Manuel Eisner, the deputy director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, along with his wife, had this hobby of mapping medieval crimes, which led to the creation of the Medieval Murder Maps project in 2018, with the help of Cambridge historian Stephanie Brown.
The particular case of the chaplain John Ford piqued Eisner's interest, as the clergyman had been stabbed by three people in broad daylight. Those three people were Hugh Colne, John Strong, and John Tindale. They were hitmen hired by the noblewoman Ela FitzPayne. But the question that stuck in Eisner's mind was why?
What could the clergyman have done to provoke the ire of the rich and famous Ela FitzPayne? To get down to the bottom of the matter, the team searched for any connections between the two. And they came across a letter that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Metham, had written to the Bishop of Winchester, dated January 29, 1332.
From the letter, the team found out that FitzPayne had previously been convicted of adultery, and was sentenced to public humiliation, which involved walking barefoot from the western entrance of Salisbury Cathedral to the high altar, much like the "walk of shame" in Game of Thrones. This she had to do every day for seven years. Not only that, but she was also prohibited from wearing any jewelry or makeup.
The letter also revealed one other thing: the connection between FitzPayne and Ford. Apparently, Ford had been a former lover of FitzPayne, and we can deduce that it was he who told the Archbishop about FitzPayne's adultery. However, his involvement with her had been swept under the rug, going without punishment. Needless to say, Ela FitzPayne took matters into her own hands, and served the poor chaplain a dish of revenge.
(Image credit: Walters Art Museum, Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)