Why Stonehenge’s bluestones ‘were moved from Wales by glaciers NOT prehistoric people’

14 DEC 2015 BY RACHAEL MISSTEAR

A new report by archaeologists says glaciers and not people were more likely to be responsible for the stones travelling from Wales to their current site

Stonehenge: Were glaciers responsible for transporting the stones?

It is an archaeological enigma which last week a team of experts professed to have resolved: if and how the ‘bluestones’ at Stonehenge were excavated and transported from Pembrokeshire by our prehistoric ancestors.

The team of archaeologists and geologists – led academics from University College, London, said they definitively confirmed two sites in the Preseli Hills – Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin – had been quarried for two types of stone.

It was suggested the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire.

Read more: Source of Stonehenge’s ‘bluestones’ discovered… and they ARE definitely from Wales

But the assertions on how the stones were removed and transported, apparently leaving evidence so-called “engineering features,” have been branded “all wrong” by another team of earth scientists, in a conflicting report published today.

Adam Stanford © Aerial-Cam Ltd.

Archaeologists at work at Carn Goedog, described last week as the main source of Stonehenge’s bluestones

In a peer-reviewed paper published in the Archaeology in Wales journal, Dr Brian John, Dr Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes say there are “no traces of human intervention in any of the features that have made the archaeologists so excited”.

The group does not accept the idea of a Neolithic quarry in the Preseli Hills and says the supposed signs of ‘quarrying’ by humans at Craig Rhos-y-Felin were entirely natural.

They also believe that the archaeologists behind the report may have inadvertently created certain features during five years of “highly selective sediment removal”.

“This site has been described by lead archaeologist Prof Mike Parker Pearson as ‘the Pompeii of prehistoric stone quarries’ and has caused great excitement in archaeological circles,” says the report.

“The selection of this rocky crag near the village of Brynberian for excavation in 2011-2015 was triggered by the discovery by geologists Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer that some of the stone fragments in the soil at Stonehenge were quite precisely matched to an unusual type of foliated rhyolite found in the crag.

“This led the archaeologists to conclude that there must have been a Neolithic quarry here, worked for the specific purpose of cutting out monoliths for the bluestone settings at Stonehenge.”

Carn Goedog

But Dr John is increasingly convinced that the rhyolite debris at Stonehenge comes from glacial erratics which were eroded from the Rhosyfelin rocky crag almost half a million years ago by the overriding Irish Sea Glacier and then transported eastwards by ice towards Salisbury Plain.

In his paper written with Dr Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes, he says: “It is suggested, on the basis of careful examinations of this site, that certain of the “man made features” described have been created by the archaeologists themselves through a process of selective sediment and clast removal.

“An expectation or conviction that ‘engineering features’ would be found has perhaps led to the unconscious fashioning of archaeological artifices.

“While there appears to be no landform, rock mechanics or sedimentary evidence that this was a Neolithic quarry site devoted to the extraction of bluestone orthostats destined for use at Stonehenge, or for any other purpose, we would accept the possibility that there may have been temporary Mesolithic, Neolithic or later camp sites here over a very long period of time, as in many other sheltered and wooded locations in north Pembrokeshire.”

Adam Stanford © Aerial-Cam Ltd.

Commenting on the research paper published last week, Dr Brian John added: “The new geological work at Rhosyfelin and Stonehenge is an interesting piece of ‘rock provenencing’ – but it tells us nothing at all about how monoliths or smaller rock fragments from West Wales found their way to Stonehenge.

“We are sure that the archaeologists have convinced themselves that the glacial transport of erratics was impossible. We are not sure where they got that idea from.

“On the contrary, there is substantial evidence in favour of glacial transport and zero evidence in support of the human transport theory. We accept that there might have been a camp site at Rhosyfelin, used intermittently by hunters over several millennia. But there is no quarry.

“We think the archaeologists have been so keen on telling a good story here that they have ignored or misinterpreted the evidence in front of them.

“That’s very careless. They now need to undertake a complete reassessment of the material they have collected.”

Further excavations of the quarries are planned for 2016.

Here’s How Corsets Deformed The Skeletons Of Victorian Women

by Kristina Killgrove for Forbes; she writes about archaeology, anthropology, and the classical world. FOLLOW ON FORBES  Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The ideal of what a woman’s body should look like has changed dramatically over time and varies by culture. One of the most well-known historical attempts at changing a woman’s body shape — corseting of the waist to make an hourglass figure — left lasting effects on the skeleton, deforming the ribs and misaligning the spine.

But some women lived long and healthy lives, counters anthropologist Rebecca Gibsonof American University, whose latest research on corsets and their effect on the skeleton has been published in NEXUS: The Canadian Student Journal of Anthropology. The view of corseting as having created short and painful lives is anachronistic, she says, as many of these women lived much longer than average for the time.

Corset-wearing was common in the 18th and 19th centuries across Europe and across different socioeconomic classes. “Women wore corsets to shape their bodies away from nature and toward a more ‘civilized’ ideal form,” Gibson explains, and “a woman would wear her corset for almost her entire life.” Very young children were placed in corsets, as advertisements from Paris at the time mention sizing “pour enfants & fillettes.” Even in pregnancy, special corsets were made to fit a woman’s growing belly and, later, her need to nurse her baby. “Side gussets or special snaps over the breasts,” Gibson says, were used to “accommodate their changing form while still allowing them to follow the fashion of the time.”

While scholars still debate the extent to which patriarchal control over women’s bodies and women’s own clothing choices affected corseting practices, it is clear that long-term use of these garments caused changes in women’s skeletons. By looking at the variation in corsets and their physical effects on the spine, and correlating those observations with age-at-death, Gibson is rethinking the modern assumption that corsets were like painful torture devices.

To investigate skeletal changes from corseting, Gibson studied remains dating to 1700-1900 AD held at the Musée de l’Homme at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and at the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology at the Museum of London. She measured the width of their rib cages, the angle at which the ribs meet the spine, and the angle of deviation of the spinous processes of the vertebrae.

Of the seven mounted skeletons that Gibson examined from the Musée de l’Homme, every single one of them had deformed ribs pushed into an ‘S’ shape and vertebral spines misaligned from vertical, both of which are “consistent with long-term pressure on growing ribs and vertebrae and inconsistent with other types of documented damage such as rickets,” she notes. Three additional sets of skeletal remains from the Museum of London had the exact same pattern of ribcage deformity.

Using more than a dozen historical corsets on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Gibson found that the average adult woman’s waist size was 56 cm — or 22 inches — in circumference. Compared to a 2001 study of modern British women’s bodies, this is more than 10 inches smaller than today!

Interestingly, the women in these historic skeletal collections “lived comparatively long lives while undergoing this skeletal transformation,” Gibson says. Life expectancy at birth in France and England at this time was between 25-50 years, and age at death was between about 50-60 years old for women, but “the women analyzed here either reached or exceeded their life expectancy at birth,” Gibson notes, “and a few may have exceeded the average age at death.”

While Gibson is not speaking to the quality of life of these women whose skeletons show long-term evidence of corseting, her results, she says, “confound the very popular notion that corseting was inherently overtly harmful, as well as the longstanding medical belief that corseting was responsible for early death.”

