She was buried in a particularly strange position. With her body bent, as if she were crouching. Her burial was a small cubicle located behind the altar of the Church of All Saints in Fishergate, near the famous barbican of York (England). The woman, a hermit who dedicated her life to prayer while she was in seclusion and supposedly without any direct human contact, died in the 15th century… with syphilis.
This bacterially transmitted disease is usually transmitted through sexual intercourse. It begins as a small, painless sore—usually on the genitals, rectum, or mouth—and can lie dormant on the body for decades before becoming active again. Today, the condition can be cured if it is in an early stage using penicillin, but 500 years ago things were not exactly like that. But let us return to the skeletal remains found in England.
Archaeologists from the University of Sheffield say the skeleton, discovered in 2007, possibly belongs to Lady Isabel German, who opted for a life of seclusion in a church room during the 15th century. The researchers discovered her case by analyzing a collection of 667 complete bodies dating from the Roman, Medieval and English Civil War eras.
“The location of the remains in the apse suggests that it was a woman of high status,” says Lauren McIntyre, lead author of the article published in the journal Medieval Archeology. “But burial of her in a crouching position is extremely unusual for the medieval period,” she adds.
The researchers’ hypotheses suggest that Lady German’s position could be caused by syphilis, by the arthritis that she also suffered from, or even by the small space that was assigned to her. Even so, there is a fourth option, that she would have died like this and rigor mortis would have set in before she could be buried.
After analyzing the remains, the archaeologists determined that the hermit “was living with septic arthritis and also advanced venereal syphilis. This would have meant that she suffered severe and visible symptoms of infection that affected her entire body and later caused neurological problems and deterioration.” their mental health,” says McIntyre.
Although one can only speculate about how she contracted this sexually transmitted disease, specialists from the University of Sheffield do not rule out that the disease remained inactive during the 28 years that Lady German was imprisoned, according to the site’s documentation, or that it had been isolated. as penance for contracting an STD that often disfigures the body.
“We have no information about the circumstances in which this occurred. The sexual contact could have occurred during consensual or non-consensual intercourse, such as rape,” the authors write in the study. “Isabel German lived in a period when there was a strong association between visible and disfiguring disease and sin. This suffering was seen as God’s punishment,” adds McIntyre.
Although only the clergy or very wealthy people were buried inside churches at this time, the anchorite probably had to accept charity in order to survive. Becoming a hermit in the England of 500 years ago, when women were expected to marry and become their husband’s property, was also able to play a card in favor of Lady German, giving her significant status in both her community and the world. Church, both dominated by men.
“The data from the new study allow us to explore the possibilities that our protagonist chose to dedicate herself to a life of solitude as a way of remaining autonomous and in control of her own destiny. This lifestyle would have made her a very important figure within local society, where she would have been seen almost as a living prophet”, concludes McIntyre.