MEAT, MILK, AND WOOL
Like goats, sheep were valued both for their meat and
as milk-producing animals. These values, plus that of their
skin for the making of parchment and their wool for blankets
and winter clothing, made them one of the most useful
species of animals to the monastic economy. As was true of
the other animals, the amount of cheese that could be
obtained from the monastery's own flocks was augmented
by deliveries from outlying pastures and possessions. The
monastery of Corbie maintained ten flocks of sheep, which
supplied the monastery with cheese in the summer, and
Adalhard of Corbie in his Administrative Directives sets
out in great detail the manner in which the sheep, as well
as all of the monastery's other livestock, should be tithed.[653]
A fully grown sheep requires a floor area of 4 to 6 feet
square.[654]
The floor space available in the aisle and under the
lean-to's of the House for Sheep would have accommodated
a flock of seventy to one hundred sheep.
In Biblical times, wealth was equated with large flocks.
Images of sheep, shepherds, and flocks recur throughout
the joys and laments of the Psalms. Their symbolic values
of spiritual wealth were carried forward into monastic
recitations of these songs (see caption, fig. 261, I, 346) and
into the canon of illustrations deemed appropriate for
books such as the Utrecht Psalter.
