[Sca-cooks] What the abbot ate for dinner

[Johnna Holloway]

Something for upcoming St Patrick's day that I found today.

See http://www.rothehouse.com/  for information on Rothe House.

Johnnae


What the abbot ate for dinner

Published Date: 19 February 2010
By Tess Felder

ONE man's trash may be another man's treasure – but in this case it's  
another man's poo.
The discovery of a toilet used by the abbots of Duiske Abbey, whose  
townhouse was located on the site where Rothe House now stands, has  
unearthed artefacts which paint a colourful (and odorous) picture of  
life there from the 14th to the 16th centuries. And it doesn't appear  
to match the image of austere Cistercians, an order that had been  
founded to recapture the original simplicity and purity of monastic  
life.

This 'find' is located in the courtyard behind the Rothes' third  
house, which is due to reopen this summer as a cafe, with a library  
and Fás training centre in the upper storeys. A small kitchen will be  
built behind the cafe, so an archaeological excavation has been  
carried out first.

Looking down into the excavated hole a metre and a half deep, it's  
clear it was something. But, to ask an obvious question, how did they  
know it was a toilet?

"It's a big, deep pit in the ground that is lined on four sides with  
stone walls," said Cóilín Ó Drisceoil, archaeologist with Kilkenny  
Archaeology. "And it was full of poo, which in archaeology is called  
'cess'."

Fortunately for those doing the dig, it wasn't just a pile of excrement.

"They would throw in the buckets of poo, and there would be an awful  
smell, so they would throw a layer of sand or ash to dampen the  
smell," Mr Ó Drisceoil said. "The really nice thing about this is that  
they also threw in a lot of their rubbish with it, so we found about  
500 animal bones and a lot of pottery; and all of these artefacts give  
a really good picture of what the abbot was eating."

And what would an austere abbot have had for his meals?

"It looks like there was a lot of beef on the menu and a lot of mutton."

Numerous pieces of wine jugs were discovered as well, Mr Ó Drisceoil  
pointed out, as was a 14th-century belt buckle "that the abbot might  
have lost when he was doing his business. It might have fallen off and  
he said: 'I'm not going in after it'."

As an interesting aside, he noted that "the poor unfortunates who were  
paid to empty it" were known as 'dong fermers'. "They were very well  
paid," said the archaeologist – who, funnily enough, was "paid to  
empty it" hundreds of years later.

Not on the map

These "bits and bobs from the abbot's toilet", which will eventually  
be restored and displayed in Rothe House, also include an iron knife  
that was likely a pruning knife for cutting apples, etc, and a tusk  
from a wild boar. "The Normans (from 1169 until the 16th century) were  
great hunters and they liked hunting wild Irish boar," Mr Ó Drisceoil  
explained. "The wild boar were hunted to extinction, actually."

Interesting as such details can be to an outsider, these utterly  
unexpected finds are fascinating to those who have studied Rothe House  
for years. "We have known very, very little about this phase in the  
history of the site," Mr Ó Drisceoil said.

"When the Rothes came along in the 16th century, they tore down the  
abbot's townhouse and built their big mansion in its place. So  
anything that relates to the building before the Rothes is going to be  
buried deep into the ground."

"The whole thing was filled in with the dissolution of the monasteries  
by Henry VIII as he confiscated monastic properties," he added.  
"Because this place was owned by the Cistercians, it was one of the  
confiscated properties. That's how it came into the ownership of the  
Rothe family; they were granted this property for a nominal rent."
The excavation of the site behind the third kitchen, which also served  
as an ale house and bakery, has also revealed clues about the Rothe  
family period in the 16th and 17th centuries. "We know from some of  
the old documents such as John Rothe's will from 1619 that there was a  
building occupying this yard," Mr Ó Drisceoil said. These would have  
been service buildings for the kitchens and possibly chambers for  
visitors.

Discovered during the dig, however, was the base of a stone wall which  
clearly divides the yard into two sections: a private area for the  
Rothes, with access to the garden, and the other area for servants.
"The Rothes would have been very fastidious about keeping themselves  
away from the servants. It was a kind of upstairs/ downstairs  
situation," Mr Ó Drisceoil pointed out.

Making the finds even more intriguing, he said, is that "it's  
something that wouldn't appear on any maps or documents; it's  
completely new information on the story of this place."

'J.D. 1885'

As if that weren't enough, finds from the 19th century also surfaced  
during the excavation.
"The third phase of the story here is that the whole place fell into  
serious decline in the 19th century. It was condemned, and there were  
pigs running through it," Mr Ó Drisceoil said. "And towards the middle  
of the 19th century, the yard was being used as a foundry by the  
Deloughrys. So, covering all the early archaeology, we found tons of  
waste that had been chucked out of the foundry."

These included a half-made shovel and some knives, "and lots of beer  
bottles". Again, one man's litter, if it's a few hundred years old,  
turns out to be slightly more appreciated.

The same applied to a small 'graffiti', elegantly carved as it is.  
Carved onto one of the wall's stones in the corner about eight feet  
up, is 'J.D. 1885' – the initials of John Deloughry, the man who ran  
the foundry. (Incidentally, the Deloughrys also made their way into  
Irish history because it was in their forge that the key that sprung  
Éamon de Valera from prison was made, Mr Ó Drisceoil noted.)

Now that the excavation is over, the archaeologists will analyse the  
artefacts and soil to learn more about the diet and financial status  
of the Cistercians who inhabited the site. "It's kind of hard to get a  
picture of these monks living it up here 500 years ago," Mr Ó  
Drisceoil mused; but with these finds it's that much more vivid.

http://www.kilkennypeople.ie/news/What-the-abbot-ate-for.6076149.jp?articlepage=1

http://living.oneindia.in/cosmopolitan/cosmo-life/2010/cristercian-monks-medival-170210.html