Who Was Saint Bees Man? – Medieval Dead – S02 EP01 – History Documentary

Join us as we unravel the medieval mystery of Saint Bees Man in this episode of Medieval Dead. Discover the fascinating story behind the astonishing archaeological discovery of a remarkably preserved body buried for centuries. We delve into the life and death of Sir Anthony De Lucy, a 14th-century English knight, and his journey to the dangerous northern Crusades in Lithuania. Learn about the siege of Kaunas Castle and the brutal realities of medieval warfare. This episode explores historical research, archaeological findings, and the quest to connect the dots of the past.

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Foreign [Music]   a sealed lead coffin a man’s  identity forgotten to history an archaeological Discovery as  unsettling as it was astounding   I remember just looking and just thinking oh my  God forensic science and detective work combine   to solve a mystery 600 years in the  making who was the man in the lead

The Medieval World the fifth to the 15th  century Tim Sutherland is one of Britain’s   most experienced archaeologists he and a team  of Specialists try to understand medieval life   by exploring the realm of the medieval dead we  have a classic view of the storybook medieval  

Life we don’t hear the stories about the common  man trying to keep his family alive in our stores   there are hundreds if not thousands of skeletons  archaeologically speaking we can now focus in on   the medieval dead people you’re looking for  clues in the skeleton all the time and you  

Can’t help almost look through their eyes  thinking what did they see how did they die in 1981 the tiny Hamlet of Saint bees in  northern England became the scene of an   astonishing archaeological Discovery a body was  found buried in a vault for hundreds of years  

But instead of skeletonized remains what  they found was a shrouded solid corpse   nothing like it had ever been seen before it was extraordinarily well preserved  and it provided a unique opportunity   telling us what life and death were like  in medieval times who was Saint B’s man

The Border Lands between England and Scotland have  a turbulent and violent history the medieval times   were no exception raiding and conflict were  Facts of Life for the people on either side   even as far south as the English Lake District [Music]  

In the early years of the 14th century  landowning families here for the brunt   of wars with Scotland’s William  Wallace and Robert Bruce [Music]   at some bees on the Cumbria Coast lies one of the  largest Priory churches in the north of England  

In medieval times it was an important Place  busy with monastic life and large Estates   across the rugged Hills in 1981 it became the  scene of an amazing archaeological discovery   a routine excavation was drawn to a close  trainee archaeologists had uncovered a dozen  

Or so Graves of medieval monks or priors  simple burials just skeletons remained   as expected after centuries in the ground but  then they found something entirely unexpected   they came across the remains of an earth-filled  burial Vault deep beneath the priory’s car park  

It held two burials one was a skeleton like  the rest but the other was in a lead coffin   the trainees had no way yet of knowing but  they’d made the archaeological find of a lifetime   a man buried hundreds of years before yet  preserved as though he died only weeks ago  

The discovery of Saint B’s Man  became known among academics   but in an era before today’s mass media it  hardly made the news outside the local area   when Tim Sutherland first heard it the story had  already become the stuff of archaeological Legend  

I remember when I first heard about these man’s  story it was fascinating in that it hit headlines   it was really big news everybody was very excited  then it sort of faded away and it became less   famous less well-known almost disappeared from  the background of archaeological literature  

Etc and then a few years ago somebody came to me  and said have you seen this video of the autopsy   I thought this is amazing it’s 700 years old and  autopsy of an individual rather than a skeleton  

And so I looked at the video and I thought  this is unbelievable we need to know more   about this individual we need to find out  more and therefore we need to take it away   from the underground sort of anonymity of  it and back into the public perception about  

What happened what happened how important it  was can we find out anything more about it now more than 30 years later Tim heads North  to Saint bees to find out more about the story Ian mcandrew and Chris Robson are on hand to show  him the dig site the 1981 excavation wasn’t the  

First they remember how the investigations began  originally on open ground nearby The Priory Church   basically it starts with the Dig doesn’t it so  he went over and probably Paddock yes first too   yes what year was that was that 1979 yeah  so there was a dig here before they found  

