Living and Dying in England 1100-1540
The Monastic Experience
Living and Dying in England 1100-1540
The Monastic Experience
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Paperback / softback
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Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198204312
Number of Pages: 310
Published: 05/01/1995
Width: 15.7 cm
Height: 23.4 cm
This is an authoritative account of daily life in Westminster Abbey, one of medieval England's greatest monastic communities. It is also a wide-ranging exploration of some major themes in the social history of the Middle Ages and early sixteenth century, by one of its most distinguished historians.
Barbara Harvey exploits the exceptionally rich archives of the Benedictine foundation of Westminster to the full, offering numerous vivid insights into the lives of the Westminster monks, their dependants, and their benefactors. She examines the charitable practices of the monks, their food and drink, their illnesses and their deaths, the number and conditions of employment of their servants, and their controversial practice of granting corrodies (pensions made up in large measure of benefits in kind). All these topics Miss Harvey considers in the context both of religious institutions in general, and of the secular world. Full of colour and interest, Living and Dying in England is an original and highly readable contribution to medieval history, and that of the early sixteenth century.
Part 1 Charity: perceptions of monastic almsgiving; monastic almsgiving from ordinary income; monastic almsgiving from special funds. Part 2 Diet: the problems; the sample; Benedictine diet - regular and irregular; arrangements at Westminster Abbey. Part 3 Sickness and its treatment: the empirical approach; the monastic community at Westminster Abbey; the treatment of sickness at the abbey; morbidity in the monastic community at Westminster Abbey; the diseases. Part 4 Mortality: the problems; mortality at Christ Church, Canterbury 1395-1505; mortality at Westminster Abbey 1390-1529; the fatal diseases; the population trend in late Medieval England. Part 5 Servants: perspectives; monastic households; servant life; earnings at Westminster Abbey. Part 6 Corrodies: perceptions old and new; the main kinds of corrody; grants in general; grants in exchange for real property; grants in exchange for money; the age and marital status of corrodians. Appendices: charitable giving at Westminster Abbey c.1510-c.1530; catering in the Refectory and Misericord at Westminster Abbey c.1495-c.1525 - numbers and messes; apothecaries, physicians and surgeons employed by the Abbot and Convent of Westminster c.1300-c.1540; estimating the life-expectancy of the monks of Westminster, Jim Oeppen; corrodians of Westminster Abbey 1100-1540.
outstanding book ... the detailed analysis is as rigorous as it is fascinating * Times Higher Education Supplement *
