DON'T LAUGH AT THE VARIOUS AND HORRIBLE WAYS PEOPLE DIED IN THE MIDDLE AGES
I wanted to wait until after Christmas to post this darkly hilarious collection of coroner’s reports from medieval times. (Stay with me.)
The collection was put together by Tweeter and historian, Soren Lily, who trawled through accidental deaths from medieval coroner’s rolls for the purposes of comedy.
In 2013, Lily started posting descriptions of olden day deaths on a Twitter account called Medieval Death Bot, which one fan described as a sort of “Chaucerian version of the TV show Cops. Everywhere you turn there’s a guy receiving a fatal arrow wound because of a “quarrel” or having his brains ‘struck ... from his skull.’”
Now Lily has turned the defunct Twitter account into a book called Unfortunate Ends, which describes a dangerous time to be alive, and even to die.
“I have a macabre sense of humour, which may not come as a surprise, and I was struck by the absurdity of people endlessly dying in ditches, being murdered by mysterious clerks and drowning in mini-ponds,” Lilly writes in the book’s introduction. “Causes of death began to function almost as a punchline, or as recurring characters, haunting a medieval landscape, causing horrendous mayhem despite their mundanity. Oddly enough, these deaths brought the Middle Ages to life.”
DEATH DESCRIPTIONS:
Robert de Shordiche, stabbed under the right breast in 1300 by William le Wallere who had accused him of stealing his tunic.
Henry Costentin, died 1267 after his feet slipped and fell upon a pole of his wheat cart, which did penetrate into his fundament (buttocks).
Walter of Hockwold, died 1270, being struck on the head with an axe, called a sparthe, in an altercation over a cow.
Simon the Welshman, clerk, died 1306, struck with a knife on the head by a vicar, for being late to church to ring the bells for matins.
William Scrym, died 1382, fell from a tree attempting to overthrow a nest of magpies.
Thomas Clerk, died in his house in 1309 from ‘le flux’, brought on by an arrow wound received in a quarrel over a game called ‘le wrastleng’.
Thomas, son of Henry Robekyn, died 1286 after cutting off his left foot and then his left hand in a frenzy.
Henry de Stodley, died 1346, being very drunk, stumbled into his chamber and fell upon a bare knife, which cut his throat.
Robert de Honiton, died 1301. On New Year’s Eve he went up the tower of St. Michael’s to help ring the bells and fell through a trap door.
Roger, died 1396, knocked off a bridge by a horse carrying wheat.
Bertram Polet, found dead in 1271, assumed to have been slain by “evildoers.”
Robert Hendy, died in 1396 when, attempting to drink from a river, he fell in instead and drowned by misadventure.
Anslem Beckham, died 1271, his throat slit by robbers who broke through the wall of his house.