St Bees Man: Who Was The Medieval Mummy Buried In A Lead Coffin?

Just over 40 years ago , minds were blown upon the find of an almost perfectly preserved trunk of a medieval humanity repose to lie in a lead - coat wooden coffin . Known as St Bees Man , researchers now think they have a moderately unclouded melodic theme of who this prestigious person was .

Themysterious discoverywas unearth in 1981 from a vault found beneath the ruined chancel aisle of St Bees Priory in Cumbria , northern England . Beside the lead - seamed coffin , archeologist uncover the systema skeletale of a woman whose delicate tissues had all degraded off over the 100 .

Owing to the age of the cadaver , archeologist were expect to crack unfold the coffin and find another frame . To their surprise , it contained an improbably preserve eubstance wrapped tightly in a cerement . The body was likely kept in faultless condition thanks to its lead - lined coffin , which isan age - old methodof save asleep bodies .

Researchers have reason out that the man was probably buried sometime between 1290 and 1500 CE . He was around 40 years former , give or take five year , when he died from a gruesome death . He was suffering from numerous cracked rips , a busted jaw , and a punctured lung at the time of his death , perhaps nurture in a battle or an act of violence . The ultimate cause of decease was hemopneumothorax , the condition of get both line and blood in the chest dental caries , almost certainly triggered by some intense trauma .

The identity of the man was initially a mystery . His costly burial imply that he had a high societal condition , yet no written criminal record could test who he was nor why he was check in such regard .

One contribute theory is that he was a knight called Anthony de Lucy who buy the farm in 1368 in present - day Lithuania during the Nothern Crusades . From the twelfth century onwards , the Christian monarchs of Western Europe launched a wave of military campaigns against pagan Baltic , Finnic , and West Slavonic peoples with the aim of converting the regions to Christianity .

“ There is some evidence that the English party was used to assault a garrison that had been build at Kaunas and it is reported that ‘ three of our workforce were killed from the walls . ’ The injuries of Anthony de Lucy , a fractured jaw and pierced lung , set with this . The three kill seem to be Anthony , John de Multon , and Roger Felbrigg with the most probable date being sixteenth September 1368 , ” Chris Robson writes on theSt Bees Village History web log .

The identity of the accompanying womanhood is less clear . The wife of Anthony de Lucy later remarried and perish in London in her seventy , so it ’s improbable to be her . The most potential suspect is Maud de Lucy , his baby who inherited much of his wealth after his demise and clearly had a close affiliation with her lost comrade .