The most significant excavation in a generation is underway at the Tower of London and it’s promising to “re-draw the map of the medieval fortress” and shed light on some of the people who lived, worked, worshiped, and died at the parish church of the Tower of London.
First built in the 12th century, the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula—Vincula, meaning “chains” in Latin, refers to the Apostle’s captivity in Jerusalem—was the place of worship for inhabitants of the Tower and the occasional monarch who wished to be seen acting piously. It has been destroyed, rebuilt, and even relocated several times over the past 900 years and is best known as the burial site of Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, and Lady Jane Grey, figures who were all imprisoned and executed at the Tower. Today’s excavations, which are taking place as the chapel installs a new elevator, are revealing the Tower’s more ordinary citizens.
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This year’s excavations go deeper, reaching as far down as 10 feet, and have already uncovered the remains of more than 20 individuals. Together, they cover a broad span of English history. A 14th-century collection of burials is believed to be a mass grave from the Black Death, which hit London in 1348 and is estimated to have killed 15 percent of the city’s population. Others were more attentively buried. Three skeletons from the 12th or early 13th century were placed in coffins, one with a shroud, practices that researchers say are suggestive of “high-status.” A separate burial from the same period includes pots containing charcoal, which is almost without precedent in England.
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