EVIDENCE FOR REMEDIAL MEDICAL-TREATMENT OF A SEVERE KNEE INJURY FROM THE FISHERGATE GILBERTINE MONASTERY IN THE CITY OF YORK

During the analysis of a skeletal population from the Fishergate site the City of York, an individual from the eastern part of the cemetery associated with the Gilbertine monastic foundation of St. Andrew revea led evidence of a chronic septic arthritis, secondary to a severe righ t knee twist-fracture, and bone adaptation in response to altered biom echanical loading. This disability had been the subject of remedial me dical treatment with copper-alloy plates. Their presence, only the fou rth such treatment thus far recorded from the mediaeval period, and th e sole example applied to a lower limb, suggests that monastic houses, or those buried at these establishments, and specifically those assoc iated with the Cistercians, had preferential access to medical special ists.