Criminologists have solved a 688 -year -old, very special cold case from the Middle Ages. The perpetrator was the noble Ela Fitzpayne, who had the priest John Fors killed-her ex-lover. She hired the contract killer, which cut his throat on a busy street on a bright day. With this demonstrative execution, she also avoided her ex and at the church, which she had in a humiliating way for her adultery. From the years of power struggle between nobility and clergy, Ela Fitzpayne ultimately emerged as the winner.
A team led by Manuel Eisner from the University of Cambridge deals with very old criminal cases. These are unnatural and suspicious deaths that happened in England in the 14th century, especially in London, Oxford and York. In order to clarify this, the researchers see historical documents in Latin, including private letters, reports from the forensic medicine and police investigative notes for the jury. The criminologists have now solved one of these medieval cold cases.
In this case, the dead man was the priest John Forse, who was put down publicly in 1337. While a man with a 30 centimeter dagger average theast, two more stuck on his stomach with long knives. The murder took place on a Friday evening, even before sunset, near the St Paul’s Cathedral on a busy street in London: the central district around the road Westcheap, today Chepside, with its markets, workshops and taverns was then a trading center, party mile and at the same time the venue for various gang fights and “Mord hotspot”, explained the team. The execution of forde in self -justice was therefore only one of many that were committed in this quarter in the evening and on Sundays – and yet something special.
Order murder from revenge
Because the investigation by Eisner and his colleagues showed that the murder was not the usual craftsman’s dispute, but a cold-blooded order murder. The former lover of the priest, the noble Ela Fitzpayne from Southwest England, ordered him. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Mepham, had experienced this and other extramarital affairs of the woman and forced FitzPayne for years for years. For example, the archbishop demanded that the noble walked barefoot across the Salisbury cathedral every autumn – as a kind of public “Walk of Shame”. In addition, she had to donate high sums to the monk order and arms for years and was not allowed to wear jewelry, as can be seen from the letters. “Attempts that Ela Fitzpayne publicly humiliate could have been part of a political game, since the church imposed its authority on the nobility through morality,” explains Eisner.
The woman did not follow all punishment and the archbishop died in 1333, but the defamation through the church re -enacted. Fitzpayne Sann apparently commissioned revenge for the humiliation and in 1337 commissioned the murder of her ex-lover. Their motifs were a demonstration of power from the Adels Elite and also by Ela Fitzpayne personally to the church and revenge on forde, the criminologists conclude from the documents. The woman suspected or knew that Forsde himself tells the archbishop about the relationship, denounced her and got his penance rolling. In addition, Forsde was not punished by the Church for his affair.
Fitzpayne hired her brother Hugh Lovell as a contract killer and two of her employees – Hugh Colne and John Strong. “We are dealing with a murder that was commissioned by a leading personality of English aristocracy. It is planned and cold -blooded, with a family member and narrow confidants, which indicates a revenge:” says Eisner.
According to the documents, the jury in the subsequent investigation knew who the perpetrators were, but supposedly not where they were. They were therefore not arrested or brought to court. The wealth of the noble brother was also not confiscated because it supposedly did not exist. “Despite the names of the murderers and the clear knowledge of the instigator, the jurors close an eye when persecution of the perpetrators,” said Eisner. “That was typical of the class justice of the time.” Only the servant Colne was charged and imprisoned years later.
From the “partner in crime” to the murder victim
The court’s reaction may also be due to the fact that the Fede between the clergy and the nobility had lasted for a long time and that Fitzpayne had ultimately emerged as the winner. Because even before this act, the noble was not a meek person and was not only her loved one before his betrayal, but also her “partner in crime”, as another document shows. According to this, Fitzpayne, her husband Robert and request a gang, which in 1322 attacked a church priority in a neighboring Benedictine monastery. The aisle broke into buildings and took a hostage to blackmail the church. Under the loot were 18 oxen, 30 pigs and about 200 sheep and lambs that the Fitzpaynes held at their castle.
The criminologist Eisner suspects that Forse worked with the Fitzpaynes in the robbery to take advantage of the diplomatic tensions between the nobility and clergy. In doing so, he hit the side of the Fitzpaynes, who were probably the patrons of his church and granted him the position as the village priest in her place of residence. The archbishop should not have liked this and could then have put pressure on forde, whereupon he later betrayed his lover.
Interestingly, there is no evidence of a custody between Ela and her husband Robert Fitzpayne, despite the numerous affairs of his wife, Eisner emphasizes. “A woman in England in the 14th century, who attacked priority, openly resisted the Archbishop of Canterbury and planned the murder of a priest. Ela Fitzpayne seems to have been a lot, also an extraordinary person,” concludes Eisner.
Source: University of Cambridge; Specialist articles: Criminal Law Forum, DOI: 10.1007/S10609-025-09512-7
