History series which sees skeletons of everyday people from across the ages analysed in staggering detail, opening new windows on the history of our Ancestors by literally revealing the person behind the skeleton.
The Bodies in the Well:
When the remains of 17 people - men, women and 11 children, one as young as two years old - were discovered in a dry well shaft in Norwich city centre, the local community were keen for answers about who these people were and what happened to them. Thought to date from the early 1200s, this becomes a case of suspected medieval murder but the final reveal of the identity of these people is an even bigger shock to all involved.
The Bodies in the Well:
When the remains of 17 people - men, women and 11 children, one as young as two years old - were discovered in a dry well shaft in Norwich city centre, the local community were keen for answers about who these people were and what happened to them. Thought to date from the early 1200s, this becomes a case of suspected medieval murder but the final reveal of the identity of these people is an even bigger shock to all involved.
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TVTranscript
00:00At the University of Dundee's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, the History Cold
00:09Case team is embarking on a major new investigation.
00:13Ladies, today's case, Medieval Norwich. We've got disarticulated remains of at least 17
00:22people.
00:23Using a mobile forensic lab, the team has come to Norwich, where recent archaeological
00:28investigations have unearthed a major and chilling new find. The remains of 17 people
00:35at the bottom of a medieval well.
00:39Disarticulated, which means we're not looking at single burials, so presumably it's a massed
00:46grave.
00:48The bodies include men, women and young children. The local community needs answers. Who were
00:56these people and how did their remains end up down a well? The possibilities are horrific.
01:04Some debate as to whether the children were dead when they went down the well.
01:08The investigation will be led by world-renowned forensic anthropologist, Professor Sue Black.
01:13Dr Xanthi Mallet will gather historical evidence, while Professor Caroline Wilkinson will rebuild
01:20the faces of the dead. And the team is joined by DNA expert, Dr Ian Barnes.
01:27I've got a team that is of world-renowned reputation, so that if we can't crack it,
01:32then, you know, who else can?
01:35By forensically retracing events, analysing the scene of death and reconstructing the
01:41identities of two of the skeletons, can we discover what happened to these people?
01:49This is a really unusual situation for us. I think this is really unique.
01:54And ultimately, might this case reveal the unthinkable? That they were killed?
01:59You simply can't breathe because your chest is compressed.
02:03We go back to a shocking period of widespread religious persecution and genocide.
02:08They haven't applied normal Christian tradition. They've completely ignored it.
02:15As the trail reveals new proof about one of the most shameful episodes in British history.
02:46The team has been called to the cathedral city of Norwich.
02:52While much of the city's heritage remains intact, the medieval site where the skeletons
02:57were discovered in 2004 now lies underneath the Chapelfield shopping centre.
03:07Inside a mobile forensic unit, local archaeologists lay out the bones.
03:14The jumbled remains point to at least 17 individuals.
03:21It's thought there are six adults, both male and female.
03:25But more shockingly, 11 children, aged from just two years old.
03:34This is one of the most troubling archaeological hauls the team has been presented with.
03:44Who were these people? What killed them?
03:48And why did their bodies end up at the bottom of a well?
03:53Finding out will require the full arsenal of forensic skills.
04:03Professor Caroline Wilkinson and Dr Xanthe Mallett will initiate the investigation.
04:09Before reporting back to Professor Sue Black at Dundee HQ.
04:16This time round we go out into the community. So we go down to the site where the bones were found.
04:22We talk to the people who were involved and we look at those bones on that site.
04:27We then go and do our analysis and we come back and we present to the community what it is that we found.
04:34Connecting the skeletons to the context of where they were found is a crucial first step in what promises to be a challenging case.
04:43The original excavation was led by archaeologist Giles Emery.
04:47He arrives at the mobile lab to bring Xanthe up to speed with the possible theories about this bizarre discovery.
04:54When we first found them we suspected it could be a plague burial.
05:00Because that's the kind of thing, you know, a mass burial in an unexpected place.
05:05To test the idea that these were plague victims they did carbon dating.
05:10We've had two carbon dates done. They're actually, we're probably talking 12th to 13th century.
05:17But the dates didn't add up as the 12th or 13th century is too early for plague.
05:23Plus there's the strange position in which the bodies were found.
05:27Several metres down in what seems to be an old well.
05:30Giles is hoping the team can come up with some new leads to explain this unique find.
05:42He takes Xanthe to the exact spot where the bodies were discovered.
05:46The shoppers have no idea about the history that lay buried here.
05:51So we stop about here.
05:53OK.
05:54Well, we're in quite a busy shopping arcade.
05:57But to our left here, this is where we found them.
05:59This is the actual shop?
06:00Yeah, this is the site.
06:0117 people in the bottom of a well shaft.
06:03That sounds unusual to me.
06:05Yeah, it's a mass burial but it's in a well shaft.
06:07Which, yeah, I've not been able to find any parallels.
06:10Anywhere?
06:11In the UK, no.
06:12Really?
06:13Pictures taken at the time of the excavation seem to indicate that this is the site.
06:18Pictures taken at the time of the excavation seem to indicate
06:21that the bodies were thrown down together, head first.
06:26Oh, wow.
06:27You can see all these skeletal remains.
06:30There's actually a leg there that is articulated.
06:32There's a knee there and it's actually the wrong way round, it's heading up.
06:35If you imagine you drop someone by their ankles down a well,
06:38they're going to end up in this kind of slumped position.
06:41But there are still so many unanswered questions.
06:44What I really want to know is, is it a family group?
06:47Is it possibly for a plague burial? Is it some other endemic disease?
06:50Could be something as simple as flu there.
06:52Could even be a famine.
06:53The other problem I have is, what are they doing down a well?
06:56Yeah, that's a bit of a query.
06:58They're in the parish of St Stephen, literally 100 metres away.
07:01There's a cemetery.
07:02They didn't make it that far.
07:04They were actually placed in a well here.
