Anglo-Saxon "dug-out" coffin burials from Norfolk

[Duncan Head]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3940118/Anglo-Saxon-burial-ground-hollowed-tree-trunks-used-coffins-wooden-planks-line-graves-1-100-years.html

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/16/anglo-saxon-graves-in-norfolk-thought-to-be-oldest-found-in-uk

Once again the Mail report is better than the Guardian one, which includes obvious nonsense about "Anglo-Saxon graves believed to be the oldest ever found in Britain".

[Patrick Waterson]

Yes, the Guardian headline writer did seem a bit muddled.  The Mail, with its  "... believed to be the final resting place of some of the country's earliest Christians," is more precise and more accurate.

So one of the effects of Christianity is that you no longer get a boat, you get a tree trunk.

[Jim Webster]

Yes, the Guardian headline writer did seem a bit muddled.  The Mail, with its  "... believed to be the final resting place of some of the country's earliest Christians," is more precise and more accurate.

So one of the effects of Christianity is that you no longer get a boat, you get a tree trunk.

absolutely,
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Previously it was only available for jarls and the wealthy who could afford the ship burial, but now it's open to all

[Patrick Waterson]

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Previously it was only available for jarls and the wealthy who could afford the ship burial, but now it's open to all

That may well have helped to ease the spread of Christianity: affordable housing while awaiting the afterlife rather than having to spend everything on a cruise ship.

[Erpingham]

I was struck by recollection of Geoffrey of Monmouths tale of the discovery of King Arthur's coffin.  Was this another similar burial on an early Christian site pressed into service for prestige and commercial gain?

[Patrick Waterson]

An interesting question, making us wonder: what do we know of Celtic Christian burials of the same period?  Page 8 of this paper suggests that 'early' Celtic Christianity largely followed Celtic pagan traditions, including laying the bodies in an east-west orientation.  Unfortunately the author is not specific about what he means by 'early'.

"Excavations and documentary evidence such as the Capitularies have shown that for a long time Christians continued to bury their dead within the pagan barrows. For example, at Fimber, near Sledmere, an excavation revealed internments [sic] extending through the Bronze Age, Roman period, and Saxon period (Allcroft 1930:II)."

[Tim]

'internments [sic] extending through the Bronze Age, Roman period, and Saxon period'

That is some punishment.  Wonder what they had done to deserve that...

[Jim Webster]

It might not have been a punishment, the ground may have been consecrated, archaeologically we'd never know

Also a lot of churches were built on Pagan burial sites. One hint that this is so is if it's an old church and dedicated to St Michael. Who of course isn't a saint but an Arch Angel, the one who defeats Satan himself and was therefore assumed to be perfectly capable of coping with some petty demon or ancient godlet. 

So in our churchyard they have in the fast found Norse graves (or the graves of men with Norse swords dating from about 850)

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

It might not have been a punishment, the ground may have been consecrated, archaeologically we'd never know

Tim was of course commenting on the typo: the author meant interments, but an extra 'n' slipped in to suggest the longest detention in history.

Also a lot of churches were built on Pagan burial sites. One hint that this is so is if it's an old church and dedicated to St Michael. Who of course isn't a saint but an Arch Angel, the one who defeats Satan himself and was therefore assumed to be perfectly capable of coping with some petty demon or ancient godlet. 

Interesting - would this extend to St Michael's Mount (and its Norman counterpart, Mont Saint-Michel)?

[Jim Webster]

Tim was of course commenting on the typo: the author meant interments, but an extra 'n' slipped in to suggest the longest detention in history.

Also a lot of churches were built on Pagan burial sites. One hint that this is so is if it's an old church and dedicated to St Michael. Who of course isn't a saint but an Arch Angel, the one who defeats Satan himself and was therefore assumed to be perfectly capable of coping with some petty demon or ancient godlet. 

Interesting - would this extend to St Michael's Mount (and its Norman counterpart, Mont Saint-Michel)?

I missed the typo,

With regard to church dedications I suspect there were a lot of factors in the past that are totally lost to us. Hence I went to school next to the only st Perran's church outside Cornwall, because 19th century miners brought the saint with them, metaphorically at least 

[Mick Hession]

Also a lot of churches were built on Pagan burial sites. One hint that this is so is if it's an old church and dedicated to St Michael. Who of course isn't a saint but an Arch Angel, the one who defeats Satan himself and was therefore assumed to be perfectly capable of coping with some petty demon or ancient godlet. 

So in our churchyard they have in the fast found Norse graves (or the graves of men with Norse swords dating from about 850)

Jim

And vice versa - some of the 9th century furnished Viking graves excavated in Dublin were buried within existing Christian cemeteries. It has been suggested that this was a deliberate statement on the part of the pagan Norse settlers to show who was now in charge.

