Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News
Archbishop of Canterbury's face revealed
Related Categories: England
From the Church of England Newspaper
The results of the examination of the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury are in, and the results are not pretty.
On 16 March, forensic scientists led by Professor Caroline Wilkinson from the University of Dundee scanned the mummified head of Simon of Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury killed during the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381.
The CT was taken to allow a forensic sculptor from the University of Dundee to reconstruct the face of the archbishop in clay. The finished head of Simon of Sudbury was unveiled last week at St Gregory’s Church in Sudbury, where his mummified head has rested since his execution in 1381.
Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, Simon was named Bishop of London in 1362 and was translated to Canterbury in 1375. In 1380 he was also named Lord Chancellor by King Richard II.
In 1381, the 14-year-old king levied a poll tax to finance military campaigns overseas. Attempts to collect the tax prompted uprisings in Essex and Kent, and a march on London. Archbishop Sudbury and Sir Robert Hales, the Lord Treasurer, took refuge in the Tower of London, but were seized and taken to Tower Hill where he and Hales were beheaded on 14 June, 1381.
The archbishop’s body was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, but his head, which had been placed on a spike on Tower Bridge, was brought back to Suffolk in a barrel of brine, and buried at St Gregory’s Church in Sudbury.
With the CT scan results in hand, forensic artist Adrienne Barker recreated the archbishop’s facial features and completed a series of 3-D bronze-resin casts of his head.
“I hope people in Sudbury like what we’ve done but he’s a strange-looking fellow so it’ll be interesting to see their reactions,” said Ms Barker.
“The first thing we had to do was carry out an initial assessment of the skull to determine its age, sex and ancestry. We then sculpted each muscle of the face and built this up on the cast we made of the skull before adding a final layer which represents the skin.
“The only problem we really encountered was that there was still facial tissue attached to the skull, which we managed to remove using computer modelling software before sending the CT data away for a rapid prototype model of the skull to be made.
“The past year has been the best of my life as I’ve immersed myself in this reconstruction. It has been absolutely fascinating to learn the story behind Simon of Sudbury and to get involved in this work,” she said.