07:06Why? Why were they treated like that?
07:09The mystery has become something of an obsession for giants.
07:13It's one of those things I think about literally every other week.
07:16It crossed my mind.
07:17Why?
07:18Whenever you do a burial, it's a very intimate experience,
07:21but to do that many and then to find out there were so many children as well,
07:25it really does make you think.
07:26Touching.
07:27It has, yeah.
07:31Xanthi and Caroline must start the difficult job of making sense of the bones,
07:38which they learn also include the puzzling remains of dead cats.
07:44How they fit with this, I've no idea.
07:48Pretty sharp, though.
07:51This is a bit of a strange mixture, isn't it?
07:53Cheers.
07:55They start with the remains of the children.
07:57There are at least 11 individuals, aged from about 15 down to two years old.
08:04And we've got a mandible.
08:07Oh, OK, look, we've got some cribriorbitalis, which is these little holes,
08:11which is a sign of anaemia.
08:16Immediately, they spot marks which could be evidence of poor nutrition.
08:23But on this initial visual examination, Xanthi and Caroline find no clear patterns.
08:33It will require a full battery of the latest scientific tests
08:37to help establish how these people died.
08:42MUSIC
08:48The team continues to work into the night.
08:52Two of the skeletons are singled out as good candidates for facial reconstruction.
08:58Caroline first scans the fractured skull of one of the children.
09:02He or she was five to seven years old.
09:06I think that we've got enough fragments, if they're all from the same individual,
09:11we've got enough fragments to do a reconstruction.
09:13We'll have to do a little bit of estimation around the mid-face.
09:16If they're not all from the same individual, then that will be much more problematic.
09:24She also wants to work on the skull belonging to one of the adult males.
09:30The skull's got interesting features around the nasal bones
09:33because they're very large and prominent, suggesting a very large and prominent nose.
09:37We've got this level of asymmetry around the eyes,
09:40one's much higher and further back than the other.
09:42And then we've got strong, what are called supramastoid crests,
09:46which are lines above the ear,
09:48which suggests that this person had large ears that stuck out from the side of the head.
09:54So he's got good characteristic detail in terms of his facial appearance.
09:59I'm looking forward to this, actually,
10:01because it's not often you get such characteristic detail that you notice straight away,
10:06so he should be an interesting face.
10:10To begin the laboratory testing, she removes one of his teeth.
10:15We're going to take this molar and send it for stable isotope analysis,
10:19and that should tell us what he ate, what his diet was like,
10:23therefore where he came from,
10:25and hopefully give us a broader picture of this individual.
10:30The bones will also be tested for DNA and trace chemicals,
10:35which could tell us more about who these people were.
10:38It's around this barrage of scientific tests that the team will build their investigation.
10:51But will they be able to bring identities back to the two skeletons they selected,
10:56the man and child?
11:00Back in Dundee, Xanthi brings Professor Black up to speed.
11:04I've got a CGI, actually, which is for you, which is fantastic, actually.
11:10So this is obviously rows of houses right in the centre,
11:14kind of where you'd have your bins out in the back garden, as it were.
11:17So the well is right in the middle of this community.
11:21Oh, I don't like going down.
11:23I know, it makes you want to lean over the edge.
11:26You can see the soil compacting all of them down into one group.
11:29That's great.
11:31A thin layer of soil on top of the bodies means they were deposited at the same time.
11:36The obvious first question is, was this foul play?
11:41They could have actually been murdered and put down the well.
11:44Are we talking about that sort of thing?
11:47Yes.
11:48It's a bit of a mystery.
11:50They could have actually been murdered and put down the well.
11:53Are we talking about that type of event?
11:55Disposal.
11:56Exactly.
11:57Well, only if we see any signs of perimortem trauma
12:01that would indicate a violent death.
12:03The apparent lack of damage caused around the time of death
12:07means they dismiss the idea of murder, for now at least.
12:12So is this perhaps a place where the sick or deprived ended up when they died?
12:17So this is a time of kind of hardship in England.
12:20You did get famine and things.
12:22There was some signs of anemia.
12:24Okay.
12:25Or are we talking about some type of disease that's hit the population?
12:30The fact that we've got so many children could be dysentery, something like that.
12:35Obviously, if a lot of individuals die at the same time,
12:38you need to remove them from the population as quickly as possible and get rid of them.
12:43You don't really want them hanging around, do you?
12:45No.
12:46The team agrees that poverty and disease are the obvious places to start to look for a cause of death.
12:58The remains may yet yield some other crucial information.
13:02Geneticist Dr Ian Barnes takes samples from the long leg bones of eight of the skeletons,
13:08including the adult male and the five- to seven-year-old child.
13:14Ian is helping us out enormously in terms of the DNA,
13:17and Ian has a worldwide reputation in terms of his science.
13:22And I don't think I've met anybody who knows more about the subject than he does,
13:27but has the ability to convey it in a manner that is really quite straightforward,
13:32which is what most of us need when it comes to genetics.
13:36If the people in the well turn out to be related,
13:39then this could dramatically change the complexion of the case.
13:45But it will be several weeks before the DNA results are back.
13:56Meanwhile, to start the historical investigation,
13:59Xanthi needs to understand what Norwich was like in the 11 and 1200s.
14:05At that time, Norwich was England's second largest city,
14:09its expansion built on its position as a major centre of manufacture and trade.
14:15The population had ballooned to over 12,000,
14:19but who was living in the immediate area around the well?
14:27Xanthi hopes the Norwich records office will yield some clues.
14:31She meets archivist Susan Maddock,
14:33who produces a surprising and rare document from the time.
14:37So this looks exciting.
14:38Yes, this is one of the city court rolls.
14:40It covers 1287 to 1298.
14:42Is this original?
14:43This is original.
14:44Then I will not touch that.
14:46I'll let you unroll it.
14:48It's probably as valuable as it looks.