Cheers
Mick

[Jim Webster]

Also a lot of churches were built on Pagan burial sites. One hint that this is so is if it's an old church and dedicated to St Michael. Who of course isn't a saint but an Arch Angel, the one who defeats Satan himself and was therefore assumed to be perfectly capable of coping with some petty demon or ancient godlet. 

So in our churchyard they have in the fast found Norse graves (or the graves of men with Norse swords dating from about 850)

Jim

I've read that in some places viking graveyards held both Christians and Pagans simultaneously, it seems that they had an in-between status where the person could accept Christ but not break any oaths by rejecting the old Gods. It seems to have been an entirely pragmatic stance on the grounds that if you rejected the Gods, what happened to all the Oaths you'd sworn by them in the past?
And vice versa - some of the 9th century furnished Viking graves excavated in Dublin were buried within existing Christian cemeteries. It has been suggested that this was a deliberate statement on the part of the pagan Norse settlers to show who was now in charge.

Cheers
Mick

[Patrick Waterson]

I was struck by recollection of Geoffrey of Monmouths tale of the discovery of King Arthur's coffin.  Was this another similar burial on an early Christian site pressed into service for prestige and commercial gain?

The 'discovery' of King Arthur's real or assumed tomb went thus:

"In 1191, prompted by hints that Glastonbury Abbey may have been the Isle of Avalon mentioned in the stories of Arthur, the monks of Glastonbury carried out excavations in the cemetery, they claimed to have dug down sixteen feet, and found an oaken coffin. At a depth of seven feet they found a stone beneath which was a leaden cross with the convenient inscription 'His iacet inclitus Arturius in insula Avalonia*' (Here lies King Arthur buried in Avalon) The coffin they stated, contained the bodies of a large man and a woman, whose golden hair was still intact, until touched, when it crumbled away. The monks promptly announced that they had found the grave of Arthur and Guinivere. In 1278, during a visit by King Edward I to Glastonbury, the bones were placed in caskets and transferred to a black marble tomb before the High Altar in the Abbey Church."

*Or HIC IACET SEPULTUS INCLITUS REX ARTURIUS IN INSULA AVALONIA.  The Glastonbury Cross, as it became known, is illustrated in William Camden's 1607 Britannia, thus.  The idiosyncratic lettering seems fairly similar to an early form of the so-called Visigothic Script, which in its developed form was used from approximately the late seventh until the thirteenth century. 

A monkish forger would have been more familiar with Uncial or Insular, and probably more familiar with Carolingian Minuscule than with Visigothic.  That said, a really clever forger might have done his research on past scripts and their usage and deliberately flouted the habit of uniformity in letter size and shape that all his scribal training demanded.

The main problem I see with the monks' account is that Guinevere would presumably have aged somewhat by the time of her death in a nunnery, so her hair might not have been 'blonde' by then.  However, we are not told how long she lived prior to her demise.

The timing of the discovery, if intended for prestige and commercial gain, was somewhat off, because the King was away campaigning in the Holy Land, preparing to provide the Society of Ancients with another Battle Day.

[Erpingham]

The timing of the discovery, if intended for prestige and commercial gain, was somewhat off, because the King was away campaigning in the Holy Land, preparing to provide the Society of Ancients with another Battle Day.

Well, it certainly was exploited for prestige and commercial gain, even if that wasn't the intention.

It was, of course, Gerald of Wales who described the burial, not Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Here's an account

Although legends had fabricated something fantastical about his demise (that he had not suffered death, and was conveyed, as if by a spirit, to a distant place), his body was discovered at Glastonbury, in our own times, hidden very deep in the earth in an oak-hollow, between two stone pyramids that were erected long ago in that holy place. The tomb was sealed up with astonishing tokens, like some sort of miracle. The body was then conveyed into the church with honor, and properly committed to a marble tomb. A lead cross was placed under the stone, not above as is usual in our times, but instead fastened to the underside. I have seen this cross, and have traced the engraved letters — not visible and facing outward, but rather turned inwardly toward the stone. It read: "Here lies entombed King Arthur, with Guenevere his second wife, on the Isle of Avalon."
    Many remarkable things come to mind regarding this. For instance, he had two wives, of whom the last was buried with him. Her bones were discovered with her husband's, though separated in such a way that two-thirds of the sepulcher, namely the part nearer the top, was believed to contain the bones of the husband, and then one-third, toward the bottom, separately contained the bones of his wife — wherein was also discovered a yellow lock of feminine hair, entirely intact and pristine in color, which a certain monk eagerly seized in hand and lifted out; immediately the whole thing crumbled to dust.

Note that in the original, the coffin is a hollowed out oak trunk.  The hair in the coffin is actually plausible, given some finds elsewhere.  Personally, I'd always assumed the basis of the story was the monks disturbing prehistoric remains (perhaps Bronze Age) and exploiting it.  The possibility of it being from the earlier Middle Ages has to be there too from these recent finds.  The romantic might even suggest the remains were Arthurian

[Tim]

And there was I think Patrick was leading us down the road to Badon being the next Battle Day subject...