Anything significant they were digging around  The Priory there were two things right so what   did they find did they find any structures a lot  of water a lot they were looking for the original   monastic buildings on that side in practice they  didn’t find very much of any interest and then  

They came uh in the summer that it only rained  wasn’t it yeah and and they said over there it was   hopeless right so they came here thought well okay  here’s a car park it’ll be drier he’ll start to be  

Drier there was trying to find stuff here and so  it’s good they had to go down about three feet or   at least that then they got down to the monastic  burial level and found you know in this area here  

Yes right in this area here and found um uh a  prior bones of a prior with the Chalice which was the car Park area where they dug had once been  the site of the medieval priory’s South Chantel   little was known about this  apart from when it was demolished  

This enabled the archaeologists to establish  a rough date for the burial of the lead coffin this was a South chancel and that  South chancell fell down in about 1500.   so in fact you would say okay this body has  to predate 1500 right on the outside so yeah

Falling down so you’ve almost won that  bit of paper say age unknown but pre-1500 he’s seen the sight as it is today but  to learn exactly what the dig on covered   Tim visits the University of Leicester Deidre O’Sullivan was the lead archaeologist the original dig plans and  drawings are a mine of information  

The the other monastic barriers were mostly in  this area but we had barriers of both phases   in this area so who who excavated some of  these months was that was that you or well   a variety of people and uncovered the coffin  we had to lift it first and that was quite a  

Big job because it was very very heavy and  so it was lifted out of the Vault and then   taken to a space just off site and then  Malcolm opened it up and I heard this ah and then there was a strange smell that wafted  over the faces the smell wafted over over the  

Air and the faces of people all went and I  remember just looking and just thinking oh   my God because when he lifted the coffin lid or  the bit that he’d cut off there was this body in  

A shroud and I had no idea no expectation at  all Ian mcandrew who is a local Doctor Who is   standing on the spoil Heap with great stamina  filming it all he made the suggestion that   the local morgue in West Cumberland Hospital  in Whitehaven might be able to accommodate it

It was realized that something had to be done to  preserve this but they didn’t have any facilities   to do so and it was lucky that I happened to  be there that day because I had contacts in   the hospital through professional context so I  said excuse me I know where there’s a big fridge  

It’s lucky Ian mcandrew was  present that day for another reason   he had with him his Super 8 home movie camera but  he had little idea that this would enable him to   capture a unique moment during the excavation  I don’t know I didn’t always carry the Super  

8 camera with me so I had some inclination that  or indication that there was a significant find   and I took the camera down with me for that um  must admit that I didn’t expect what we did find  

Ian’s footage is a Priceless record of the moment  the heavy lead coffin was lifted from the grave   this is the other side of that dig area where  they found various monastic burials yeah I’ve   seen the pictures of the autopsy but this is  so actually watch an excavation from 1981 it’s  

Fantastic but a bit of an excavation that’s so  important he’s unbelievable I can’t believe that   you or anybody else at the foresight to walk up  to that that site and start taking a silly film   of it I think at this stage we probably didn’t  realize how important it was because we hadn’t  

Opened the coffin true it wasn’t until we  opened true that Panic started in a way so there’s that’s something covering  yeah basically uncovering it   this is has it happened as it came out of the  ground or has he came out of the ground that’s  

When we opened it when we opened the lid after  being cut open but it’s still illegal isn’t it   Deidre O’Sullivan and the crowd of villages  look on transfixed as the coffin is opened   for the first time in nearly 700 years so  somebody’s man is lying there the the lead  

Has been peeled off the top and you can see him  and you can see the the state of the preservation   in terms of the the lead and the the the the  cord so it’s unbelievable really it was now  

That Ian’s suggestion of the big fridge led to  the body being sent to a nearby hospital morgue   It Was a Race Against Time to preserve the corpse  before it began to decompose but as they found out   Hospital red tape couldn’t be bypassed it  was Slightly bizarre because of course the  

The hospital Mortuary technician insisted  on going through the the normal procedure   of admitting a body shot and asking a name  don’t know um place of death well we found   him in certain B but we don’t know where he died  um age no idea but it was found um just yesterday  

But we think it must be at least 700 years old  and so I went on trying to fit this thing into   modern admission techniques which resulted in  a somewhat bizarre conversation at the hospital the hospital photographic Department had a  umatic video camera state of the art for 1981.  

