Actually, the monks were privileged in the Middle Ages, because monasteries were mostly wealthy. But despite prosperity and better hygienic standards, the monks of some monasteries apparently suffered particularly often from intestinal parasites, as discovered by archaeologists in Cambridge, England. Around 58 percent of the monks buried there around 600 years ago had roundworms, whipworms and other intestinal parasites. In the much poorer village population, on the other hand, it was just under a third.
The Middle Ages were not very healthy times: poor hygiene in the preparation of food, drinking water and latrines meant that many people were infested with intestinal parasites. Above all, worms such as roundworm, whipworm, tapeworm or liver fluke were common in the general population. So far, however, little information has been available on the levels of infection in different population groups, such as common people compared to members of the clergy or nobility.
Comparison of monks and villagers
This is exactly what archaeologists working with Tianyi Wang from the University of Cambridge have now investigated in more detail. They were helped by the fact that cemeteries with dead from the normal, simple population have been preserved from medieval Cambridge, but also the final resting place of the monks of an Augustinian monastery. This monastery was an international center of learning in the Middle Ages, with clergymen from across Britain and continental Europe studying rare manuscripts. The inhabitants of the nearby village of Cambridge, on the other hand, were mostly simple field workers.
For their study, Wang and her team took soil samples from the hips of 46 medieval dead people. Of these, 19 were Augustinian friars from the 13th to 16th centuries, 25 were villagers buried in the cemetery of All Saints Parish Church from the 12th to 14th centuries. The result: the archaeologists found eggs from intestinal parasites in eight villagers, which corresponds to an infection rate of around 32 percent. This is comparable to the results for the medieval general population elsewhere.
Monks more affected
The surprising thing, however, was that the monks living in the monastery were significantly more affected by intestinal parasites: Eleven of the dead had eggs from roundworms, whipworms and other “blackheads” – this corresponds to an infection rate of 58 percent, as Wang and her colleagues report. The monks of medieval Cambridge suffered from intestinal parasites almost twice as often as the simple village population. This is astonishing because most monasteries at that time already had some kind of sewage system and could flush their latrines with running water. The common people, on the other hand, used holes in the ground as latrines. Washing hands was also possible and customary in the monasteries.
But why then were the monks living under more hygienic conditions more affected? “So far we can only speculate, but there are a few possible explanations,” the archaeologists write. “One possibility is that the monks fertilized their monastery’s vegetable garden with excrement from their own latrines – this was not uncommon in the Middle Ages,” explains senior author Piers Mitchell of the University of Cambridge. “This could have spread the parasites.” It is also conceivable that the monastery acquired manure from the village for garden fertilization – and thus brought parasites from pig faeces or human excrement onto its vegetables.
After all, the parasites apparently did little harm to the monks. Because thanks to their more plentiful food and the better, less physically demanding way of life, they still lived on average longer than the average villager.
Source: University of Cambridge; Article: International Journal of Paleopathology, doi: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2022.06.001