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13-06-2025
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Reopening a 688-year-old murder case reveals a tangled web of adultery and extortion in medieval England
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The sun was setting on a busy London street on a May evening in 1337 when a group of men approached a priest named John Forde. They surrounded him in front of a church near Old St. Paul's Cathedral, stabbed him in the neck and stomach, and then fled. Witnesses identified his killers, but just one assailant went to prison. And the woman who might have ordered the brazen and shocking hit — Ela Fitzpayne, a wealthy and powerful aristocrat — was never brought to justice, according to historical records describing the case. Nearly 700 years later, new details have come to light about the events leading up to the brutal crime and the noblewoman who was likely behind it. Her criminal dealings included theft and extortion as well as the murder of Forde — who was also her former lover. Forde (his name also appeared in records as 'John de Forde') could have been part of a crime gang led by Fitzpayne, according to a recently discovered document. The group robbed a nearby French-controlled priory, taking advantage of England's deteriorating relationship with France to extort the church, researchers reported in a study published June 6 in the journal Criminal Law Forum. But the wayward priest may have then betrayed Fitzpayne to his religious superiors. The Archbishop of Canterbury penned a letter in 1332 that the new report also linked to Forde's murder. In the letter, the archbishop denounced Fitzpayne and accused her of committing serial adultery 'with knights and others, single and married, and even with clerics in holy orders.' The archbishop's letter named one of Fitzpayne's many paramours: Forde, who was rector of a parish church in a village on the Fitzpayne family's estate in Dorset. In the wake of this damning accusation, the church assigned Fitzpayne humiliating public penance. Years later, she exacted her revenge by having Forde assassinated, according to lead study author Dr. Manuel Eisner, a professor at the UK's University of Cambridge and director of its Institute of Criminology. This 688-year-old murder 'provides us with further evidence about the entanglement of the clergy in secular affairs — and the very active role of women in managing their affairs and their relationships,' Dr. Hannah Skoda, an associate professor of medieval history in St. John's College at the UK's Oxford University, told CNN in an email. 'In this case, events dragged on for a very long time, with grudges being held, vengeance sought and emotions running high,' said Skoda, who was not involved in the research. The new clues about Forde's murder provide a window into the dynamics of medieval revenge killings, and how staging them in prestigious public spaces may have been a display of power, according to Eisner. Eisner is a cocreator and project leader of Medieval Murder Maps, an interactive digital resource that collects cases of homicide and other sudden or suspicious deaths in 14th century London, Oxford and York. Launched by Cambridge in 2018, the project translates reports from coroners' rolls — records written by medieval coroners in Latin noting the details and motives of crimes, based on the deliberation of a local jury. Jurors would listen to witnesses, examine evidence and then name a suspect. In the case of Forde's murder, the coroner's roll stated that Fitzpayne and Forde had quarreled, and that she persuaded four men — her brother, two servants and a chaplain — to kill him. On that fateful evening, as the chaplain approached Forde in the street and distracted him with conversation, his accomplices struck. Fitzpayne's brother slit his throat, and the servants stabbed Forde in the belly. Only one of the assailants, a servant named Hugh Colne, was charged in the case and imprisoned at Newgate in 1342. 'I was initially fascinated by the text in the coroner's record,' Eisner told CNN in an email, describing the events as 'a dream-like scene that we can see through hundreds of years.' The report left Eisner wanting to learn more. 'One would love to know what the members of the investigative jury discussed,' he said. 'One wonders about how and why 'Ela' convinces four men to kill a priest, and what the nature of this old quarrel between her and John Forde might have been. That's what led me to examine this further.' Eisner tracked down the archbishop's letter in a 2013 dissertation by medieval historian and author Helen Matthews. The archbishop's accusation assigned severe punishments and public penance to Fitzpayne, such as donating large sums of money to the poor, abstaining from wearing gold or precious gems, and walking in her bare feet down the length of Salisbury Cathedral toward the altar, carrying a wax candle that weighed about four pounds. She was ordered to perform this so-called walk of shame every fall for seven years. Though she seemingly defied the archbishop and never performed the penance, the humiliation 'may have triggered her thirst for revenge,' the study authors wrote. The second clue that Eisner unearthed was a decade older than the letter: a 1322 investigation of Forde and Fitzpayne by a royal commission, following a complaint filed by a French Benedictine priory near the Fitzpayne castle. The report was translated and published in 1897 but had not yet been connected to Forde's murder at that point. According to the 1322 indictment, Fitzpayne's crew — which included Forde and her husband, Sir Robert, a knight of the realm — smashed gates and buildings at the priory and stole roughly 200 sheep and lambs, 30 pigs and 18 oxen, driving them back to the castle and holding them for ransom. Eisner said he was astonished to find that Fitzpayne, her husband and Forde were mentioned in a case of cattle rustling during a time of rising political tensions with France. 