Deadly bellringing and fatal bacon: grisly accidental Tudor deaths

From drowning and agricultural mishaps to getting stabbed during a football match, crushed by a pig, scalded by porridge or suffocated by a fish, there were myriad ways to accidentally die in Tudor England. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, Steven Gunn reveals what coroners records of fatal accidents can teach us about daily life in the 16th century.

(Ad) Steven Gunn is the co-author, with Tomasz Gromelski, of An Accidental History of Tudor England: From Daily Life to Sudden Death (John Murray, 2025). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Accidental-History-Tudor-England-Sudden/dp/1529333741/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty.

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

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