Historian mapping medieval murders has evidence John Ford’s stabbing was revenge hit by impenitent ex-lover

Almost 700 years ago, in a busy London street in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, a priest called John Ford was brazenly stabbed to death in a crime notable both for its public nature and its ferocity.

It was early evening, just after vespers on 4 May 1337, and the street in Westcheap would have been bustling with passersby. In full view of them all, one man sliced Ford’s throat with an anelace, a foot-long dagger, while two others used long knives to stab him in the belly. Was someone trying to make a very public example of the victim?