Shakespeare portrayed England’s medieval King Richard III as a hunchback, in his play “Richard III” when Queen Elizabeth I refers to the king as “that foule hunch-backt toade.” Butmodern technology has just cast doubt on the accuracy of this description in Shakespeare’s play. After the remains of the medieval English monarch were found buried beneath a Leicester car park over a year ago, there has been research — and legal proceedings — aplenty in a bid to discover more about the King and settle disputes over his final resting place respectively. Now, though, the research has taken a new turn, with new three dimenional visualization, conducted by the University Of Leicester, revealing that Richard III’s curvature of the spine was unlikely easily visible to others.
In order to calculate the true extent of the King Richard’s scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine, the researchers created physical and computer-generated models of the royal’s spine by performing computed tomography (CT) scans and then producing 3D prints of the bones based on the CT image data.
Piers Mitchell, an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, told CBS News: “We wanted to know if Shakespeare’s description was accurate, or an exaggeration to help legitimise the Tudor monarchs on the throne at the time. Based on the study of his bones, Richard III would be better described as crook-backed than hunch-backed… Richard did have a marked spinal deformity due to scoliosis. However, there was no evidence from his skeleton for his having a withered arm or a limp, as portrayed in Shakespeare’s play.”
This 3D visualisation indicatesthe spine was curved to the right andtwisted,giving a subtle “spiral” shape. The researchers estimate that monarch’s Cobb angle – a measurement that determines the severity of spinal deformities – was between 65 and 85 degrees. However, the curve was also well-balanced, with a result that his head and neck were straight and not angled to the side. King Richards’s right shoulder was most likelyhigher than the left, and his torsoshort compared with his arms and legs.
Fortunately, the condition would probably not have impacted his breathingMitchell said: “He would most likely have had the same exercise tolerance as if he had a straight spine, and so be as effective leading an army in battle.”
The detailed study of Richard III’s spinal condition was originally published in the journal The Lancet.
