Hospitality in a Cistercian Abbey: the Case of Kirkstall in the Later Middle Ages

HOSPITALITY IN A CISTERCIAN ABBEY: THE CASE OF KIRKSTALL IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES RICHARD JAMES ANDREW THOMASON TWO VOLUMES VOLUME ONE Submitted in Accordance with the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute for Medieval Studies University of Leeds September 2015 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own work and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2015 The University of Leeds and Richard James Andrew Thomason ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have helped me research and write this thesis, personally and professionally. I thank the library staff of Boston Spa (British Library), the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, and Canon Clarke of the College of the Resurrection at Mirfield, for their hospitality and diligent aid. I thank the staff of West Yorkshire Archaeological Service for sharing their resources with me. I thank the staff of the Discovery Centre (Leeds Museums and Galleries) for their camaraderie and aid. I thank Rebecca Hirst and Dorian Knight who undertook a challenging internship and archived a great many of Kirkstall’s objects, many of which are analysed in this thesis. I thank Professor David Stocker for his encouragement and insight that he kindly extended to me. I thank my friends, fellow students, and the staff at the University of Leeds, who have broadened my intellectual horizons immeasurably. I want to thank Paul, May, and Meg Waller for the warmth of their friendship, which helped me in some difficult times during the thesis. I want to thank Trevor Russell Smith, with whom I had extended discussions on various aspects of the scholarly craft and its execution. I thank Bill Flynn for his insight into all matters linguistic and liturgical and for taking time to cultivate my Latin to a level approaching passable. I particularly want to thank Brother (and now Doctor) Matthew Beckmann, whose erudition, enthusiasm, kindness and endurance are limitless, and set an example for us all — his personal friendship has helped me in every aspect of my intellectual and personal growth. I thank Dr Stuart Wrathmell of West Yorkshire Joint Services and Dr Holly Duncan of Albion Archaeology for their unstinting encouragement and liberality with their research, which they shared with me at an early stage: their thoughts and expertise have helped my understanding of archaeology no end. I thank my parents and family for their support, material and emotional, during my doctoral studies, and Daisy too. My supervisors obviously ride foremost in my gratitude: Katherine Baxter of Leeds Museums and Galleries, who showed me with her unbounded energy how to enjoy research; and Prof. Emilia Jamroziak, whose formidable learning and resolute dedication to her students, not to mention her saintly patience with a reluctant writer, is a shining example of the scholar I aspire to be. Only one person stands before them, one to whom I am indebted in every imaginable way, and to whom this thesis is dedicated: Charlotte Thomason. ABSTRACT This thesis examines hospitality as provided by Cistercian communities via a case study of Kirkstall Abbey (Leeds, West Yorkshire). It analyses the practices of hospitality as enacted at Kirkstall over a long duration of time, and the place that hospitality had in the life of the community. Hospitality is explored through four concepts: the host, the space(s) of hospitality, the guest, and the welcome. Defining these elements enables the study of how they are represented in a wide variety of archaeological and textual sources. Spiritual writings, documentary evidence, and archaeological evidence are brought together to form a holistic, unified interpretation of Cistercian hospitality in its historical and material contexts. Chapter 1 is a study of Cistercians as hosts, and uses normative and spiritual texts to investigate how Cistercians conceived of hospitality within the framework of their observance. Chapter 2 analyses the spaces of hospitality with special reference to Kirkstall. In order to understand developments at Kirkstall more fully, a survey of Cistercian guest accommodation from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries is presented. Chapter 3 uses Kirkstall’s small finds and documentary sources to examine the social status, personal identities, and gender of guests. Chapter 4 assesses the facilities provided within the guest house and what activities took place there, including provision of food. Ultimately it is argued that hospitality was a fully integrated component of Cistercian observance, which allowed monks to connect with the wider world in a practical way while upholding the tenets of their observance. PREFATORY STATEMENT This thesis was researched and written in parallel to, but separate from, the writing and production of an archaeological survey of Kirkstall Abbey’s guesthouse (hereafter referred to as ‘archaeological survey’). This statement is intended to clarify the relationship between the archaeological survey and the doctoral research. This archaeological survey remains in production and will not be published until late 2016 at the earliest.1 It is being edited by Stuart Wrathmell (formerly of West Yorkshire Joint Services) and is intended to complete the re-assessment of Kirkstall’s archaeology, the first stage of which was carried out in 1987.2 As part of the archaeological survey, several specialist reports were commissioned, the coverage of which included the structural remains, small finds, animal bones, industrial waste, glass, and pottery. The intention behind the archaeological survey was to make the guesthouse assemblage more accessible to the scholarly community by publishing data which had been residing in archives for nearly twenty-five years. The production of the archaeological survey was in part prompted by the present doctoral research project, but there was no institutional association between the doctoral candidate and contributors to the archaeological survey. The candidate received no supervision during the period of research from any specialists associated with the archaeological survey. The doctoral candidate has, however, been fortunate to receive the goodwill of a number of the archaeologists involved, who have discussed their findings with the candidate. The candidate is especially grateful to Stuart Wrathmell, who provided technical drawings and advance drafts of the written specialist reports, the relationship of which to the present work is discussed below. The doctoral research project was conceived and initiated without knowledge of the planned archaeological survey. Outputs associated with the archaeological survey were made available in stages from late 2012 through to early 2016, with the end date for the present doctoral programme being 30 September 2015. The schedule of the archaeological survey and the periods in which the subject matter of the chapters of this thesis was researched were not synchronised, and reports were often available to the candidate only after the candidate’s 1 The provisional bibliographical reference is Stuart Wrathmell, Kirkstall Abbey, Vol. 2, (forthcoming). 2 Stephen Moorhouse and Stuart Wrathmell, Kirkstall Abbey, Vol. 1: The 1950–64 Excavations – A Reassessment (Wakefield: West Yorkshire Archaeological Service, 1987). own research had been carried out and the relevant chapter sections written. Stuart Wrathmell’s reports on the structural remains of the guest house were made available to the doctoral candidate in mid-2013, and provide the basis for discussion in chapter 2.7. A full draft of the report of the structural developments of the guesthouse, comprising chapters 1 to 3 of the archaeological survey, was made available to the candidate in November 2014, with chapter 2.7 of the present thesis being written after in 2015. The candidate has employed the chronology determined by Wrathmell in chapter 2.7. Discussion of the social significance of structural changes to Kirkstall’s guesthouse, and all comparison made between Kirkstall and other Cistercian abbeys, is the work of the candidate alone. References made to Wrathmell’s survey relate to physical description of features, interpretation of features, and dating, insights which in many cases were informed by Wrathmell’s supervision of the excavations of the site. The small finds report, produced by Holly Duncan, was made available in two stages, and aided research conducted for chapters 3.1 (dress accessories), 4.1 (domestic furnishings), and 4.3 (objects relating to activities). The first stage of the small finds report consisted of a digitised catalogue of all small finds, which included the small find number, physical description, measurements, probable date, and in some cases limited comment on comparisons or parallels with other objects from within the Kirkstall guesthouse assemblage or other sites in Britain. The digital catalogue was used to aid the digital archiving of objects now contained in the Discovery Centre archives on Carlisle Road, Leeds on the Leeds Museums and Galleries database. The small finds discussed in this thesis have been examined first- hand by the candidate, and any parallels confirmed through reference to secondary literature. The second stage of the small finds report consisted of a prose summary of the small finds organised by functional category, which highlighted the basic function

Load more