Death and Memory in Early Medieval BritainCambridge University Press, 2006 M08 31 How were the dead remembered in early medieval Britain? Originally published in 2006, this innovative study demonstrates how perceptions of the past and the dead, and hence social identities, were constructed through mortuary practices and commemoration between c. 400–1100 AD. Drawing on archaeological evidence from across Britain, including archaeological discoveries, Howard Williams presents a fresh interpretation of the significance of portable artefacts, the body, structures, monuments and landscapes in early medieval mortuary practices. He argues that materials and spaces were used in ritual performances that served as 'technologies of remembrance', practices that created shared 'social' memories intended to link past, present and future. Through the deployment of material culture, early medieval societies were therefore selectively remembering and forgetting their ancestors and their history. Throwing light on an important aspect of medieval society, this book is essential reading for archaeologists and historians with an interest in the early medieval period. |
From inside the book
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Page 2
... dead: they also aspire to understand the motivations and choices of these past people concerning how they use material culture to com- memorate the dead, venerate ancestors, and articulate genealogies and mythologies. Yet if retaining ...
... dead: they also aspire to understand the motivations and choices of these past people concerning how they use material culture to com- memorate the dead, venerate ancestors, and articulate genealogies and mythologies. Yet if retaining ...
Page 3
Howard Williams. rights, aspirations and identities. Memories of the dead and the past in many cultures define the present. The present in turn defines the future. Memory is ... dead and the past. Death, memory and material culture 3.
Howard Williams. rights, aspirations and identities. Memories of the dead and the past in many cultures define the present. The present in turn defines the future. Memory is ... dead and the past. Death, memory and material culture 3.
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... dead ( e.g. Barrett 1994 ; Parker Pearson 1993 ) . Mortuary practices are considered simultaneously a religious , a social , an economic and a political realm , rather than parcelled into one single category . The rituals can affect and ...
... dead ( e.g. Barrett 1994 ; Parker Pearson 1993 ) . Mortuary practices are considered simultaneously a religious , a social , an economic and a political realm , rather than parcelled into one single category . The rituals can affect and ...
Page 10
... dead ( Effros 1996 ; 2002b : 13–39 ) . While it may not always be possible to reconstruct cosmologies any more than it is possible to reconstruct social structure from mortuary variability ( pace Gräslund 1994 ; see Jennbert 2000 ) ...
... dead ( Effros 1996 ; 2002b : 13–39 ) . While it may not always be possible to reconstruct cosmologies any more than it is possible to reconstruct social structure from mortuary variability ( pace Gräslund 1994 ; see Jennbert 2000 ) ...
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... dead in social, cosmological and ontological terms (Eliade 1954; Williams 2001b; 2005b). This takes us to the issue of personhood in past mortuary practices (e.g. Fowler 2004). Archaeologists deal with the study of bodies in past ...
... dead in social, cosmological and ontological terms (Eliade 1954; Williams 2001b; 2005b). This takes us to the issue of personhood in past mortuary practices (e.g. Fowler 2004). Archaeologists deal with the study of bodies in past ...
Contents
7 | |
Section 2 | 47 |
Section 3 | 53 |
Section 4 | 58 |
Section 5 | 63 |
Section 6 | 70 |
Section 7 | 71 |
Section 8 | 79 |
Section 9 | 92 |
Section 10 | 110 |
Section 11 | 145 |
Section 12 | 164 |
Section 13 | 179 |
Section 14 | 193 |
Section 15 | 203 |
Section 16 | 215 |
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Common terms and phrases
adult female ancestors archaeological archaeologists artefacts associated barrow Beowulf Berinsfield Boddington 1996 bone Bronze Age brooches burial mound burial rites cadaver cairn Carver chapter Christian cists coffin commemoration complex connected consider context corpse cremation Cwichelm dead deceased discussed display early Anglo-Saxon early medieval Britain early medieval burial early medieval cemeteries early medieval graves early medieval mortuary early medieval period elements evidence excavations Filmer-Sankey & Pestell focus focusing funeral funerary furnished burial grave structures Halsall Harford Farm Härke identified identity individuals inhumation instances interred landscape long-cist Lundin Links Martin Carver material culture medieval Britain mnemonic monuments mourners objects past placed Plas Gogerddan portable artefacts posture prehistoric pyre Raunds Raunds Furnells redrawn by Séan remembering and forgetting reuse ritual role Saxon Séan Goddard sequence served settlements seventh seventh-century significance sixth centuries Snape social memory suggests Sutton Hoo Swallowcliffe symbol stones Taplow Court theme transformation weapons
Popular passages
Page 1 - Had they made as good provision for their names, as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes which in the oblivion of names, persons, times, and sexes, have found unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vain-glory, and madding vices.
Page 1 - ... and teeth, with fresh impressions of their combustion, besides the extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of opal. Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards...