A medieval nun faked her own death and ran away from her convent to escape a life of celibacy and pursue a 'life of carnal lust'.

Joan of Leeds was living at the house of St Clement by York in 1318 when she decided to enlist the help of her fellow sisters to create a dummy which would represent her corpse and slip away into the night.

The ruse was foiled by the Archbishop of the time who ordered her to return to her life of 'poverty and obedience' and abandon her newly-adopted 'way of carnal lust'.

It remains unknown if the nun returned to the institute or continued her renegade life of freedom, in what researchers called a 'frustrating outcome'.

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Joan of Leeds was living at the house of St Clement by York in 1318 when she decided to enlist the help of her fellow sisters to create a dummy which would represent her corpse and slip away into the night. The saga was discovered as archivists translated Latin transcripts revealing the day-to-day activities of York's archbishops during the 14th-Century

Researchers at the University of York discovered a note written in Latin buried within the pages of one of the 16 registers used to log the activities of the archbishops of York between 1304 and 1405.

The comical charade was described by Professor Sarah Rees Jones, director for medieval studies at York University and lead researcher of the project, as 'extraordinary – like a Monty Python sketch'.

Archbishop William Melton penned a note in Latin to the runaway nun, which read: 'To warn Joan of Leeds, lately nun of the house of St Clement by York, that she should return to her house,' The Guardian reports.

He also sent an additional letter to the dean of Beverley to tell him of the rogue nun's shenanigans.

In his note he slandered the promiscuous nun and spoke of her 'scandalous behaviour'.

Further assassination of her character included claims she 'impudently cast aside the propriety of religion and the modesty of her sex'.

He added: 'Out of a malicious mind simulating a bodily illness, she pretended to be dead, not dreading for the health of her soul, and with the help of numerous of her accomplices, evildoers, with malice aforethought, crafted a dummy in the likeness of her body in order to mislead the devoted faithful and she had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred space amongst the religious of that place'.

He also spoke of the discovery of the nun's deceit and the outrage it caused.

WHAT DID ARCHBISHOP MELTON SAY ABOUT THE RUNAWAY NUN? The story is recorded in the register an on 11 August 1318. William Melton issued a mandate to the dean of Beverley Minster in the archdeaconry of the East Riding. He informed the dean that a scandalous rumour had recently reached him that the Benedictine Joan of Leeds had arrived in Beverley. It read as follows: 'Having impudently cast aside the propriety of religion and the modesty of her sex, out of a malicious mind simulating a bodily illness, she pretended to be dead, not dreading for the health of her soul, and with the help of numerous of her accomplices, evildoers, with malice aforethought, crafted a dummy (quandam imaginem corporis sui similitudinem exprimentem) in the likeness of her body in order to mislead the devoted faithful, and she had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred space amongst the religious of that place, and thus, she having faked her death and, in a cunning, nefarious manner, turning her back on the observance of religion that she previously professed, and having turned her back on decency and the good of religion, seduced by indecency, she involved herself irreverently and perverted her path of life arrogantly to the way of carnal lust and away from poverty and obedience, and, having broken her vows and discarded the religious habit she now wanders at large to the notorious peril to her soul and to the scandal of all of her order'. Advertisement

Archbishop Melton continued: 'I a cunning, nefarious manner… having turned her back on decency and the good of religion, seduced by indecency, she involved herself irreverently and perverted her path of life arrogantly to the way of carnal lust and away from poverty and obedience, and, having broken her vows and discarded the religious habit, she now wanders at large to the notorious peril to her soul and to the scandal of all of her order.'

The texts recorded the unfolding of the events but did not include any information as to if the scandal was ever resolved.

'Unfortunately, and this is really frustrating, we don't know the outcome of the case,' said Professor Rees Jones.

'There are quite a lot of cases of monks and nuns who left their religious house. We don't always get the full detail or know what the outcome was.'

The ruse was foiled by the Archbishop of the time who ordered her to return to her life of 'poverty and obedience' and abandon her newly-adopted 'way of carnal lust'. It remains unknown if the nun returned to the institute or continued her renegade life of freedom, in what researchers called a 'frustrating outcome'

WHAT WAS BRITAIN LIKE IN THE 14TH CENTURY? During the 14th Century, Britain was in the depths of the Dark Ages. Child mortality was high, up to a third of all children did not survive past the age of five due to illness, disease and poor medical knowledge. Up to 20 per cent of women would die during child birth or because of post-birth infections. If a person survived a risky childhood and lived in a time without war, the average life expectancy peaked at around 40-45 years of age. The House of Plantagenet were the royals that oversaw the entire century; from Charles III through to the deposition of Richard II in 1399. In the middle of the century, a four year span between 1347 to 1351 saw one of the worst pandemics of all time - The Black Death. It killed an estimated 200 million people - between 30 and 60 per cent of the total European population. The Oriental rat flea was infected with the Yersinia pestis bacterium which spread the plague through the dirty streets and villages that were so popular during this era as hygiene and germs were not understood. As well as one of the worst cases of diseases in human history which killed millions of people, scores of people perished due to a lack of food thanks to The Great Famine which spanned from 1315 to 1317. Poor weather conditions saw a terrible yield of grains and caused a Europe-wide food shortage. Starvation accounted for millions of death and a rise in crime, cannibalism and infanticide during this time. If childbirth, diseases, plague or starvation didn't cause a premature death many people met their end in a more violent manner as conflicts were commonplace. The Hundred Years' War (which lasted 116 years from 1337 to 1453) was a series of conflicts waged between the kingdoms of England and France over the 'rightful' succession to the French throne. In 1381, the working-class people snapped back at the affluent rulers in the 'Great Rising' or the 'Peasants revolt' in which 1,500 rebels died in protest against poor living conditions and increasing taxes. Advertisement

The comical charade of the promiscuous nun was described by professor Sarah Rees Jones, director for medieval studies at York University and lead researcher of the project, as 'extraordinary – like a Monty Python sketch' (file photo)

Researchers hope to translate the contents of all 16 books and make their contents available online in a bid to learn more about the church during the middle ages.

Archbishop Melton is an intriguing character that the investigators want to learn more about as he spearheaded an army of priests and members of the public in a battle against the Scots in 1319, only a year after the saga with Joan of Leeds.

Officials in the employ of the archbishop would carry the large sheets of parchment and reveal a turbulent time as the religious community recoiled from the outbreak of the Black Death.

Priests at this time often read last rites to the infected and often became afflicted themselves, making the profession one of the most dangerous in the UK at the time.

Professor Rees Jones said: 'Because so many priests had died, there weren't enough people trained in Latin, so delivering sermons in English had to be adopted as the new status quo.

'The registers may shed new light on what it was like to live through this period and will perhaps give us a sense of how the church reasserted its authority after such catastrophic events.'