'That moment was quite exciting,' he said. 'I would never have expected to see these three as members of a group involved in low-level warfare against a French Priory.' During this time in British history, city dwellers were no strangers to violence. In Oxford alone, homicide rates during the late medieval period were about 60 to 75 deaths per 100,000 people, a rate about 50 times higher than what is currently seen in English cities. One Oxford record describes 'scholars on a rampage with bows, swords, bucklers, slings and stones.' Another mentions an altercation that began as an argument in a tavern, then escalated to a mass street brawl involving blades and battle-axes. But even though medieval England was a violent period, 'this absolutely does NOT mean that people did not care about violence,' Skoda said. 'In a legal context, in a political context, and in communities more widely, people were really concerned and distressed about high levels of violence.' The Medieval Murder Maps project 'provides fascinating insights into the ways in which people carried out violence, but also into the ways in which people worried about it,' Skoda said. 'They reported, investigated and prosecuted, and really relied on law.' Fitzpayne's tangled web of adultery, extortion and assassination also reveals that despite social constraints, some women in late medieval London still had agency — especially where murder was concerned. 'Ela was not the only woman who would recruit men to kill, to help her protect her reputation,' Eisner said. 'We see a violent event that arises from a world where members of the upper classes were violence experts, willing and able to kill as a way to maintain power.' Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine. She is the author of 'Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control' (Hopkins Press).
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Science
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A ‘dragon prince' dinosaur is redrawing the tyrannosaur family tree
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Scientists have identified a previously unknown 86 million-year-old dinosaur species that fills an early gap in the fossil record of tyrannosaurs, revealing how they evolved to become massive apex predators. Researchers analyzing the species' remains have named it Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which translates to 'dragon prince of Mongolia,' because it was small compared with its much larger relatives such as Tyrannosaurus rex, whose name means 'the tyrant lizard king.' The newly identified dinosaur was the closest known ancestor of tyrannosaurs and likely served as a transitional species from earlier tyrannosauroid species, according to the findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Based on a reexamination of two partial skeletons uncovered in Mongolia's Gobi Desert in 1972 and 1973, the new study suggests that three big migrations between Asia and North America led tyrannosauroids to diversify and eventually reach a gargantuan size in the late Cretaceous Period before going extinct 66 million years ago. 'This discovery of Khankhuuluu forced us to look at the tyrannosaur family tree in a very different light,' said study coauthor Darla Zelenitsky, associate professor within the department of Earth, energy, and environment at the University of Calgary, in an email. 'Before this, there was a lot of confusion about who was related to who when it came to tyrannosaur species. What started as the discovery of a new species ended up with us rewriting the family history of tyrannosaurs.' Tyrannosaurs, known scientifically as Eutyrannosaurians, bring to mind hulking dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus, which weighed multiple metric tons and could take down equally large prey. With short arms and massive heads, they walked on two legs and boasted sharp teeth, Zelenitsky said. But tyrannosaurs didn't start out that way. They evolved from smaller dinosaurs before dominating the landscapes of North America and Asia between 85 million and 66 million years ago, the researchers said. While Tarbosaurus, an ancestor of T. rex, clocked in at between 3,000 and 6,000 kilograms (6,613 pounds and 13,227 pounds), the fleet-footed Khankhuuluu mongoliensis likely weighed only around 750 kilograms (1,653 pounds), spanned just 2 meters (6.5 feet) at the hips and 4 meters (13 feet) in length, according to the study authors. Comparing the two dinosaurs would be like putting a horse next to an elephant —Khankhuuluu would have reached T. rex's thigh in height, Zelenitsky said. 'Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite,' Zelenitsky said. 