An osteoarchaeological reconstruction of the medieval population from the Hospital of St James at Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire

This thesis examines the Hospital of St James at Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, looking at funerary practice and the hospital's population. This is the first examination of the hospital since excavations at the site closed in 2016. The primary objective of the thesis is to characterise the Hospital of St James. This is achieved through a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating osteology, population demography and archaeological research methods which provide a broad and reaching approach to the archaeological assemblage enabling a comprehensive study to take place.
The thesis begins with an introduction to the role of a hospital in later medieval society, commenting on the principals upon which they were founded, their contribution to charity and their position on the edge of monastic and lay communities. Having established the background to the role hospitals fulfilled in later medieval England, the aim of characterising the Hospital of St James is first addressed through an exploration of the burial practices carried out at the hospital. The thesis goes on to address this objective through the establishment and exploration of the population's demographic profile which reveals a dominantly male population with a large proportion of non-adults. This demographic profile is compared to nine contemporary hospital sites to integrate the Hospital of St James into current literature concerning medieval hospitals of England, as well as monastic and lay populations as a means to explore the extent to which the hospital represented the monastic communities from which they were established. Following this an exploration of the palaeopathologies present in the cemetery is undertaken and also compared to the nine contemporary hospitals. Through this, the type of care being ordered at the Hospital of St James can be measured against that being ordered at other hospitals. The penultimate chapter presents a discussion surrounding the large number of non-adults present within the hospital's assemblage, calling for a discussion of the position of children in medieval society and their relationship with the religious communities of later medieval England. This draws upon the involvement of religious communities in caring for sick and abandoned children, their role as a primary educator and their training children for a life of monasticism. The discussion also examines the location of the Hospital of St James within the outer precinct of Thornton Abbey, and how this position may have had an influence upon the large presence of non-adults and the role the hospital fulfilled. The final chapter discusses the characterisation of the Hospital of St James established from the thesis research findings. These finding conclude that the Hospital of St James may not have followed the convention of the four hospital types referenced throughout academic literature, instead it displays a complex blend of children, the sick poor and corrodians. Following these, suggestions for future research is presented regarding the further study of late medieval hospital demographic profiles and the research
potential of the skeletal assemblage from the Hospital of St James.