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.


Sunday 12 February 2023

A medieval York Anchoress and her parish church


Research into a skeleton found in 2007 in the excavation of the site of the lost church of All Saints Fishergate in York has yielded a tentative identification of it as that of the fifteenth century anchoress Lady Isabel German. Her bones indicate she suffered poor health in her last years, but the researchers suggest life as an anchoress may have been a means of maintaining her independence.

This is reported by the BBC News website and the photograph of the foundations of the church suggest it was small and presumably, from its retaining an apse, was a Norman structure that was not substantially altered over succeeding centuries. The church itself was a casualty of the rationalisation of the city parishes early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I which halved the number in the city to twenty six.

The report about the study can be read at Skeleton reveals lifestyle of medieval woman


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