Hi Tryx
Had been thinking - not very successfully - about your question in odd
moments, and now your second question about monasteries has prompted
me to post these bits and pieces.
I don't think early 14c women could be sure of a welcome at a
monastery guest-house - though noblewomen were sometimes received.
Cistercians didn't accommodate women, even in outlying granges. I
couldn't find anything much about what other orders allowed, or
when/where they might supply lodgings outside the monastery.
Cluniac monks are said to have offered the least austere hospitality.
Guests of different classes were treated differently.
With luck some of the links below will help. The English Cistercian
site is full of interesting detail. I enjoyed looking through it, and
also liked the wonderful pictures in the French national library
online exhibition about medieval food.
Best wishes - Leli
". . . . . .chap. liii of the Rule of St. Benedict: "Let all guests
that come", it directs, "be received like Christ Himself. . . Let the
abbot pour water on the hands of the guests, and himself as well as
the whole community wash their feet . . . Let special care be taken in
the reception of the poor and of wayfarers (peregrinorum) because in
these Christ is more truly welcomed." So important was the duty of
hospitality that it was always to be considered in the construction of
the monastery. "Let the kitchen for the abbot and guests be apart by
itself, so that strangers (hospites), who are never wanting in a
monastery, may not disturb the brethren by coming at unlooked for
hours." This primitive text has left its stamp upon all the subsequent
developments of the monastic rule, from Benedict of Aniane downwards,
while the prominence of the guest-house in all monastic buildings,
beginning with the famous plan of St. Gall in the ninth century,
attests indirectly how scrupulously this tradition was respected . . .
.
. . . we may notice how this aspect of religious life was emphasized
among the Cistercians, the most important of the Benedictine reforms.
Giraldus Cambrensis, the enemy of the monks, admits that if their
establishments had departed from primitive Cistercian simplicity, by
great expenditure and extravagance, it was their generous hospitality
which was to blame. The very arrangement of their houses seemed
designed primarily for the entertainment of pilgrims and the poor. The
lodging of both the abbot and the porter was near the main entrance,
apart from the rest of the monks. The monastery gate being always kept
shut, the porter lived near "that the guest on his first arriving
might find someone to welcome him". The "Liber Usuum" directs that the
porter should open the door saying Deo gratias, and, after a
Benedicite as a salutation, should ask the stranger who he is and what
he requires. "If he wishes to be admitted, the porter kneels to him
and bids him enter and sit down near the porter's cell while he goes
to fetch the abbot." It was the abbot's duty to dine with his guests
rather than with his monks."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07475c.htm
"Once the porter or his deputy had announced the guest?s arrival to
the abbot, two monks were sent to pray with the newcomer and to bestow
the kiss of peace; thereafter the guest was edified with the Divine
Word. The visitor was then ready to enter the guest complex where he
was introduced to the hosteller or guestmaster, as he was also known,
who provided for guests according to their standing and relationship
with the community.(2) The guestmaster was invariably helped by at
least one lay-brother. Soon after his arrival, the visitor?s feet were
washed; this was known as the Maundy of guests.
Whereas noble visitors and their households would have been shown to
private chambers, those of lesser means (for example, travellers on
foot) would have been directed to a public hall which, by all
accounts, could be rather rough and unruly."
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/cistercian_life/monastic_life/hospitality/index.php
Women as guests (3 pages)
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/cistercian_life/women/guests/index.php
Benedictine abbey in early 14c:
"except in company of a brother of mature age none was to hold
converse with a woman"
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=37957
"In general, neither the church nor the literature of the time
encouraged women to take to the road, for fear of outbursts of immoral
behavior."
http://www.saint-jacques.info/women.htm
In certain large hostels on the route to Compostela, there was a room
for women, where nuns looked after them.
[date?]
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A8lerin_de_Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle#Les_p.C3.A8lerines
"The early Cistercian statutes lay down guidelines for reception of
guests. They did not provide the same openness for monks not of their
order. They also were less receptive to lay visitors than were the
monks of the Cluniac observance.
http://www.idahomonks.org/sect809.htm
"Cluniac monasticism tended to be more integrated with society than
Cistercian. Its houses extended hospitality to travelers and some
Cluniac abbeys were important pilgrimage centers.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/bernard1.html
"In many ways, the organization of the Order of Cluny anticipated the
modern travel industry, but its activities were much broader in scope.
