HALF of the Men Found in Medieval Paupers’ Cemetery Had Broken Bones

Life in Europe during the Middle Ages was difficult and dangerous for the majority of the population. Poverty, disease, and warfare were common, and the poor and working classes bore the brunt of these hardships including more broken bones. In one medieval cemetery, more than half of all the men and 40 percent of the women had broken bones!

To learn more about the risks and hardships people faced during those grueling times, researchers from the University of Cambridge archaeology department performed detailed X-ray studies on the skeletal remains of 267 residents of medieval Cambridge, looking for evidence of skeletal fractures. These bones were excavated from three separate burial grounds, and included men, women, and younger people who were interred between the 11^th and 14^th centuries AD.

The locations of the three cemeteries used in the Cambridge broken bone study: 1. The All Saints by the Castle Parish. 2. The Hospital of St. John the Evangelist. 3. The Augustinian Friary of Cambridge (University of Cambridge)