The Last Week of England in the Time of King Richard III

I am on the last week of England in the Time of King Richard III.

This week is quite exciting. The subject of this week focusses upon the excavation of Grey Friars and the subsequent discovery of the body of King Richard III. When I first saw the lineup for the week, my heart fell... 21 sections to make my way through. But many of the sections are videos, so it's not nearly so time consuming as I had first anticipated. Here are my thoughts for the week. Most of these have been from posts I have made in the course comments sections today.

In locating the body, I don't think that any one thing was the deciding factor. A lot of good research got them into the right approximate area, but luck was what landed them almost on top of the skeleton. I imagine that the discovery of a skeleton was exciting, but I also imagine that nobody imagined at first that they actually had the right skeleton.

The sight of the scoliosis probably had the archaeologists shouting and dancing though. If circumstantial evidence is ever worth anything, it's when you're specifically looking for a hunchback who died in a fight and you find a male of the right age with scoliosis and heavy battle wounds.

All circumstantial evidence aside, having two modern-day descendants of the matrilineal line was astonishing. That DNA was able to be extracted from the remains was quite remarkable, and that they were able to determine a match between all three mitochondrial DNA sources really sealed the deal.

For those who are interested, here is a link to the post-excavation paper that was produced: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/087/ant0870519.htm

In considering the publicity of the discovery at the time and in comparison with the above-mentioned paper, we are asked what we think about the purpose of each. Do they meet different but equally important needs? Would dissemination have been as effective or important without one or the other? Are there dangers or problems with either approach?

The majority of people will view this as no more than a curiosity. Media fills the role of informing those who may have a curiosity about the subject. However, the paper speaks to a different audience. The detail within the paper is inappropriate for media. People who get misty over a two minute segment on a king's skeleton getting re-interred into a more prestigious location may find themselves entirely disinterested in how long the trenches were, even though this is vital information for future archaeologists who may find themselves referring to the paper for the next century or more.

However, information within the media is often how social historians know what data is available to find, so media should never be ignored as an important tool.

Grey Friars went on to be excavated a second time in 2013, and a second body was located in a prime position. A previous building was also located, this one with intact walls and some beautiful floor tiles. I look forward to following up on the glimpse of information I was given on this excavation.

Having finished the course now, I'm quite happy to say that this was an excellent use of my time. For those of you who haven't caught the history bug yet, this is a good introductory into medieval life. For those of you who are social historians like myself, this gives just enough in-depth info to offer new avenues of thought and interest. I found a lot to love about this course, and I have no hesitation recommending it.

What's cooking...

I was very pleased to be looking at medieval cookbooks today as part of the course "England in the Time of Richard III". I take part in Medieval re-enactment, and a large part of that is food.

Forme of Cury is a text that I've heard a lot about over the years.  A few years ago, something wonderful happened. It was placed online. Not just the words, but actual photographs of the pages.
Of course, if you're having some trouble reading it, don't fret, you're not alone. That's why it's useful to have the transcript available online as well, along with modern redactions of all the recipes.

Next, we've been given a link to an English translation (translation by Janet Hinson from the French edition of Jerome Pichon published in 1846) of "Le Menagier de Paris".  I've not heard of this text before, so I'm looking forward to diving in and finding new recipes to try.

And our third link today is "Le Viandier de Taillevent", which has been translated into English by James Prescott. We are told that this collection "...has the distinction of being the first printed cookery book..."

It looks like I'll be dusting off a few of these. I have a particular occasion coming up where I need to present at least one medieval dish.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/england-of-richard-third

Richard III is not the point of this course...

Richard III was King of England for only two years. So the Future Learn course England in the Time of Richard III is able to give an amazingly detailed overview of what one country looked like in a brief snapshot of time.

I'm almost done with this course. It's six weeks long (drawn out to eight by the inclusion of end of year holidays), and I have two weeks left. Not to fear, however. These courses cycle back around, and it's slated to come back in mid-2014, so if you've got a yen to look at something historical, this is not a bad starting point.

I do a fair amount of reenacting through the Society for Creative Anachronism (http://www.sca.org/), so this was a very useful course for my situation. We began by looking at battles and the War of the Roses (Richard III died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485). We touched on the prevalence of reenacting within the same week. We then went on to look at the economy of the time, getting an overview of the peasant population, which was still recovering from the effects of massive population decrease due to the plague. This was a time of massive change, with entire villages being left abandoned and people moving around in search of better wages. This was the time of enclosure of fields, the end of servile tenure, and uprisings.

Week three looked at books and literature. Wanting very much to dip my toes into transcribing medieval texts into modern English for recipe redactions etc., I found this to be an interesting subject, as parts of this section focussed on what some of the unusual marks were that occur in medieval text. I also have an interest in typesetting which has sprung from my job as copy editor, so this section tickled me in the right spots.

Week four looked at death: the common theological practices and beliefs, life expectancy, wills and burials.

And now I'm at week seven, weeks five and six being the Christmas/New Years break. This week looks at food, so I'm really looking forward to it. They've started us off early on with a quiz to determine if we know what foods they had available at the time. Rice vs turkey, chili vs sugar, almonds vs potatoes, oranges vs coffee. I was able to get all four questions right first time, basing my responses entirely on prior knowledge.

What about you? Do you know what foods were available in the late 15th Century? You may find yourself surprised at what you find.