Fat Monks

[poliphilo]

According to Pip Patrick (article in Current Archaeology 198) the stereotype of the fat, jolly monk has some basis in fact.

Pip did a study of skeletons from a number of medieval cemetries in London and found that monks "were five times as likely to develop some form of obesity-related joint disease as their secular counterparts."

Nice to find science (for once) confirming rather that debunking myth.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

If you were a monk back in the day, I just don't see you as either fat or jolly, somehow!

You probably took your fasts and prayers seriously.

I bet all those jolly jiggly monks were jealous.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose I was ever fat and jolly in any past existence.

But who knows?

How much of our personality do we carry from life to life? Or are we perhaps completely remade each time?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Can one carry a monastic bent in one's genetic code? Being fat and jolly--yes, certainly. And being a shaman of a sort--perhaps.

I, too, am drawn to churches.

In fact, I'm leaving for one now...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm drawn to churches- but these days only as repositories of the past. I dropped into St Michael's Ashton-under-Lyne last week to look at the fabulous medieval glass.