William of Burntoft was a physician living in Newcastle Upon Tyne. In 1312 he was summoned to Newcastle Castle by the command of none other than King Edward II himself! He was to attend the King’s favourite, the handsome Gascon knight Sir Piers Gaveston, who suffered from what sources call a “secret illness”. He was paid over £6 in a few days, an extravagant sum in a day and age when the average wage was only 2 pence per day! Who was William Burntoft, and what did being a medieval physician entail?

It all starts somewhere in Scandanavia in the 9th century with a gentleman, or not so gentle Viking called Rollo or Hrolf. Historians are uncertain of his origins and have come up with several differing ones. Written sources in this period are often limited, reading and writing not being essential for everyday life way back when. Most of the information we have on the earlier aspects of his career are from an early medieval historian, Dudo, writing in the 10th century.

Odo and Eustace represent the hundreds of soldiers who served as guards and garrison soldiers at Newcastle Castle over the years. When the Castle was first built in the 1100s, each baron living near Newcastle was required to send a certain number of knights each year to serve as guards for the Castle. Over time, knights were generally replaced with humbler soldiers like Odo and Eustace. Find out more about their life and times here!

The gong farmer had the unpleasant but vital job of cleaning out the garderobes and looking after the midden of the Castle. By the 1500s the Castle was largely deserted and a huge part of the grounds was given over to the midden – a vast pile of poo that would have filled 30 shipping containers!

The plague doctor would have been a familiar but dreaded sight in the Newcastle in the 1600s. In 1636, the plague struck North Shields and soon spread to Newcastle. It swept through the town killing thousands and leaving the rest in fear – it was said that people locked themselves in their homes and refused to come out, and that grass grew on the streets. Today’s blog post looks at the sinister beaked figure of the plague doctor!

Time to introduce another one of our Castle Characters, one much lowlier than the Knight and Royal Lady that we have met so far. This is Matilda, the Barber, who lived in Newcastle near the Castle itself at the end of the 1200s. Ordinary working people like Matilda often disappear in histories of the medieval period, which tend to concentrate much more on the doings of knights, kings, queens and what have you. But we should not lose sight of the people that it was the work of these ordinary people that kept the whole kingdom running, and they lived lives every bit as interesting as their “betters”. Today we’ll be delving into the often gruesome work of the medieval barber…

Hallowe’en is traditionally a busy time of year at Newcastle Castle. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has put paid to our usual program of film screenings, family activities and other eerie events that would normally fill our days at this time of year. We thought instead we might have a little look at the history not just of Hallowe’en, but of spooks, spectres and sinister creatures that were once believed to roam the North East in medieval times. 

Mary Bruce was the younger sister of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots. In 1306 when Bruce was living as an outlaw fighting a guerrilla war against the English, Mary was captured along with Robert’s wife and daughter by the Earl of Ross, who handed them over to Edward I.

Sir Aymer de Atholl was a Northumbrian Knight living in the 1300s. The second son of an exiled Scottish Earl who had fought with King Edward of England against Robert the Brice, Sir Aymer was an experienced soldier who saw some of the most turbulent times in British history.