As well as Ian’s footage of the coffin opening  there would also now be an audio visual record   of something completely unique the autopsy of  a man his body miraculously preserved who had   lived and died almost seven centuries before  Dr Eddie tap performed the post-mortem Ian  

Mcandrew and Deidre O’Sullivan were both present  right from the start they were all staggered at   the degree of preservation they found twenty  was finally exposed and you saw his face then   it was really amazement that it was so well  preserved the fact that you could still see  

The pupils you could see the iris there were  details that you could see in this body that   to find them in something that had been buried  for so many years was really quite astounding   this was the face of a medieval man his beard  and skin were stained by thick Pine resin that  

Had been smeared all over the linen shroud he  was about 40 years old archaeologists are used   to skeletons but this was something entirely  different I dug up dozens of skeletons myself   planned and recorded them and dug up some more  sense at no time have I ever encountered anything  

Like soft tissue never mind a preserved body and  my expectation would be that such a thing was not   within put it mildly the normal run of events of  what you’d expect to find in a medieval Cemetery Deidre could only look on as  the autopsy continued [Music]  

It seemed the remarkable state of preservation  wasn’t confined to the body’s exterior   this is the moment Ian and the  Pathologists looked inside the chest cavity in this bill it’s not blood liquid red blood ly congealed  still visible inside a centuries-old cadaver   an important clue later as to  the cause of the man’s death

The liver was slicing two or three places and as  we watch you can see the First Slice second slice   third slice and the last slice was pink the slicer  had been done first which was probably I don’t  

Know maybe a minute or so earlier was brown so you  could really as you wash you could see this slow   color change from going from Pink through to Brown  and this was the fact of of the oxygen in there  

Oxidizing the tissues from the internal organs  and intestines they found no disease or infection   and from the stomach contents  they could discern his last meal   oats and raisins are kind of porridge the man  had been in good health at the time of death  

But it’s when they looked at the Man’s  Bones that they began to gain a clear   insight into how he might have died  his jaw was fractured in two places   so you had received a blow to his jaw he’d  had these fractured ribs so he must have  

Received a blow to the to this chest cavity so  these were the two main injuries that he had   the fractured ribs and the blood found inside  the chest cavity were Clues as to a probable   cause of death the fractured rims he had actually  punctured the lung or the lining of the lung a  

Pneumothorax as a condition is called is likely  to be fatal if it’s not treated fairly promptly   it can survive it but it’s unlikely in the cases  in B’s man he not only had the pneumothorax but  

He’d also been bleeding into the chest cavity so  he had a hemothorax as well and this is really   what killed him fractured jaw fractured ribs  a punctured lung his death had been painful   but how had it happened there was no obvious  indicator as to how the injuries had been caused  

Massive blunt force trauma yet no direct  evidence of a weapon such as a blade or a spear   but there was hardly time to speculate before  procedure had to be followed and the body returned   to the Grave it couldn’t occupy the Morgan West  Cumberland Hospital the expense of the National  

Health Service and uh we certainly didn’t have  any facilities in Leicester for that so it seemed   the best thing to do with simple ceremony the  man in the lead was reinterred at Saint B’s   where he still lies to this day

But who he was remained a mystery the forensic  research was over the historical just beginning local historian John Todd was driving the history  um driven by the uh the question at the mortuary   name please John Todd set about finding a named  individual important enough to be buried in a  

Prestigious place in the south chancell [Music]  could he have been a clergyman like the other   burials it seemed unlikely given that he was  buried alongside a woman and the clergy were   forbidden to marry it seemed he had to be from  one of the noble families in England probably  

