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Old Ways To Die

MorningAngel

Justified & Ancient
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
3,183
These were really interesting. Some things you know and some things you’d never have thought of. I really hadn’t thought about the stairs being an issue. Also I knew about celluloid in film and snooker balls being dangerous but I never knew they put it in so many things.

Hidden Killers, New Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03l7nl8

Hidden Killers, The Edwardian Home: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03lyv9x
 
Thanks for this! Didn't they do one of these for more recent times as well? I'm getting a vague memory nagging at me...
 
Thanks for this! Didn't they do one of these for more recent times as well? I'm getting a vague memory nagging at me...
The only other one on iPlayer at the moment is Tudor. Just checked, here we are. It says today but on the red button which is confusing.
 

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I remember the Witches hat at Butlins. I’ve seen many articles claiming that five children died in a year from using it but none are saying how those poor kids met their fate. So is it true with no facts to back it up. I know they weren’t very safe.

We had them in two of the places I grew up in. Crush injuries were common but not as common as you'd think as kids got very skilled using them. When someone was pushing the hat inwards whilst spinning it you'd stand up and never sit and let your legs dangle on the inside.
 
Some of the old playground equipment was really dangerous this picture is of a device common when I was young -we called it a Geegaw (no idea why or if spelling correct!) which seriously damaged me as a nine year old - I was doing the same thing as the girl in picture hanging off back but swung forward and got my leg sandwiched between the 'swing' and the tarmac-it literally exploded at the ankle with bits of bone sticking out! I was on crutches for a year!View attachment 28028
That’s what we called the cheesecutter, but I don’t remember the footrest under the battering ram
 
This thread sort of drifted onto childhood derring do but if you want to enjoy some medieval ways to die I recommend the Medieval Death Bot account on Twitter which just lists coroners reports from the middle ages. Lots of people were murdered by clerks. It's become a bit of a meme. https://twitter.com/DeathMedieval

Some poignant ones:

Robert le Wyther, died 1305, drowned in a sunken boat worth 4s. 6d.

William Scrym, died 1382, fell from a tree attempting to overthrow a nest of magpies

A child, died~1300 after being struck accidentally with a stick by a woman in a quarrel with another woman. Price of the stick is not named

John de Bois, died 1300 when a timber fell upon his head, inflicting a wound 4 inches long & 2 deep. The price of the wood, 1 penny
 
Some poignant ones:

Robert le Wyther, died 1305, drowned in a sunken boat worth 4s. 6d.

William Scrym, died 1382, fell from a tree attempting to overthrow a nest of magpies

A child, died~1300 after being struck accidentally with a stick by a woman in a quarrel with another woman. Price of the stick is not named

John de Bois, died 1300 when a timber fell upon his head, inflicting a wound 4 inches long & 2 deep. The price of the wood, 1 penny
It's interesting that they were always zealous about noting the cost of something.
 
Is that right? Seems a little unfair.

Fining was a big step forward from previous punishments like branding faces or slitting nostrils. It depends on the assumption that the offender has something to be forfeited, i.e. money.

Before that, when individuals were peasants and owned little apart from the rags they stood up in, there was nothing for them to surrender and so punishments were inflicted on their body.

There was also 'trial by ordeal' where an accused person was required to prove their innocence with the help of God, by ritually incurring an injury such as burning and having it examined after a set time to discern the extent of healing.

These changes occurred in the late 12th/early 13th centuries.

Formal courts and jury trials were brought in by Henry II. English society had become more diverse, prosperous, even educated than ever before thanks to improved agricultural practices. The population was growing rapidly and towns and cities were expanding. Must have been an exciting time!
 
Fining was a big step forward from previous punishments like branding faces or slitting nostrils. It depends on the assumption that the offender has something to be forfeited, i.e. money.

Before that, when individuals were peasants and owned little apart from the rags they stood up in, there was nothing for them to surrender and so punishments were inflicted on their body.

There was also 'trial by ordeal' where an accused person was required to prove their innocence with the help of God, by ritually incurring an injury such as burning and having it examined after a set time to discern the extent of healing.

These changes occurred in the late 12th/early 13th centuries.

Formal courts and jury trials were brought in by Henry II. English society had become more diverse, prosperous, even educated than ever before thanks to improved agricultural practices. The population was growing rapidly and towns and cities were expanding. Must have been an exciting time!

Blimey, nose slitting.. What sort of crime could get you this sentence?

Re Trial by Ordeal, this article says it

was more commonly used in important and difficult criminal cases where evidence was lacking.

You could pay a fine to avoid the ordeal but could be thought to be admitting your guilt.
 