'The snout bone was hollow rather than solid, and the bones around the eye didn't have all the horns and bumps seen in T. rex or other tyrannosaurs.' Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or a closely related ancestor species, likely migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia that connected the continents 85 million years ago, Zelenitsky said. Because of this migrant species, we now know that tyrannosaurs actually evolved first on the North American continent and remained there exclusively over the next several million years, she said. 'As the many tyrannosaur species evolved on the continent, they became larger and larger.' Due to the poor fossil record, it's unclear what transpired in Asia between 80 million to 85 million years ago, she added. While some Khankhuuluu may have remained in Asia, they were likely replaced later on by larger tyrannosaurs 79 million years ago. Meanwhile, another tyrannosaur species crossed the land bridge back to Asia 78 million years ago, resulting in the evolution of two related but very different subgroups of tyrannosaurs, Zelenitsky said. One was a gigantic, deep-snouted species, while the other known as Alioramins was slender and small. These smaller dinosaurs have been dubbed 'Pinocchio rexes' for their long, shallow snouts. Both types of tyrannosaurs were able to live in Asia and not compete with each other because the larger dinosaurs were top predators, while Alioramins were mid-level predators going after smaller prey — think cheetahs or jackals in African ecosystems today, Zelenitsky said. 'Because of their small size, Alioramins were long thought to be primitive tyrannosaurs, but we novelly show Alioramins uniquely evolved smallness as they had 'miniaturized' their bodies within a part of the tyrannosaur family tree that were all otherwise giants,' Zelenitsky said. One more migration happened as tyrannosaurs continued to evolve, and a gigantic tyrannosaur species crossed back into North America 68 million years ago, resulting in Tyrannosaurus rex, Zelenitsky said. 'The success and diversity of tyrannosaurs is thanks to a few migrations between the two continents, starting with Khankhuuluu,' she said. 'Tyrannosaurs were in the right place at the right time. They were able to take advantage of moving between continents, likely encountering open niche spaces, and quickly evolving to become large, efficient killing machines.' The new findings support previous research suggesting that Tyrannosaurus rex's direct ancestor originated in Asia and migrated to North America via a land bridge and underscore the importance of Asia in the evolutionary success of the tyrannosaur family, said Cassius Morrison, a doctoral student of paleontology at University College London. Morrison was not involved in the new research. 'The new species provides essential data and information in part of the family tree with few species, helping us to understand the evolutionary transition of tyrannosaurs from small/ medium predators to large apex predators,' Morrison wrote in an email. The study also shows that the Alioramini group, once considered distant relatives, were very close cousins of T. rex. What makes the fossils of the new species so crucial is their age — 20 million years older than T. rex, said Steve Brusatte, professor and personal chair of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh. Brusatte was not involved in the new study. 'There are so few fossils from this time, and that is why these scientists describe it as 'murky,'' Brusatte said. 'It has been a frustrating gap in the record, like if you suspected something really important happened in your family history at a certain time, like a marriage that started a new branch of the family or immigration to a new country, but you had no records to document it. The tyrannosaur family tree was shaped by migration, just like so many of our human families.' With only fragments of fossils available, it's been difficult to understand the variation of tyrannosaurs as they evolved, said Thomas Carr, associate professor of biology at Carthage College in Wisconsin and director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology. Carr was not involved in the new research. But the new study sheds light on the dinosaurs' diversity and clarifies which ones existed when — and how they overlapped with one another, he said. More samples from the fossil record will provide additional clarity, but the new work illustrates the importance of reexamining fossils collected earlier. 'We know so much more about tyrannosaurs now,' Carr said. 'A lot of these historical specimens are definitely worth their weight in gold for a second look.' When the fossils were collected half a century ago, they were only briefly described at the time, Brusatte said. 'So many of us in the paleontology community knew that these Mongolian fossils were lurking in museum drawers, waiting to be studied properly, and apt to tell their own important part of the tyrannosaur story,' he said. 'It's almost like there was a non-disclosure agreement surrounding these fossils, and it's now expired, and they can come out and tell their story.'
