Why and How the Murderous Æthelred the Unready Did Modern Science a Favor Over 1,000 Years Ago

The incidence of a number of communicable diseases has been surging as the pandemic has been slowing down, and no one seems to know why. Given that the current pandemic was and is the first since the introduction of what we today consider “modern medicine” (admittedly, each era has its own less advanced version of this going backwards), we simply do not know what happens at the tail end of and after a pandemic.  The last major devastating flu epidemic was in 1918 and there were no diagnostic tools, no treatments, and no vaccines then.
Healthcare practitioners, scientists, and researchers including myself are trying to better understand what exactly is transpiring. We know most of the pieces of the puzzle, but we lack certain connecting pieces and we have no idea what the final puzzle should look like when it’s done. External forces such as climate change don’t make this any easier.
One partial explanation is the overall decline in immunity among the general population during the first few years of the pandemic. At the same time, the common cold almost disappeared and two endotypes of measles became virtually extinct as well.
It’s important to keep in mind that scientists are just starting to unravel these types of biological mysteries as well as others, such as why some viruses disappear while others are able to persist for centuries.
Consider the case of Æthelred II, also known in Old Norse as Aðalráðr, but today often referred to as Æthelred the Unready. The troubled monarch’s reign was marked by peace until, in the 980s, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest.
Cutting to the chase, in 1002, Æthelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice’s Day massacre of Danish settlers as many were scoping out new territory to claim. Eleven years later, King Sweyn Forkbeard, also known as Sveinn Haraldsson in Old Norse, invaded England.
We remember Æthelred not because of the massacre per se but for the gift he left us. In 2012, 37 skeletons – some thought to belong to some of Æthelred’s executed victims – were discovered on the grounds of St. John’s College in Oxford, where they had kept a secret for over a millennia.
In 2020, scientists analyzed DNA from this group and found that one of the men had been buried with more than meets the eye. He had been slaughtered by Æthelred, yes, but he was also suffering from smallpox. However, it was not your typical, everyday modern-era smallpox that was famously declared extinct in the 1970s after an extremely determined vaccination program. Instead, it belonged to a rather different and previously unknown strain that had silently disappeared centuries ago. In other words, smallpox went extinct not just once, but at least twice.
Any questions?
(Photo and Image: Accura Media Group