Further anthropological and historical work assessing the practice of corseting, Gibson concludes, is needed in order to “piece together what it meant to live in and be changed by a corset, something women did on a daily basis and which impacted every part of their lives.”

—

Kristina Killgrove is a bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida. For more osteology news, follow her on Twitter (@DrKillgrove) or like her Facebook page Powered by Osteons.

TOP 10 TOILETS THROUGH TIME

Posted By: Lauren Childerhouse

It’s not glamorous, but everybody needs to do it. From Romans gossiping on the loo to medieval royal bottom-wiping, to the invention of our modern flushing toilet, here are 2,000 years of toilet history!

1. Housesteads Roman Fort, Hadrian’s Wall: All together now…

The best preserved Roman loos in Britain are at Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall. At its height, the fort was garrisoned by 800 men, who would use the loo block you can still see today. There weren’t any cubicles, so men sat side by side, free to gossip on the events of the day. They didn’t have loo roll either, so many used a sponge on a stick, washed and shared by many people – lovely!

Visit Housesteads Roman Fort

 

2. Old Sarum, Wiltshire: Luxury facilities, until you have to clean them…

These deep cesspits sat beneath the Norman castle at Old Sarum, probably underneath rooms reached from the main range, like private bathrooms. In the medieval period luxury castles were built with indoor toilets known as ‘garderobes’, and the waste dropped into a pit below. It was the job of the ‘Gongfarmer’ to remove it – one of the smelliest jobs in history? At Old Sarum the Gongfarmer was dangled from a rope tied around his waist, while he emptied the two 5m pits.

Visit Old Sarum

 

3. Dover Castle, Kent: The royal wee

Henry II made sure that Dover Castle was well provided with garderobes. He had his own en-suite facilities off the principal bed-chamber. As with many castles of the era, chutes beneath the garderobes were built so that the waste fell into a pit which could be emptied from outside the building.

Medieval nobility would likely have a ‘groom of the stool’ – an important servant within the household responsible for making the experience comfortable for his employer, and bottom wiping!

Visit Dover Castle

 

4. Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire: The toilet tower

At Goodrich Castle there’s a whole tower dedicated to doing your business. The garderobe tower was built in the later Middle Ages to replace a small single latrine, and the survival of such as large example is extremely rare in England in Wales. The loos could be accessed from the courtyard from one of three doors, leading to the ‘cubicles’. There might have been more than one seat in each chamber.

Visit Goodrich Castle

 

5. Orford Castle, Suffolk: A Norman urinal

Garderobes are quite common in medieval castles, but urinals are a little more unusual. Henry II’s Orford Castlewas built as a show of royal power, and to guard the busy port of Orford. The constable – a senior royal official in charge of the castle – had his own private room, which has a urinal built into the thick castle wall.

Visit Orford Castle

 

6. Muchelney Abbey, Somerset: Thatched loo for monks

Many medieval abbey ruins across the country include the remains of the latrines, or ‘reredorter’ (meaning literally ‘at the back of the dormitory’), including Muchelney Abbey, Castle Acre Priory and Battle Abbey. At Muchelney the building survives with a thatched roof, making it the only one of its kind in Britain. The monks would enter the loo block via their dormitory and take their place in a cubicle – you can still see the fixings for the bench and partitions between each seat.

Visit Muchelney Abbey

 

7. Jewel Tower, London: The Privy Palace

A precious survival from the medieval Palace of Westminster, Jewel Tower was part of the ‘Privy Palace’, the residence of the medieval kings and their families from 11th to 16th century. It was well supplied with garderobes, with one on each of the three floors. As the tower housed the royal treasure, while sitting on the loo you might have enjoyed the richest view in the kingdom!

Visit Jewel Tower

 

8. Old Wardour Castle, Wiltshire: ‘A new discourse of a stale subject’

The forerunner to our modern flushing toilet was invented at Old Wardour Castle. The inventor Sir John Harington met with five others at the castle to discuss his idea for the first time in 1592. Sir John might have been influenced by the plumbing situation at Old Wardour – in the 14th century the castle was built with luxurious ‘en-suites’ for many of the important chambers, but by the end of the century it was more likely to just cause a big stink as both shafts and drains frequently blocked up.

Visit Old Wardour Castle

 

9. Audley End House, Essex: Feeling flush

Along with many other technological advancements, Audley End was one of the first country houses in England to have flushing toilets. The first of Joseph Bramah’s new hinged-valve water closets was purchased in 1775, and a further 4 were bought in 1785 at a cost equivalent to the wages of two servants for a whole year! Although none of the Bramah toilets survive, there are two other early loos from the 1870s, one next to the chapel and another in the Coal Gallery.

Visit Audley End

 

10. Brodsworth Hall, South Yorkshire: Thunderboxes

Inside the elegant Victorian country house of Brodsworth Hall almost everything has been left exactly as it was when it was still a family home. So as well as the grand furniture, there’s also everything from the commodes of the 1840s to a modern pink bathroom from the 1960s/70s. A highlight has to be the flush thunderboxes – essentially mahogany boxes with a hole, and a brass handle for flushing – part of the original sanitary arrangements in the 1860s.

Visit Brodsworth Hall

 

Uncover More Stories

If you fancy flushing out more toilet tales at historic sites around the country, choose from hundreds of castles, abbeys and ruins here. Don’t forget that English Heritage membership offers free access to over 400 historic sites, free or reduced price entry to hundreds of events and loads of other benefits.

Suffragettes: 8 places where history happened

The new film, ‘Suffragette’, released last month, puts the unsung women of the early women’s movement in the spotlight. It highlights the work of ordinary working-class women and the sacrifices they made to secure the vote, the lack of which grouped them with the insane and the poorest men in society in terms of voting rights.

By the turn of the 20th century, women’s suffrage societies had been campaigning for the vote for over 50 years. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Emmeline Pankhurst and her followers broke away from the suffrage establishment to form a new organisation committed to pushing for reform through direct action. The group began a programme of civil disobedience, creating a stir wherever possible to grab the public’s attention and gain publicity for the cause.

Here are 8 places that played their part in the suffragette story.

1. Pankhurst Centre, 60-62 Nelson Street, Manchester Grade II

Copyright Stephen Richards.

In October 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, invited a group of working-class women to their home in Manchester where they set up the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). This new organisation with the motto, ‘deeds not words,’ would change the nature of the campaign for votes for women. The building now houses the Pankhurst Centre, which includes a museum of the suffrage movement.

2. Free Trade Hall, Manchester, Grade II*

Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester. From the Historic England Archive. Date of photo: 1957. BB98/11007

Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst, 1908.

The WSPU’s first act of civil disobedience came in October 1905 at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney disrupted a Liberal party meeting and were taken to Strangeways prison after refusing to pay fines. On release, women’s suffrage was an issue of national debate. “Twenty years of peaceful propaganda had not produced such an effect,” wrote WSPU member Hannah Mitchell. A new phase in the fight had begun.

