Father’s lover ordered him to kill him? This is the culprit in case filed 700 years ago

He became involved with clerics, challenged the Church and the 14th century conventions, commanded attacks on religious institutions. Sex, power, revenge… This London medieval homicide has everything but justice.

The investigation is from the prestigious university of Cambridge and brings out a long -buried case in history, but that shocked the medieval London of 1337.

The scandalous plot of revenge involves a famous nobleman, a priest and his murder on public roads. The crime was never resolved, the guardians left unpunished and, 700 years later, remains involved in mystery. But a new investigation, this month in the magazine Criminal Law Forumbrings new details to the public.

On the afternoon of May 3, 1337, the Anglican priest John Forde He walked through Cheapside, in downtown London, after the afternoon prayers, when he was approached by an acquaintance of his, cleric Hastulph Neville.

The conversation was interrupted by a ambush: Four men attacked Forde near the Cathedral of São Paulo. One of the criminals cut off his throat with a 30-centimeter knife, while two others stabbed him on the abdomen in the middle of several witnesses. The medieval Murder Map of the University of Cambridge the path of the religious leader.

Below, the crime scene as it is currently:

The brutality of the crime had no political or financial motivation, the investigators explain. Everything points to a murder premeditatedallegedly commissioned by She Fitzpaynean aristocrat Londrina, a possible leader of a criminal group-and dictate the evidence collected, former lover of the priest forde.

It was one Crime “Planned and executed to cold blood”carried out by family members and accomplices near the nobleman, with clear evidence of revenge, explains, quoted by the Criminology Professor Manuel Eisner, Cambridge.

A story of revenge

The conflict was raised years earlier. In January 1332, the Archbishop of Cantering, Simon Mepham, sent a letter to the bishop of Winchester, accusing the noble woman of maintaining sex with knights, married men and clerics.

As punishment, a humiliating public penance: walking barefoot along the ship (the central part) of Salisbury Cathedral – the longest in England – while carrying a wax candle of almost two pounds.

And the punishment-which, thus described, recalls the walk of Cersei Lannister’s atonement in The War of Thrones-should repeat himself every year for seven years. But unlike the sinner of the fictional series, she Fitzpayne (who, curiously, also married a Robert) refused to fulfill the order And he was hidden in Rotherhithe, a neighborhood next to Tamisa. His disobedience led to excommunication.

And who had denounced the noble sins? Precisely: John Forde, who would be violently murdered later and which led to the newsroom of this article.

She and the lack of one to Forno “may have raised a thirst for revenge“Eisner believes. At the time of Fitzpayne’s conviction, Fede was a parish priest of a village in the Fitzpayne family. Now Cambridge researchers believe Forde has been pressured by ecclesiastical authorities to reveal the case in exchange for escaping punishment, triggering her public humiliation.

E The connection between the two left the room. In 1322, both were accused, along with Sir Robert Fitzpayne, her husband, to participate in a Benedictine priority. According to the records, the group stole dozens of oxen, pigs and sheep. The monastery was affiliated with a French abbey. At a time when tensions with France that preceded the Hundred Years were grew.

Judge closed his eyes

Despite the evidence collected – including the testimony of three people who claimed to have seen her brother, Hugh Lovell, cut the priest’s throat – No one important has been punished. The court claimed not being able to locate the accused and that Hugh had no confiscable assets.

In this plot, Only one person was convicted: an old family servant, Hugh Colne, already five years after the crime – “the typical justice based on the social class of the time,” says Eisner quoted by.

“Despite appointing the killers and having a clear knowledge of the instigator, when it was time to pursue the perpetrators, the jury closed his eyes,” explains the Cambridge researcher.

However, she Fitzpayne remained married to Sir Robert until her death in 1354, when she inherited all her assets.

“She Fitzpayne was undoubtedly a“ extraordinary ”figure, Eisner concluded. “A woman in fourteenth -century England who openly challenged the Cantering Archbishop and planned the murder of a priest.”