Three miscreants had murdered Chaplain John Ford at a bustling market street of London in broad daylight on May 3, 1337. While one of them stabbed Ford in the throat with an 11-inch-long dagger, other two slashed his stomach open, leaving the chaplain to die near the Greyfriars Church. A contemporary investigation revealed that a wealthy and influential lady, named Ela FitzPayne, hired those three men to eliminate Ford. However, investigators failed to find the motive behind the murder.

Manuel Eisner, the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, undertook a special task in 2018. He founded the Medieval Murder Map, an interactive medieval murder map plotting the sudden deaths of thousands across the English towns of London, York and Oxford, on the basis of investigation reports of various murders in England. Eisner marked the locations of all the killings in this map. By clicking on those marked places, one can get detailed information about the murders. With this, the criminologist cracked a number of 700-year-old cold cases, including the murder of John Ford. Cambridge Historian Stephanie Brown, an expert in medieval crimes in Yorkshire, helped Eisner to expand his map, formalise the project and add records from lesser-researched cities. Eisner became curious about the motive behind the murder of Ford.

While searching for more information on noblewoman FitzPayne, Eisner and his research team found a letter dated January 29, 1332 written by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Metham, to the Bishop of Winchester. The letter described how FitzPayne was convicted of adultery, as she had slept “with knights and others, single and married, and even with clerics in holy orders”. Sentenced to a punishment of public humiliation, FitzPayne had to walk barefoot from the western entrance of Salisbury Cathedral to the high altar with a large, lighted candle as an offering every day for seven consecutive years! The church had also prohibited her from wearing gems, silver, gold or any makeup. Naturally, she had held a grudge.

Eisner tried to find out why FitzPayne hired criminals to eliminate Ford. From other documents related to this particular case, he came to know that the chaplain was one of FitzPayne’s lovers! Although it is still not clear what role Ford had played during FitzPayne’s punishment, Eisner assumed that the chaplain had made no effort to save the lady from the wrath of the church. The criminologist believes that Ford had distanced himself from this controversial issue. Insulted, FitzPayne hired miscreants to kill Ford out of revenge.

Criminologists could not have imagined that the 700-year-old murder mystery would unfold in this way. Interestingly, Eisner’s Medieval Murder Map helped solve this London cold case. Eisner and his team prepared this interactive map by using the latest technology. The map shows only the medieval murders that had taken place in three English cities – London, York and Oxford. It is a really difficult task to identify and collect details of crimes committed in the Middle Ages. However, Eisner made it possible by conducting research on a detailed map of the three cities of that period of time, the lifestyle of the city dwellers, the civic power structure, the criminal tendencies of the inhabitants, and the mode of trial and punishment. Eisner basically wanted to create a clue to the modern crime and judicial system through this map. The Medieval Murder Map further reveals the change in character of murders in modern times. According to Eisner, his Medieval Murder Map could serve as a time machine.

Eisner got interested in medieval crimes in 2012. He, along with his wife, began to gather accounts of various murders of the 14th Century. At the same time, they started marking different crime spots with pins on a large map of the city of London. They used the Coroners’ Rolls, some of England’s earliest legal records, and other legal documents of contemporary England in order to provide a historical context for the murders. The rolls date back to the 14th Century when a newly-appointed royal official, the Coroner, had investigated a number of sudden or unnatural deaths, like murders, suicides or accidents. The coroner had also interviewed a jury of 12-50 people from the neighbourhood about when and where those deaths happened, names of the victims and weapons that were used to commit those crimes.

It was not the case that the Coroners’ Rolls were always complete, as the killer could not be identified in many cases. In some cases (including the case related to Ford), the reason for the murder remained unknown. Historian Brown is a skilled palaeographer who helped Eisner and his team to decipher the mysterious, medieval penmanship of the Coroners’ Rolls, unlocking centuries of secrets. “You have these huge bits of parchment. Each page is probably about a metre long and half a metre wide, written on vellum, animal skin, and you need to be able to read this 14th Century handwriting,” stressed Brown. The historian claimed that she had to visit the National Archives in London in an attempt to touch the documents and to “connect closer to the medieval people who would have been putting these documents together”. She first transcribed the rolls, jotting down a legible version of the original Latin text, and then translated the text into modern English.

Even after the translation work, the rolls held mysteries for both Brown and Eisner. Coroners often referenced places that no longer exist. Medieval England did not have postcodes or street numbers. Often, coroners just noted details, such as “where widow Severless was living”. Hence, the historians had to cross-reference their findings with ancient financial records or housing documents. Sara Butler, the Director of the Centre for Historical Research at Ohio State University, stated: “Honestly, having looked at these records, I am shocked that (the Cambridge team) were able to do as good of a job as they did. Kudos to them.” She added: “Having these historic maps available, so we can go in and explore is awesome. It is really exciting.”

History-based crime thrillers have become quite popular across the globe in recent times. Eisner’s Medieval Murder Map shall not only be of use to researchers or students of history, but also the authors of crime thrillers. The map may well help them to pen more perfect mystery narratives in the coming days.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das