September 2018
At last the time had come. The handing in of the thesis, and the saying goodbye to my little flat - the longest home I had had since I left NZ, and most importantly, the amazing friendship group I had made in Sheffield.
My little room! Goodbye awesome little flat.
Deciding what to write your thesis on is incredibly difficult, but its also an organic process.
You start with an idea, talk to your supervisor about it, (or if you have no idea, your supervisor makes suggestions based on access to collections and research that would be useful). I started off thinking about re-examining the osteological sex of viking warrior burials from the Isle of Man and Scotland, as most hadn't been looked at since their discovery in the late 1800s and early 1900s (before osteological sexing was even a thing). Things such as the shape of the eye sockets, the angle and robustness of the brow, the shape of the pelvis, these can all add up to allow us to work out whether an individual was male or female.
You start with an idea, talk to your supervisor about it, (or if you have no idea, your supervisor makes suggestions based on access to collections and research that would be useful). I started off thinking about re-examining the osteological sex of viking warrior burials from the Isle of Man and Scotland, as most hadn't been looked at since their discovery in the late 1800s and early 1900s (before osteological sexing was even a thing). Things such as the shape of the eye sockets, the angle and robustness of the brow, the shape of the pelvis, these can all add up to allow us to work out whether an individual was male or female.
Back then people simply went 'Oh look a sword! Must be a dude" and on they went. Due to some recent examples in Scandinavia where re-examinations had in fact led to a number of these 'men warriors' actually being reclassified as women, I hypothesized the same could also be true of the UK.
However most of the skeletal collections were lost, degraded, or scattered across the UK in difficult-to-access collections. I was advised that this was more of a PhD level project due to its scope and complications, and sadly had to let it drop.
Now what? I had no idea, except a faint interest in pathologies from one of my class projects previously. Luckily my supervisor Dr. Lizzy Craig-Atkins was used to dealing with uncertain students, and pointed me in the direction of a collection that hadn't been re-examined since she herself had briefly provided an osteological report when they had been excavated.
The only thing I knew for certain was I wanted to bridge that lamentable gap between the disciplines of archaeology and history, if only they would work together, the patchwork pieces would perhaps slot together, revealing a far more detailed and wide ranging picture than we are capable of alone. Come on multi-disciplinary work!
I won't bore you much longer, and will instead simply leave you with the introduction to my thesis.
This project seeks to address a significant gap in our current knowledge of hospitals in England during the late medieval period, through a case study of the hospital site of St Leonard at Grantham. Employing detailed skeletal analysis of the affiliated cemetery population, the study argues that the hospital of St Leonard began as a leprosarium; leading to the accepted demographic profile that typifies leprosaria in England to be challenged.
Now what? I had no idea, except a faint interest in pathologies from one of my class projects previously. Luckily my supervisor Dr. Lizzy Craig-Atkins was used to dealing with uncertain students, and pointed me in the direction of a collection that hadn't been re-examined since she herself had briefly provided an osteological report when they had been excavated.
The only thing I knew for certain was I wanted to bridge that lamentable gap between the disciplines of archaeology and history, if only they would work together, the patchwork pieces would perhaps slot together, revealing a far more detailed and wide ranging picture than we are capable of alone. Come on multi-disciplinary work!
First I realized medieval hospitals were fascinating, and somewhat overlooked, and that I was examining a most excellent hospital population. From there it was simply a matter of using historical records and secondary sources based on actual historians (unlike myself) on hospitals,
and building conclusions based on both skeletal changes and changing demographics within the buried population.
and building conclusions based on both skeletal changes and changing demographics within the buried population.
For example, here is a case of leprosy from an individual I examined: the thinning and malformation of the bones in the feet (as seen below) indicate septic arthritis. Leprosy leads to a loss of sensation in the hands and feet, causing individuals to continuously damage their appendages and not notice. This symptom along with a number of other signs, allowed me to diagnose the unfortunate individual as a leper.
I won't bore you much longer, and will instead simply leave you with the introduction to my thesis.
This project seeks to address a significant gap in our current knowledge of hospitals in England during the late medieval period, through a case study of the hospital site of St Leonard at Grantham. Employing detailed skeletal analysis of the affiliated cemetery population, the study argues that the hospital of St Leonard began as a leprosarium; leading to the accepted demographic profile that typifies leprosaria in England to be challenged.
It is then argued that St Leonard later underwent a shift in function to an almshouse. Such changes are visible across several contemporary hospital sites and must therefore be discussed in the wider context of the institution of the charitable hospital as well as the social and economic shifts that took place over the eleventh to fourteenth centuries.
Although the rise of the almshouse was a phenomenon grounded in the fourteenth century, the study of St Leonard and other contemporary sites makes it apparent that this shift was not unilinear or instantaneous, but a slow and organic progress.
The study suggests the usefulness of an interdisciplinary approach that integrates historical sources, as the development of medieval perspectives on leprosy, disease and charity are crucial to an understanding of the archaeological data examined here. Overall, this project endeavours to point a way forward for further study of the long-neglected area of medieval English hospitals.
Ta-daa!