3. Downing Street, London Grade I

10 Downing Street, London. From the Historic England Archive. CC97/00936.

In June 1908, Edith New and Mary Leigh smashed windows in 10 Downing Street in protest against the way fellow demonstrators had been assaulted in Parliament Square earlier in the month. It was the first time the suffragettes had smashed windows in the name of the cause. “It will be a bomb next time,” Leigh was reported to have said when the women were arrested.

 5. Holloway Prison, London

Holloway Prison, London. From the Historic England Archive. BB67/08240.

In July 1909, WSPU member Marion Dunlop Wallace was the first suffragette to go on hunger strike after being sent to Holloway for stamping slogans on the walls at parliament. After this, many imprisoned suffragettes followed her lead and desperate not to create martyrs, the authorities began force-feeding them. Reports of this scandalised the Edwardian public and caused outrage, helping create sympathy for the cause.

6. Houses of Parliament, London Grade I

The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Bridge. From the Historic England Archive. Date of photo: 1950s-70s. AA065975.

The following year, the Houses of Parliament were the backdrop for the most violent scene in the suffragette story. A deputation of 300 peaceful women was sent to the House of Commons on 18th November and on arrival, were assaulted during a 6 hours struggle with police. The day came to be known as Black Friday; sparking a campaign of destruction across the country. Suffragettes smashed windows in government offices and shops, set fire to letter boxes and attacked properties. Hundreds were arrested. Mrs Pankhurst would later declare that: ‘the argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics’.

7. Epsom Downs Racecourse, Surrey

Epsom Downs Racecourse, From the Historic England Archive. Date of photo: 1870-1900 CC97/00176

The most famous incident in the suffragette struggle came in the summer of 1913. On 4 June, Emily Wilding Davison ran in front of the king’s horse at the Derby at Epsom. Davison never regained consciousness and died four days later. The WSPU organised a heroine’s funeral attended by thousands of mourners with ten bands accompanying her coffin from Victoria station to King’s Cross. The nation was transfixed; just as the government was attempting to stop hunger-striking suffragettes from dying in prison through the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act, Davison had provided the suffrage movement with its first martyr.

8. National Gallery, London Grade I

Grand Staircase in the National Gallery. From the Historic England Archive. Date of photo: 1887. BL08173.

In a symbolic act of destruction, in March 1914, Mary Richardson took a meat cleaver to a Velázquez painting in the National Gallery in London. She later explained that she had “tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the government destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history”.

The struggle for suffrage was halted during the First World War but on 6 February 1918, the Government introduced votes for women over 30. All women over the age of 21 were finally given the right to vote in June 1928.

---

Further reading

Read more about the struggle for women’s suffrage

Find out about buildings that celebrate Victorian and Edwardian working women

Read about Eagle House, a refuge for suffragettes between 1909 and 1912, and the suffragette trees.

‘DARK AGES’: WAR

The wars of the Britons against the invading Anglo-Saxons are sparsely recorded, but examples of the latter’s weaponry and armour survive. Viking raids and eventually invasion led to a revolution in ‘English’ defensive strategies, as two warlike cultures began to influence each other.

Fighting men brandishing weapons, depicted on Lindisfarne’s 9th-century ‘Domesday stone’

BRITONS V ANGLO-SAXONS

The few records that survive include British heroic poems, like the Gododdin, which commemorates an otherwise unrecorded ill-fated attack on the Northumbrians at Catraeth (probably Catterick, North Yorkshire) in about 600. These poems describe British cavalry war bands assailing Anglo-Saxons fighting on foot.

Whether British warriors used late Roman-style equipment is unclear. Much more is known about Anglo-Saxon weapons, which were buried with their pagan owners.

Their basic weapons were spears and round shields, often of close-grained wood with central iron bosses. Some early burials also include the single-edged ‘seax’ – slashing-knife – which gave the Saxons their tribal name. Later higher-status graves contain longer swords, straight-bladed and two-edged, and sometimes – like the royal sword of the 620s from Sutton Hoo – of outstanding workmanship.

The few surviving Anglo-Saxon helmets, all costly and elaborate examples, are made of iron, sometimes embellished in bronze.

Pevensey Castle was home to a domestic settlement in the early 5th century, following the withdrawal of Roman troops from Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 491 it was besieged and its population massacred by a Saxon raiding force.

ALLIANCES AND VIKING RAIDS

These helmets date from the 7th and 8th centuries, when rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fought for superiority, in shifting alliances. Thus the pagan Penda of Mercia allied with the Christian Britons of north Wales to overthrow the Christian Edwin of Northumbria in 633.

But when Viking raids developed into full-scale invasions, ill-armed, part-time English militias were no match for Viking warriors equipped with good swords and often mail-shirts and iron helmets. Only by stubborn refusal to admit defeat did King Alfred of Wessex (r.871–99) eventually force the Danish Great Army to leave Wessex for easier plundering grounds.

His victory at Edington, Wiltshire, in 878 proved that the invaders could be beaten. Their success had been partly due to the lack of fortresses in England, and Alfred began to remedy that with the first co-ordinated post-Roman system of civil defence, his fortified burhs.

This Saxon sword of about 800 was discovered during excavations around the Jewel Tower, Westminster. The elaborate detail on the sword’s hilt and blade suggests that it belonged to a warrior chief.

SAXON BURHS

By about 900 no settlement in Wessex and across much of southern England was more than 20 miles from a burh, the defences of which were manned and maintained by militiamen levied from the villages they protected. Most burhs later became commercial centres.

Their design varied widely, often adapting existing man-made or natural defences. At Exeter, Devon, and Portchester, Hampshire, Roman walls were reused; elsewhere, prehistoric hillforts were repaired. Completely new earthwork ramparts were created at Wallingford, Oxfordshire, and Wareham, Dorset. At Lydford, Devon, among the smallest burhs, a ditch was dug across the neck of a steep-sided promontory.

The strategic use of burhs also played a major part in the conquest of Danish-held lands.

In one of the most decisive campaigns of the period, Alfred’s daughter Æthelflæd protected the approaches to Mercia with burhs at Runcorn and Bridgenorth. Meanwhile her brother King Edward the Elder (r.899–924) struck north-eastwards towards the river Humber, guarding strategic waterways with pairs of riverside forts.

These spearheads, dating from about the 9th century, were discovered at Barrow Clump, Wiltshire. Spears were common weapons in Anglo-Saxon warfare; the widespread use of swords and axes was largely introduced by the Vikings, in their repeated raids of England from the 8th century onwards.

ANGLO-SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN

Renewed Norse influence in the 11th century brought English and Scandinavian styles of weapons and equipment closer together. Professional ‘huscarles’, the mail-shirted bodyguards of kings and earls, adopted the Danish battle-axe and the conical helmet also worn by the Normans.

English warriors are shown in the Bayeux Tapestry using this equipment at the Battle of Hastings, forming a traditional defensive ‘shield wall’. The Normans are seen employing a combination of archers and mounted knights. These were, like the castles the Normans built, new instruments of war in England.

• More on Viking raids in ‘Dark Ages’: Power & Politics
• More on metalworking, similar to that found at Sutton Hoo, in ‘Dark Ages’: Arts & Invention
• More on the re-use of Iron Age and Roman forts in ‘Dark Ages’: Architecture

‘DARK AGES’: FOOD & HEALTH

The scarcity of written sources means that for information about what people ate and drank between the 5th and 11th centuries, as well as for evidence of disease and life expectancy, we must rely mostly on archaeology.