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Science
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New images reveal treasures aboard ‘holy grail' shipwreck
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. New research revealing details of gold coins found aboard a shipwreck off Colombia provides further evidence that the vessel was the San José galleon, a 300-year-old Spanish warship believed to contain artifacts worth billions of dollars. Scientists used an unmanned underwater vehicle to survey the wreck and captured images of some of its cargo, according to a study published in the journal Antiquity on Tuesday. They then used photogrammetry to make three-dimensional reconstructions of the coins, revealing a Jerusalem cross and heraldic symbols of the crowns of the Spanish monarchs of Castile and León. They also uncovered symbols showing that the coins were minted in Lima, Peru, in 1707, proving the shipwreck occurred after that date. Historical records show that the San José was part of a shipping fleet known as the Flota de Tierra Firme. It was one of a number of ships in the fleet that left Peru in 1707 carrying a large amount of royal cargo, but records show that it never reached Spain, instead sinking off Colombia following a battle with British forces in 1708. Researchers say the coins strengthen the case that this is indeed the San José, often called the 'holy grail of shipwrecks.' 'Hand-struck, irregularly shaped coins — known as cobs in English and macuquinas in Spanish — served as the primary currency in the Americas for more than two centuries,' lead researcher Daniela Vargas Ariza from Colombia's national history and anthropology institute (ICANH) said in a statement published Tuesday. 'The Tierra Firme Fleet, commanded by the San José Galleon, held the exclusive monopoly on transporting royal treasures between South America and the Iberian Peninsula,' she said. 'This find presents a rare opportunity to explore an underwater archaeological site and deepen our understanding of eighteenth-century maritime trade and routes,' said Vargas Ariza. Study author Jesús Alberto Aldana Mendoza, an archaeologist specializing in underwater cultural heritage, told CNN that it was 'very surprising to find them during our research and to be able to analyze them so closely.' The project 'has been able to study the artifacts from the site like never before, as it has managed to link archaeological material with historical documents,' he added. Since it sank, the ship has lain undisturbed off the coast of the Caribbean port city of Cartagena, despite the historical significance of the artifacts contained in it, which are worth an estimated $17 billion, due to an ongoing multi-billion-dollar legal battle. While the Colombian government maintains that it first discovered the San José in 2015 with help from international scientists, its claims have been disputed by a US-based marine salvage company named Sea Search-Armada (SSA), formerly known as Glocca Morra, which argues that it discovered the shipwreck in the early 1980s. SSA has launched a legal battle against the Colombian government in the international Permanent Court of Arbitration, claiming it is entitled to approximately $10 billion — half the estimated value of the shipwreck's treasure. The Colombian government disputes SSA's claims.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Science
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6,000-year-old skeletons found in Colombia have unique DNA
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Scientists studying ancient human remains uncovered in Colombia have found that the people they were researching have no known ancestors or modern descendants. In a study published May 30 in the journal Science Advances, a team of researchers reported on the genetic data of 21 individuals whose skeletal remains were found in the Bogotá Altiplano in central Colombia, some of whom lived as long as 6,000 years ago, that belonged to a previously unknown population. Previous studies have proven the existence of two lineages, northern Native American and southern Native American, which developed after people first arrived on the continent across an ice bridge from Siberia and started to move south. The latter split into at least three sub-lineages whose movements have been traced in South America, but scientists have not yet ascertained when the first people would have moved from Central America to South America. The study helps to map the movements of the first settlers, who would have been nomadic hunter-gatherers, study author Andrea Casas Vargas, a researcher at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, told CNN on Wednesday, but it also found that they have unique DNA. Casas Vargas said the team were 'very surprised' to find that the remains did not share DNA with other people in the genetic record. 'We did not expect to find a lineage that had not been reported in other populations,' she said. Casas Vargas underlined that Colombia's position as the entry point to South America makes it significant to our understanding of the population of the Americas. 'This study is very important because it is the first to sequence complete genomes in ancient samples from Colombia,' she said, The results raise questions 'as to where they came from and why they disappeared,' said Casas Vargas. 