William of Worcester's Chronicle of England
William of Worcester, born around 1415, and died around 1482 was secretary to John Fastolf, the renowned soldier of the Hundred Years War, during which time he collected documents, letters, and wrote a record of events. Following their return to England in 1440 William was witness to major events. Twice in his chronicle he uses the first person: 1. when writing about the murder of Thomas, 7th Baron Scales, in 1460, he writes '… and I saw him lying naked in the cemetery near the porch of the church of St. Mary Overie in Southwark …' and 2. describing King Edward IV's entry into London in 1461 he writes '… proclaimed that all the people themselves were to recognize and acknowledge Edward as king. I was present and heard this, and immediately went down with them into the city'. William’s Chronicle is rich in detail. It is the source of much information about the Wars of the Roses, including the term 'Diabolical Marriage' to describe the marriage of Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s brother John’s marriage to Katherine, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, he aged twenty, she sixty-five or more, and the story about a paper crown being placed in mockery on the severed head of Richard, 3rd Duke of York.
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Avebury Outer Circle Stone 9 aka SW16 aka Barber Stone is in Avebury Outer Stone Circle Extant Stones.
Keiller's Slides TR000126. 1938. General view of the re-erection of stone 9 [Map] in the south west sector of the henge at Avebury, with a figure in the foreground
Keiller's Slides TR000034. 1938. General view of the skull of the Barber Surgeon in situ during the excavation of stone 9 [Map] in the south west sector of the henge at Avebury. Items found with the body including three silver coins dated to around 1320–25, as well as a pair of iron scissors and an iron probe led to him being identified as an itinerant mediaeval barber surgeon.
Antiquity 1939 Volume 13 Pages 223-233. During the excavation of the buried Stone 16 [Map], a complete skeleton was found within the narrow space between the stone and the only unfinished part of the side of the burial-pit. It is evident that the remains were those of an individual who had been accidentally killed while engaged in completing the pit for the burial of the stone, which had apparently slipped or fallen owing to a support giving way, fracturing the victim's pelvis, and also breaking his neck. The right foot was wedged beneath the fallen stone and it had consequently been impossible at the time of death to remove the corpse. It had therefore been covered over and the pit containing stone and body filled in. The date of the occurrence, and the burial of the stone, could be accurately fixed to within a few years by the discovery near the man's left hip of a discoloured patch of soil, doubtless representing the remains of a leather pouch, upon which lay thrce coins; two silver pennies of Edward I, minted at Canterbury in 1307, and a sterling of the City of Toul. Other finds beside the skeleton included a pair of pointed scissors, which were from their form definitely those rather of a barber than a tailor, and a small iron object, with the vestigial remains of a wooden handle, which had apparently been a lancet or probe. These objects were found beside the left thigh. The discovery of a pair of scissors in England accurately identifiable to so early a date as the first quarter of the fourteenth century A.D. is interesting.
In passing it may be remarked that the generally accepted explanation that is in order to facilitate agriculture-for the burial of so many of the stones at Avebury cannot, on other grounds than the employment of a barber for the task, be regarded as adequate, at any rate so far as the northwest and southeast sectors are concerned.
The skeleton has been accepted by the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, while the associated finds are housed in the Museum of the Morven Institute at Avebury.
Keiller's Slides TR000003. General view of the excavation of stone 9 [Map] in the south west sector of the henge at Avebury