Gathering in the harvest, from a calendar of about 1030
© British Library Board/Bridgeman Art Library

HEROIC AND DOMESTIC

Apart from the archaeological evidence, we can also derive information from the heroic poems of the British and the Anglo-Saxons, which portray epic feasting and drinking. The gold-mounted horn drinking vessels found in princely burials at Sutton Hoo (Suffolk) and Taplow (Buckinghamshire) bear them out. Other more prosaic documents like law codes provide some further clues.

What people ate depended greatly on where they lived. Upland people had a very different diet from that of seaside dwellers – who, as at Lindisfarne, Northumberland, might eat beached whales or hunted seals. In remote villages the diet would have been more monotonous than in towns, where commercial networks brought a wider range of produce.

A Saxon spouted jug discovered during excavations at Portchester Castle, Hampshire. The jug would have been used to serve ale, then the most common drink.

STAPLES AND TREATS

Cereals – wheat, barley, oats and rye – and pulses such as beans and peas were staple foodstuffs. Cereals were generally coarse-ground into gritty bread flour. Thus many excavated skeletons have severely worn teeth.

Fruits like apples, plums and berries were eaten in season, together with nuts. So were vegetables – mainly root crops like onions, turnips and carrots. Herbs, including coriander and dill, provided flavouring, with honey used as a sweetener.

Widespread finds of butchered bones show that beef was much the most popular meat, constituting up to 75% of the meat diet on some excavated sites. Pork is likely to have been the meat eaten most commonly by ordinary people. It made up 20% of the meat diet at Saxon Portchester, Hampshire.

MEAT, FISH AND DRINK

Sheep were bred mainly for wool and milk – the latter was also the principal product of goats. Poultry were valued for meat as well as eggs, which were for most people the key source of protein. Wild birds were eaten too.

People living inland also ate seafood. The people of York ate seabirds brought in from the coast, and also caught freshwater fish. Sea fishermen caught porpoises and sturgeon as well as smaller prey. Shellfish like mussels and oysters were collected from the wild but also farmed.

Very weak ale was the everyday drink, consumed in large quantities because water was unsafe. But contrary to popular myth, mead – by from fermented honey-water – was rarely drunk, and then only by the elite.

Imported wine was also largely the preserve of the rich. Mediterranean wine was drunk at princely Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, and Rhineland wine later arrived in southern England in some quantity. Grapes were also grown for domestic wine production.

A group of skeletons from the 11th century, found in a large grave at St Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber. The grave contained five skeletons: two adult males and three adolescents. The cause of death is unknown, but the skeletons were interred in the grave simultaneously, suggesting a family tragedy.
© By kind permission of Warwick Rodwell

MAGIC AND MEDICINE

Skeletons from St Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber, and London excavations, show that English and Scandinavian men could be as tall as their 21st-century counterparts. The excavated women were a fraction taller and more strongly built than today.

They needed to be robust: surviving manuscripts of ‘leechdoms’ (cures) and ‘wortcunning’ (herbal lore) provide a varied picture of contemporary healthcare. Some healers claimed to derive their knowledge from mythical Classical figures. Others recommended pagan charms or ‘sympathetic magic’, like the use of the snake-like roots of bistort to cure adder stings.

But it wasn’t all mumbo-jumbo. A cure for styes from a 9th-century medical treatise, featuring onion, garlic, bull’s gall, wine and copper salts, contained effective antibiotic and anti-bacterial properties. And an 11th-century skull from Wharram Percy Deserted Medieval Village in North Yorkshire showed that a heavy blow to the head had been treated by cutting away part of the bone to relieve pressure on the brain. The patient lived for several years afterwards.

• More on trading foodstuffs in ‘Dark Ages’: Commerce
• More on the conditions in which people would have eaten in ‘Dark Ages’: Daily Life

THE MYSTERIOUS ABSENCE OF STABLES AT ROMAN CAVALRY FORTS

How recent archaeological excavations on Hadrian’s Wall have revealed why it has always been so difficult to discover where Roman soldiers kept their horses.

A relief depicting a Roman cavalry soldier
© The Art Archive/Alamy

TYNESIDE FINDS

Many barracks have been found in Roman cavalry forts, such as Chesters on Hadrian’s Wall, but few stables – and visitors often ask where the horses were kept. Until recently it was believed that there must have been separate stables, but these have only rarely been found. Now, thanks to recent excavations, we can understand why.

In 1998–2000 the first complete modern excavations of cavalry barracks on Hadrian’s Wall took place at Wallsend and South Shields. At both sites, each of the contubernia – the pairs of rooms into which barrack blocks were divided – contained a centrally placed, elongated pit in its front room. Corresponding with each front-room pit was a hearth in the rear room.

This arrangement was immediately recognised as exactly resembling that found in some Roman fort buildings on the Continent, where preserved hay and fodder showed that horses had been stabled in the front room. The pits, covered with boards or stone slabs, collected horse urine and kept the floor dry.

The remains of the barracks at Chesters Roman Fort

COMMUNAL LIVING

Such buildings had until then only ever been revealed fragmentarily and had been interpreted as stables. But the buildings at Wallsend and South Shields were – as their plans confirmed when revealed in their entirety – clearly barracks of conventional type, complete with end-buildings for officers.

They demonstrate conclusively that horses were accommodated in the same buildings as their riders, with the animals in the front rooms and their riders in the rooms behind. This, of course, meant that the horses would have been available for instant deployment – a military advantage that would be completely lost if the cavalry mounts were stabled or corralled elsewhere.

Reconstruction of the ‘stable-barracks’ at Chesters Roman Fort
© English Heritage (drawing by John Ronayne)

PERFECT FIT

The discoveries at Wallsend and South Shields made sense in another way too. Each front room – a square of at least 3.6 metres across, or 12 Roman feet – would have been able to accommodate three horses, close to their riders. In each rear room, therefore, slept three troopers.

A textbook cavalry barrack with ten contubernia would thus have neatly housed the 30 or so men and horses that are known to have made up the cavalry equivalent of a century – a ‘troop’ or turma.

MYTH BUSTER

A German archaeologist, Sebastian Sommer, had already predicted in 1995 that one day such combined stables and barracks would be shown to be the standard form of accommodation for Roman cavalry. His view was vindicated by the Wallsend and South Shields excavations. At a stroke, they resolved two mysteries: where the horses were kept, and why it had been so hard to identify separate stabling in Roman forts.

The elusive separate stables were, in fact, a myth, and since 2000 ‘stable-barrack’ features have been recognised by geophysical survey or excavation at many other forts in the Roman Empire.

NATURAL BOND

Many people find it difficult to believe that Roman cavalrymen and their horses would have lived in such close proximity.

But this archaeological discovery shows that we should overcome our modern preconceptions, and remember that these soldiers were the descendants of the barbarian horsemen from whom the Roman auxiliary cavalry had originally been raised.

