It May perhaps seem a little unusual to begin a study on food in the mortuary rituals of the Anglo-Saxons with an examination of agriculture and foods available to living populations. However, food served on special occasions, such as wakes, may have been radically different from the everyday meals consumed in the homes of the Anglo-Saxons. To understand the value of food and feasting in the funerary culture of the Anglo-Saxons it is necessary to take stock of the kind of victuals that could have been part of such a ritual. If, for example, the species pattern found in graves differs much from that of the animals consumed in the surrounding areas it may suggest a different value attached to such food stuffs, which may either be related to the occasion (which may have restricted the choice of foods), or may be indications about the identity attributed to the dead. Since only a small number of people are buried with animal bone, is there any discernible pattern (as observed for weapon burials or brooches), which may indicate what meaning such artefacts had for their contemporaries? Perhaps certain foods are exclusive to some members of society (such as red deer, which can only be obtained by hunting), and this may give us additional information about the social stratification of Anglo-Saxon society.

The social groups who worked, governed and possessed the land changed considerably during the course of Anglo-Saxon history, and the status of these people may be mirrored in their food production and consumption. Food and status are closely related in hierarchical societies. The wealthy parts of society generally have access to a greater variety of food stuffs, partly because they possess surplus through extended livestock and fields, but also because they may have benefited from taxation and access to imported goods. The development of an Anglo-Saxon aristocracy may have taken more than a century from the migration to Britain. Before AD 600, as Chris Wickham has observed, settlements show little in the way of social differentiation, though there are clearly visible status differences in the grave goods excavated from early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. It is not before 600 that settlements become more developed, which incidentally coincides with elaborate elite burials, such as Sutton Hoo (Suffolk), Prittlewell (Essex) and Taplow (Buckinghamshire).