This book is described as ‘a highly detailed analysis of the processes and strategies involved in the grain provisioning of an important East Anglian religious fraternity between the mid-thirteenth century and the eve of dissolution’. The numbers of consumers involved was not large. They varied from sixty brethren to thirty-eight in the fifteenth century to only twenty-two in 1536. As in all important religious establishments, however, this was swollen to more than 200 by various servants and other employees. They ate (or, as will be seen, over-ate) grain for about 70 per cent of the total calories they required. In addition they consumed meat and fish but no fruit or vegetables, a diet which was probably less nutritious than the peasant menu based mainly on pottage. Furthermore, the brethren kept about twenty horses which ate oats and bran. The book explains how they did all this.

Their three main channels of grain supply were the manors and demesne granges, the tithes of appropriated churches and the markets (both inside and outside Norwich). Norfolk, we are told, was one of the most commercialised areas of medieval England with no fewer than 283 markets and fairs. Norwich relied chiefly on manorial-produced supplies but the proportion of market-produced grain increased as the fifteenth century wore on. Much of this traffic took place not in the formal market but at the priory gate. There is little evidence for the unethical hoarding of grain to release it at inflated prices during the hungry months before the harvest.

Slavin's argument is solidly buttressed by no fewer than eighteen figures and forty-five tables. An example is figure 2.3, showing market and demesne sources of grain compared with real wages and grain prices. There are maps which are more meagre and lack scales. A more significant weakness is the lack of use of any archaeological evidence. There is much here about the building, maintaining and storage of foodstuffs but nothing about the physical remains of the buildings themselves.

The author has done a great service in detailing the processes of grain production. We meet, for instance, the carters whose business it was to bring the grain to the city. The priory also depended on water supply and in 1320–1 built ‘the greatest boat’, which was stationed on the River Yare to carry bulk cargoes such as grain and building materials. The demesne barns each stored a different crop, such as wheat, rye and maslin, and barley. These stored grains needed to be stirred and ventilated every two or three weeks, something that peasants owing labour services would have done.

A considerable part of the book is devoted to the methods used in turning the grain into bread and ale. The bakery and brewhouse on the premises were controlled by three obedientiaries, namely the master of the cellar, the cellarer and the sacrist. The bakery produced three different types of bread: the so-called ‘knights’ bread’ and ‘monks’ bread’, and a lightweight bread for famuli (servants). About 29,000 loaves were produced annually.

When we turn to consumption, each monk was given enough for 2,600 kcal but it is unlikely that he would have consumed it all; probably half was given away to servants and paupers. In addition to the considerable amount distributed to the needy by the almoner, special arrangements were made to feed the local anchorites and hermits as well as the prisoners in the city's gaols, who otherwise would have starved.

Ale was made principally of barley. It is odd that hops are not mentioned despite their introduction into the area (Brears Reference Brears2008, 104). Two kinds of ale were made, the so-called cervisia bona (monastic ale of a superior quality) and cervisia aule/seconda. The good stuff went to the monks, aristocratic guests and master masons, the secondary to workers of inferior status. Both were made of barley malt. A gallon a day was the gargantuan allowance but it was probably not all consumed and anyway is likely to have been considerably weaker than modern beer, with an alcoholic strength of about 2 per cent. As regards the charge of overeating, it has to be said that the brethren had fasting periods – they were forbidden to eat meat during Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, and during ‘long Lent’, seven weeks before Easter. They were also required to ‘fast’ three days a week (ie, to live on fish and cereals).

The result, nevertheless, of the consumption of such excessive amounts by men leading passive and contemplative lives was to cause obesity and lethal symptoms associated with adiposity. This would have led to a high mortality rate as noted by Barbara Harvey in her study of Westminster Abbey (Harvey Reference Harvey1993).

Slavin has, by meticulous study of the documentary sources, shown that they can be made to yield an impressive stock of statistics on which to base a credible account of the provisioning of a major religious institution in the late Middle Ages.