14:50Yes, it certainly is.
14:51I mean, obviously, it's unique and irreplaceable.
14:53OK.
14:54Didn't say that to frighten you.
14:56What's this made from?
14:58Well, it's made from parchment, which is sheepskin,
15:01so it's scraped and cleaned and makes a very durable writing surface.
15:05So this was the main medium used for records in this country,
15:09really, until paper became popular in the 14th, 15th centuries.
15:13It's a record of property ownership in 13th-century Norwich.
15:18Susan is looking for a street name she can trace to near the well.
15:24I just gently unroll it.
15:27Now, what we're looking for...
15:29Ah, yes, in the margin here,
15:32we can see this little marginal note that looks like N-E-D-A.
15:37So this is Latin?
15:38This is Latin, yes.
15:40And that's pointing out this word here, nidum, N-E-D-H-A-M.
15:46And I see, looking at a modern reconstruction map of Norwich,
15:50which shows the medieval street names,
15:52and on this map it's shown as Vicus, which is the Latin for street,
15:56de Nedum.
15:57So we can see that matches with the Nedum in Ardede here.
16:00So this street was originally called Vicus de Nedum?
16:04Yes, or Nedum or Needum Street.
16:06Right.
16:07So the block that I'm interested in on here
16:10is represented by this area here?
16:12It is, yes.
16:13Isn't that right?
16:14Yes.
16:15The document also reveals the occupation of this street.
16:20I can't help noticing that in this map,
16:23there are a lot of butchers turning up.
16:25Butcher, butcher, butcher, merchant.
16:28Is there any evidence of tanning or skinning,
16:31those kind of industries?
16:32Because there were cat bones down the well,
16:35kind of mixed in with the human bones.
16:37I'm wondering whether we might actually find something on here
16:40that would help explain that a little bit.
16:43Well, let's give it a try.
16:46I notice there's a skinner down here,
16:48and this is only a short distance away from your area.
16:51It's probably like four doors down.
16:53Yes.
16:541295, we've got John de Saeum, the skinner.
16:57Wow.
16:58And if we actually look at the other side,
17:01moving along what's now St Stephen's Street,
17:04this diagram here,
17:05there are quite a number of tanners in this area
17:08towards Horse Market.
17:09So, again, the right time period.
17:11Yes.
17:12So, yeah, these people could have actually been living
17:15in or very near the people who ended up down the well.
17:19So we're really looking at working-class people, aren't we,
17:22which fits with everything else I think I've found out.
17:25So, were our people local skinners or tanners?
17:29And if so, could their profession offer clues as to a cause of death?
17:33Xanthe hits the streets of Norwich's Old Town
17:36with local historian Brian Ayres.
17:38Isn't it lovely?
17:39It's very picturesque now,
17:40but it would have been distinctly less picturesque
17:44in the 12th and 13th centuries.
17:46I mean, we're on a street which is next to the river.
17:50This is a river which a whole range of industries are using
17:54for dye works, for tanners, for skinners.
17:57So the dirtier trades.
17:59The dirtier trades.
18:00So all this effluent material is flowing down behind the buildings
18:04which would have been stood here.
18:06This could explain the puzzling cat bones in the well,
18:09which may be a by-product of the manufacture of catskin gloves.
18:13Highly prized across medieval Europe.
18:15This was just one aspect of a widespread skinning and tanning industry,
18:20and it was dirty work.
18:22Medieval tanners often used human urine and faeces
18:25collected door to door to soften the leather.
18:28Your life expectancy is probably going to be less in Norwich
18:32than it is out in the countryside
18:34because of the noxious fumes and the poor living conditions,
18:37but it will be a shorter life but probably an economically better one,
18:42potentially a better one.
18:43That's an interesting one, isn't it?
18:45So one does get people arriving here for that very reason.
18:50It's clear that poor hygiene and harsh working conditions
18:54would have made local people vulnerable to serious infection.
19:02Back in Dundee, Caroline is ready to start the facial reconstructions.
19:07We've got the skull of the male adult from the Norwich well.
19:12You can see the bits that are pale are the pieces of bone that we have,
19:17and the green areas are the areas that I've had to estimate.
19:21We just had this one piece of missing mandible.
19:25So all round I'm quite interested by this skull.
19:28It's got lots of nice characteristic detail.
19:32The shattered skull of the child requires much more work, however.
19:37We've got to put together these fragments
19:39before we can do any reconstruction,
19:41and what we can do in the computer is we can take one of the pieces.
19:45Here we've got part of the forehead,
19:48and we can move it so that it's touching the other piece
19:53and realign it.
19:56We can put it roughly in the right position and then we can tweak it.
20:01So this is our skull when it's been totally reassembled.
20:14Those are the areas that have been estimated in green.
20:19Reconstructions of children have their own unique challenges.
20:24It's very difficult to tell whether the individual is male or female
20:28when the child is this young.
20:30So girls and boys between the ages of five and seven
20:35are indistinguishable facially.
20:38We tend to judge the sex of a child in relation to their hairstyle,
20:43the clothes that they're wearing,
20:45how they're being treated by others around them.
20:47We're actually very bad at estimating
20:49whether a child is male or female from just the face,
20:52especially at this age.
20:56Soon actual faces will start to emerge
20:59as Caroline adds the muscle, skin and features to each reconstruction.
21:06With squalid living conditions around the well area
21:09and apparent signs of malnutrition on the bones but no obvious trauma,
21:13is disease now the most likely culprit in the story of what happened to these people?
21:18And if so, what killed them?
21:23The 11 and 1200s marked a time of huge population growth for Norwich
21:27and the sick started to be catered for in new charitable medical centres.
21:31It is, it's amazing.
21:33Founded in 1249.
21:34The Great Hospital of Norwich was one of the first of its kind in Britain.
21:38Xanthe meets Professor Carol Rawcliffe here,
21:41a specialist in medieval health.
