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,Hutton 1991. p. 275. 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.
History
The early Anglo-Saxon period in England lasted from the fifth to the eighth centuries CE, during which time burial was the common custom for disposing of the dead. Archaeologists believe that the treatment of the deceased was important to Anglo-Saxons due to the "rich variation" in burial rites from this era, and that different forms of burial reflect differences in the status, wealth, sex and/or gender, age, and tribal affiliation of the dead. There was greater variation in burial types than at most earlier periods of British history, with early Anglo-Saxon graves differing greatly from those found in the preceding period of Roman Britain. The common Romano-British form of disposal was inhumation, although some rare cremations had taken place.
During the Anglo-Saxon migration, which began in the fifth century CE, Germanic-speaking tribes from continental northern Europe, such as the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, arrived in Britain, where their own culture—with its accompanying language and pagan religion—became dominant across much of eastern Britain. Those Romano-British peoples still residing in these areas either adopted and integrated with this incoming culture or migrated westward. The Anglo-Saxons brought with them their own heterogeneous forms of burial practice, which were distinct from those of the British peoples living in western and northern Britain during the Early Medieval, having more in common with those of pagan continental Europe. However, not all of those given an Anglo-Saxon burial at this time were necessarily migrants or the descendants of migrants from continental Europe. Some may have been ethnically descended from the earlier Romano-British people, but had adopted Anglo-Saxon culture as it became dominant across southern and eastern Britain. An example of such cohabitation can be seen at Wasperton and Stretton-on-the-Fosse in Warwickshire, where Anglo-Saxon graves were found alongside those that were Romano-British in character.
In the seventh century, foreign Christian missionaries initiated the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England, with repercussions for burial practices. Though common in the fifth and sixth centuries, cremation rapidly declined as a form of burial, with few known later examples. The Christian Church initially objected little to grave goods, although there was a decline in their popularity as they came to be understood as irrelevant. Instances of rich grave goods would however continue into the eighth century.
Early Anglo-Saxon period Inhumations
The most common way for Anglo-Saxon communities to deal with their dead was through inhumation, the burial of the corpse straight into the ground. This form of corpse disposal would have taken less "time and equipment" than cremation. Such inhumations remain an "invaluable resource" for understanding Early Medieval society.
In many cases, alkaline soils have led to the good preservation of the skeletal remains, enabling archaeologists to excavate inhumed corpses and gain "a great deal of information" from them. Data that can be gathered or inferred from Anglo-Saxon inhumations includes the biological sex or age of the individual, as well as information about their health or lifestyle. Isotopic analysis of the skeletons can be used to detect which region the individual grew up in.
Graves for Anglo-Saxon inhumations varied widely in size, from "a shallow scoop in the ground to a large pit with regular sides over 2 m[etres] long and over 1 m[etre] deep." Although most Anglo-Saxon inhumation burials were of individuals, it is "reasonably common" to find multiple burials from the period. These multiple burials most often contain a couple, quite commonly an adult and a child. In some rarer cases, there were three or more individuals buried in a single grave.
Positions
The bodies in Anglo-Saxon inhumations are found in a variety of positions. They have been found "placed on the back (supine), front (prone), or on one side. The legs can be arranged straight out, be crossed at the lower leg or ankle, be slightly bent (flexed), or even pulled right up to the chest in a foetal position (crouched or contracted)." According to archaeologist David Wilson, the "usual orientation" for pagan inhumations was with the head to the west and feet to the east, although there are many exceptions to this.
Those inhumations containing a corpse lying on their side may have been laid out for various reasons. At Horton Kirby in Kent, it appears that the corpses were bent into such a position in order to fit into their small graves. Contrastingly, other examples show side-orientated bodies placed into graves "of ample size and sometimes of quite large dimensions." Those Anglo-Saxon corpses that have been found prone, or face down in their grave, have been interpreted by some archaeologists as having been "live burials", where the individual was thrown into the grave and buried alive. Other archaeologists have interpreted such burials in different ways, leading Sam Lucy to claim that "There is probably no single explanation for the use of prone burial" amongst the Anglo-Saxons. "In some cases, it may be accidental, especially if the burial was in a coffin which had been clumsily handled. In other cases it might have specific significance attached to it".