They ran the ?luxury? hotels of the days [no date - "the Middle
Ages"], offering beds of straw for two people per bed.
http://www.gr-infos.com/jacques-an.htm
Cluny 1150:
"There were brethren to the number of three hundred or more, but the
house could not support one hundred by its own outlay. There was
always a crowd of guests and a countless number of poor. The combined
yearly supply from all the deaneries was scarcely sufficient for four
months, sometimes not for three months, and the wine from all sources
was never enough for two months, nor even for one. The bread was
scanty, black, and made of bran. The wine was exceedingly watery,
tasteless, indeed, scarcely wine at all. . . .
I made arrangements for provisions throughout the deaneries and
decreed that they should supply the community of Cluny with bread,
beans, and oil . .
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1150Clunyprop.html
Bibliothèque nationale de France - Medieval food
Bread was at the heart of the diet, accompanied by wine and meat -
with veg important for peasants, who were nine-tenths of the
population.
Legumes were important for peasants and monks - grown in open fields.
The cabbage was king of the medieval garden.
A typical amount of bread per person per day was between 500g and 1
kilo. Other food was considered the "companage".
Nearly every peasant had a few vines. Light wines, often white.
Full-bodied red wine became fashionable in the 14c.
Dairy products could not be eaten on "jours maigres" - Fridays, Saturdays and Lent.
To make up for the absence of meat, monastic cuisine developed many
ways of using eggs and fish. In some times and places eggs were
forbidden on "jours maigres".
Non-meat days were worse for poor people than rich. The poor had
salted herring, pea puree [pease pottage?] or clear soup.
Food became more plentiful for ordinary people between 1250 and 1450,
with more meat in the diet.
Walnut oil in many regions - olive oil expensive.
Soup spoon and bowl might be shared.
Most people [not monks] ate "diner" between 10 and 11 in the morning,
with "souper" between 4 and 7 in the evening.
http://expositions.bnf.fr/gastro/index.htm
In the Middle Ages French peasants and many town-dwellers had a basic
diet of bread and soups. A meal was bread, wine and companage.
The monks waited to eat until 3 p.m., the canonical hour of "none".
http://www.histgeo.com/medievale/manger.html
Food and Drink (4 pages)
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/cistercian_life/monastic_life/food_&_drink/
You'll find a lot more on the same website:
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/cistercian_life/
Even though it's about English monks, they shared many rules with
their French brothers.
The section on sheep farming mentions parchment (with illustration),
which you ask about in your other question.
"The distinction of guests in twelfth-century France
The Empress Matilda made a grant to the Cistercian abbey of Mortemer,
in Rouen for the construction of two stone houses there, to provide
separate accommodation for merchants, the poor, religious and the
rich.
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/fountains/buildings/guesthouse/
"The buildings devoted to hospitality are divided into three
groups,--one for the reception of distinguished guests, another for
monks visiting the monastery, a third for poor travellers and
pilgrims. The first and third are placed to the right and left of the
common entrance of the monastery,---the hospitium for distinguished
guests being placed on the north side of the church, not far from the
abbot's house; that for the poor on the south side next to the farm
buildings.
http://historymedren.about.com/od/abbey/a/11_ab_benedict_2.htm
As for your other question about livestock and cheese . . . .
12c - Cattle replacing pigs as forests shrank. When Cistercians didn't
use sheep and goats to supply their own milk and cheese, they
benefited from grazing rights, tax and trading benefits and sales of
meat, leather and wool- especially England - 4000 sheep at Cambron.
21 fishponds at Morimond, big pond at Clairvaux
Lay brothers dried and salted fish.
Salt important at monasteries which had fishing rights and/or made cheese.
Early gifts of land included forests with rights to pig foraging,
wood, forest fruits and honey - but there was sometimes conflict with
the seigneur's hunting rights.
Owned vineyards - usually they had been given them, not planted them.
Drank and sold wine.
http://www.cister.net/disc_larmes.htm
Granges were often given over to both crops and livestock, but some
specialised: vines, olives, sheep. Clairvaux would have had several
hundred pigs, more than 3000 sheep and a good selection of cattle.
http://users.skynet.be/am012324/studium/cazabone/Cours%205.htm
. . . and cats . . .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1030837,00.html
. . . . and rabbits . . .
Domestication in the French monasteries of the late Middle Ages was a
key stage in the expansion of rabbit-keeping. In 1149 the abbot of
Corvey asked his colleague at Solignac to supply him with two pairs.
http://www.ffc.asso.fr/Publications/origine_et_histoire_du_lapin.htm |
