Photo by Zoe Richardson on Unsplash

Next in the series introducing characters from Breaking the Silence, which is OUT NOW, I’m going to tell you about one of my favorites, Brother Ingulf the cellarer. Alas, I don’t have an illustration of Brother Ingulf to share, but consider cheese his avatar. This monk loves cheese. He makes cheese, he eats cheese, and he shares cheese with Stephen on their first meeting. In a monastery where monks eat an austere diet of mostly grain with the occasional vegetable when in season, cheese is a luxury, and Stephen gets to know Brother Ingulf as a mentor and eventually a friend, he associates this man and the safe space of his cellar with cheese.

Cheese? In a Medieval Monastery?

When I was in grad school, a friend of mine who is a historian of Carolingian Francia (the setting of the Music of the Spheres trilogy) wrote a paper on how much cheese Carolingian monks ate. Sadly, I don’t think he ever published the paper into an article, but an abstract for a talk he gave on the subject states, “the monks [of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a large and prosperous Parisian abbey] ordered more than 8,000 pounds of cheese, an astonishing request given the constraints of energy and labor in a preindustrial, organic economy.” I always thought it was hilarious that the monks wanted so much cheese, so when I needed to decide on a snack for Brother Ingulf to feed Stephen and his friends, it just had to be cheese.

An Interview with Brother Ingulf

Want to get to know him more? Here’s an interview with Brother Ingulf from the beginning of the novel when Stephen first arrives at St. Maximinus.

Question: What are some bad habits that you’ve either overcome, or are hoping to overcome? How did you, or will you, achieve this?

Brother Ingulf: Eating. It’s always been eating. If I’m being honest, it’s one of the reasons the office of cellarer was attractive to me when I joined the monastery. I’m in charge of the larders, so as long as I manage our supply well (and I am a particularly gifted manager, if I do say so myself), there’s no harm in my dipping into the pantry every now and again. I just have to make sure I don’t go overboard.

Q: What do other people compliment you on the most?

BI: The feasts. Whenever dignitaries are in town for a holiday, it is my responsibility to stock the shelves with the most delicious and exotic foods for them to enjoy. And of course the monks eat well on holidays, and they appreciate our feasts all the more since they’re used to so austere a diet.

Q: Who or what do you fear losing more than anything else? Why?

BI: My teeth. I know it sounds silly, but there was a man in the estate where I grew up and I remember seeing him as a boy trying to gnaw on a crust of bread. I’m deathly afraid of the toothache. I’ve seen people die of it as well, but I’d sooner die of toothache than live out my years without any teeth.

Q: What about yourself are you most proud of?

BI: I’m really proud of the care and attention to detail I put in to managing this monastery. St. Maximinus is not small, and the job isn’t easy, but I work hard to make sure everything runs smoothly and everyone has enough to eat. I think I do well, and it shows.

Q: What is your biggest fear or anxiety point about your future?

BI: I’m an old man, relatively speaking. I do not fear for my future, for I am a man of God and believe that one day I will enter his kingdom.

Q: Tell us about the main comfort food that you seek when you are doing poorly. How did that food become a source of comfort?

BI: It’s cheese. It’s always been cheese. Well, not always. I didn’t have cheese much growing up since we always went through our milk too fast before we could get any of it to age, but when I entered my first monastery as a novice monk and tried a six month aged goat’s milk cheese, there was no going back. Now I make sure St. Maximinus has more than enough cheese, plus a little extra.

Enjoyed what you read?

Catch up on interviews with the main character Stephen and Mother Adele, abbess of St. Maximinus, and read all about their adventures in Breaking the Silence, now also available as an ebook.