History of Leicester

Leicester had become a town of considerable importance by Medieval times. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book as 'civitas' (city), but Leicester lost its city status in the 11th century owing to power struggles between the Church and the aristocracy. It was eventually re-made a city in 1919, and the Church of St Martin became Leicester Cathedral in 1927.

A memorial slab to King Richard III was placed in the central nave of the cathedral in 1980, although he was not actually buried there but in the nearby Greyfriars Church in Leicester, under what is now a car park. There was a legend that his corpse was exhumed under orders from Henry VII and cast into the River Soar. Some historians believed that his tomb and bones were destroyed with the dissolution of the church. However, in September 2012, an archaeological investigation in the suspected location of the Greyfriars church uncovered a skeleton which appeared to be Richard III. This was subsequently verified by comparison of the DNA of the skeletal remains to two descendants of Richard III's sister.

The town is mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136. According to Monmouth's pseudohistorical work a mythical king of the Britons King Leir founded the city of Kaerleir ('Leir's chester' – i.e. fortified town). Today the name of the city in the Welsh language is Caerlŷr. Leir was supposedly buried by Queen Cordelia in a chamber beneath the River Soar near the city dedicated to the Roman god Janus, and every year people celebrated his feast-day near Leir's tomb. William Shakespeare's King Lear is loosely based on this story and there is a statue of Lear in Watermead Country Park.

Tudor

On 4 November