Burial in Anglo-Saxon England

rdf:langString Burial in Anglo-Saxon England

rdf:langString Boddington

rdf:langString Geake

rdf:langString right

rdf:langString "A man may bury his brother with the dead

rdf:langString And strew his grave with the golden things

rdf:langString But gold hoarded when he here lived

rdf:langString Cannot allay the anger of God

rdf:langString He would have him take, treasures of all kinds,

rdf:langString Toward a soul sin-freighted."

rdf:langString "[T]he model may be synthesized into three major components. Firstly, suppression: burial with grave-goods was gradually squeezed out. Secondly, separation: the Final Phase burial grounds are a discrete group of cemeteries. Thirdly, succession: the cemeteries replace a nearby predecessor. For these three components of the model the causation, the motivating force for change, is Christianity."

rdf:langString — A passage in Old English poem The Seafarer reflecting Late Anglo-Saxon views on earlier furnished burial.

rdf:langString — Andy Boddington, 1990.

rdf:langString Burial in Anglo-Saxon England refers to the grave and burial customs followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the mid 5th and 11th centuries CE in Early Mediaeval England. The variation of the practice performed by the Anglo-Saxon peoples during this period, included the use of both cremation and inhumation. There is a commonality in the burial places between the rich and poor - their resting places sit alongside one another in shared cemeteries. Both of these forms of burial were typically accompanied by grave goods, which included food, jewelry, and weaponry. The actual burials themselves, whether of cremated or inhumed remains, were placed in a variety of sites, including in cemeteries, burial mounds or, more rarely, in ship burials. Within the areas of Anglo-Saxon settlement, there was both regional and temporal variation while burial practices. The early Anglo-Saxons were followers of a pagan religion, which is reflected in their burials from this time, while they later converted to Christianity in the seventh and eighth centuries CE, which was again reflected in their burial practices, when cremation ceased to be practised and inhumation became the sole form of burial, typically being concentrated in Christian cemeteries located adjacent to churches. In the eighteenth century, antiquarians took an interest in these burials, and began excavating them, although more scientific excavation only began in the twentieth century with the development of archaeology. Prominent Anglo-Saxon burials that have since been discovered and excavated include the early cemetery of Spong Hill in Norfolk and the great sixth-seventh century ship burial of Sutton Hoo in Suffolk.