Monastic Vintages: The Economic Role of Wine in Egyptian Monasteries in the Sixth to Eighth Centuries

Monastic communities needed wine for individual consumption, as well as for liturgical purposes and payments in kind. Next to grain, wine was the most common commodity transported from different villages to monasteries, as we learn from invoices from Bawit, Wadi Sarga and Edfu. It is therefore widely assumed that monasteries, especially the more affluent ones, owned vineyards. Following a brief overview of the purposes wine served in monasteries, the paper presents and reassesses the evidence for monastic vineyard ownership and considers other options available to monks seeking to procure wine for their needs.