Social status in late medieval and early modern Brittany: insights from stable isotope analysis

Abstract

We document for the first time the diet of a privileged French population from Brittany, a region that was the center of battles between the Kingdoms of England and France until the end of the fifteenth century. We present here the results of stable isotope analyses of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur of human and animal bone and tooth collagen for a late medieval to early modern Breton population. The isotopic values observed for the Dominican convent of Rennes, Brittany, are very similar to those reported for medieval archaeological populations in Great Britain, namely they have enriched δ 15 N values combined with almost entirely terrestrial carbon signals. We discuss the consumption of young animals in a diet made up of terrestrial, marine, and freshwater resources. We report dietary differences between socioeconomic groups and gender, with women and nobles (male and female) showing patterns consistent with high animal product consumption and lower mobility. The S isotope ratios of both humans and fauna are very homogeneous and generally have coastal δ 34 S values. The convent is known to have been an interregional pilgrimage site during the early modern period, but the isotope values indicate that the identified migrants were not pilgrims. Stable isotope analysis therefore complements the available historical information on human diets and mobility.

Eating in silence: isotopic approaches to nuns’ diet at the convent of Santa Catalina de Siena (Belmonte, Spain) from the sixteenth to the twentieth century

“…As mentioned previously, in Belmonte, we observed a possible increase in animal protein intake between POB MON 1 and POB MON 2. Something similar was observed in the Dominican monastery of Rennes (Brittany), where earlymodern age monks (n = 6) manifested a diet similar to that of the privileged class, unlike medieval monks (n = 3), whose diet was poorer, and similar to the secular population buried outside the convent (Colleter et al 2017). Even so, the difference in POB MON 2 with respect to POB MON 1 (Δ 15 N = 0.5‰) is much smaller than that presented by the monks of Rennes (Δ 15 N = 1.4‰).…”

The influence of religious identity and socio-economic status on diet over time, an example from medieval France

“…2). They are consistent with published values for freshwater fish in Europe (Dufour et al 1999;Fuller et al 2012;Häberle et al 2016;Colleter et al 2017). The duck's isotopic values fall in the same range and suggest a common habitat (δ 13 C = − 23.6‰, δ 15 N = 7.8‰, Fig.…”

High status diet and health in Medieval Lisbon: a combined isotopic and osteological analysis of the Islamic population from São Jorge Castle, Portugal

“…Although the difference between female and male δ 15 N values is not significant, males have higher δ 15 N mean (12.8‰ ± 1.3) than females (11.3‰ ± 1.7). While the Spanish royal members, both females and males, showed higher δ 15 N values compared to contemporaneous populations; in (Saragoça et al 2016), Tauste, Spain (Guede et al 2017a, b), Can Fonoll, Ibiza, Spain (Pickard et al 2017), El Raval, Spain (Salazar-García et al 2014, Grenoble, France (Herrscher 2003), Wharram Percy, UK (Richards et al 2002), York, UK (Burt 2013), and Raunds, UK (Haydock et al 2013) Lisbon, this status-related difference can be seen in males only, similarly to what was found at Whithorn Cathedral Piory (Müldner et al 2009), Fishergate, York (Müldner and Richards 2007) and Brittany (Colleter et al 2017).…”

“…High status people not only had easier access to a greater quantity of food but also to a wider selection of products. Previous studies on medieval population in Sweden (Bäckström et al 2017;Linderholm et al 2008), UK Richards 2007, Müldner et al 2009), Italy (Reitsema and Vercellotti 2012) and France (Colleter et al 2017) have explored the influence of status on diet, examining the correlation between isotopic values and graves goods or burial type. In these previous examples, more high status individuals consumed marine protein and/or higher trophic level terrestrial protein.…”