There was a natural bond between these mounted warriors and their steeds. The trooper and his mount rode together and lived together in a tight-knit community, realising that, as the ancient writer Xenophon advised, ‘It is plain that in danger the master entrusts his life to his horse.’

 

By Nick Hodgson

The Tudor Kitchen

WHAT THE TUDORS ATE & DRANK

Author: Terry Breverton

Did you ever wonder what the Tudors ate and drank? What was Elizabeth I’s first meal after the defeat of the Spanish Armada? Which pies did Henry VIII gorge on to go from a 32 to a 54-inch waist? The Tudor Kitchen provides a new history of the Tudor kitchen, and over 500 sumptuous – and more everyday – recipes enjoyed by rich and poor, all taken from authentic contemporary sources.

The kitchens of the Tudor palaces were equipped to feed a small army of courtiers, visiting dignitaries and various hangers-on of the aristocracy. Tudor court food purchases in just one year were no fewer than 8,200 sheep, 2,330 deer and 53 wild boar, plus countless birds such as swan (and cygnet), peacock, heron, capon, teal, gull and shoveler. Tudor feasting was legendary; Henry VIII even managed to impress the French at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 with a twelve-foot marble and gold leaf fountain dispensing claret and white wine into silver cups, free for all!

See more at: https://www.amberley-books.com/the-tudor-kitchen.html#sthash.3vXr3MBQ.dpuf

Recipes from the Tudor kitchen

From ‘stew of the flesh’ to ‘baked orenges’; ‘malaches of pork’ to a ‘dysschefull of snowe’, Tudor cooks certainly had a weird and wonderful selection of recipes at their fingertips…

Monday 23rd November 2015

BBC History Magazine

A Tudor-period woodcut of a cook in a kitchen. © The Tudor Kitchen

If you would like to try and reproduce some of the dishes that Henry VIII and Elizabeth I may have banqueted on centuries ago, The Tudor Kitchen: What the Tudors Ate & Drank, by Terry Breverton features around 500 recipes for you to try out at home.

The book also features some of the techniques the Tudors used in farming, and analyses the diet of those who lived in the late 15^th and 16^th centuries.

Here, we explore some of the recipes featured in The Tudor Kitchen…

 

Starters

Salmon Sallet for fish days (Salmon and onion salad with violets) – From Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswifes Jewell (1585, 1594, and 1596 editions)

Colours and presentation were extremely important at the rich man’s table, especially when demonstrating one’s wealth, and therefore power, to guests. Many types of edible flower were used, both for taste and visual appeal. Flowers were also set at table to enhance the presentation of the food. Large and elaborate sculptures and settings of ‘flowers’ were even made of cut vegetables and herbs, if attractive flowers were not in season. This has a resonance today. With a well-presented dish, in attractive settings, we often think mentally that the meal is a small portion, and we eat it more slowly. We then realise that we are full, and consequently tend to eat less in quantity than when a mound of food is heaped on our plates. One can easily make this a main meal, and substitute other edible flowers such as nasturtiums.

‘Salmon cut long waies with slices of onyons upon it layd and upon that to cast Violets, Oyle and Vineger’.

Ingredients: Salmon fillet cut into 4 strips for 4 servings; large mild onion sliced very thin; 1 tbsp lemon juice; 2 tbsp white wine vinegar; 1 tsp sugar; ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil; ¾ cup edible violets; salt and pepper to taste.

Method: Put the vinegar, sugar and lemon juice into a bowl and slowly whisk in the olive oil. Season to taste, then add the sliced onion to the vinaigrette. Remove the onion for later. Lightly coat with some of the vinaigrette, and place under a preheated medium grill. Cook for 3-4 minutes each side, or until firm. Place a mound of the onion in the centre of each dish, with the salmon strip on top. Drizzle the rest of the vinaigrette over the salmon, and scatter violets across the top.

Preparing a feast: birds are being spit-roasted by hand, and pages are preparing to bring out the first courses, while the guests dance in the background. © The Tudor Kitchen

 

Main courses

Roast capon (Spice roast chicken) – From Gervase Markham’s Countrey Contentments, or, The English Hus-wife (1615)

A capon was a castrated cockerel which grew larger than a normal chicken. Free-range, and fed corn these birds had a special flavour, gamier than normal chickens. The recipe would originally have been made with a slowly roasted whole bird, but this recipe uses chicken thighs. Being muscular, they are the tastiest parts of a chicken.

Ingredients: 6 chicken thighs, with skin; 60 g unsalted butter; 40 g good extra virgin olive oil; tsp powdered cinnamon; tsp ground cloves; tsp powdered mace.

Method: Place the butter, olive oil and spices in a small pan and heat to melt the butter. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Baste the chicken thighs with the butter mixture, place in a baking dish and roast for about 35 minutes until the thighs are a rich golden brown. Every five minutes or so take the thighs from the oven and baste with more of the butter mixture. Serve immediately.

 

Salmon Rostyd in sauce (Grilled salmon in wine sauce) – From Gentyll Manly Cokere, MS Pepys 1047 (c1490)

Try to buy non-farmed salmon, e.g. Pacific salmon. Atlantic salmon is becoming scarce, and farmed salmon is often unpleasant. The copious grey slime in the meat of the fish is because it has not properly developed muscle meat in the Atlantic Ocean, and unhealthy farmed salmon almost uniformly have lice and other problems which pass on to non-farmed salmon as they pass the fish farms to breed.

‘Samon rostyd in sause. Cut thy salmon in round pieces and roast it on a grid iron.Take wine and powder of cinnamon and draw them through a strainer. Add thereto onions minced small. Boil it well. Take vinegar or verjuice and powder of ginger and salt. Add thereto. Lay the salmon in dishes and pour the syrup thereon and serve forth’.

Ingredients: 6 salmon steaks; 1 large onion; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; 5 ml ground ginger; 575 ml red wine; 1 tbsp wine vinegar; 5ml salt.

Method: Finely chop the onion, place in a saucepan with the wine and cinnamon, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Place the salmon on a grill and cook for 4-7 minutes each side, dependent upon thickness. When the salmon and onions are cooked, place the salmon on a hot dish. Stir the vinegar, ginger and salt into the onions, and pour over the salmon just before serving.

Tudor bakers at work. © The Tudor Kitchen

 

To fry whitings (Fried whitefish in apple or onion sauce) – From The Booke of Goode Cookry Very Necessary for all Such as Delight Therein(1584 and1591 editions)

‘To fry Whitings. First flay them and wash them clean and scale them, that doon, lap them in floure and fry them in Butter and oyle.  Then to serve them, mince apples or onions and fry them, then put them into a vessel with white wine, vergious, salt, pepper, cloves & mace, and boile them togither on the Coles, and serve it upon the Whitings.’

Ingredients: Either skin and fillet the fish or buy it pre-prepared: 700 g whiting, haddock or other white fish; 100 g butter or 100 ml olive oil; 225 g finely chopped onions or apples; 1.5 ml mace; pinch of ground cloves; 275 ml white wine; 15 ml wine vinegar; 1.5 ml pepper; 5 ml salt; a little flour.

