Archaeologists from several universities in England teamed up to analyze the skeletal remains of more than 400 individuals who were buried in a medieval cemetery that belonged to St. John the Evangelist Hospital in Cambridge. Their comprehensive study of the bones of these unfortunate souls has provided detailed information about the users of what was, in essence, a medieval social benefit system which functioned over hundreds of years.
Constructed and opened for business by its church in 1195, St. John the Evangelist Hospital was tasked with the mission of providing housing and medical services to the “poor and infirm.” The deceased interred at the cemetery came from a diverse set of backgrounds, united only by their eternal connection to the ruins of the 800-year-old charitable institution.
The hospital or shelter itself was relatively small in size, only housing about a dozen or so inmates (plus several clerics and lay servants) at any one time. But the institution remained open for a long time, until it was finally replaced by medical and residential facilities built at St. John’s College in 1511.
In total more than 400 people lived, died and were buried at St. John the Evangelist, and the collective skeletal remains of all these individuals tell a fascinating story about what life was really like for the destitute who used the services of this medieval benefit system which existed during the Late Middle Ages.
Members of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit at work on the excavation of the…
