Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon EnglandPre-Conquest attitudes towards the dying and the dead have major implications for every aspect of culture, society and religion of the Anglo-Saxon period; but death-bed and funerary practices have been comparatively and unjustly neglected by historical scholarship. In her wide-ranging analysis, Dr Thompson examines such practices in the context of confessional and penitential literature, wills, poetry, chronicles and homilies, to show that complex and ambiguous ideas about death were current at all levels of Anglo-Saxon society. Her study also takes in grave monuments, showing in particular how the Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture of the ninth to the eleventh centuries may indicate not only the status, but also the religious and cultural alignment of those who commissioned and made them. Victoria Thompson is Lecturer in the Centre for Nordic Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands. . |
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Ælfric Æthelflæd Æthelred Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Scandinavian Archaeological argues Athelstan Beowulf bið bishops burial practice buried Cambridge carved cemetery charcoal burials Christ Christian church churchyard Cnut coffin complex confession confessional consecrated context corpse cross culture damned Danelaw dead death death-bed Doomsday dying Early Medieval eleventh century evidence Excavations Fáfnir Franks Casket funerary gild Gloucester Godes grave hell hine homilist iconography idea imagery images King Last Judgement Late Anglo-Saxon Latin Laud lawcodes lines liturgical living London manuscripts Mercia Minster narrative Newent ninth Northumbrian Old English Oxford passage penance penitential poem ponne prayer Pre-Conquest priest Raunds references Regularis Concordia rites ritual rubrics Saxon Scandinavian Scragg Sculpture secular Sigurðr St Oswald's St Peter stones suggests tenth century texts thegn tradition translation Vercelli Vercelli Homilies vernacular Viking Viking Age Weland Werferth William of Malmesbury Winchester Woodbridge Worcester Wulfstan wyrm wyrmas York York Minster Yorkshire þæt þam