Method: Fry the onions or apples gently in a saucepan, in a little of the oil or butter, until cooked but not browned. Stir in the wine, vinegar, salt, pepper, cinnamon and mace, and cook for a few minutes more. Keep hot, ready for use. Dust the fish with flour, and gently fry in the remaining oil or butter for 5-10 minutes. Serve with the onion or apple sauce.

 

Side dishes

Steamed asparagus spears in orange sauce – From Traditional Elizabethanrecipe, originating in Granada (1599)

Seville oranges are sour, so if using other oranges, add a good dash of lemon juice. ‘Para Hazer Escudilla de Esparragos Silvesteres y Domesticos: Take the most tender part, cause it to boil in hot water until they seem tender, and finish cooking them with good broth of capon or veal: and these want to be served with a little broth. With the wild ones [asparagus] you can put raisins. The cultivated ones can be served with orange juice, sugar, and salt.’

Ingredients: 12 spears of asparagus; juice of 6 Seville oranges; 1 tbsp brown sugar; 1 tbsp butter; pinch of salt.

Method: Snap off the woody base of the asparagus, and steam the spears for about 8 minutes or until tender. Meanwhile heat the orange juice in a saucepan. Add the sugar and a pinch of salt and whisk in the butter. Allow to thicken for a few minutes. Arrange the asparagus on a plate, pour over the orange sauce and serve immediately.

 

Compost (Cold spiced vegetables in wine and honey sauce) – From The Master-Cook of Richard II, The Forme of Cury (c1390)

‘Compost. Take rote of parsel. pasternak of rasenns. Scrape hem waisthe hem clene. take rapes & caboches ypared and icorne. take an erthen panne with clene water & set it on the fire. Cast all þise þerinne. whan þey buth boiled cast þerto peeres & parboile hem wel. Take þise thynges up & lat it kele on a fair cloth, do þerto salt whan it is colde in a vessel take vineger & powdour & safroun & do þerto. & lat alle þise thinges lye þerin al nyzt oþer al day. Take wyne greke and hony clarified togider lumbarde mustard & raisouns corance al hool. & grynde powdour of canel powdour douce. & aneys hole. & fenell seed. Take alle þise thynges & cast togyder in a pot of erthe. and take þerof whan þou wilt & serue forth.’

Ingredients: 3 parsley roots; 3 parsnips; 3 carrots; 10 radishes; 2 turnips; 1 small cabbage; 2 pears; ½ tsp salt; 1 cup vinegar; ¼ tsp pepper; 1 pinch saffron, ground;

1 cup sweet wine or Marsala; ½ cup honey; 1 tbsp mustard; ½ cup currants; 1 tsp cinnamon; 1 tsp powder douce; 1 tsp anise seed; 1 tsp fennel seed.

Method: Peel vegetables and chop into bite-sized pieces. Parboil until just tender, adding sliced pears about halfway through cooking time. Remove from water, drain, place on tray, sprinkle with salt, and allow to cool. Place vegetables in large bowl and add pepper, saffron, and vinegar. Refrigerate for several hours, then put wine and honey into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and then simmer for several minutes, removing any scum that forms on the surface. Allow to cool and add currants and remaining spices. Mix well and pour over vegetables. Serve cold.

The Vaughan family’s Tretower Court dining hall is unaltered from Tudor times. © The Tudor Kitchen

 

Sweet potatoes in rose and orange syrup ­– From Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book (1605)

This work has some of the earliest recipes for sweet potatoes in Britain. Because these were called potatoes in later Tudor and early Stuart recipe books, they are often confused with the newly discovered New World potatoes, which were not being used for cookery at this time. This latter potato was grown widely in Ireland a long time before it became common and popular in the rest of Britain, and John Forster was the first to refer to it as the ‘Irish potato’, to distinguish it from the sweet potato which was far more widely known. From the beginning, it was considered lowly food, only suitable for pigs, peasants, and prisoners.

One who did promote the ‘Irish potato’ in the seventeenth century was John Forster, who published a treatise in 1664 with the snappy title of: England’s Happiness Increased, Or a sure and Easy Remedy Against all Succeeding Dear Years by a Plantation of the Roots called Potatoes: Whereby (with the Addition of Wheat flower) Excellent Good and Wholesome Bread may be Made Every 8 or 9 Months Together, for Half the Charge as Formerly; Also by the Planting of These Roots Ten Thousand Men in England and Wales Who Know Not How to Live, or What to Do to Get a Maintenance for their Families, may on one Acre of Ground make 30 Pounds per Annum. Invented and Published for the Good of the Poorer Sort.

According to Smythe, ambergris was ‘a fragrant drug found floating on sea coasts, greyish, light, easily fusible used as a perfume and cordial and in various essences and tinctures’. Ambergris is a waxy substance found floating at sea, or washed up on beaches, secreted by the Sperm Whale, and still of great value in perfume manufacture. It was often spelt amber grease/greece, signifying its colour and function, and was sometimes mixed with salt. It is omitted below:

‘Boile your roots in faire water until they bee somewhat tender then pill of the skinne, then make your syrupe, weying to every pound of roots a pound of sugar and a quarter of a pint of faire water, & as much of rose water, & the juice of three or fowre oranges, then boile the syrupe, & boile them till they bee throughlie soaked in the syrupe, before you take it from the fire, put in a little musk and amber greece.’

Ingredients: 3½ lbs sweet potatoes; 1 cup sugar; ½ cup water; ¼ cup orange juice; ¼ cup rosewater; 1/8 cup fresh rose petals; ¼ tsp double strength vanilla.

Method: Bake sweet potatoes till tender, then peel and slice. Mix sugar and water over low heat until liquefied, then add orange juice, rosewater and rose petals. Stir until heated, then pour over the sliced sweet potatoes. Garnish with fresh rose flowers if available. If using dried rose petals, add with sugar.

 

Desserts

Egges in moneshyne (Eggs in moonlight) – From The Proper Newe Booke of Cookerye (c1557)

The eggs are cooked by poaching in a syrup of rose water and sugar, so that they look like moons.

Ingredients: 60 ml rose water; 100 ml water; 75 g caster sugar; 4 eggs.

Method: Combine the water, rose water and sugar in a small frying pan. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a simmer then crack in the eggs one by one. Ensure the eggs have enough space so that they cook without touching. Cook until the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny. Transfer the eggs to plates and spoon over some of the syrup. This is even better served on toast for breakfast.

The marriage feast of Sir Henry Unton, the English Elizabethan diplomat, c 1596. © The Tudor Kitchen

 

Tostee (Ginger syrup toasties)  – From The Master-Cook of Richard II, The Forme of Cury (c1390)

These are a little like hot jelly upon toast, with a wonderful flavour. ‘Tostee. Take wyne and hony and found it togyder and skym it clene. and seeþ it long, do þerto powdour of gyngur. peper and salt, tost brede and lay the sew þerto. kerue pecys of gyngur and flour it þerwith and messe it forth.’

Ingredients: ¼ cup red wine; ¼ cup honey; 1 tsp fresh ginger; 1/8 tsp ground ginger; pinch salt; pinch of pepper; 2 slices toast.