21:44I actually have a photograph of one of the specimens I've been looking at.
21:52And she's interesting because obviously we've got some of those Glico markers.
21:56We've got the Cripple Batalia.
21:58That's a sign of iron deficiency.
22:01And what's fascinating is that other excavations in Norwich
22:06have revealed a very high incidence of this,
22:08up to 70% in some cases, among women and children.
22:12And what may not be known is that during the Middle Ages and later,
22:17malaria is endemic in parts of England.
22:20And that also will increase levels of anaemia.
22:23Carol thinks it's entirely possible the people in the well
22:27died of a then incurable disease such as malaria,
22:30which was rife in the overcrowded city of the 12th and 13th centuries.
22:34It's rather like the developing world today.
22:38Here in the city you are encountering diseases and deficiencies
22:42which we no longer have to experience.
22:45It's likely there could have been an epidemic of influenza,
22:48perhaps dysentery, perhaps typhus.
22:51It's very hard to tell.
22:53But obviously something which is killing people in quite large numbers.
22:57Charitable hospitals had close links to the church
23:01and the sick believed going to hospital could erase their burden of sin.
23:05Even the poor could expect to receive medical care.
23:09The theory that our people fell victim to disease
23:13certainly fits the facts so far.
23:17But if 17 people died at the same time, where would they have been buried?
23:22Would their bodies have been disposed of in a well?
23:33To find out how people were buried during the epidemics
23:36which hit Britain in the Middle Ages,
23:38Xanthi heads to Bishopsgate in London,
23:41once the site of a vast medieval cemetery.
23:47No other burials in wells have ever been found in the UK.
23:51But under the pavement here is an extraordinary site
23:55called the Charnel House,
23:57where hundreds of bodies have been excavated from deep shafts.
24:01The way people were laid to rest here might offer vital clues.
24:05Hello, Chris. I'm behind the wall.
24:07Welcome to the Charnel House.
24:09Fantastic. Oh, shall we go out the rain?
24:11If you come in this way.
24:14Chris Thomas, from the Museum of London, excavated this site,
24:19which was used for a huge number of mass burials.
24:23This Charnel House sits in the middle of a cemetery
24:26that we excavated about 10,500 skeletons from.
24:30Wow.
24:31And it was in use from around about 1150 till 1540.
24:35And it's a cemetery that's associated with a medieval hospital.
24:39Most of the people are buried in individual graves,
24:42but we had thousands of people buried in mass burial pits.
24:46Right.
24:47And a whole series of shafts with people buried on top of each other.
24:52And what you find, generally speaking,
24:54even in black death burial grounds, any sort of emergency burial ground,
24:58the people are usually buried in Christian manner.
25:01So you can see from some of the burials that we had,
25:04even in our mass burial pits,
25:07the skeletons are still being laid out on their back
25:10and their head at the west end, their feet at the east.
25:13OK, so even in mass burials,
25:15the placement of the body is still really important.
25:17It is.
25:18So the myth that people are thrown off the back of carts into pits
25:22in the black death simply isn't true.
25:24So if I just show you some of the pictures from my site,
25:27you may get a better idea.
25:29Now, this is a well shaft, and you can see they're all completely intermixed.
25:34This just looks almost like rubbish thrown away,
25:37all mixed up, no care.
25:39Yeah, I think the difference is absolutely fundamental.
25:42Whoever has dealt with this,
25:44they haven't applied normal Christian tradition,
25:47they've completely ignored it.
25:53What Santhe learns from the charnel house
25:56makes the well burial even more confusing.
25:59Even during the worst outbreaks of disease,
26:02people were not just thrown into the nearest hole.
26:05The church taught that to be buried in a non-Christian way
26:08would lead to purgatory and hell.
26:11Medieval Norwich was a devout Christian city
26:14with over 40 parish churches.
26:18So, why weren't our 17 people buried with the usual care?
26:25Could it be because they weren't Christians?
26:29This is not a Christian burial.
26:31So do we have people who are not of the Christian faith?
26:36Is that why they're there?
26:38Or is it that they're some form of an outcast?
26:40Was it that people were afraid of them?
26:42I don't know, but they were not dealt with with respect.
26:48The stable isotope data are back, and the results are intriguing.
26:53What they reveal is that the people found down the well
26:56had lived in the local area for many years.
26:59They were not just visiting.
27:02The trail suddenly now points towards non-Christian locals.
27:10And there's only one significant community from the time
27:13that matches that profile.
27:18Since 1135, Norwich was home to a thriving Jewish community,
27:22living just a few hundred yards from the well site.
27:27Xanthi meets up with Sophie Cabot,
27:30a specialist in Norwich's Jewish history,
27:33to find out more about this community.
27:36The Jewry in Norwich in the Middle Ages
27:39was in this position between the market and the castle.
27:42The castle's just up there, obviously the market's behind us,
27:45and the properties owned by Jews were concentrated
27:48in the area from White Lion Street here
27:50right up to Little Orford Street at the far end of this block.
27:53Is the proximity of the Jewry to the castle important?
27:56It is, yeah. Norwich is a royal castle.
27:59They were in England at the invitation of the crown,
28:02and the crown had direct legal control over them and their business.
28:06The Jews of Norwich had a very specific role.
28:09And why were they actually invited here by the king?
28:12They were invited to lend money.
28:14And that was their primary function?
28:16Yeah, yeah.
28:18At the time, the Christian interpretation of the Bible
28:21didn't allow Christians to lend money at interest.
28:24It was a sin called usury.
28:26Certainly that's something that's not forbidden in Jewish law,
28:30so cash finance for big projects of any sort came from Jewish finances.
28:34Almost like banks? Yeah, like banks, basically.
28:37Does that mean they were all wealthy, then?
28:39Some of them were extremely wealthy.
28:41There's one or two families who are incredibly rich
28:45and who are lending money on a national scale or even an international scale.
