Europe UK (Commonwealth Union) – The Lady Anchoress of York Barbican is an anonymous medieval female religious figure who chose to live a life of seclusion as an anchoress in a small cell attached to the wall of the Barbican tower in York, England. She is known only through her surviving writings and is believed to have lived in the 15th century.
The University of Sheffield and Oxford Archaeology has unearthed uncommon extraordinary aspects of the anchoress with the aid of skeletal collection now kept at the University.
The evaluation of the collection, consisting of an astounding 667 complete skeletons dated to the Roman, Medieval, and Civil War era, has shown one that stands out that is likely the Lady Isabel German, a significant anchoress.
Dr Lauren McIntyre, University of Sheffield Alumna and Osteoarchaeologist at Oxford Archaeology Limited, carried out the work on the historical and osteoarchaeological findings, involving the application of radiocarbon dating and isotopic evaluation into skeleton SK3870.
She says “The location of the skeleton in the apse suggests this was a woman of high status, but the crouched burial position is extremely unusual for the medieval period. The lab research also shows the woman buried at All Saints Church was living with septic arthritis and also advanced venereal syphilis.” Dr Lauren McIntyre further indicated that Lady German resided in a time of history where it was assumed to be a strong link between visible and disfiguring illnesses and sin, with that type of suffering viewed as a penalty from God. While it was more tempting to indicate that a person with visible disfiguring disease is shunned or would prefer to commit to residing as an anchoress as a path to cutting off from the world, this research demonstrated that this may haven’t been the case. Such severe disease may have been seen as positive, as sent by God for granting of martyr-like status to a special person.