Method: Peel the fresh ginger, chop very finely and set aside. Put the wine, honey, ground ginger, salt and pepper into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium heat and simmer until bubbles begin, or until syrup thickens. Spoon over fingers of toast, sprinkle with a little fresh ginger, and serve warm.

 

A dysschefull of snowe (Apple puree in snow) – From A Proper Neue Book of Cokery (c1575)

‘To make dyschefull of Snowe: Take a pottel of swete thycke creame and the whytes of eyghte egges, and beate them altogether wyth a spone, then putte them in youre creame and a saucerful of Rosewater, and a dyshe full of Suger wyth all, then take a stick and make it cleane, and than cutte it in the ende foure squsre, and therwith beate all the aforesayde thynges together, and as ever it ryseth takeit of and put it into a Collaunder, this done take one apple and set it in the myddes of it, and a thick bushe of Rosemary, and set it in the myddes of the platter, then cast your Snowe uppon the Rosemary and fyll your platter therwith. And yf you have wafers cast some in wyth all and thus serve them forthe.’

Ingredients: 150 g peeled and cored cooking apples, chopped; 600 ml double cream; 4 egg whites; 200 g caster sugar; 2 tbsp rosewater; 1 sprig of rosemary; ratafia or amaretti biscuits or wafers.

Method: Combine the apple and rosewater in a pan. Cover tightly, bring to a simmer and cook gently for about 30 minutes, or until the apple is soft. Remove from the heat and purée by beating with a spoon. Set aside to cool. Put the egg whites in a dry bowl, and beat until soft peaks form. Add 4 tbsp of the sugar and fold into the egg whites and then beat until stiff and glossy. Add the cream to a separate bowl, and beat until soft peaks form. Fold in the remaining sugar then beat until stiff, but do not over beat. Fold the apple purée into the beaten cream then fold in the stiff egg whites. Place the mixture on a serving dish, and garnish with the rosemary sprig and wafers or ratafia biscuits.

 

Smartard (Sweet cottage cheese fritters) – From A Noble Boke off Cookry ffor a Prynce Houssolde Holkham (MSS 674 1480)

‘To mak smartard tak wetted cruddes er they bee pressed and put them in a clothe and grinde them well to pured flour and temper hem with eggs and cowe creme and mak ther of a good batere that it be rynynge then tak whit grece in a pan and let it be hete and tak out the batter with a saucer and let it ryn into the grece and draw your hand bakward that it may ryn abrod then fry it welle and whit and somwhat craking and serue it furthe in dishes with sugur ther on.’

Ingredients: 4 eggs; 230 ml oil for frying; 50 g cottage cheese; 4 tsp double cream; brown sugar to taste.

Method: Pass the cottage cheese through a sieve into a bowl to produce a smooth paste. Add eggs and cream to the bowl, and whisk together until smooth. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the mixture a small amount at a time, spreading it out as it is poured into the pan. Allow the fritters to cook until they start to brown around the edges, then carefully remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Arrange on a serving dish and sprinkle with brown sugar.

The Tudor Kitchen: What the Tudors Ate & Drank by Terry Breverton is out now, published by Amberley. To find out more, click here.

Medieval graffiti: the lost voices of England’s churches in the Middle Ages

From beasts and demons to Latin prayers for the dead, the walls of England’s medieval churches and cathedrals are covered with inscriptions and doodles. But what do they tell us about the Middle Ages?

Sunday 28th June 2015

BBC History Magazine

Lidgate, Suffolk. Two crowned heads inscribed into the pillars. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

In his new book, Medieval Graffiti, archaeologist and leading expert Matthew Champion explores the meaning behind the graffiti that has, until recently, been almost entirely overlooked. He draws on thousands of examples from surviving medieval churches across England.

Here, writing for History Extra, Champion explains the significance of medieval graffiti – the lost voices of the medieval church…

Today, graffiti is generally seen as both destructive and anti-social, and certainly not something that should be either welcomed or encouraged in our parish churches. However, that attitude is a relatively modern one. During the Middle Ages, graffiti appears to have been both accepted and acceptable, leaving many of our medieval churches and cathedrals quite literally covered with inscriptions.

Generally speaking, most of these inscriptions had been largely overlooked except by a very small handful of academics and scholars, and are still often described simply as the creations of ‘bored’ choirboys; paradoxically in many cases long before there actually were any choirboys to be found in the church. In recent years, however, new large-scale surveys of these early inscriptions have revived interest in medieval graffiti, and have seen it become the focus of intense academic study.

Field Dalling, Norfolk. A medieval allegory carved into the stones of the church that later became a focus for public devotion. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

So the question must really be – why study graffiti in the first place? What can the scratches on the walls possibly tell us about the past that we cannot find elsewhere? The answer is actually a very straightforward one: if you walk in to just about any one of the thousands of surviving medieval churches scattered across the English countryside, you will undoubtedly see a wealth of features surviving from the Middle Ages – stained glass windows, the sheen of alabaster monuments and the dull glow of memorial brasses set in to the floor. However, almost without exception, all these survivals were created by or for the top five or 10 per cent of medieval society; the parish elite that could, quite simply, afford to have themselves memorialised.

Compass drawn designs, many of which were designed to function as ‘ritual protection marks’, are amongst the most common finds in medieval church graffiti. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

Where, then, are the lower orders of medieval society? Where are the common folk who for generations worshipped within the church walls? Where are the memorials to the simple commoners who paid for, and in many cases actually helped construct, these monuments to their ‘betters’?

Well, these individuals do turn up occasionally within legal agreements, wills and manor court rolls. However, in most cases these documents are atypical. Put simply, they represent times when those individuals came into contact with the authority of either the civil administration or the church, and they most certainly do not represent those peoples’ everyday interactions with their church as either a building or an institution. Their voice has been muted and distorted by the conventions of the records themselves.

A typical late medieval example of ship graffiti from Cley-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. This particular type of vessel, known as a ‘Cog’, would have been a common site around England’s coast in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

This, then, is what makes the study of early graffiti inscriptions both worthwhile and utterly fascinating. Unlike almost every other surviving record from the Middle Ages, the graffiti inscriptions have the potential to have been created by anyone and everyone; from the lord of the manor and parish priest all the way down the social scale to the very lowliest of commoner. They are, quite literally, the lost voices of the medieval church.

What, then, are these newly rediscovered voices actually telling us? Well, the most obvious point to make is that these early inscriptions are very different from most of the modern graffiti that blights our bus shelters, underpasses and public toilets (technically known as ‘latrinalia’). Putting aside street artists such as Banksy, modern graffiti tends to be largely territorial or memorial in nature; a simple ‘I was here’ or ‘this is mine/ours’. It would be wrong to argue that it is meaningless, but its meaning is a very long way away from the tens of thousands of early graffiti inscriptions that litter the walls of our medieval churches.

Worlington, Suffolk. One of a large number of heraldic inscriptions found in the church, but too generic in nature to ascribe to an individual. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

Recent research into English medieval graffiti inscriptions has shown that, while there are a number of inscriptions that might be nothing more than the doodlings of bored choirboys, the vast majority of the inscriptions appear to be devotional or religious in nature. They are, in the very simplest of terms, prayers made solid in stone.

