Espionage, sex, public humiliation, murder — these may sound like tropes straight out of Game of Thrones, but they’re actually all elements of a nearly 700-year-old cold case in England. 

After analyzing Medieval letters and records, a research team from the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology’s Medieval Murder Maps project may have found the killer of a priest. However, this priest may not have been so innocent. A new paper published in Criminal Law Forum takes a deeper look at this 14th-century cold case.

Tracing a Medieval Murder

The Medieval Murder Maps project uses interactive maps of three English cities, London, Oxford, and York, during the Medieval period. Throughout the cities are the locations of various deaths and murders. Each location has a story associated with it, directly from written records and coroners’ reports at the time. Some of these stories are full of intriguing twists and turns.

The Cambridge research team analyzed over 100 murders from texts, translated from Latin, from that period, and used a coding method to separate the deaths into different categories, including time (day, week, month), motivation, weapon used, victim, and location. 

From this information, one of the deaths the team found most interesting was the murder of John Forde in 1337.

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A Medieval Lover to Murderer

From the letters and texts the team analyzed, they pieced together the events that led up to Forde’s death. 

Forde was a priest living in London when he was murdered on a busy street. But what possible reason would someone have to want to murder a priest? The motive, according to the research team, was likely revenge. 

According to Manuel Eisner, one of the study’s authors, the murder may have been an act of revenge by noblewoman Ela Fitzpayne. According to the records, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Mepham, had enacted penance on Fitzpayne after it was discovered that Forde had been her lover. 

A letter written by Archbishop Mepham accused Fitzpayne of adultery with Forde and possibly others. Her penance was to take a barefoot walk of shame across Salisbury Cathedral. 

Eisner also found a document that suggested Fitzpayne, her husband, and John Forde sent a gang to rob a church priory and took the livestock for ransom. It’s possible that during this time, Forde found himself in bed with Fitzpayne, before betraying her to the Archbishop Mepham. 

Commissioned Murder

Possibly betrayed by her former lover and sentenced to walks of shame that were to take place once a year for seven years,  Fitzpayne would have none of it. On an early evening on a busy London street, near St. Paul’s Cathedral, three men attacked Forde. One slit his throat while the others stabbed him in the gut. 

Witnesses claim that the murderers were Fitzpayne’s brother and two of her former servants. 

“We are looking at a murder commissioned by a leading figure of the English aristocracy. It is planned and cold-blooded, with a family member and close associates carrying it out, all of which suggests a revenge motive,” said Eisner in a press release.

Cold Case Revealed

According to letters from Archbishop Mepham, Fitzpayne was led by the devil and a “spirit of pride.”

“The archbishop imposed heavy, shameful public penance on Ela, which she seems not to have complied with, but may have sparked a thirst for vengeance,” said Eisner in a press release. “Not least as John Forde appears to have escaped punishment by the church.” 

When Archbishop Mepham died in 1333, Fitzpayne waited four years before enacting her revenge, and in 1337, Forde was killed. 

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Article Sources

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A graduate of UW-Whitewater, Monica Cull wrote for several organizations, including one that focused on bees and the natural world, before coming to Discover Magazine. Her current work also appears on her travel blog and Common State Magazine. Her love of science came from watching PBS shows as a kid with her mom and spending too much time binging Doctor Who.