This thread sort of drifted onto childhood derring do but if you want to enjoy some medieval ways to die I recommend the Medieval Death Bot account on Twitter which just lists coroners reports from the middle ages. Lots of people were murdered by clerks. It's become a bit of a meme. https://twitter.com/DeathMedieval


https://medieval-death-bot.tumblr.c...erk referred to,that needed keeping record of.

Who were clerks and just why did they murder everybody?

Clerk is an umbrella term for a variety of offices in the Middle Ages. A quick google of the term points you towards the clerical side of clerkdom, the word coming from the Latin clericus which also gives us the word ‘cleric’, which is technically an accurate description, but not really the whole picture. Some literature on the Middle Ages impedes proper research as well, the word clericus being translated as something like ‘secretary’ or even ‘deputy’, which makes tracing the occupation through society difficult.

In general, clerk referred to anyone who had a job that incorporated writing and keeping accounts. And there were a lot of clerks. They were in every part of religious and secular society keeping records of everything that needed keeping record of. Important households and individuals employed clerks (and subclerks) by the handful. In Peter Brears’ Cooking and Dining In Medieval England, there are about a dozen different kinds of clerks mentioned just in relation to the kitchen and food preparation.

However, clerk was also a term used for scholars. Most of the murders of or by clerks would be of this sort, making these clerks young men aged anywhere from about fourteen to somewhere in twenties (though law students could be quite older.) There were young men usually far away from home at school and with full access to alcohol. The bulk of these clerk murders come from the Records of Medieval Oxford which makes these groups of drunken, armed clerks wandering the streets, trying to cause trouble, students at Oxford. They often found the trouble they were looking for; groups of clerks murder a single clerk, or two clerks get into a ‘strife’ at a tavern and one of them ends up killing the other, etc etc.

The following reports give us a good look at some very traditional clerk murders in detail:

William de Bufford - 1302 - on Wednesday after the feast of the Purification of St. Mary the Virgin the said William stood in the door of his house immediately after curfew, and John de Bellgrave and John de Cliffe, clerks, came there and made an assault on the said William; and John de Cliffe with a sword gave him the aforesaid wound on the shoulder, and John de Bellgrave with a dagger gave him the said wound on the left side, whereof he died; but he lived for 17 days after he was wounded, and had all his church rights.

William de Roule - 1303 - “a clerk named William de Roule from the bishopric of Durham died in his lodging where he abode in the parish of St. Mildred… The jurors say upon their own that one Louis, of North Wales, clerk, and one David ab Oweyn, clerk, of Wales, and others whose names are unknown, were in a street called School Street about the hour of curfew; and two of the companion of the said William de Roule, who were outside Smithgate, came there, and when they would pass, Louis and the other assaulted them, and at once they raised the hue; which when the said William heard as he was in his lodging, he came forth with a staff to help his companions; and the said malefactors at once beat him, whereof he died.

Philip Port - 1305 - John de Berdon… late in the dusk of the evening, came to lodging where the said Philip abode… and as he was in his chamber called him and asked him to come with him to a beer tavern, promising that he would give him drink; and he came out and went with him; and John after drinking withdrew; and so Philip began to go towards his lodging after curfew, and when he came to the corner under the wall towards East Gate, five clerks whose names they knew not came and made an assault on him; and he would have fled from them; and they followed him and caught him and wounded him as aforesaid, and slew him, and at once they fled.

Philip was wounded in the front of his head from one ear to another, so that all his brain was scattered outside; and he had another wound across his face to within the teeth, four inches long and one inch wide, and his right hand was cut off and lay beside him, and as it seemed to all who were there he had been wounded on the head with a hatchet, called in English sparth (halberd).

The murders by clerics in the sense of parish clerks and priests are rare, and their deaths often accidents, such as Robert de Honiton who accidentally fell through a trap door in the bell-tower attempting to ring the bells on New Year’s Eve.

In the end, the clerks that crop up often in the tweets are just drunken university students causing trouble after dark, and generally not priests.

2. Why is the price of this thing mentioned?

That thing–be it a pot or a knife–is called a ‘deodand’ and it’s something that is believed to have caused the death of an individual. The price of each deodand is appraised and gathered for the crown’s treasury. The crown was then supposed to use this money for pious means, in the light that a deodand is, in purest form, something forfeited to god. The deodand was either paid by someone in the village or taken out of the deceased’s chattels.

3. Can you research/tweet/answer this for me?

Sometimes. I don’t check in very often with replies, so if you do ask a question about a tweet, please be patient for an answer. I don’t always have the exact answers, however, especially if you’re asking for certain specifics; not everything we think is relevant was recorded in a coroner’s report.
 
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