent consumption, some from their own manors, and others bought at Darlington and elsewhere. A large stock of mutton, and occasionally lamb, beef, and pork, was also received at intervals from the manors, and now and again purchased, which was also salted down for larder purposes. Moreover, upwards of sixty barrels of herrings, and 1000 cod fish were bought to be salted as larder storage, as well as 205 dried fish (probably large cod) for the servants.

This seems a mighty store; but how many were there to support? The ideal number of monks for a large Benedictine establishment was seventy, but it was seldom realised. We know the exact numbers at Durham on various occasions; probably at this date it was sixty. Then there were the chaplains, the lay-brothers, the singing boys, the almonry boys, and a considerable number of paid servants of the house, as well as those of the priors’ lodgings, and of the great and roomy guest-house, and the monks’ infirmary. The cellarer had to provide food for all these, as well as for the large infirmary outside the gates, and to a considerable extent for a hospital in the town. Altogether, the mouths that had to be provided for (inclusive of guests of all ranks) may be safely estimated as averaging at least 250 a day. The great guest-house, with its courtly sets of apartments (the principal of which were termed the King’s chambers, the knights’ chambers, and the clerks’ chambers) were frequently filled, and this irrespective of humbler lodgings for middle-class folk and the poorer wayfarers. Moreover, “the releefe and almesse of the hole Convent was alwaies open and free, not onely to the poore of the citie of Durham, but to all the poore people of the countrie besides.”—(Rites of Durham.) During 1333-4, the King paid three visits to the priory, once accompanied by the Queen. The King’s justices tarried with the prior when visiting Durham; on one of these three occasions during this year they stayed at the monastery for four days, and on another for a whole week. During another whole week the prior entertained the members of his council; visits were also paid by bishops and earls, on one occasion by two bishops at the same time. The retinue of these distinguished visitors was always considerable. It may also be remembered, when thinking of the two hundred salted “marts” that found their way into the larder during the year, and the carcases of sheep bought for salting or occasionally for fresh use, that the cattle of those days were decidedly smaller than what are now seen in butchers’ shops, whilst the sheep resembled the small Welsh mutton.

It is no guess-work that the Durham cellarer provided all the necessary food for the hostelries and for the prior’s table, or even an assertion based upon the usual custom of Benedictine houses. It is testified to in extant rolls. For this year, 1333-4, Brother Robert de Middleham was hosteler, and his expenses show that he found—in addition to wine, of which more anon—nothing save diverse special pittances for guests and for prior, sub-prior and their companions, at diverse special occasions, at the small cost of 21s. 3d.; a pittance made to the convent in the refectory on the first Rogation Day at the price of 26s.; and a pittance of 11s. 6d. provided for the chaplain who heard the confessions in Lent of the parishioners of St. Oswald’s. Everything else, even for kings, bishops, or earls, was provided by the cellarer; and we find at the end of his roll, under the heading Empcio specierum, various small purchases of almonds, pepper, saffron, mace, cinnamon, sugar, rice, honey, figs, and raisins, of much of which it is expressly stated that it was for the prior’s table. In later days delicacies of confectionery were occasionally provided by the priory cooks or purchased, such as anise comfit, madryan, gobett reall, pinyonade, sugar-in-plate, chardecoyne, or geloffors, but always for the guests.

So far as the Durham rolls are concerned, a close study of them proves beyond doubt that the fare of these monks was (for the times in which they lived, when meat was plentifully enjoyed by the poorest) simple in quality, and moderate in quantity, and further, that the fasts were most carefully observed. Neither in amount nor in variety of food did the monks of Durham fare so well as the inmates of an average English work-house of the present day.

A recent most capable historical writer (Miss Bateson) has said: “At St. Albans the diet seems to have been very severe; it was an innovation there in the thirteenth century to allow the sick in the infirmary to have meat. It is clear from the detailed custumals of Abingdon and Evesham that mutton and beef were not eaten in their refectories, but bacon was generally consumed, and all kinds of fat.”