23
May

Blood Red Roses: the Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461

   Posted by: Jenny Savage   in

Veronica Fiorato, Anthea Boylston, Christopher Knusel (eds.), Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461.  Foreword by Robert Hardy.  Oxbow Books, 2007.  ISBN 9781842172896 (Paperback)

For anyone interested in the Battle of Towton, fought on a snowy Palm Sunday 1461 I can recommend Blood Red Roses: the Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle.

The grave was come upon by chance by builders working on foundations, in the path of the flight and pursuit of the defeated.  The discovery was the catalyst for a multi-disciplinary research project beginning with the excavation of the grave, a study of the skeletal remains of ordinary medieval soldiers, the battlefield landscape, the historical evidence and contemporary arms and armour.  There are arguments that graves such as this should not be disturbed, but to quote Robert Hardy in his foreword to the book “can we doubt that those who died nearly 550 years ago would choose to speak to us ‘thus we were and thus we died’ rather than lie in endless silence”.  The project received the support of The Richard 111 Society.

The book is not for those of a delicate constitution as it contains details and photographs of the horrific injuries suffered by the soldiers it was given to me by my brother, a Professor of Ears, Nose and Throat, and therefore very interested in the injuries which they suffered.  He was a keen member of the Society and did some research into the skeletons found in the Tower.  I found the book fascinating since the documentary accounts of the battle tend to concentrate on the military and political leadership and not the ordinary soldier.