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.


Monday 20 September 2021

Mass graves of Crusaders found in Lebanon


The Live Science website has an interesting report on the discovery of two mass graves of Crusaders at a castle near Sidon in Lebanon. The suggestion is that the men were killed in connection with a Mamluk attack in 1253 or one by the Mongols in 1260. If that is the case it is unlikely that the bodies were buried by St Louis as he was in the region previous to those events. 

Nonetheless the information as to the injuries to the bodies makes for a graphic sense of the fighting and their violent end. 

The report, which is more than usually beset by advertising, some of which does not move out of the readers way, can be seen at Mass grave of slaughtered Crusaders discovered in Lebanon


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