'Closer to God' for money: how Denmark was buried in the Middle Ages

The scientists decided to see if this meant that people with serious and "shameful" diseases, such as leprosy, were buried further away, in less prestigious plots. But the result was unexpected: the sick were often buried as close to the church as anyone else.

The team studied 939 adult skeletons from five medieval cemeteries in Denmark - three urban and two rural. From the bones, the researchers looked for signs of leprosy (characteristic changes on the face, hands and feet) and tuberculosis (bone and joint lesions associated with chronic infection).

Next, the scientists mapped cemeteries and looked at where people with signs of disease lay: in "expensive" places near churches and monasteries or on the periphery. In general, they found almost no connection between disease and "grave status" - people with leprosy and tuberculosis were not "squeezed" to the outskirts.

A marked difference was found only in one city cemetery in Riba: the proportion of people with TB was higher in the less prestigious plot than in burials near the church and monastery. The researchers believe that this may not be due to "punishment" for the disease, but because people in different parts of the city lived in different conditions and became infected in different ways.

Tuberculosis in general was common, especially in cities. The authors suggest that wealthy people were able to live better and longer, so they had time to "live" to the stage when the disease leaves traces on the bones, which are then found by archaeologists.