Inside of an abandoned medieval village in Yorkshire England, hides a very dark secret
which tells us about the strange ideas and beliefs that people had during the time period.
We consider the Medieval period in some senses as a rather backwards period of history, in
which the population had no regard for important things such as sanitation and cleanliness.
The Black Death would sweep through England during this time, and would cause huge amounts
of destruction and death, which caused the population figures to plummet on a scale never
seen before.
But Wharram Percy despite being an abandoned deserted medieval village holds a beautiful
church and a number of other buildings.
The people here left as farming changed, and the villagers left and in came flocks of sheep
used for wool.
But inside of the graveyard of the church, a disturbing practice was uncovered that showed
the world what some Medieval people believed about the death.
A number of corpses were found inside of the graveyard with posthumous execution marks,
meaning that after death they were beheaded.
But what is the story behind this?
Join us today as we look at the BRUTAL executions of Dead Bodies in Medieval England.
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Posthumous execution would be used in England a number of times, and the most high profile
case of this saw Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England and the Commonwealth
being executed after death.
His body and remains were dug up after Charles II came onto the throne, as Cromwell was seen
as a regicide, a leading figure behind the execution of Charles I, the King who lost
the Civil War.
Cromwell’s remains were decaying and were then paraded through London where they were
displayed in shocking scenes at Tyburn before his head was struck off and then placed on
a pike.
But the cases of Posthumous execution in Wharram Percy occurred during the Medieval period,
centuries before.
In 2017, a study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, and in
this article contained information from the team who had analysed the bones that had been
excavated from the abandoned village and also the churchyard.
Wharram Percy itself has had a very important role in telling us what we know about the
Medieval period, and the villagers would farm the land in the remote valley and would also
visit the beautiful church that still stands.
They would also get food from the local millpond, and seemingly had a happy life.
They would visit the church weekly, and pay 10% of their earnings and wealth to the church,
and they would believe all of the teachings of the church.
The Medieval Church at this time would teach people all about Heaven and Hell, and they
would strike fear into the hearts of the congregation and the villagers.
But when things were tough in society, for example a bad harvest or a very brutal bout
of disease or pestilence would run riot through the local area, the church quickly shifted
blame onto those who had sinned and those who had been living an unholy life.
This bad fortune was seen as God punishing people for their sins, and to disagree with
what the church said during this time was very dangerous.
To be declared a heretic was incredibly serious, and could often result in the execution of
an individual, with the most famous cases resulting in someone being burned at the stake.
But the findings of the study, told of a Medieval practice which was very disturbing and shocking.
There was a folk believe inside the Middle Ages that dead bodies, and the corpses of
the dead could awake and rise up from their graves, almost like zombies in horror films.
The people then believed that these corpses and the dead would cause chaos, spread disease
and illness, and also violently assault the villagers who came across them.
These corpses were believed to have been restless, and the Medieval church taught also of them,
that they were caused by a lingering malevolent life force that in living had committed evil
and sinned heavily.
Because of this, it was believed in death their decaying bodies would come back to cause
terror, and that they could not rest because of the evil they had committed in life.
The church would say that the living dead were those people who have sinned, and that
they were those who were waiting to be judged and were in purgatory.
This idea would captivate the imagination of the people of Wharram Percy, and because
of this they went to extreme steps mutilating the dead to make sure that they did not come
back to wreak havoc in the remote village.
The bones that were dug up from the village and were dated to the Medieval period showed
that they had distinct knife marks on them, as if they had been cut with a knife or a
sharp bladed weapon.
This showed that after death the bodies had been dismembered, and also there was evidence
that the bodies were also decapitated after dead.
So the villagers performed a posthumous execution on the bodies, not to shame them but to do
what they believed would prevent the villagers from being haunted.
It’s not known if this behading was done long after death, but a sharp weapon such
as an axe would have been used to do this.
Also there was evidence that some of the body parts had been burned after death, and also
that bones were deliberately broken.
So either the everyday villagers, or the ones involved in the church would break the legs
of the dead, and also burn a few of their remains.
This is incredibly shocking, as it shows us what lengths they would go to in the medieval
times to ensure that they would be protected from the wrath of God.
There was some questions raised with regards to the bones also that cannibalism may have
occurred with some of the remains.
This would mean that during a famine which was common in the Medieval Times, the corpses
in the village were dug up and then flesh from them was eaten, but the evidence around
this theory did not entirely add up.
If this was the case, the knife marks would have been found around major muscle attachment
areas of large joints, but the knife marks on the Wharram Percy remains were focussed
mainly around the head and neck area.
So inside of Medieval Society, there was a great degree of belief in the living dead
and people went to huge lengths to ensure that people were not haunted by the dead.
It’s probable that the Church influenced the posthumous execution of the dead bodies
inside of villages, but the sight of someone’s body being dug up, beheaded and then hacked
to bits and stabbed would have been incredibly shocking to have seen.
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