Air eruct trapped in an Alpine glacier for over 800 years are facilitate to tell the story of mediaeval Britain , a decapitated Archbishop , and struggles for power .
account in the journalAntiquity , archeologists from the University of Nottingham have recently studied a 72 - metre - tenacious ( 236 - fundament ) ice gist take from Colle Gnifetti , a glacier in the European Alps on the Swiss - Italian border . Bystudying the different layer of the frosting core , the team were able-bodied to learn about the concentrations of atmospherical gases in the air at various sentence in account .
The analytic thinking showed notable bill and troughs in atmosphere befoulment between 1170 CE and 1216 CE . Combined with what we lie with about atmospheric circulation around this time , the researchers say the spike can be traced back to the mills and mine of Britain , where lead was being furiously smelled for war , as well as to make roof tiles and stained glass windows for the king ’ ambitious construction projects .
Within the subtle variation of lead pollution in the gentle wind , the researchers were also capable to see echo of the ascension and fall of monarchy .
“ The correlation between grounds of Pb product in Britain in the frosting core deposit and the taxation paid on lead mines is astonishing ! We see verbatim associations between production horizontal surface and the workings of government at the time , for exemplar , direct tax revenue and lead product plummet in the year when a king pass before they are succeeded by another one . This is because medieval government shut down in the interregnum , ” lead authorProfessor Christopher Loveluck , from the University of Nottingham ’s Department of Classics and Archaeology , explained in astatement .
“ The ice core shows precisely when one king died , and lead production fell and then rose again with the next sovereign . We can see the deaths of King Henry II , Richard Lionheart and King John there in the ancient glass , ” Professor Loveluck added .
The shadow of lead defilement also neatly line up with the assassination of Thomas Becket , the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his expiry in 1170 . In the years before his death , the potent religious figure was engaged inan ill-famed conflictwith King Henry II . The tensions reached a stewing point on December 29 , 1170 CE , when a group of four knights loyal to the male monarch entered Canterbury cathedral and killed Beckett , beheading him in the process .
By no surprise , the Church was not felicitous , and the British sovereign quickly sought to find the party favor of Pope Alexander .
speak to theBBC , Loveluck explains : " To get himself out of jail with the Pope , Henry promised to endow and build a lot of major conventual institutions very , very quickly .
" And of form , massive amounts of lead were used for roofing of these major cloistral building complex . lede production apace expand as Henry tried to atone for his misdemeanors against the Church . "