In the mid or late 14th century but which First  Choice was a man called John de Harrington who   died I think 12 1298 who was the first option for  Chris and B’s man as well as the harringtons John  

Todd also favored the de Lucy family Sir Anthony  De Lucy was known to have owned lands around sent   bees and he became the prime candidate the problem  was the lady the The Vault had been extended   and therefore the lady had died after the man  Harrington’s wife in fact pre-deceased him  

So that was a real problem but de Lucy his wife  was known to have died in London age 70 so she   didn’t fit either Anthony’s wife remarried  and so would not have been buried with him   this led John Todd to think what if  the bones were of another family member  

Anthony’s daughter died as an infant  but his sister Moore de Lucy was one   of the richest and most powerful women  in the north of England at this time   her remains weren’t reburied with Saint B’s  man now she’s known simply as skeleton sk-100  

Another important discovery made by local  researcher Doug Sim now seemed to back up John   Todd’s Theory among the stones at The Priory was a  fragment of heraldry it showed the arms of the de   luces quartered with the purses another prominent  family the only time this could have happened was  

When moored heir to the de Lucy Fortune married  into the persies sk-100 it seemed was moored   in which case Saint B’s man it seemed was Sir  Anthony De Lucy de Lucy was known to have died   in 1368. fitting the profile of an important  man buried in the South chancel before 1500.  

He owned large Estates elsewhere yet some bees  seemed important to him perhaps a spiritual home   as a knight he was no stranger to action he’d  fought the Scots on the English borders where he   might possibly have sustained his last injuries  yet just then seemed the trail would lead no  

Further and then very unfortunately almost the  same time John Todd had a heart attack and died   very suddenly he was enormous loss to the uh go  to everybody you know he was he was Mr history   Chris Robson carried on the  research John Todd had begun  

He knew there was one problem with confirming  once and for all the man in the lead as Anthony   de Lucy was recorded as having died overseas  if this was true how could he be buried at   same bees in England in the medieval period  you just don’t send people home over a long  

Distance from overseas the impracticalities  of it are just immense obviously you would   need a huge amount of money so unless  you’re a king or a very important person   it just didn’t happen and of course they didn’t  have refrigeration units you couldn’t send a body  

Home in deep freeze they would have to be sent  home wrapped in a condition that they would stand   at least some chance of arriving home intact the  body was wrapped in resin linen inside the lead   but it hadn’t been deliberately embarked for  preservation Like An Egyptian mummy the intestines  

Were not removed how could the body have survived  weeks or even months on such a long journey home   there were many questions to be answered a clue  lay in something else found by the pathology   at the time it caused Ian and the others some  alarm over the whole of the or internal organs  

There were sort of little yellow granules this  caused a certain amount of concern because there   is a condition called military tuberculosis  and it does produce the appearance of little   yellow dots all over organs and of course  the concern was well if the body survived  

This long what about the bacteria so it did  give us a little bit of worry at the time   it turned out to be crystals of Oedipus  here this was found out later on   adipocia occurs in archaeological bodies when  certain conditions combine moisture trapped  

Within the resin shroud reacted to a change in  temperature stopping decomposition it kept saying   B’s man almost in suspended animation preserved  as if his death had only just taken place   it was plausible after all that he could be  Anthony De Lucy Chris’s curiosity was renewed  

After John’s death I felt the aspects of the story  which were incomplete and this question of tidying   up Loose Ends and then what happened was the loose  answers have been tied up unraveled and spread in   all sorts of different directions John Todd had  found that the Lucy may have died on Crusade  

But the days of the Palestine Crusades were  long gone by the 14th century a crusade just   meant wherever Christians fought pagans de Lucy  went North to Prussia Financial records detailed   de Lucy’s preparations for the Crusade with a  party of other English Knights including one  

Named John de Moulton John the Moulton and uh  an auntie de Lucy both borrowed money from the   same person within a week of each other he was  stated that John de Moulton was going to Prussia   he was not stated where Anthony was going it  was thought they were probably going together  

