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.
First of two titles presenting developments on the topic of monasticism from different fields of study, such as zooarchaeology, bioanthropology, palaeopathology, archaeology, history, documentary disciplines, archives and cultural heritage.
List of contributors
List of reviewers
Introduction by the editors
Part 1: State of health and human remains
1. Unusual and exuberant dental calculus in an 1819th-century nun from Santa
Catalina de Siena, Belmonte (Cuenca, Spain): oral/joint dysfunction or facial
paralysis?
Laura Gonzįlez-Garrido, Įlvaro M. Monge Calleja, Natasa Sarkic, Sofķa Zdral,
António Pereira Coutinho, Lķdia Catarino, Jesśs Herrerķn López, Ana Luisa
Santos
2. Disabled individuals in a Belgian medieval Cistercian monastic community:
a palaeopathological perspective
Mathilde Daumas, Caroline Polet, Stéphane Louryan
3. A high-ranking cleric with arterial calcification: vascular disease in
medieval England.
David Bennett-Jones, Louise Loe
Part 2: Life pathways in monastic contexts
4. Unveiling the past. Bioanthropological insights into life and death at the
friary of Santa Caterina (Barcelona) in the 13th to15th centuries
Andrea Sanz, Andreu Falcó, Lluķs Lloveras, Carme Rissech
5. The early medieval necropolis of the Former Municipal Courts of Barcelona:
a unique discovery
Marta Merino, Carme Rissech
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)
Carme Rissech, Marina Gascą, Anna Llauradó
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.
Marc Bouzas, Neus Coromina, Lluķs Palahķ, Jordi Vivo
8. 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
Ginevra Panzarino, Elena Varotto, Francesco Maria Galassi, Agustķn Pastor,
Gianni Gallello, Stefano Vanin, Giuseppina Carta, Francesco Breglia, Annalisa
Biselli, Donatella Pian, Elena Dellł
9. The tomb of Prioress Jerņnima de Gort (1586-1601). An interdisciplinary
approach to the female Hospitaller Monastery of Santa Maria d'Alguaire.
Maria Soler, Walter Alegria, Izaskun Ambrosio, Sķlvia Marķn, Araceli Coll
10. The Greatest Evil is Physical Pain. An Exploration of Suffering from a
Medieval Austin Friary in Cambridge, UK using an Avatar Model.
Benjamin Neil
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.
Ginevra Panzarino, Elena Varotto, Francesco Maria Galassi, Donatella Pian,
Elena Dellł
12. The everyday life of a female religious community from a
multidisciplinary approach: the convent of Santa Clara (Pontevedra, Spain).
Marķa Martķn-Seijo, Carlos Fernįndez-Rodrķguez, Eduardo Gonzįlez Gómez de
Agüero, Rafael M. Rodrķguez Martķnez, Israel Picón Platas
Part 3: Animals in the monastic environment
13. Paw prints in the cloister. The study of ichnites on tiles from the
Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes (Barcelona, Spain)
Jordi Nadal, Philip Banks, Anna Castellano-Tresserra, Santiago Riera, Marina
Fernįndez-Liarte, Lluķs Lloveras.
14. Bilateral skull asymmetries in two ancient semi-feral horse breeds and
their implications for archaeological equine studies. How can help us in
monastic contexts?
Pere M. Parés-Casanova, Nuno Carolino, José V. Leite, Ruy Dantas, Susana
Lopes, Abu B. Siddiq
15. Estimating the withers height and body length of domestic cattle from
head values. Its applications to archaeological samples.
Arcesio Salamanca-Carreńo, Pere M. Parés-Casanova, Germįn Martķnez Correal,
Mauricio Vélez-Terranova, David Eduardo Rangel, Abu B. Siddiq
Lluķs 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 humananimal 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 periurban zones of medieval cities.
