Refectory of the Convention

The second of the most representative interiors of the second floor of the main conventual house. The elongated hall of the refectory, i.e. the dining room, is covered with a simple rib vault supported by seven slender pillars. The original vault was lost during the Prussian reconstruction into a military warehouse, it is now the work of a reconstruction carried out at the end of the 19th century by Konrad Steinbrecht. Each of the shafts of the pillars is made of a different type of granite, imported from Silesian quarries. As in the convent’s room, the refectory has a fireplace with a frieze on which scenes from knights’ fights are carved.

In the first phase of construction of the High Castle, when there was no east wing yet, there were utility warehouses here. Their transfer to the newly built wing on the eastern side created a place in the southern wing, used for a larger than originally planned refectory. A complex of two magnificent interiors was created here: the long dining room of the convent, covered with a rib vault, supported on seven pillars, and an after-dinner rest room.

The issues of food in the Middle Ages, like most of the various matters concerning the everyday life of the Teutonic Knights, are known from the provisions in the Rule of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In accordance with the recommendations contained in it, the Malbork convention gathered for a meal twice a day: in the morning for the prandium, i.e. breakfast, and in the evening for the price after vespers, i.e. supper. On Lenten days, which fell almost halfway through the year, the supper was replaced with a Lenten snack. The daily meal consisted of two dishes, while the fasting meal consisted of only one.