And John Todd thought well it’s almost  probable but certainly you can’t prove it   it was then that one of the amazing twists  that characterized the story happened   among papers relating to  John de Moulton was a letter   and At Last Chris found what he’d been looking  for and then suddenly this letter turns up  

In modeling College Oxford written by John the  Moulton to his wife in November 1367 saying dear   wife I am going with my friend Anthony De Lucy  to Prussia and you think wow where’s that been   suddenly you have written evidence the two  were going the letter was a major Leap Forward  

For the first time there was evidence  that de Lucy made a journey abroad in   the year before his death 1367. at Maudlin  College Chris meets with Robin darwall Smith he’s come to see for himself the letter carefully  preserved among thousands of other documents

Welcome to Morton’s munament room wow so this  is state-of-the-art archival storage Circa 1480   I am doing the same job here my princesses have  been doing for hundreds of years and this cupboard   contains documents about Moulton Hall and we took  

This out some years ago and flattened it  for better conservation and so here it is and it’s a letter from Sir John de Malton to his  wife written in 1367. just before he’s going off   on crusading Prussia um this is extraordinary this  is this is this is almost I think it’s almost the  

First time that somebody from who is associated  with some bees has actually come in direct contact   with the letter which tells this extraordinary  story it’s now it’s all in medieval French I’ll   try to cancel it so dear companion I do like  that way he talks to his wife that’s rather yes  

Doesn’t fall down at all at once it isn’t very  very personal isn’t it it’s sachet know that   Anthony Lucy and me and all our company are taking  our journey to the parts of spruces but that’s  

Prussia yes so that’s the important bit that they  are on their way to Prussia yes with of course can you see yes Saint Clement’s day the 23rd of  November the letter proves Anthony De Lucy was  

Heading for Lithuania for John de Moulton it  was a last goodbye to his wife and a home he   would never see again for Chris also the letter  is tinged with sadness our local historian John   Todd was searching for this documentary evidence  year after year after year thinking it must be  

Somewhere and he’s not here to see it oh did he  died sadly hmm some years back always thinking   sometimes this documentary evidence will turn  up so there’s a sort of double sadness yes   Chris now had the strongest case so far to believe  the body in the lead was Sir Anthony De Lucy  

Now as he delved deeper into what was known  about the man he found the molten andalusi   in their party would not have been alone when  they reached Prussia they were with the most   renowned fighting men in Europe at that time  the order of the brothers of the German House  

Of Saint Mary in Jerusalem the Teutonic Knights  Chris the story had become even more intriguing   and I then get in contact with the people  who the historians say I think we’ve got   the possibility of you know somebody called  Anthony De Lucy who might have joined the  

Teutonic Knights and eventually I get hold of  Tim guard who’s written his book and he says   oh Auntie de Lucy I’ll look him up in  my notes I thought wow you know about   this guy I thought he would he would say who  uh Chris contacted me with an email asking  

If there was a connection he felt there should be  a connection explored between what he’d discovered   and what was known about this one bees man and my  work on the Crusades in the 14th century before  

The G um and at first I was skeptical I wondered  deeply whether this was just a sort of a romantic   attachment but having looked into it and agreed  to go and talk to the sunbees history group the  

Evidence started to pile up and the connections I  felt were strong enough to Warrant really serious   investigation Tim guard has made a careful study  of the accounts of 14th century English noblemen   who fought for Christianity it’s given him an  insight as to why apparently so many of these  

Knights found it compelling to join the campaigns  in the Baltic in what became known as the northern   Crusades since the 1190s when the Crusades to  Palestine and the East began to falter Christians   had taken the fight closer to home northern Europe  and the Baltic where paganism still flourished  

The Teutonic Knights were the dominant Christian  Force propagating the Crusades but by the 1360s   they were overstretched and relied on nights from  different Christian countries to bolster their   ranks for Cheval reconna spiritual well-being  as they saw it or simple military experience   especially for English Knights  like de Lucy in times of relative  

