Medieval monks live in Cambridge was “permeated with parasites, because of questionable gardening practices, the study suggests.
Although they lived in a well-known Augustinian monastery, where clergy traveled from afar to read the manuscripts, they were of no small importance. problem with intestinal worms.
The Augustinian monks were twice as the probability of infection with worms than cityx general populationaccording to University research of Cambridge.
While their monastery homes had toilets and handwashing facilities, unlike houses of ordinary working peopleresearchers found that the monks were partial to fertilizing garden crops. with own faeces – and buying fertilizer containing human or pig excrement.
Augustinian monastery founded. in 1280s and lasted until 1538, before the fate of of most English monasteries: closed or destroyed as part of Recess of King Henry VIII with Rome.
“Monks of medieval Cambridge seems to have been riddled with with parasites,” the study says. lead by Dr. Piers Mitchell.
“It first time anyone tried to work out how common the parasites were in people following different lifestyles in the same medieval city.
As roundworms and whipworms spread due to poor sanitation, the researchers argue that the difference in infection rate between monks and general population must be due to how each group handed out with their human waste.
“One possibility is that the monks fertilized their gardens with human feces, common in medieval period and this may have led to reinfection with worms,” said Dr. Mitchell.
Despite the increased prevalence of worms buried in the monasteries of medieval England lived longer than those in parish cemeteries, according to previous research, perhaps due to more nutritious diet, luxury of wealth.
