Masculinities and diet: An analysis of skeletal material from the dominican priory in Medieval Västerås, Sweden

Abstract

Diet and consumption patterns are closely associated with social constructions, and can be used to express identity. In medieval Northern Europe, the consumption of meat seems to have been linked to strength and virility, which are important to the creation of elite lay masculinity. At the same time, religious masculinity required fasting due to the Christian Church’s prescribed abstinence from the meat of four-footed animals during fasting periods. Medieval masculinities expressed by diet will be discussed here in the light of the results of an analysis of stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur in samples gathered from 16 males and six females buried by the Dominican priory in Västerås, Sweden. The results indicate that a diet rich in freshwater fish was generally followed, with no significant differences depending on age, gender, socioeconomic or religious status.