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 5
... roles ( Metcalf & Huntingdon 1991 ) . If seen in this way , early medieval graves are not simply an indirect way of finding out about the living in past societies . Graves first and foremost provide direct insight into the responses ...
... roles ( Metcalf & Huntingdon 1991 ) . If seen in this way , early medieval graves are not simply an indirect way of finding out about the living in past societies . Graves first and foremost provide direct insight into the responses ...
Page 8
... role of burials and the material culture they contain was emphasised , and a more ' contextual ' approach was advocated . Rather than a direct window onto social structure , burials have been seen as comparable to written sources in the ...
... role of burials and the material culture they contain was emphasised , and a more ' contextual ' approach was advocated . Rather than a direct window onto social structure , burials have been seen as comparable to written sources in the ...
Page 9
... role of mortuary practices - both structuring and structured by past social structures and associated cosmologies in which the living actors engage and interact with the dead ( e.g. Barrett 1994 ; Parker Pearson 1993 ) . Mortuary ...
... role of mortuary practices - both structuring and structured by past social structures and associated cosmologies in which the living actors engage and interact with the dead ( e.g. Barrett 1994 ; Parker Pearson 1993 ) . Mortuary ...
Page 10
... role in mortuary performances that , it is suggested , should be empha- sised . A focus on the agency of participants in mortuary ritual leads us to appreciate how mortuary traditions develop and retain their consistency , but also to ...
... role in mortuary performances that , it is suggested , should be empha- sised . A focus on the agency of participants in mortuary ritual leads us to appreciate how mortuary traditions develop and retain their consistency , but also to ...
Page 11
... roles of the exchange and deposition of artefacts in commemorating dividual personhood and the roles of early medieval graves in constituting early Christian attitudes towards the body and the cosmos. Linked to these issues is the ...
... roles of the exchange and deposition of artefacts in commemorating dividual personhood and the roles of early medieval graves in constituting early Christian attitudes towards the body and the cosmos. Linked to these issues is the ...
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...