Yew Trees
We’ve seen a lot of yews in a lot of churchyards over the years. I’m going to show you some footage of yew trees while I tell you a bit about them. The yew is a species of evergreen tree native to much of Europe, including Britain and Ireland. The word “Yew” derives from an ancient proto-Germanic language, which in Welsh became “ywen”. Yew trees are long-lived to say the least. Trees routinely live past 400 years and there are examples of yew trees as old as 5000 years. That said, yews can be notoriously difficult to date, since the core of the tree can be lost, even as the tree keeps on living. Yews have had a religious significance for thousands of years. For the Celts, they symbolized immortality. Because the early Christians often built their churches over the Read more…
Medieval Forensics
Medieval forensics is a real thing, not just the stuff of modern detectives, and is of particular interest to me since I write medieval murder mysteries. In The Irish Bride, my latest medieval mystery, a monk is found dead within moments of Gwen and Gareth’s arrival in Ireland. As medieval detectives, how do they go about finding the killer? What can they possibly determine forensically without laboratories, fingerprints, and all the trappings of modern investigations? Medieval forensics was primitive, but there were some things a medieval detective could determine, including time of death, whether poison was involved, and whether the body was moved (thanks to another author, Jeri Westerson, for some of this information): Time of death: Rigor mortis—literally, “death stiffness,” happens very predictably. Beginning two hours after death and starting from the face and moving down the body, the Read more…
Medieval Poisons
King Henry I died of eating a surfeit of lampreys … but was it poison instead? King Henry I died in Normandy in 1135 of food poisoning “according to legend from eating a ‘surfeit of Lampreys’ (an eel type fish).” http://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=henry1 In the new mini-series on Starz “Pillars of the Earth” based on the book by Ken Follett, he was deliberately poisoned by King Stephen (who succeeded him) or someone working for him. For those watching the show, in point of fact, King Henry did not die within moments of the birth of Maud’s son, Henry (born 5 March 1133), who ultimately succeeded Stephen as King of England, but two years later. King Henry died of food poisoning despite the high likelihood of having some kind of ‘food taster’. Admittedly, such a person could be circumvented by a slow-acting poison. Read more…
^