London Month of the Dead - Missing in Action

MISSING IN ACTION Finding the Dead of Medieval Battles with Anne Curry Saturday 8th October 2022 at 3:30 pm Warfare in the Middle Ages was a bloodthirsty business. If we are to believe contemporary chroniclers, thousands died in battles and their bodies were gathered up, stripped of their armour (as illustrated in the Bayeux tapestry) and buried in mass burial pits near the battle site. These graves should provide rich pickings for modern archaeologists, yet so far they have largely drawn a blank in their search for human remains at virtually all English and French battlefields of the 14th and 15th centuries. Only a handful of excavations, such as the mass grave project of Towton in 1996 have proved to the contrary. Here archeologists working at the site of the Battle of Towton in the Wars of the Roses in 1461 were able to recover the mostly complete remains of 43 individuals from a grave pit in a piece of Yorkshire which has the dubious distinction of hosting "the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil". In this talk, historian Anne Curry will be exploring what happened to the deceased soldiers after the fighting ended, and whether we can solve the puzzle of the 'missing dead’. Tickets £12 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Kensal Green Cemetery. Anne Curry Anne Curry is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Southampton and was Master of the Worshipful Company of Fletchers in 2021-22. She is well known for her work on medieval warfare, especially on the battle of Agincourt. She was also involved in the HLF-funded project to find the 'missing battlefield' of Bosworth. She has recently been created Arundel Herald Extraordinary. Image credit - Mass grave in Martigues, France. Public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Images.

MISSING IN ACTION
Finding the Dead of Medieval Battles with Anne Curry
Saturday 8th October 2022 at 3:30 pm

Warfare in the Middle Ages was a bloodthirsty business. If we are to believe contemporary chroniclers, thousands died in battles and their bodies were gathered up, stripped of their armour (as illustrated in the Bayeux tapestry) and buried in mass burial pits near the battle site.

These graves should provide rich pickings for modern archaeologists, yet so far they have largely drawn a blank in their search for human remains at virtually all English and French battlefields of the 14th and 15th centuries. Only a handful of excavations, such as the mass grave project of Towton in 1996 have proved to the contrary. Here archeologists working at the site of the Battle of Towton in the Wars of the Roses in 1461 were able to recover the mostly complete remains of 43 individuals from a grave pit in a piece of Yorkshire which has the dubious distinction of hosting "the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil".

In this talk, historian Anne Curry will be exploring what happened to the deceased soldiers after the fighting ended, and whether we can solve the puzzle of the 'missing dead’.

Tickets £12 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Kensal Green Cemetery.

Anne Curry
Anne Curry is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Southampton and was Master of the Worshipful Company of Fletchers in 2021-22. She is well known for her work on medieval warfare, especially on the battle of Agincourt. She was also involved in the HLF-funded project to find the 'missing battlefield' of Bosworth. She has recently been created Arundel Herald Extraordinary.

Image credit - Mass grave in Martigues, France. Public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Images.

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