'We are not certain what happened at that time that caused their disappearance, whether it was due to environmental changes, or if they were replaced by other population groups,' she added. Further research will hopefully provide some answers, said Casas Vargas. 'Our next investigations will look for other archaeological remains from other regions of the country and analyze them at the genetic level and complement this first discovery,' she said. Christina Warinner, a professor of scientific archaeology at Harvard University, told CNN that Colombia 'is a key region for understanding the peopling of South America… but until now it has been a blank spot in ancient DNA studies of the Americas.' 'This study highlights the deep history of population migration and mixing in the formation today's populations, and points to Central America as a key region that influenced the development of complex societies in both North and South America,' she added.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Science
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Look up to see June's full strawberry moon, the Milky Way and multiple planets
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. June's full moon, nicknamed the strawberry moon, will shine brightly on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The moon will be at its fullest at 3:44 a.m. ET Wednesday but will still appear bright and low in the east after sunset on Tuesday, as well as low in the west opposite the sunrise on Wednesday morning, per EarthSky. The summer solstice falls this month, occurring on June 20, which means that the sun typically appears higher in the sky and moon seems closer to the horizon because the celestial bodies are positioned on opposite sides of Earth. But this will also be the lowest full moon visible from the Northern Hemisphere in decades due to a phenomenon called a major lunar standstill, according to EarthSky. The standstill, when the moon is at its northernmost or southernmost point, occurs because the moon's orbit is slowly dragged around in an 18.6-year cycle by the gravitational pull of the sun. The phenomenon is referred to as a standstill because the moon appears to stop changing direction during this time, even though it's still moving in orbit, according to the Griffith Observatory. Although the standstill occurred in January, it's still affecting our perspective of the full moon, according to EarthSky. The last major lunar standstill occurred in 2006. Meanwhile, for those viewing the flip side of this phenomenon in the Southern Hemisphere, the full moon will reach its highest point. While the silvery orb won't look anything like a berry, June's full moon got its moniker from indigenous tribes that were inspired by the sweet berries such as strawberries that ripen and reach their peak this time of year. Both the Anishinaabe and the Sioux people refer to this month's full moon as the strawberry moon. Meanwhile, the Creeks know it as the blackberry moon, and the Shawnee tribe calls it the raspberry moon. The full moon won't be the only celestial sight to seek out in June's night sky. The strawberry moon will also appear near the center of the Milky Way, according to galaxy's bright center will be on annual display from June through August, known as 'Core Season' because the core of the Milky Way is visible, the agency shared. Keep an eye out for a faint, hazy band resembling a cloud that seems to arc toward the south. The band is best seen away from city lights under dark skies and will appear even more vivid through long-exposure photography. Meanwhile, multiple planets will be visible in the sky this month. Mars, Jupiter and Mercury will all appear low in the west after sunset. Look for bright Venus low in the eastern sky for about two hours before the sun rises all month long. The crescent moon and Venus will appear close together in the early morning eastern sky on June 22. There are six more full moons to look out for in 2025, with supermoons occurring in October, November and December. Here's the list of full moons remaining in 2025, according to the Farmers' Almanac: July 10: Buck moon August 9: Sturgeon moon September 7: Corn moon October 6: Harvest moon November 5: Beaver moon December 4: Cold moon In the lead-up to fall, two eclipse events will grace the sky. A total lunar eclipse will be most visible from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, parts of eastern South America, Alaska and Antarctica on September 7 and 8, according to Time and Date. A lunar eclipse, which causes the moon to look dark or dimmed, occurs when Earth is between the sun and moon and the three celestial objects line up in a row so that the moon passes into our planet's shadow. When the moon is within the darkest part of Earth's shadow, called the umbra, it takes on a reddish hue, which has led to the nickname 'blood moon' for a lunar eclipse, according to NASA. That shadow isn't perfect, so sunbeams sneak around the shadow's edges, bathing the moon in warm hues. A partial solar eclipse will occur on September 21 as the moon moves between the sun and Earth but the celestial bodies aren't perfectly aligned, according to NASA. In this type of event, the moon only blocks part of the sun's face, creating a crescent shape in which it appears to take a 'bite' out of the sun. This event will be visible to more remote areas of Australia, Antarctica and the Pacific Ocean.