28:50Santhe and Sophie visit the house of Isaac Jernet,
28:53which still stands in central Norwich.
28:58Despite having financed the cathedral,
29:00like many Jews across Christian Europe,
29:03the Jernets may have been subject to persecution.
29:07This is him here, shown at the top.
29:09With a crown?
29:11Wearing a crown, yes, showing how important he is,
29:14and also with three profiles, three faces.
29:18It seems to mean that he's into everything,
29:21that he's got fingers in lots of pies.
29:23Oh, I see.
29:24This is a caricature.
29:26This was drawn by a Christian, by a scribe in the Exchequer.
29:30They, as you can see, have rather caricatured faces, big noses.
29:34This is a hat that indicates that Moses is Jewish.
29:37They're not kind drawings. No.
29:40And they're shown with this little devil who is tweaking them on the nose.
29:44Would you say that it's anti-Semitic?
29:46Because it's certainly not complementary.
29:48There's resentment of the fact that Jews are making money.
29:52Some Jews, like Isaac, are making a huge amount of money,
29:55and they're doing it in a way that doesn't involve physical labour
29:59or things that are necessarily recognised as work.
30:02It's a bit like people feel about bankers now.
30:06But Sophie thinks it's unlikely the skeletons in the well
30:09came from the Jewish community.
30:12On the site of the old synagogue,
30:14Sophie explains how they would have taken as much care over burial
30:17as Norwich's Christians.
30:20You would want it to be quick,
30:22so you would be ideally buried within 24 hours of your death.
30:25Really?
30:26You would want it to be very simple,
30:28so you would be washed and wrapped in a shroud.
30:32It's quite a simple ceremony,
30:34but it's got to be done right and in a dignified way.
30:36Well, you've kind of pre-empted my other question then.
30:38So you don't think that the Jewish community
30:40would have put other Jewish individuals in the well?
30:43No, I don't. I think it's pretty much impossible.
30:46I think if there were any Jews in the community
30:49to see that the dead got a proper burial,
30:51that's what they would do.
30:55If the bodies in the well were Jewish,
30:58this would point to foul play.
31:02It would suggest that their burial was deliberately careless or rushed.
31:07We know that across Britain and Europe at this time,
31:10Jewish people were increasingly victims of vicious hate attacks.
31:14Could this be what happened to our 17 people in Norwich?
31:28The DNA analysis is now complete.
31:31Aware that the case now risks grinding to a halt,
31:34the team hopes the results will provide a new lead.
31:40So how many did we take DNA samples from out of the, what was it, 17?
31:45I think we sampled eight, eight different individuals.
31:48So from children through to adults?
31:50Yeah, we tried to get a range.
31:52Well, the DNA will perhaps not only tell us about family,
31:54but if there is any other connection, genetic type connection,
31:58you know, in a tight-knit group,
32:00then Ian might be able to tell us something about that.
32:02So fingers crossed for DNA.
32:04Yeah.
32:05Our money's on DNA.
32:07They call Dr Ian Barnes.
32:11There we are.
32:12Hello.
32:13Hi.
32:14We are looking today at medieval Norwich.
32:18We're hoping, against all hope,
32:20that you'll have something interesting to tell us.
32:22No pressure.
32:24OK, so some pretty interesting news for this film.
32:27Oh, good!
32:29OK, so we actually got eight samples.
32:32Yeah.
32:33Of the eight, one of them looks like there might be some contamination
32:37or maybe it's heavily damaged in some way.
32:39OK.
32:40So disregard that one.
32:42The remaining seven,
32:44one of them has a very generic standard European DNA type.
32:50OK.
32:51One of them has a DNA type which is relatively,
32:57relatively uncommon across Europe,
33:01but it's still just a generic European kind of sequence.
33:04OK.
33:05The other five, however, have the same mitochondrial DNA.
33:09Oh!
33:10So it looks like the five that have the same sequence,
33:14you could maybe assume or infer that they are directly internally related.
33:19Right.
33:20Remarkably, five of the people down the well were related to each other.
33:25But that's not all the DNA results reveal.
33:29Now, the more unusual thing is that there are sequences belonging to a group
33:35which is relatively unusual in Europe.
33:38It occurs at about something like 6%,
33:42but it's at very high frequency, more like over 30%,
33:46in Ashkenazi Jewish populations.
33:49Wow. That's interesting. That's just amazing.
33:52So that's for how many individuals?
33:54Five.
33:55So that's five that we're happy with.
33:58It's an unexpected breakthrough in the case.
34:01The science has shown that at least five of the people down the well
34:04were from the Jewish community and likely family members.
34:10This is a really unusual situation for us.
34:13I think this is a really unique set of data
34:16that we've been able to get for these individuals.
34:19I'm not aware that this has been done before,
34:22but we've been actually able to pin them down to this level of specificity
34:28about the ethnic group that they seem to come from.
34:31That's a good result. That's phenomenal.
34:33Thank you so much indeed.
34:35Bye.
34:36Bye-bye.
34:37I think what Ian has told us is truly amazing.
34:41It is.
34:42In that we clearly have family members.
34:46We've got a recognised group.
34:48And this is really pointing to something,
34:50the most tragic of all of those options as well,
34:53with 11 children of a common maternal DNA.
34:59The story now looks set to take a much darker turn.
35:04There is a real temptation, I think, to go down the route of saying,
35:09because we've recognised the group, because we know they're a family,
35:13we're looking at something that's possibly more macabre,
35:16that we're looking at persecution.
35:18What we haven't yet got is the cause of death or causes of death.
35:24I think we probably should go back to some of the bones and just have a look
35:28because I am concerned that we haven't got any form of a trauma.
35:32I mean, dropping down the well would cause trauma.
35:35And the prospect that maybe someone's gone down that well alive...
35:40Especially kids.
35:41...is horrendous.
35:47Sue's previous experience leads her to believe
35:50this could now be a case of mass murder.
