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 3
... transformation. Incorporating the end of the Roman world and the birth of the Middle Ages, the early medieval period was a time of changing commemorative strategies, some coherent and enduring, others innovative and experimental. Some ...
... transformation. Incorporating the end of the Roman world and the birth of the Middle Ages, the early medieval period was a time of changing commemorative strategies, some coherent and enduring, others innovative and experimental. Some ...
Page 10
... transform over time through collective and individual decision - making and negotiation . This is a theme explored ... transformed through the agency of supernatural powers , after the cessation of vital signs ( Williams 2004b ) . Indeed ...
... transform over time through collective and individual decision - making and negotiation . This is a theme explored ... transformed through the agency of supernatural powers , after the cessation of vital signs ( Williams 2004b ) . Indeed ...
Page 11
... transformation of the 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 ...
... transformation of the 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 ...
Page 13
... transformed and selectively remembered. Yet recent popular descriptions of early medieval mor- tuary archaeology, while paying lip-service to archaeological theory, retain a core of empirical description that, it might be argued, does ...
... transformed and selectively remembered. Yet recent popular descriptions of early medieval mor- tuary archaeology, while paying lip-service to archaeological theory, retain a core of empirical description that, it might be argued, does ...
Page 14
... transformed and reproduced through the medium of the spoken and written word (Innes 1998; Fentress & Wick- ham 1992: 144–5). For example, the production of a saint's life, including the choice of miracles recorded and the manner and ...
... transformed and reproduced through the medium of the spoken and written word (Innes 1998; Fentress & Wick- ham 1992: 144–5). For example, the production of a saint's life, including the choice of miracles recorded and the manner and ...
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...