How a vengeful noblewoman masterminded the assassination of her lover, a priest during the 14th century. His throat was cut on a busy street in London

Amazing stuff! Sundays was a favorite day for committing homicides! This seems to be quite a fascinating historical investigation of historical criminology.

Was urban lethal violence significantly higher in the medieval ages than in modern times?

Women are often referred to as the gentler sex! Well, they use poison or other men (family members, servants) to do the killing when necessary. Gender equality has dark sides too! Caution: sarcasm/satire.

The priest was not only a lover of the noblewoman, but possibly also a criminal gang member with the noblewoman and her husband.

"A Cambridge criminologist has uncovered evidence in the killing of a priest, John Forde, who had his throat cut on a busy London street almost seven centuries ago. Professor Manuel Eisner, who leads the Medieval Murder Maps project, said: "It was planned and cold-blooded, with a family member and close associates carrying it out, all of which suggests a revenge motive.""

"... The case is among hundreds catalogued by the Medieval Murder Maps project at Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology, a database of unnatural death in England during the 14th century. ...

Records traced ... suggest that John Forde’s slaying in 1337 was a revenge killing orchestrated by a noblewoman ordered to enact years of degrading penance after the Archbishop of Canterbury discovered the clergyman was her lover – possibly from Forde himself. ...

A letter written by the Archbishop five years earlier accuses the aristocrat Ela Fitzpayne of a wide variety of adultery, including with the priest John Forde, and demands she undertake barefoot walks of shame across Salisbury Cathedral. 

Another record found ... shows that, around the time of these allegations, Ela Fitzpayne conspired with her husband and John Forde to lead a gang of extortionists that raided a church priory, breaking into buildings and holding livestock to ransom.

While explicit connections remain unclear, the records suggest that John Forde went from Ela Fitzpayne’s crime gang and possibly her bed, to a player in her denunciation by the church, and, years later, a murder victim – with one of Forde’s killers recognised as Ela Fitzpayne’s brother, and two others her recent servants. .."

From the abstract:

"This study examines the spatial patterns of homicide in three 14th-century English cities—London, York, and Oxford—through the Medieval Murder Map project, which visualizes 355 homicide cases derived from coroners’ inquests.
Integrating historical criminology with contemporary spatial crime theories, we outline a new historical criminology of space, focused on how urban environments shaped patterns of lethal violence in the past.

Findings reveal similarities in all three cities.

Homicides were highly concentrated in key nodes of urban life such as markets, squares, and thoroughfares.
Temporal patterns indicate that most homicides occurred in the evening and on weekends, aligning with routine activity theory [???].
Oxford had far higher homicide rates than London and York, and a higher proportion of organized group-violence, suggestive of high levels of social disorganization and impunity.
Spatial analyses reveal distinct areas related to town-gown conflicts and violence fueled by student factionalism.

In London, findings suggest distinct clusters of homicide which reflect differences in economic and social functions.

In all three cities, some homicides were committed in spaces of high visibility and symbolic significance.
The findings highlight how public space shaped urban violence historically.
The study also raises broader questions about the long-term decline of homicide, suggesting that changes in urban governance and spatial organization may have played a crucial role in reducing lethal violence."

Your Cambridge research highlights

Medieval Murder Maps "How a vengeful noblewoman masterminded the assassination of a priest"

Spatial dynamics of homicide in medieval English cities: the Medieval Murder Map project (open access)

Fig. 1 Distribution of homicides by weekday and time of the day in London and Oxford displaying a total of 208 cases. (Notice the peak on Sundays)