Medieval Lent was, to say the least, a lot harder. The season’s origins come from the early catechumenate, which led converts through a multi-day period of intense prayer and fasting before their initiation at the Easter vigil. Eventually, this time extended to forty days, in imitation of Christ’s fasting in the wilderness, and also reached the entire Church, so that all the faithful could renew their baptismal promises at Easter each year. Already, in pre-modern times, it was customary to eat only two meals a day. In Lent, therefore, fasting originally consisted of eating only one meal a day. Even for that meal, there would be no animal products, oil, or wine. The question remained, however, of when that meal should occur.
St. Benedict gives us evidence of the shift from two meals a day to one during half of the year, including Lent, though his Rule was obviously written for monks. Chapter 41 deals with the time of meals:
From holy Easter until Pentecost let the brethren dine at the sixth hour and sup about sunset; but on the Wednesdays and Fridays during the whole summer, from Pentecost, unless the monks have field work, or the excessive heat of the summer tries them, let them fast until the ninth hour; and on the other days let them dine at the sixth hour. . . . From the fourteenth of September until the beginning of Lent let them always dine at the ninth hour; but in Lent until Easter let them dine at an evening hour; but let that evening hour be so ordered that when dining they may not require the light of a lamp, but may be quite finished while daylight still lingers.
During the fall and winter, Benedict directs his monks to fast until the ninth hour, known as none (ninth) in the Divine Office. The monks would pray none at roughly three o’clock in the afternoon (the ninth hour from six o’clock, generally seen as the first hour of the day). During Lent, however, the tradition was to fast until after Vespers, the evening hour. (The similarity of the earlier Christian practice to Ramadan should be clear.)
If none was around three o’clock in the afternoon, where does that leave noon? As Christians, including the monks, found fasting until evening too difficult, the praying of both Vespers and None were moved earlier so that fast would not last as long. Ven. Prosper Guéranger provides the historical details in his great work, The Liturgical Year, explaining the domino effect of monasteries moving up Vespers.
Up to within a short period before this time, it had been the custom not to celebrate Mass, on days of Fasting, until the Office of None had been sung, (which was about three o’clock in the afternoon,) – and, also, not to sing Vespers till sun-set. When the discipline regarding Fasting began to relax, the Church still retained the order of her Offices, which had been handed down from the earliest times. The only change she made, was to anticipate the hour for Vespers; and this entailed the celebrating Mass and None much earlier in the day;- so early, indeed, that, when custom had so prevailed as to authorize the faithful taking their repast at mid-day, all the Offices, even Vespers, were over before that hour. In the 12th century, the custom of breaking one’s fast at the hour of None everywhere prevailed.
Either the one meal of the day was moved earlier, or, if kept in its place, a small snack, called a collation, occurred at noon. This practice created the word noon as we know it, changing the way we speak of time. The word for the ninth hour, none or noon, became the word for the sixth hour, roughly twelve o’clock, and the duration of Christian fasting during Lent shifted from evening to midday. Until recently, Catholics had to fast every day during Lent except Sundays. The rule of fasting until noon lasted for some time, though the less rigorous standards for fasting began with the 1917 Code of Canon Law: one main meal and two smaller ones (collations) not equaling one full meal together (with meat only at the main meal, except for days of abstinence which were Friday and either Saturday or Wednesday depending on the region).
Not only did monks move up none, they also began a traditional practice of supplementing fasting with a drink. Many religious still sought to keep up a strict fast during Lent throughout the day, such as Benedictines faithfully following the Rule and some Franciscans, such as the Friars Minim founded by St. Francis Paola, who ordered a fourth vow of perpetual Lent, including abstinence from animal products all year. Following the maxim that “liquids do not break the fast,” except perhaps wine (early on and continuing in some traditions), beer was seen as a way of having some sustenance during the daytime during Lent. Dom Guéranger explains this practice as well:
As a matter of course, these mitigations of the ancient severity of Fasting soon found their way from the cloister into the world. The custom of taking something to drink, on Fasting Days, out of the time of the repast, was gradually established; and even so early as the 13th century, we have St. Thomas Aquinas discussing the question, whether or no drink is to be considered as a breaking of the precept of Fasting [In iv. Quaest. cxlvii. art, 6]. He answers in the negative; and yet he does not allow that anything solid may be taken with the drink. But when it had become the universal practice, (as it did in the latter part of the 13th century, and still more fixedly during the whole of the 14th,) that the one meal on Fasting Days was taken at mid-day, a mere beverage was found insufficient to give support, and there was added to it bread, herbs, fruits, etc. Such was the practice, both in the world and the cloister. It was, however, clearly understood by all, that these eatables were not to be taken in such quantity as to turn the Collation into a second meal.
In researching my book, The Beer Option: Brewing a Catholic Culture Yesterday & Today, I found no evidence of a beer-only fast by monks or friars (although I’d be happy for contradictory evidence in the comment section from historical sources, though not recent commentary). The most famous Lenten beer, Paulaner’s doppelbock, Salvator, has been at the center of the myth of the beer only fast. It is no coincidence that the religious order dedicated to a perpetual Lenten fast brewed this strong beer. Even if the friars did not sustain themselves only on beer, it surely helped their strict fast! There are some rewards for serious fasting.
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