Peace closer to home when there was  little prospects of war with France for men like de Lucy who perhaps had  not had the chance to fight in the grand   campaigns like Chris a and Poitier  the 1360s are a sort of still time  

You you’re fully aware you’re fully conscious  of the reputations that have been built   under Edward III in his famous armies and  you’re itching for an opportunity yourself sometimes they went off to join  the Teutonic Knights almost um as a  

Um almost as a holiday I think um in the sense  that they’d go out there possibly for six months   simply to join in the fighting they would  come back with a Prestige of being a crusader   some of them went off for Spiritual reasons  but some went off for the pride of the family  

And in some senses to come back with um a  ticket saying of course I’ve been a crusader   and therefore in fact I have less time in perjury there’s a nice letter from somebody a French  Knight saying in fact he went to join the  

Teutonic Knights for a particular time because at  that at that time he wrote the fighting is good   Anthony De Lucy with his background  fighting border skirmishes with the Scots   May well have looked forward to his time with  the Teutonic knights with the same relish  

He probably arrived in Lithuania by boat  along the Neiman River sometime in early 1368   in fact it was made easy for them to travel  the fighting was in fact in the winter when   it was frozen and you could go across marshlands  without too much difficulty you then had a break  

For Christmas and then fighting took place in  the Summer where it was nice and dry and again   you didn’t get bogged down because the the the  the the geography of that area is quite awful   heading out into the Lithuanian Wilderness on a  racer or Raid de Lucy was probably on Horseback  

With other Knights supported by dismounted  infantry as they search for pagans to attack   either soldiers or any civilians unwise enough  not to have fled pitched battles were very few   and far between mostly the fighting was in  short vicious skirmishes or most often sieges  

Sometimes the fights were arranged by the Teutonic  Knights for the martial enjoyment of their guests   whose financial support they desperately needed  most of the time they did not expect to lose   but as Anthony De Lucy found out sometimes a  crusade did not go according to the divine plan

I think it’s great that after 30 years  Chris can go back into the footsteps of   a man who visited Lithuania 700 years ago  and see the same sort of places that he saw   get the same sort of feeling about the  landscape and what it was like to exist  

And fight and potentially die there 700 years  ago more than three decades after the man in   the lead was uncovered another Saint Bee’s man  now travels to Lithuania from what historians   have pieced together it’s here that de Lucy and  the other English Knights came countus Lithuania  

50 kilometers west of Vilnius kaunus Castle  guards the Confluence of two important rivers   the Neiman and the nearest in the 14th century  this was the front line strategically important   to both sides and it’s here somewhere that  de Lucy met his fate Anthony De Lucy was  

Was here in August possibly September we think  he died in in August and here we are in August   yeah the sunshine the same Sunshine so same sort  of birds that we look around we see the river we  

Get a feel for for him we can’t see his footsteps  but we can sort of think about it and I think   that’s absolutely fascinating and also enormous  privilege the castle was besieged and changed   hands several times during the 1360s neither side  ever being able to fully break the deadlock as  

The war on the frontier stalemated the result was  attritional Warfare bad enough for the combatants   horrendous for the local population David Nicole  has written many books on medieval warfare   he’s traveled to count us with Chris to help  understand what de Lucy may have experienced here  

The castle is now a museum from archeology  carried out during the restoration it’s been   possible to put together an accurate idea of the  scale detail and sheer savagery of the fighting   after a month-long Siege in Spring 1362 a castle  here was taken by the Teutonic Knights of a  

Garrison of hundreds all but three were killed but  the area was too important for the lithuanians to   give up and a few years later they established  Another Castle just five kilometers away New   conus Castle was of Timber and Earth rather  than stone and brick once more the Teutonic  

Knights vowed to attack from their base on the  Neiman River they launched another Siege campaign   surviving accounts suggest it’s this campaign  in which de Lucy and the English Knights took   part alongside their Teutonic Brothers what  actually happens what’s the the rules that  