In some cases the inscriptions are literally that – Latin prayers that wouldn’t be out of place in a traditional church service, etched deep into the stonework; prayers for the safe return of long overdue ships or for a good harvest, and prayers for the souls of a dear departed family member.

All Saints, Litcham, Norfolk. A prayer of a play on words? The name ‘Martyn’, a cross and a heart, may well be a medieval prayer, or perhaps a rebus of the name Martyn Crossheart? (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

Others are less easy to decipher. Ritual protection marks, more commonly known as ‘Witch Marks’, designed to ward off demons and the ever-present ‘evil eye’, clustered around medieval fonts. Elaborate crosses cut deep into the arches of doorways in memory of vows undertaken, or asking for God’s blessing upon a new and perhaps hazardous undertaking. Medieval ships complete with crew members still sailing across the stonework after many long centuries, and images of demons pinned to the walls for evermore by deeply etched pentangles and ‘demon traps’.

Norwich cathedral. Musical notation is a very rare discovery amongst medieval graffiti, and is usually only found at larger site such as cathedrals; perhaps reflecting the fact that it was only in such places that music was formally taught. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

The walls of our medieval churches are full of minute testaments to faith and belief that were once commonplace. They tell the stories of life, love, hope and fear within the English medieval parish; a record that depicts sudden death and the perils of the soul that, every day, faced our ancestors. Most of all, though, these scratched mementoes by the long dead tell us about people.

A single church, such as that of St Mary’s at Troston in Suffolk, can hold many hundreds of early inscriptions, ranging from the mundane to the seriously outlandish. On the tower arch sit elaborate compass-drawn designs dating back to the time when the church was first built and consecrated by the bishop. A little further up the stonework is the name ‘Johed Abthorp’ (John Abthorpe), lord of the manor in the second half of the 15th century.

Lindsey, Suffolk. An elegant and beautifully inscribed Tudor Rose motif whose significance remains a mystery. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

On the opposite side of the arch, which is now badly decayed by centuries of wear and damp, are a long series of dates from the turbulent time of the Civil War. Just below them are the sadly defaced outlines of two medieval ships; prayers, perhaps, for safe voyages undertaken by local churchgoers. The eastern end of the church is covered in even more graffiti, while the north side of the chancel arch is so densely covered with inscriptions that it is difficult to identify individual designs. Only two or three things can be made out; a man in late medieval costume is shown with his hands raised in prayer, an outline of a medieval shoe and the elaborate medieval text inscription that simply reads ‘Deo’ (God).

A tentative reconstruction of how medieval graffiti inscriptions would have originally appeared; scratched through the medieval pigment that decorated all churches to reveal the pale stone beneath. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

On the south side of the chancel arch the graffiti takes a sinister bent. Just below a beautifully executed medieval coat-of-arms can be seen another outline of a medieval shoe. However, this time scrawled alongside it, and partly obscuring it, is a small head of a demon. Admittedly, demon imagery was common in the medieval church, with colourful and grotesque examples often found casting the souls of the damned down into the pit of hell on the surviving doom paintings that can still be seen above many chancel arches. However, the number of graffiti examples here is noteworthy.

Higher up the arch is a second demon inscription, this time shown in profile with a gaping mouth full of sharpened teeth and its tongue lolling out. Across the demon’s head is a pentangle, scored deeply into the stonework suggesting that it was gone over time and time again. The pentangle, originally a Christian symbol of protection, sits exactly within the confines of the demon’s head – quite literally pinning it to the wall and trapping the ‘evil’ within.

Sedgeford, Norfolk. Church graffiti didn’t simply cease with the coming of the reformation, with many centuries worth of vicars, churchwardens and parishioners leaving their marks on the stone. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

Such symbolism as that found at St Mary’s at Troston clearly had meaning for the individuals who created these images, and many of the more elaborate examples would have taken several hours to execute. The length of time taken to create these designs does rather suggest that they couldn’t have been carried out without the full knowledge of the local church itself ­– and with at least their tacit approval.

Some are clearly devotional in nature, such as the praying male figure, but we may never truly understand the reasons why the lord of the manor left his name inscribed in the tower arch. Was he simply recording his presence, or perhaps marking what he considered to be his territory? Was it John Abthorpe himself who carved the name into the stonework, or was it created by another person with a deeper, darker purpose?

Scole, Norfolk. The crude outline of a medieval face stares back from the walls. Sometimes thought to represent the head of a long dead bishop wearing a mitre. (Credit:  The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

I have come across a number of other inscriptions that are far less enigmatic, and whose meaning it is all too easy to understand. At Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, for example, a tiny inscription in the north aisle reads simply ‘Hic est sedes margaratea vit an d(ecimo)’ (Here lies Margaret in her tenth year).

A few miles away at Kingston (Cambridgeshire), a discreet inscription appears to tell of an even more tragic tale. There, cut neatly into the stonework, are three names ­– Cateryn Maddyngley, Jane Maddyngley and Amee Maddyngley. Exactly how old they were we will probably never know, but the fact they don’t turn up as adults in the parish records rather suggests that all three were children or infants; all three related by blood. However, if the rest of the brief inscription is to be believed, the one thing we do know is that all three died in the same year – 1515. For most of England it wasn’t a particularly significant year, unless you happened to live in either London, the south-east or Cambridgeshire. In these areas, throughout the summer months, an old adversary returned: the Bubonic plague.

Troston, Suffolk. The name ‘Johed (John) Abthorpe’ inscribed into the tower arch. The Abthorpe family were lords of the manor at Troston from the 1440s until the 1490s, and a John Abthorpe is recorded as witness to a number of contemporary wills. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

Although the plague was usually a little less deadly than the sweating sickness (which could see you hale and hearty at lunchtime but dead before supper), and had a higher recovery rate, this outbreak appears to have been particularly virulent. Cambridge University (and possibly Oxford) suspended all studies, and the courts and places of gathering were disbanded in an effort to stop its spread – but to little avail.

Part of the problem was that this outbreak came only a short time after the last major outbreak of the ‘sweats’ in 1507. As was typical of the period, the years immediately after a major epidemic usually saw an increased birth rate, as families and communities tried to make good the losses of the previous pestilence. However, in the case of the 1515 epidemic, all this meant was that when the plague began to ravage its way across England, the country had a far higher proportion of infants than it might ordinarily have – and it was these children that appear to have fallen victim to the disease in their hundreds and thousands.

Troston, Suffolk. A full length figure of a woman, hands raised in prayer, wearing a distinctive late medieval ‘butterfly’ style head-dress and surrounded by other graffiti inscriptions that litter the tower arch. (Credit: The Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey)

Across the south east of England these infants were buried hastily in unmarked graves, with little or no time to memorialise or remember them. In London, the hasty funeral processions, made up of only a few souls, walked the deserted streets; and in Kingston, a small village in rural Cambridgeshire, a stolid tenant farmer quietly etched the names of his three dead children into the walls of the parish church…

That simple inscription may well be the only mark those three young individuals left on this planet. Sometimes, the writing on the walls can break your heart.

Matthew Champion is the author of Medieval Graffiti: The Lost Voices of England’s Churches (Ebury Press, 2015). To find out more, click here.