Mutilations and decapitations In some cases, the body was mutilated prior to burial, primarily through decapitation, and there are examples of entire cemeteries being filled with such corpses, leading archaeologists to conclude that these were sites specifically for the burial of executed individuals. There are few examples of these possible execution cemeteries from the early Anglo-Saxon period, with one exception being the barrow cemetery at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. Here, several burials containing the corpses of individuals who had been hanged, beheaded, or in other ways mutilated were placed around Mound 5 on the eastern side of the cemetery. Using radiocarbon dating, archaeologists have determined that the earliest of these may well date from the seventh century CE, and that they continued to be deposited at the site into the ninth and tenth centuries.Carver 1998 p. 137–139. Later examples of probable Anglo-Saxon execution cemeteries that date from the tenth or eleventh centuries have been found at Five Knolls in DunstableDunning and Wheeler 1931. and Bran Ditch in Fowlmere.Fox and Palmer 1926. p. 31.Lethbridge 1929. p. 87.
There are also examples of decapitated corpses who have been buried in ordinary Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. One unusual example has been found at Loveden Hill in Lincolnshire, where one of the corpses had their head placed on their stomach, and an urn was placed where the head would have been.Meaney 1964. p. 158. At Great Addington in Northamptonshire, three decapitated skeletons had been found with stones in place of their heads,Smith 1902. pp. 241–242. while at Chadlington in Oxfordshire two corpses had their severed heads placed between their legs.Leeds 1939. pp. 357–358. At Mitcham in Surrey several inhumations contained extra heads, while other graves instead had none or had them placed at the corpses' feet.Wilson 1992. p. 93. In some rare cases, at sites in Bideford-on-Avon in Warwickshire and Portway in Hampshire, skulls had been buried on their own by the Anglo-Saxons, without their accompanying bodies.Wilson 1992. p. 95.
Ritual elements Certain Anglo-Saxon burials appeared to have ritualistic elements to them, implying that a pagan religious rite was performed over them during the funeral. While there are many multiple burials, where more than one corpse was found in a single grave, that date from the Anglo-Saxon period, there is "a small group of such burials where an interpretation involving ritual practices may be possible". For instance, at Welbeck Hill in Lincolnshire, the corpse of a decapitated woman was placed in reverse on top of the body of an old man, while in a number of other similar examples, female bodies were again placed above those of men. This has led some archaeologists to suspect a form of suttee, where the female was the spouse of the male and was killed to accompany him upon death. Other theories hold that the females were slaves who were viewed as the property of the men, and who were again killed to accompany their master.Wilson 1992. pp. 71–75. Similarly, four Anglo-Saxon burials have been excavated where it appears that the individual was buried while still alive, which could imply that this was a part of either a religious rite or as a form of punishment.Wilson 1992. pp. 77–80.
Cremations
Alongside inhumation, it was common for early Anglo-Saxons to cremate their dead by burning the corpses and then burying the cremated remains within an urn. Cremation rites declined in the seventh century, but throughout that century remained a viable form of burial at sites like St Mary's Stadium in Southampton. Archaeologist Audrey Meaney suggested that cremation was performed to "release the spirit" from the body after death, while Howard Williams remarked that cremation rites presented "the public transformation of the dead body." Archaeological understandings of the Anglo-Saxon cremation processes have been largely reconstructed from an osteological analyses of the cemeteries at Spong Hill, Sancton, Elsham and Cleatham. The pyre sites are rarely archaeologically identifiable.
The method of Anglo-Saxon cremation is still debated; based on an examination of cremated remains at Illington, Calvin Wells speculated that at that site, the bodies had been laid out on the ground, with a pyre then built on top of them before being set alight. Wells believed that this would explain why the shoulder tips of corpses at the site were not always properly cremated. This idea was criticized by Jacqueline McKinley, who argued that such a process would lack sufficient oxygen to cremate the entire body. Instead, she argued that Anglo-Saxon cremation pyres were most likely a criss-cross of timbers filled with brushwood, with the corpse laid on top. The process of cremating the body would likely have been visible to onlookers, creating a connection between living and dead.