10,000 medieval artifacts found in Oxford, UK

Why did the announcer/commentator state that knives and forks were found? Knives yes, but forks did not appear in France until the 1530's when Catherine de Medici married Henry II, so by the time they got to England it was much later and certainly not medieval.

tac foley wrote: »

http://www.foodreference.com/html/art-history-fork-729.html

tac

Thanks Tac, proves my point – sloppy commentary, no forks in medieval England (or in the video clip)

Years ago I transcribed the much later (early 1600’s) will of my 10th great grandfather (accepting our as yet undocumented link in the 1700’s). He was wealthy so the will's transcription ran to eight A4 pages and was very detailed - lots of household goods, but no forks!

FWIW / for those interested – Almost the entire first page was about committing his 'soule' to God but a sample of how it read in general -

Item I geve and bequeath onto my eldest and welbeloved sonne No1… my great gilt cupp with the cover my silver salt and six of my best gilt spones Item I geve onto No2 my sonne six of the next best spones whether gilt or ungilt Also to No3 six of the other silver spones and onto No4 my son the other six silver spones. Item I geve onto No5 my sonne my silver beaker and onto my son No6 my silver beare cupp and onto my sonne No7 my silver wyne cupp.....

“Item I geve onto my said wyfe all the joynts, poultrey, butter and cheese, fish and flesh as shalbe remayninge in my house or owinge by the butcher at the tyme of my decease…….

tac foley wrote: »

That's amazing, Sir! Thanks to the efforts of a few people in 1916, I can't find out anything about my own grandfather, ......tac

Thanks Tac, I am lucky record-wise for several reasons. The family was English and its head in the early to mid-1800’s had both the money and time to research and collect family records. His descendant presented the entire collection to the National Archives at Kew. In another bit of luck a historian chose the village/manor they came from as the topic for his PhD dissertation. He had done a considerable amount of research on the assertions already made on father-son land transfers, etc.

My link is quite apparent but I’m still hoping that DNA will enable me to scientifically join the dots from 1797 back to a birth in 1720.

The earliest will I have is from 1576, that of my 11th GGF which begins -