Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday 4 August 2021

A possible tourney casualty from Hereford


I came across a link to an article on Live Science from six years ago about a skeleton of what appeared to be a knight of perhaps the twelfth century which had been found in the burial ground around Hereford Cathedral. 

The discovery came as part of a major landscaping project of the open space adjoining the cathedral which involved thr recovery of numerous burials from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. 

The one which attracted attention was of a man aged about forty five, whose teeth suggested he had been raised in Normandy - which would imply a date of birth before 1204 - and then moved to Herefordshire. He was notable for having suffered a series of blunt trauma injuries - some broken ribs which had healed, others which were healing when he died. The favoured suggestion to explain this was that he had engaged in tournaments or tourneys - hence the injuries were from blunt, not sharp weapons - and had suffered either direct blows or falls from a horse. The article can be read here.


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