Death, burial and christianity

DYING AND DEATH IN CONTEXT

Æthelflæd and her circle are recorded as model Christians in their attitudes to death, but our sources define many other inhabitants of these islands as imperfect Christians or not Christians at all. Before going any further, we need to look more closely at these words. This chapter will first consider the wider context of the different cultures of Anglo-Saxon England, and how their interaction in fields such as politics, belief, land-holding and ethnicity might affect people's responses to death. It then looks closely at Vercelli Homily IX, one of the most elaborate and considered attempts to define death in surviving Anglo-Saxon literature.

What precisely does it mean, to have a Christian burial? One answer, based on the most authoritative biblical and patristic sources, would be a simple matter of disposal. The corpse is irrelevant until reassembled at Doomsday, and the fate of the soul depends entirely on the actions performed in life. ‘Let the dead bury the dead’, Christ says to a would-be follower who wishes to attend to his father's funeral (Luke 9:60). Different parts of this ideal have informed the ways that Christian societies have buried their dead at various times and places, but overall this précis is not remotely representative of early medieval Christian burial practice. Complex ritual, visible structures, enduring commemoration and various ways of making graves are all prominent features of late Anglo-Saxon funerary culture.