35:54We're possibly talking about persecution,
35:57we're possibly talking about ethnic cleansing.
35:59And this all brings to mind very much the scenario
36:02that we dealt with during the Balkans war crimes.
36:05In terms of the brutality of the ethnic cleansing,
36:09it was felt that, you know, women and children, quite frankly,
36:13weren't worth wasting the bullet on.
36:15So that women were quite often bayoneted, for example.
36:18Pregnant women were bayoneted because that way you got rid of a woman
36:21because that wasn't important.
36:22And you got rid of the next generation
36:24because you really didn't want them to survive.
36:27So I know what sort of patterns I'm looking for
36:29if it was the same sort of situation
36:31where these individuals thrown down the well alive
36:34were these individuals killed before they went down the well.
36:41With this new question in mind,
36:43Sue goes back to the bones again
36:45to examine the legs and spinal columns in minute detail
36:49and on one of the adults makes a crucial new discovery.
36:54If you open up and look at the surface of the 12th thoracic,
37:00you can see that we've got what looks like a burst fracture
37:03and it's coming over onto the surface here at the side
37:07and coming over onto the front there.
37:09That kind of thing happens when you get force
37:13either coming down onto legs or, of course, coming down onto head
37:18so that what you're getting is a twisting,
37:21because that's what happens, you get a twisting
37:23and the edge of one vertebra causes the fracture on the body.
37:27So the column is twisting and as you impact
37:31then what you get is the burst fractures.
37:35And there is similar damage to three of the adult leg bones.
37:40When we look particularly at these three bones,
37:44what we've got are radiating fracture lines passing up there
37:50and we've got little stepped areas of cortex there
37:54with a little fracture coming.
37:56Those again look like they're going to be perimortem.
38:00All of these indicating that what we have
38:04are individuals where we have trauma to the extended leg.
38:09So whether it's going down, it must be landing on feet
38:13or landing on knees, of course, it could be,
38:16but it's certainly trauma of force of impact.
38:19If you were falling into water,
38:21then I wouldn't expect to find this fracturing.
38:24I simply wouldn't, because once you hit the water surface
38:28then you've got almost like a cushioning, if you like.
38:31These are fractures that I suspect are about landing on a hard surface.
38:37Sue believes this new evidence shows the well was actually dry
38:41and the adult victims were either killed just before
38:45or died very shortly after being thrown down the well.
38:49If they're down at the bottom of the well and these are the adults,
38:53then the children who are receiving no trauma
38:56may well have been thrown in on top of them.
38:58So we're not going to see perimortem fracturing as such with them
39:02because they're landing on a cushion of these adults.
39:08It's an alarming possible sequence of events.
39:12So, what would a modern homicide detective
39:15make of the circumstances of this case?
39:19Xanthi meets up with forensic pathologist Stuart Hamilton
39:23in Norwich Castle, which still has an intact well shaft.
39:30That's a long way, isn't it?
39:32That's a difficult question.
39:34It's a long way.
39:37That's a long way, isn't it?
39:39That's a deep well, yes.
39:41Somebody falling in there or being pushed, whatever,
39:44are they going to survive that?
39:46They're not going to survive that fall.
39:48If the simple impact at the bottom doesn't kill them outright,
39:52then the deceleration is going to tear arteries,
39:56it's going to damage organs.
39:58You're going to bleed to death fairly rapidly,
40:01even if you don't die straight away.
40:03You're not going to be alive for long.
40:05What would you say, if this were a forensic case presented to you,
40:0817 people in a well, what would be your reading of it?
40:11One person in a well like that, to me, is something that's worrying.
40:16Two people is very worrying.
40:1817 people is... It's a mass grave.
40:21Would I put a slightly different slant on this, in your opinion,
40:25if I were to tell you that all of the individuals
40:28were from a minority group?
40:30I think it's almost just common sense, really.
40:33The evidence is saying that it is a particular group
40:36which seems to have been targeted.
40:38In this sort of case, it's the accumulation of the evidence.
40:41It's not just one piece or the other piece.
40:43As it all builds up more and more and more,
40:46you simply can't ignore all of these things coming together.
40:50And he feels the lack of fatal trauma on all of the bones
40:53does not rule out murder.
40:55It's not uncommon that you can get homicides
40:58where there really would be nothing left on the bones.
41:01Relatively recently, I've dealt with a case
41:03where there was a homicidal knife assault with neck wounds.
41:08Arteries were damaged, but no bony injuries at all.
41:14Stuart explains another cause of death that leaves no marks
41:18but may fit with so many people being thrown down a narrow well.
41:24The average adult human weighs 70kg,
41:27and that amount of pressure pressing down on you
41:30with multiple people, it's going to compress your chest.
41:33There is a well-recognised phenomenon
41:36that's called crush asphyxia,
41:38where you simply can't breathe because your chest is compressed,
41:42and that could be by a wall that's fallen on you,
41:44but it could be by a pile of human beings.
41:46And some of the disasters with the football stadium,
41:50people crushed against fences,
41:52you simply can't move your chest because it's crushed so tightly,
41:56and it doesn't really bear thinking about in some ways.
41:59What's your gut instinct as to what happened?
42:02I... For these people's sake,
42:05what I hope happened was that they had their throats cut,
42:08that they were strangled, that they died a quick death
42:11and their bodies were disposed of.
42:13I fear that they were simply thrown down the well and left to die.
42:21It seems horrific.
42:23But if we're looking at 17 people who knew each other,
42:27perhaps even mothers, fathers, sons and daughters,
42:31then what events could have led to this?
42:36When Jewish people first moved to Britain
42:39following the Norman conquest of 1066,
42:41many settling in the key cities of London, Norwich and York,
42:45they enjoyed the protection of the crown.
42:48But just a few generations later, the story was very different.
42:54In England, protection wavered
42:56after Richard the Lionheart's coronation in 1190,
42:59and right across Europe, anti-Semitic propaganda was growing.
