Delving into medieval human remains from a Spanish castle has brought forth captivating revelations about a unique group of warrior monks.
A team of researchers examined the remains of 25 individuals buried between the 12th and 15th centuries in the castle cemetery at Zorita de los Canes, right in the heart of Spain. This burial ground was the resting place for members of the Order of Calatrava knights, a Christian military and religious order.
Upon excavating the remains, the team’s analysis unveiled insights into the diet, lifestyle, and causes of death of the deceased.
Reported in the journal Scientific Reports, the study revealed that 23 of the individuals bore marks on their bones indicative of violent deaths.
Carme Rissech, Universitat Rovira i Virgili
These marks, including penetrating puncture wounds and blunt force injuries, were found on body areas not shielded by armor against the weapons of that era, like the upper skull, cheeks, and inner pelvis.
The findings strongly support the notion that these remains belonged to warrior monks, as per the researchers’ analysis.
“The exploration into the warrior monks of the Order of Calatrava from Zorita Castle is truly extraordinary. It’s a groundbreaking identification of such warrior monks, unparalleled even in the Near East. This group of warrior monks serves as a pioneering case study due to both their numbers and the clarity of their identification,” the researchers stated.
By conducting isotopic analysis on the bones to reconstruct the individuals’ diets, researchers could ascertain social standings and even unravel the hierarchy within the Order. This hierarchy encompassed leaders (from high nobility), knights (lower nobility and urban elite), and peasant individuals.
The results pointed towards a diet rich in poultry and marine fish among this inland population, a diet typical of medieval high society at that time. This suggests that the Order predominantly consisted of the lower nobility and urban elite, in alignment with historical accounts.
However, the presence of individuals with diets indicating other social statuses hints that the cemetery might not have exclusively catered to the order’s elite but might have also included members of lower statuses within it, the authors suggested.
“It was truly fascinating how our study, though having no direct archaeological evidence of their identities, aided in identifying them. Our findings meshed seamlessly with historical sources detailing the order and its operations, like puzzle pieces falling into place,” Pérez-Ramallo remarked.
In addition to human remains, the researchers also examined animal remains around the castle, which complemented the findings from the isotopic analysis of human remains.