Let's take a moment to appreciate something we don't do often enough in modern life.

Bold, shameless medieval rebellion.

Forget celebrity gossip, political scandals, or whatever TikTok drama is trending this week.

I want to tell you about Joan of Leeds, a 14th century nun who looked at her life choices, did the math, and decided

to fake her own death, using a homemade dummy and a pile of actual corpses.

Because why not?

June lived in St. Clement's nunnery in York, a place that, if we are being honest, probably

had all the charm and excitement

of a brick wall covered in damp moss.

In the 1300s, once you committed to the nun life, that was it.

There was no gap year, no finding yourself.

No, I'm just ticking time to figure things out.

You were locked into a lifetime of fasting,

chanting, and learning how to make eye contact with Jesus statues while suppressing the

overwhelming urge to scream. Unless, of course, you were Joan. Instead of spending her life

in the convent waiting for visions of sainthood or pestilence to take her out,

Joan crafted what university archivists now call a dummy in the likeness of her body.

Translation, she made a fake corpse, buried it, and ran like Hades to the town of Beverly

about 30 miles away, because even medieval witnesses don't check ID at funerals.

Now, let's be clear here. In modern terms, this would be like faking your death with a mannequin,

forging your own death certificate, and then skipping town to start a new life as a yoga instructor

in Sedona. Except this wasn't 2025. This was 1318. Jonah had no social media

...