43:04Jews were accused of spreading plague,
43:07poisoning the water in wells,
43:09and even of using the blood of Christians in their rituals.
43:16But were our people somehow caught up in this?
43:23Xanthe travels to Bevis Marks in London,
43:26the oldest surviving synagogue in the country,
43:29to see Jewish historian Miri Rubin.
43:40You're aware by now that the DNA has come back
43:43and it's indicating that we're looking at a Jewish population.
43:47What does that mean to you?
43:49The first reaction is just shock.
43:51It's just, you know, the mind boggles.
43:53You know, at least 17 people, so many children,
43:56so many really young children amongst them.
44:00Well, it's just a horrific thought that, you know, with all the research,
44:04these sort of events can just go unnoticed.
44:06There are new types of dangers that develop in the late 12th, 13th centuries,
44:10new nasty narratives.
44:12You might even say that as Europe becomes more Christian,
44:15there is a real deepening of the...
44:18..of the sort of the sense of Jewish evil.
44:21So it is, I'm afraid, a picture of worsening
44:24and ultimately the age of expulsions where England leaves in 1290,
44:28where the Jews are expelled back to where they came from,
44:31to northern France.
44:32Yeah. So is that the kind of pinnacle of the unrest, the expulsion?
44:36You might say so.
44:37It's the king brought them in and the king kicked them out sort of thing.
44:41But Miri doesn't think they could have been part
44:44of the recorded acts of violence against Jews,
44:47nor the organised expulsion of Jews from England and Wales of 1290.
44:51I see no reason that the bodies will not have been relinquished
44:54to the Jewish community to bury properly,
44:57nor, indeed, would I think that children would have been involved
45:00so conspicuously, nor bodies that seem unbroken, undisturbed,
45:05unmutilated, like the ones that we've found.
45:08That's the problem.
45:10She believes this points to another less well-known incident in the 1230s.
45:15Another flashpoint that occurred to me is the 1230s,
45:19the 1230s that saw, on a number of occasions,
45:23violence in the streets of Norwich against Jews
45:26and, indeed, and very important for this case,
45:29a burning of some Jewish houses by Norwich people,
45:33because that would then suggest that maybe they died in their sleep
45:37from the inhalation of smoke and thus they suffocated,
45:40because that would explain both the existence of the children
45:44and the fact that their bodies are not sort of mutilated
45:47in a way that you'd expect if it was just sort of real violence
45:50in the street and they were just felled.
45:55What's clear is that during this time,
45:57the Jews of Norwich could not rely on any protection from the Crown.
46:01It's evident that royal officials, the Sheriff and his bailiff,
46:05simply lost control of the city and, indeed, became a subject.
46:09The bailiff was actually beaten up by Norwich people.
46:12So that suggests to me a situation where this system of control
46:16and scrutiny and protection that was painstakingly laid down
46:19over the decades had actually been disrupted in those years
46:22and actually royal officials could not contain what was unfolding.
46:26How many Jewish people were actually in Norwich at this time?
46:29Maybe 150 to 200 or so.
46:3117 people, then, is actually quite a large proportion of this.
46:35You know, you think 17 within a community is not that many,
46:38but this is massive, isn't it?
46:40Really, really big, and the fact these are families and children,
46:43this is a very, very big deal.
46:47This puts a totally new complexion onto the facial reconstructions,
46:51now nearing completion.
46:53So this is our Jewish group from the well in Norwich
46:57and we've got adult male and young unidentified child in terms of sex.
47:03We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, five to seven years old.
47:10First, there is the adult male in his 40s.
47:15So the first thing that we'll look at in terms of characteristics
47:19are his ears, because we know that he's got a deer in his ears,
47:24in other words, he hasn't got any lobes.
47:26The ears just hit straight onto the side of the head.
47:30And the bones around the mastoid process
47:35suggest that he had quite prominent ears,
47:38both upper and lower prominence.
47:42Then there is the five- to seven-year-old child,
47:45who could be related to the man.
47:47And we've added the muscle structure over and above the skull
47:51and now we can look at some of the feature detail.
47:53Much more difficult with children
47:55because we don't have the strong features that we can take with adults.
48:00So most children tend to have similar, small, upturned noses
48:04and the adult nose shape won't develop until after the age of eight
48:09is when it starts to develop.
48:11And Caroline has discovered evidence
48:13which backs up the idea that they are family members.
48:16Now, interestingly, with this particular individual,
48:20he or she also had a deer in tears,
48:23which means that the child didn't have lobes,
48:26which is similar to the adult.
48:28The adult is showing that feature too.
48:30We know it's an hereditary feature,
48:32so if you have a deer in tears,
48:34then one of your parents will have a deer in tears as well.
48:37So the fact that they both have a deer in tears I think is significant.
48:42The final task will be to apply likely skin, hair and eye colour.
48:53Did our man and child die from smoke inhalation
48:56when their houses were set fire to?
48:59Did they die once in the well from crush asphyxia?
49:03Or is there still another scenario
49:05which could explain the lack of fatal trauma on the bones?
49:09Xanthe has come to Clifford's Tower in York
49:12to take part in an annual service
49:14commemorating a very different sequence of events
49:17which led to the tragic loss of many Jewish lives.
49:21In March 1190, about 150 Jews,
49:24men, women and children,
49:26sought protection in the royal castle here,
49:29now known as Clifford's Tower,
49:31where they could usually rely on royal protection.
49:34The sheriff of Yorkshire decided to order the ejection of the Jews from the castle
49:39and the families inside,
49:41deciding that the end had come,
49:44followed the tradition of heroic martyrdom,
49:48that they should take their own lives
49:50rather than die at the hands of the mob.
49:53The father of each household killed his own family
49:57and was then killed by the rabbi.
50:00The suicide method, taking a knife to their throats,
50:03may well not have left a mark on the bones
50:06and would also fit with the idea
50:08that the people in the well are family members.
