Reconstructing Past Monastic Life: Volume 1: Bioarchaeology, Life and Death

New Trends from Archaeological, Bioanthropological and Documentary Perspectives

Lluís Lloveras, Carme Rissech, Jordi Nadal, Philip Banks

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9798888571743
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: British History

Explores health and lifeways in monastic communities, focusing on palaeopathological insights into well-being, disabilities, and burial practices across various periods. Monasticism is a form of religious life in which participants renounce worldly activities to dedicate themselves primarily to spiritual matters, living in small communities subject to a set of rules and isolated from the secular world. Christian monasticism, which originated at the end of the 3rd century in Egypt and North Africa, spread to different parts of Europe in the 6th century. However, it was not until the Middle Ages that monastic communities became one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. Monasteries and convents played a very important role not only as centers of spirituality but also as focal points of economic, technological and cultural activity. This multiplicity of activities carried out alongside their religious, social and political roles make monasteries spaces that can be studied from very different perspectives and that unfailingly provide essential information about our history. This first of two titles originates from an international conference that took place in Barcelona in January 2024, which sought to examine different aspects related to monastic life in the past and to promote and disseminate the results obtained in the latest studies undertaken within the framework of monastic complexes and their environments. These include contributions and multidisciplinary studies from archaeological, bioanthropological and/or documentary perspectives. Specialists from different disciplines present developments on the topic of monasticism from different fields of study, such as zooarchaeology, bioanthropology, palaeopathology, archaeology, history, documentary disciplines, archives, cultural heritage, etc. Volume 1 concentrates on health and lifeways within monastic communities, focusing on palaeopathological information providing insights into physical well-being and, in particular, the presence and significance of disabled individuals and evidence for long-term health and dental issues. A variety of scientific methods of analysis are applied to cemetery populations from monasteries and nunneries of different periods to examine both causes of and contributions to the death of individuals, the composition of communities and the treatment of the dead. Studies of assemblages of faunal remains from monastic complexes consider how faunal analysis can help interpret the role of domestic species.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of contributors
• List of reviewers
• Introduction
• Part 1 - State of health and human remains
• Chapter 1 - Unusual and exuberant dental calculus in an 18th- to 19th-century nun from Santa Catalina de Siena, Belmonte (Cuenca, Spain): oral/joint dysfunction or facial paralysis?
• Chapter - 2 Disabled individuals in a Belgian medieval Cistercian monastic community: a palaeopathological perspective
• Chapter 3 - A high-ranking cleric with arterial calcification: vascular disease in medieval England
• Part 2 - Life pathways in monastic contexts
• Chapter 4 - Unveiling the past: bioanthropological insights into life and death at the friary of Santa Caterina (Barcelona) in the 13th to 15th centuries
• Chapter 5 - The early medieval necropolis of the Former Municipal Courts of Barcelona: a unique discovery
• Chapter 6 - Bioanthropological study of human remains from funerary unit UF228 (14th to 15th centuries) at the archaeological site of the friary of Santa Caterina (Barcelona)
• Chapter 7 - The cloister of the monastery of Santa Maria de Roses in the early modern period: study of a secular funerary space in a religious centre
• Chapter 8 - The life and death of the Poor Clare nuns of the Holy Trinity in Monte Sant’Angelo (Puglia, Southern Italy): archaeological, anthropological, pathological, botanical, entomological, textile, chemical and documentary data
• Chapter 9 - The tomb of Prioress Jerònima de Gort (1586–1601): an interdisciplinary approach to the female Hospitaller Monastery of Santa Maria d’Alguaire
• Chapter 10 - ‘The greatest evil is physical pain’: an exploration of suffering from a medieval Austin Friary in Cambridge, UK using an ‘Avatar Model’
• Chapter 11 - The ossuary of the Teutonic monastery of San Leonardo di Siponto in Manfredonia (Puglia, southern Italy): anthropological and palaeopathological data for the reconstruction of the monastic community
• Chapter 12 - The everyday life of a female religious community from a multidisciplinary approach: the convent of Santa Clara (Pontevedra, Spain)
• Part 3 - Animals in the monastic environment
• Chapter 13 - Paw prints in the cloister: the study of ichnites on tiles from the Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes (Barcelona, Spain)
• Chapter 14 - Bilateral skull asymmetries in two ancient semi-feral horse breeds and their implications for archaeological equine studies: how can they help us in monastic contexts?
• Chapter 15 - Estimating the withers height and body length of domestic cattle from head values: its applications to archaeological samples