The Monks at Rest: Food
Should we be able to join the monks at the basins in the south Cloister walk, washing their hands before their meal and filing the large Dining Room, or to the south, we would have been struck by their silence. For silence was observed here in this time of relaxation as much as during their duties in Church and Cloister and work about the monastery. During the meal the only human voice was from one of the monks reading aloud a passage of scripture or the life of a saint from a lectern built out from the wall. The monks sat on wooden benches at long wooden tables and ate with knife, spoon, fingers and napkin, no forks. At the east end of the room was a platform where the Abbot had his meals when he ate here. The food was served by the monks in a rota from the kitchen at the west end.
Meat was never eaten in this Dining Room. The mainstay of the diet was bread and vegetables with an emphasis on beans; there were also eggs, cheese, oysters and fish, and the flesh of birds was not counted as meat. The monks had wine to drink and a heavy and a lighter beer.
Usually there were two meals a day, the first about mid-day (no breakfast), the last approaching sundown before the final service in the Church. But on Fridays and fast days including Lent, approaching half of the days of the year, there was only the one meal. The diet of the monks was therefore frugal compared to what we enjoy today. Despite this their health was good, they lived long and indeed their diet would be commended by nutritionists nowadays who warn us against the health problems we cause ourselves by overeating. The sanitation at the Abbey was excellent compared to what was found in the town of Reading. The toilet and bathroom block of the monastery, the Reredorter, Necessarium or Necessary House, was situated by the river to the south of the Dormitory, with water from the Holy Brook running through to flush away the sewage. Citizens of Reading made do with cess pits in gardens and backyards which were often dangerously close to the wells from which they drew their drinking water.
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The monks ate in silence during their meals in the
Refectory, read to from the scriptures
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