50:11It's a tragic possibility.
50:13It really hits home that I've seen some people
50:16who may have lived in a very similar situation,
50:19may have died in a similar way,
50:21and it really humanises the whole story
50:24and tells me about what Norwich may have felt
50:27We've seen it in York.
50:29Was it the same in Norwich?
50:43The team has reached the end of this investigation.
50:46The first examination of the bones took place in the depths of winter.
50:51It's now spring, and after months of work,
50:54it's time for the story these bones have told
50:57to be relayed back to the local community.
51:06Sue, Caroline and Xanthi return to Norwich
51:09and the medieval Guildhall.
51:16Keen to hear their findings
51:18are those who originally excavated the site,
51:21experts who have assisted the investigation
51:24and members of the local community.
51:26I think a lot about it, actually.
51:28Yeah, it almost haunts me a bit
51:30because it was such an unusual thing for me
51:33and quite morbid in a way,
51:35but also, you know, I'd just like to know a bit more about them.
51:38To actually be able to put a face to one of these characters
51:41and actually bring the person to life,
51:43it'll be, I think, the most interesting for me.
51:46I should be, yeah, interested to find out
51:50what we've been able to tell about them,
51:52because they're a bit of a mystery.
51:56But how will the people of Norwich react
51:58to a story that brings back to life one of the city's darkest hours?
52:06What we have started to do
52:08by bringing the science into this investigation
52:11is to allow us to look at the story from a different perspective.
52:16Why were they in a well?
52:18Were they alive or were they dead when they were placed in the well?
52:23And how do they fit into the history of Norwich at the time as we know it?
52:30Sue details some of the major twists that the investigation took,
52:34starting with the idea of disease.
52:38So it's not leprosy, it's not TB,
52:41it's not something that leaves a skeletal lesion.
52:44But that doesn't rule out all of the enteric diseases.
52:47But there was the stumbling block of unchristian burial.
52:51The most important thing is, even though they died in vast numbers,
52:56they were still buried with the observance of Christian rites.
53:01And then the dramatic science that pushed the trail towards murder.
53:06So we need to talk about a real turning point,
53:10the point at which this investigation really did take
53:14a very, very different direction.
53:17We have to talk DNA.
53:19So we sent some bones off to Ian to have a look at the DNA.
53:24Out of the five of them where there was retrievable good information,
53:29what we have is a situation where the mitochondrial DNA,
53:33which is the DNA that's transferred down through a maternal line,
53:37effectively matches.
53:39So we have family members.
53:42That was really important.
53:44But what was even more important was that the DNA told us
53:49that the most likely group to which these individuals belong
53:54are, in fact, Jewish.
53:57Wow.
54:00Wow.
54:05Wow. I'm actually quite shocked about that.
54:08Well, you weren't the only one.
54:10If it's not a natural death,
54:13then I have to go back to where I was in Kosovo and to say,
54:18are we looking at a non-natural death?
54:22Are we looking at a murder scenario?
54:26Everyone is shocked at the idea that the people of Norwich
54:30once participated in the Europe-wide Jewish persecution.
54:36Usually this is the nice bit for everybody, where I reveal a face,
54:40but it doesn't feel that way today.
54:42So let me first show you our male adult face.
54:52I think he's got a great face.
54:54It's a lovely face.
54:57Caroline's second reconstruction is even more emotive.
55:01One of the 11 children from the well.
55:03I think our child is just beautiful as well.
55:06It's perfect. He or she.
55:09They're just perfect.
55:14I think they're very...
55:17They're all a bit emotive now, actually.
55:25We know what we might be looking at here is father and son
55:29or father and daughter or uncle and niece or uncle and nephew, etc.
55:33But a familial bond of some sort.
55:36And those might still be skeletons, but these are now people.
55:46It's a shocking revelation for everyone involved.
55:50It's very sad for Norwich.
55:52It changes the story of what we know about this community.
55:56We don't know everything about this community,
55:58but what we thought we knew is changed by this.
56:01No, it was a big surprise, really.
56:04It's not what I was expecting at all.
56:07I knew that we were going to learn something
56:09and I really didn't think it was going to go in that direction.
56:12We had an idea that they died horribly,
56:15but the thought that it could be self-inflicted
56:18possibly is rather upsetting.
56:30From what started out as a mysterious jumble of unidentified remains,
56:35we can now say that at least five of the people in the well were Jewish.
56:40We know that the children could likely have been
56:43from the same extended family or community.
56:46And, tragically, that the trail points to them
56:49having possibly been murdered or pushed into suicide.
56:54This story throws new light on the horrific spate of persecution
56:58that ran through medieval England,
57:00which saw Jews used for their money,
57:02forced to remain social outcasts
57:04and ultimately left without protection from the angry mob.
57:09The bones will now be handed back, perhaps for eventual reburial.
57:13Do you know, today was hard.
57:15I don't think I quite expected it to be as hard as it was.
57:20And it's how I feel every single time I have to talk to families today
57:27when we bring the news.
57:29And in forensic anthropology, the news that we bring is always bad news.
57:33It's the news that says,
57:35I'm sorry, your son's dead, your mother's dead,
57:38and you have to deal with the emotion.
57:41We were bringing the information to a community
57:44that was going to be seriously affected
57:47and seriously challenged by what we were going to say.
57:51But I knew that what we weren't doing was bringing closure.
57:55We were bringing almost the opposite.
57:58We were opening wounds that people were going to have to address.
58:03Next time, the remains of a woman and three babies
58:06found in a single grave.
58:08Dating from Romano-British times, when medicine could be brutal.
58:12That is for perforating the skull.
58:14And child care was a matter of life and death.
58:17This is very easy to kill a baby and leave no marks.
58:25And there's another history cold case here on BBC HD
58:28on Thursday night at nine.
58:30Next this evening, it's The Apprentice.