04/29/2026
A medieval knight still had liquid blood.
When archaeologists cracked open a lead-wrapped coffin at St Bees Priory, Cumbria, in 1981, what they found inside stopped them cold.
Nearly 700 years after his death, the knight's skin, internal organs, and even traces of blood were still intact. His features remained intact, his eyes still visible, creating the unsettling impression of someone who had died only recently rather than in the distant medieval past.
Even more remarkable was liquid blood still present in the chest cavity, and remnants of his final meal, identified as a mixture of porridge and raisins, preserved in his stomach after six centuries.
His heart, lungs, liver, and intestines remained visibly intact. A fractured rib had caused internal bleeding into the chest cavity, cited as the likely cause of death. He also had a fractured right jaw and a fracture of the hyoid bone in the larynx. This was a man killed violently in battle.
His identity is now considered almost certainly to be Anthony de Lucy, born around 1332 and probably killed in 1368, fighting for the Teutonic Knights in the Northern Crusades against the Lithuanians. His comrades returned his body to England for burial, suggesting his status. For a 14th-century noble, the effort to transport a body across Europe for interment in family lands speaks volumes about both rank and reverence.
Despite the extraordinary preservation, there was no evidence of formal embalming, indicating purely natural mummification. The remains were sealed within a wooden coffin lined with lead sheets and wrapped in a shroud impregnated with pine pitch, conditions that facilitated the formation of adipocere, a waxy substance that inhibited bacterial decay.
With no way of permanently keeping the mummy, after studies were concluded, it was re-wrapped and re-interred at St Bees. One of England's most extraordinary discoveries, resting again where he was found over 650 years ago.
