[MR] History Blog: Mass Burial at Leicester Cathedral

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Today's History Blog reports on the discovery of a 12th century mass burial
at Leicester Cathedral.

Archaeologists exploring the cathedral precincts before construction of a
new visitors' center stumbled onto a narrow shaft filled with 127 bodies of
men, women and children. The bodies had been dumped down the shaft in three
successive waves. Radiocarbon dating suggests the remains are from the
mid-1100s, approximately 150 years before the arrival of the Black Death.
Famine or other types of mass diseases are suggested as the likely causes,
but detailed analysis of samples for pathogens is still underway.

Leicester Cathedral is famous as the burial site of everybody's favorite
"Car Park King", Richard III. He was reburied in a more fitting tomb within
the Cathedral itself. His discovery sparked a tourist boom for the
Cathedral, thus the new visitors' center project.

The whole story is at https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/71667 .

More on Leicester Cathedral is found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_Cathedral .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep Merry Rose relevant and in business.