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.
Introduction by the editors
Part 1: State of health and human remains
1. Unusual and exuberant dental calculus in a nun (18th/19th centuries) from Santa Catalina de Siena, Belmonte (Cuenca, Spain): oral/joint dysfunction or facial paralysis?
Álvaro M. Monge, Natasa Sarkic, Laura González, Jesús Herrerín, António Pereira and Ana Luísa Santos
2. I was not good enough for man, and so am given to God: congenital deformations and early childhood pathologies in female monastic populations in the Iberian Peninsula
Natasa Sarkic, Rosa Dinarès, Lucía Muñoz and Jesús Herrerín
3. Death, war and pilgrimage: traumatic injuries from a medieval multiple grave at San Miguel de Aralar (Navarre, Spain)
Emma Bonthorne, Francisco Valle de Tarazaga and Mikaila Walke
4. Disabled individuals in a medieval Belgian Cistercian monastic community: a palaeopathological perspective
Mathilde Daumas, Caroline Polet and Stéphane Louryan
5. A high-ranking cleric with arterial calcification: vascular disease in medieval England
David Bennett-Jones and Louise Loe
Part 2: Life pathways in monastic contexts
6. Unveiling the past: bioanthropological insights into life and death at the Santa Caterina friary in the 13th to 15th centuries
Andrea Sanz, Andreu Falcó, Lluís Lloveras and Carme Rissech
7. Life and death in Barcelona in the 9th and 10th centuries: a bioanthropological analysis of the Antics Jutjats (former Municipal Courts) site
Marta Merino, Carme Rissech and Jordi Serra
8. Bioanthropological study of human remains (14th to 15th centuries) coming from the funerary unit UF228 of Santa Caterina friary in Barcelona
Carme Rissech, Marina Gasca and Anna Llauradó
9. The cloister of the monastery of Santa Maria de Roses in early modern times: the study of a secular funerary space in a religious centre
Marc Bouzas, Neus Coromina, Jordi Vivo and Lluís Palahí
10. 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
G. Panzarino, E. Varotto, F.M. Galassi, A. Pastor, G. Gallello, S. Vanin, G. Carta, F. Breglia, A. Biselli, D. Pian and E. Dellù
11. The tomb of the Prioress Jerònima de Gort (1527–1601): an interdisciplinary approach to the female Hospitaller house of Santa Maria d'Alguaire
Maria Soler, Walter Alegria, Izaskun Ambrosio, Sílvia Marín and Araceli Coll
12. ‘The greatest evil is physical pain’: an exploration of suffering from a medieval Austin Friary in Cambridge, UK
Benjamin Neil
13. 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
G. Panzarino, E. Varotto, F.M. Galassi, D. Pian and E. Dellù
14. The day-to-day life of a feminine religious community from a multidisciplinary approach: the convent of Santa Clara (Pontevedra, Spain)
Carlos Fernández, María Martín, Rafael M. Rodríguez and Israel Picón
Part 3: Animals in the monastic environment
15. Footprints in the cloister: the study of icnites in tiles from Santa Maria de Pedralbes Monastery (Barcelona)
Jordi Nadal, Anna Castellano, Philip Banks, Lara Dominguis, Santiago Riera and Lluís Lloveras
16. Bilateral skull asymmetries among an ancient horse breed as a sign of high rusticity: a contribution to faunal remains studies coming from monastic contexts Pere M. Parés-Casanova, Nuno Carolino, José V. Leite, Ruy Dantas and Susana Lopes
17. Estimation of body measurements in domestic cattle inferred from cranial values: how can this information contribute to monastic context knowledge?
A. Salamanca-Carreño, P.M. Parés-Casanova, G. Martínez, M. Vélez-Terranova and D.E. Rangel
Lluís Lloveras is a researcher in the department of Archaeology and History at the University of Barcelona, from which he obtained a PhD. He is a specialist in zooarchaeology and taphonomy, focusing on the procurement of animal foods, past animal hunting and husbandry economies and examining the role of animals in past societies beyond serving as food, employing, in particular, neotaphonomic research, geometric morphometrics, isotopic analysis, animal palaeopathological and forensic taphonomic analysis.
Carme Rissech is a senior lecturer in the Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain and holds a PhD from the University Autonomous of Barcelona. She is an expert in the fields of palaeoanthropology and forensic anthropology, employing interdisciplinary approaches combining human bone analysis with documentary sources, histological and biomolecular analysis and medicine.
Jordi Nadal is a reader in History and Archaeology at the University of Barcelona, from which he obtained his PhD. He specializes in zooarchaeology and taphonomy, focusing on various aspects of past human-animal relationship. He is also interested in the application of neotaphonomic models to better understand the origin of small prey accumulations in prehistoric archaeological sites.
Philip Banks is a retired lecturer in English as a Foreign Language at the University of Barcelona, now an independent researcher in medieval history. He obtained a PhD in archaeology and history from Nottingham University, where he studied urban transformations between the 4th and 13th centuries in Catalonia, especially the city of Barcelona. He has translated archaeological and historical texts from Spanish and Catalan to English and collaborated with museums and archaeological services on projects concerning medieval documents and the archaeological interpretation of historical sources, especially as regards townscapes and the peri-urban zones of medieval cities.