It were I don’t think there are any rules at  all at this stage certainly not what you’re   fighting against pagans because Siege Warfare was  always the most brutal because there was at least   possibility of Honor Siege Warfare the equivalent  of trench warfare for their period the closing  

Stages of a medieval Siege if the Garrison of the  castle does not surrender are going to be the the   most brutal and bloody time because that’s when  the two sides come hand to hand if they fight on  

Until the enemy the attackers break in then by  the laws of war and there were no laws as such   but the Customs the accepted code of behavior  is if you had to actually fight your way in you   didn’t have to give quarter they had sacrificed  their right to surrender because they hadn’t  

Surrendered before you broke in they did they  left it too late it’s it’s nasty it’s brutal there   are people with their bones getting broken and  limbs cut off and if the Crusaders the Teutonic   Knights break in there is going to be Slaughter  medieval warfare in all its forms was Lethal  

There’s no way to be sure exactly how  de Lucy received his fatal injuries   so given the injuries which we know he had it’s  a severe blow to the sight of the head or to  

The side of the face breaks his jaw he has a high  status man he’s going to have a really good helmet   now whether he has a visor to protect his face  is debatable because they always had to choose  

Between protection of the face and not being able  to see practically anything or good visibility but   you’re open to facial injury he gets a bash  to the side of his head now that either he   falls over onto something from some height breaks  his ribs punctures his lung eventually dies now  

If he’s wearing armor or a coat of plates that  could well prevent a cut but would not prevent   the break because a coat of plates is it’s like a  modern uh bullet armor the plates the actual armor  

Itself can still go into you and break your ribs  All That Remains is to make a final pilgrimage   the exact location of new conus is now lost Chris  and David head out to see for themselves the   Wilderness in which it stood somewhere near  here was the scene of De Lucy’s last fight  

So this would be about as close as we’re ever  going to get to New canes yes and one look back to   1368 and say well somewhere here is where he died  yes goodness knows where what happened that day  

Won’t ever be known for sure but it ended in the  deaths of De Lucy and two other English Knights   and very likely many more on both sides Chris’s  research has helped him draw some kind of   understanding of a story which he and others have  been researching for decades when I started trying  

To understand the Lucy story I thought that it  was a few strands had to be wrapped up together   and as you wrap up the strands of the story  you realize in fact it simply unravels on you   and it keeps on unraveling so I suspect it  will continue Drawing level I don’t think  

We’ll ever get to I always thought there  will be at some point a final full stop   and then we’d say finished but I was told  firmly by my wife history never has a full stop more than 30 years after the initial excavation  in the 1980s we can piece all this information  

Together and we can tell the original story about  what happened to some bees man Sir Anthony De Lucy   an English Knight of the mid 14th century who’d  fought in skirmishes against the Scots who’d   mortgage land or property to join the northern  Crusades either for his soul for the military  

Experience or simply the honor but there was  little glory in the bitter Siege fighting at conus   in a landscape blasted by years of war he heard he  was to take part in an attack on a new Pagan fort

From the injuries on his body he may  have been in the thick of the fighting   perhaps eager to break through the  defenses be the first over the wall but the Defenders are too strong they know  they’ll be slaughtered if they don’t hold out   and they’re fighting for  their country on home soil

The attack stalls de Lucy is hit  a heavy blow fractures his jaw   a falling armor breaks his ribs and punctures  his lung brother Knights or infantrymen drag   him away shielding his body as the fourth  Defenders rain down arrows to hurry the retreat

He’s evacuated by boat back down the Neiman River  perhaps he makes it perhaps he dies on the water   he’s a foreign Knight who sacrificed his life for  the cause the Teutonic Knights perhaps intend to   bury him with honors yet his surviving friends  or servants honor a pledge or a last request  

The body is wrapped in a linen shroud  sealed with resin then encased in lead   he’s then returned home across the sea back to  the beautiful wild Hills of the north of England   where once again he lies to this day