The Lives and Deaths of Young Medieval Women: The Osteological Evidence
By Fiona Shapland, Mary Lewis, and Rebecca Watts
Medieval Archaeology, Volume 59, 2015
Introduction: Written sources from the medieval period focus mainly on the activities of adults, particularly males and often those from the wealthier sections of society. Recent scholarship has attempted to redress this balance by giving attention to medieval women and children, but we are still limited by what we can learn about the daily lives of all members of medieval English society.
Osteology, the study of human skeletal remains, suffers from no such bias and can provide substantial and detailed information on growth, health and daily life of the general population. This paper presents the results of a new analysis of the skeletal remains of over 300 medieval girls and young women aged at between 14 and 25 years from a number of English cemetery sites. We incorporate data from the published archaeological literature as well as documentary evidence to provide new insights into the lives and deaths of young medieval women.
Medieval adolescence as an important stage in the life course has received renewed attention in the last few decades, but this research focuses primarily on the better recorded lives of young men. As in virtually every period of history, women feature much less frequently in all forms of documentary evidence from the medieval period. This is especially true for the lower classes, as detailed sources on the lives of medieval women generally focus on the aristocracy or gentry, and women such as Margaret Beaufort or Margaret Paston, whose lives were far from typical. The daily activities undertaken and challenges faced by poorer young women remain largely unknown.
Osteology may provide part of the answer to this problem. Thousands of medieval skeletons have been excavated in England over the last half-century, from a variety of cemetery contexts ranging from richly furnished burials within church buildings to mass plague graves. These physical remains provide a wealth of information on the lives and deaths of young medieval women. The number of female skeletons aged between 14 to 25 years excavated from English medieval cemeteries (c ad 900–1600) is approaching 930, providing a large dataset for analysis.
Of these, 314 (33.7%) from five cemeteries across England have been recently re-examined. The samples were derived from: St Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, St Mary Spital, London, St Oswald’s Priory, Gloucester, and Fishergate House and St Helen-on-the-Walls in York.
Click here to read this article from Taylor & Francis Online
Top Image: Anglo Saxon grave – skeletal remains of a 16-year-old female from Trumpington Meadows.
The Lives and Deaths of Young Medieval Women: The Osteological Evidence
By Fiona Shapland, Mary Lewis, and Rebecca Watts
Medieval Archaeology, Volume 59, 2015
Introduction: Written sources from the medieval period focus mainly on the activities of adults, particularly males and often those from the wealthier sections of society. Recent scholarship has attempted to redress this balance by giving attention to medieval women and children, but we are still limited by what we can learn about the daily lives of all members of medieval English society.
Osteology, the study of human skeletal remains, suffers from no such bias and can provide substantial and detailed information on growth, health and daily life of the general population. This paper presents the results of a new analysis of the skeletal remains of over 300 medieval girls and young women aged at between 14 and 25 years from a number of English cemetery sites. We incorporate data from the published archaeological literature as well as documentary evidence to provide new insights into the lives and deaths of young medieval women.
Medieval adolescence as an important stage in the life course has received renewed attention in the last few decades, but this research focuses primarily on the better recorded lives of young men. As in virtually every period of history, women feature much less frequently in all forms of documentary evidence from the medieval period. This is especially true for the lower classes, as detailed sources on the lives of medieval women generally focus on the aristocracy or gentry, and women such as Margaret Beaufort or Margaret Paston, whose lives were far from typical. The daily activities undertaken and challenges faced by poorer young women remain largely unknown.
Osteology may provide part of the answer to this problem. Thousands of medieval skeletons have been excavated in England over the last half-century, from a variety of cemetery contexts ranging from richly furnished burials within church buildings to mass plague graves. These physical remains provide a wealth of information on the lives and deaths of young medieval women. The number of female skeletons aged between 14 to 25 years excavated from English medieval cemeteries (c ad 900–1600) is approaching 930, providing a large dataset for analysis.
Of these, 314 (33.7%) from five cemeteries across England have been recently re-examined. The samples were derived from: St Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, St Mary Spital, London, St Oswald’s Priory, Gloucester, and Fishergate House and St Helen-on-the-Walls in York.
Click here to read this article from Taylor & Francis Online
Top Image: Anglo Saxon grave – skeletal remains of a 16-year-old female from Trumpington Meadows.
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