In the Middle-Ages this frugal and energy-giving product was a common foodstuff, and a commodity of the humble par excellence … even if, as this historical period advanced, it landed on royal tables, thus creating legends which were to make the reputation of numerous cheeses for centuries to come.

St Benedict writing the rules, portrait (1926) – H. Nigg

As a veritable food preserve, it also corresponded to the simple-life ideal advocated by St Benedict, who from the first half of the second millenium established several rules, amongst which :
 In order to be “real monks”, Benedictines must live from the work of their own hands.
 They must not eat meat : milk products and cheese must constitute the bases of their food, as powerful bearers of the values of simplicity and humility.
 Finally, their community must be self-sufficient (economically speaking).

These rules were to be in general followed by Cistercians (from Cîteaux) and also by the Trappists : these orders, as well as a number of others (for example, Dominicans, Franciscans, etc.) became well established in many regions : it has been calculated that around a thousand monasteries existed in medieval France ! In addition between the XIIth and XIVth centuries, there was a vogue for grand pilgrimages across Europe, and the monasteries became veritable centres of activity, stability and technical innovation.

Horseman’s plan of Cîteaux Abbey –taken from the Reasoned Dictionary of French Architecture, XIth to XVIth centuries, E. Viollet-Le-Duc, 1856.

As an intellectual elite (they knew how to read and write), they were a top-class and free work force, aided by a mass of lay brothers, nuns, peasants and salaried craftsmen. But the monasteries also had heavy burdens : maintaining monks and lay people, health care and/or education, helping the poor, welcoming pilgrims, etc. A monastery had to feed everyone. And since donations were never enough, the monastery cultivated plants, raised the animals necessary to provide food, seeking to create surpluses to be sold outside …

Monks were to be behind the creation of a great number of local products, wine heading the list (as being indispensable for mass), beer and … cheeses of course, since they responded particularly well to the needs of the time (product preservation and transport, particularly…) and the prevailing rules. Cheese production and the attentive management of the product gained a definitive place in monastic life.

Cîteaux de l’Abbaye

These productions of monastic origin thus became the present-day “terroir products" ; it would be impossible to cite all the cheeses concerned, but a start could be made with Munster, which comes from the latin monasterium, later giving monastery and then … Munster ! But also Cîteaux (from the Abbey) Maroilles, Tamié, Roquefort, Laguiole and Cantal, Epoisses, Pont-L’Evêque, Coulommiers, Bleu de Gex, Abondance, Port Salut, Echourgnac, Tête de Moine (Monk’s Head), Mont des Cats, Iraty (from the Abbey), Pierre-Qui-Vire, Gérômé, St Nectaire…

The 1789 Revolution accounted for the closing down of a number of abbeys ; for the most part they were sold off as national properties, while others were abandoned and left to be looted, etc.

iraty de l’Abbaye

The monks were forced to withdraw from the properties, and thus it was that farmers took over cheese production from them by generalising stockbreeding and summering the animals on mountain pastures ; a new age came into being, which was to become the golden age of cheese marketing.

Today, while certain communities persevere in cheese manufacture and refining, the majority have stopped farming and have turned to other ways of earning their living. It appears that agriculture cannot be profitable for monasteries because of the high cost of acquiring and maintaining the heavy material involved. In addition, because there are fewer monks and nuns, new revenu sources had to be found which were less labour intensive. Because of this, the majority of cheese producing communities abandoned this activity, sometimes selling their entities to industrial producers (hence the blossoming of mass market cheeses which have nothing to do with monastic life …) and then turning to other activities.

Monks of Cîteaux Abbey (source : www.citeaux-abbaye.com)

Nevertheless, those monks and nuns who today continue to manufacture quality products, benefit from the image of a long manufacturing tradition, and their products are highly valued for this priceless factor : the daily attention dispensed by the worker on these excellent cheeses, albeit in a general context which is broadly industrial and impersonal.

In cheesemaker jargon, the expression “abbey cheese” has become a signifier : it designates a certain type of cheese, generally semi-pressed, slightly washed with a discreet rind …

Ruins of Munster Abbey

Still a little nuance is called for … To attribute all great cheese recipes uniquely to the religious establishments of that age would be bold : let it not be forgotten that they were virtually the only ones to write down their recipes, and knowledge recording was also one of their missions … Justice must be rended to “anonymous”, these were women for the most part, who in fulfilling family needs, and by dint of infinite trial and error experiments, must surely little by little have succeeded in establishing the methods for the manufacture of the original cheeses. In any case there is nothing to confirm that monks were the exclusive “inventors” of cheese recipes, an idea that is too often advanced in the literature glorifying this or that “label of origin”, or which is suggested in publicity campaigns vaunting one or the other cheese creation ; this is mere marketing incantation because it has no connection with monastic life.

Maya Marin, May 2009