Unraveling a medieval murder case

The Cambridge University Medieval Murder Maps project has been publicised in two online articles about revelations emerging from their research into a murder, a veritable ‘hit job’, in central London in 1337.

This is a case with everything - sex, violence, conspiracy, high society, scandal, brooding vengeance, clerical misbehaviour plus an historic setting - and m, were it not recorded in the Coroner’s Roll, is worthy of a work of historical detective fiction

The story, which moves between London, Wiltshire and Dorset, is an eye-opener to what people called, and could not, get away with in the fourteenth century, and to not a few aspects of that society.

The story was first drawn to my attention by a regular reader who forwarded to me the article from phys.org, which can be accessed at Medieval murder: Records suggest vengeful noblewoman had priest assassinated in 688-year-old cold case

Subsequently I saw a slightly shorter version on Medievalists. net, and that can be viewed at Medieval London Murder Solved: Priest Killed by Noblewoman’s Orders

Tales from the medieval Oxford and London Coroner’s Rolls

I was aware that the medieval Coroners’ Rolls for Oxford had been used by Trevor Aston as part of his study of the medieval University, and the results of his research can be found in Past and Present.

I remember reading it and, by analysing to and by whom violence was proffered, and where and when, it was clear that venturing out alone at night was definitely not advisable, especially if you were a student. I have come across at least one Oxford student, future bishop, Thomas Polton, was to be involved in a fight that resulted in the death of another student. The incident did little harm to his career, which took him to the deanery of York, the sees of Hereford, Chichester and Worcester, and the Councils of Constance, Pavia-Siena and Basle. The article argues that the safest members of the Oxford community were the respectable wives of the town tradesmen, who stayed home of an evening.

However I came upon a new presentation of some of this material in a video from Medieval Madness. This uses examples from the records from round about 1300 which deal with street crime, with domestic violence and with mishaps. In their rather laconic way the rolls reveal many incidental details of daily life as well as specific human tragedies. To anyone who knows Oxford these are all the more interesting as the roadways and some of the actual buildings still survive.

The video - the title suggests a surfeit of clickbait - can be seen at These Mysterious Medieval Murders Will Leave You Scratching Your Head...

The makers of the video have produced a similar one based on the evidence from the same period for London. Due to the way the city has been rebuilt and rede developed over the centuries the instance of given seem likely less immediate but they record an often violent world. Despite the somewhat curious pronunciation of place names by the narrating computer the stories are striking. That video can be seen at 5 Pretty Mysterious Medieval London Murders…

Coughs and sneezes spread diseases

There are some very interesting archaeological conclusions from the examination of the skeletons of victims of the Black Death found near Charterhouse in London, where mass burials are known to have taken place during the epidemic. The evidence suggests they died of pneumonic rather than bubonic plague, and that the infection was not therefore spread by rat fleas, but by human interaction. Many of the victims were the undernourished of the city's population. There is a newspaper report on the investigation which can be read here.