Voices from the Cemetery: the Social Archaeology of Late-Medieval Burial

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE CRITICALLY REVIEWS THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY of high- to late-medieval burials (c ad 1000–1550), examining how and why research questions have changed in recent decades. Examples are drawn from Christian mortuary practices principally from Britain, northern and central Europe, to demonstrate increasing emphasis on the social study of emotion, agency and place. The question of social ‘value’ is addressed, exploring how disciplinary research agendas respond to altering academic currents and wider public concerns regarding medieval burials. Four themes are examined that characterise key developments: (1) a shift towards the micro-scale; (2) the exploration of emotion, with particular focus on child and infant burials; (3) a pre-occupation with ‘deviancy’ (non-normative practices); and (4) ethical considerations in the public consumption of medieval burial archaeology. Recommendations for future work include the need for comparative, larger-scale analyses to map diachronic and regional patterns across medieval Europe and to counterbalance recent trends towards the local and the individual.

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Voices from the Cemetery: the Social Archaeology
of Late-Medieval Burial
Roberta Gilchrist
To cite this article: Roberta Gilchrist (2022) Voices from the Cemetery: the Social
Archaeology of Late-Medieval Burial, Medieval Archaeology, 66:1, 120-150, DOI:
10.1080/00766097.2022.2003610
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Voices from the Cemetery: the Social
Archaeology of Late-Medieval Burial
By ROBERTA GILCHRIST
1
THIS ARTICLE CRITICALLY REVIEWS THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY of high- to
late-medieval burials (c AD 1000–1550), examining how and why research questions have changed in
recent decades. Examples are drawn from Christian mortuary practices principally from Britain, northern
and central Europe, to demonstrate increasing emphasis on the social study of emotion, agency and place.
The question of social ‘value’is addressed, exploring how disciplinary research agendas respond to alter-
ing academic currents and wider public concerns regarding medieval burials. Four themes are examined
that characterise key developments: (1) a shift towards the micro-scale; (2) the exploration of emotion,
with particular focus on child and infant burials; (3) a pre-occupation with ‘deviancy’(non-normative
practices); and (4) ethical considerations in the public consumption of medieval burial archaeology.
Recommendations for future work include the need for comparative, larger-scale analyses to map dia-
chronic and regional patterns across medieval Europe and to counterbalance recent trends towards the
local and the individual.
Which deaths mattered to people in the later Middle Ages—and which medieval
deaths matter today to archaeologists and the wider public?
2
This article surveys trends
in the archaeological study of burial in late-medieval Europe (c AD 1000–1550), drawing
on case studies principally from Britain, northern and central Europe, to discern grow-
ing emphasis on the role of emotion, agency and place in shaping medieval Christian
burial practices. This contrasts with previous frameworks that focused exclusively on
religious identity and social status in determining medieval burial rites. While graves
were formerly regarded as static reflections or symbolic statements, recent approaches
re-imagine burials as ‘vitalist devices’that continuously negotiate relations between the
living and the dead.
3
Responding to Fredrik Fahlander, this paper asks: what did medi-
eval burials do? It begins by introducing the shared tradition of late-medieval Christian
burial in Europe, before identifying distinctive trends in the social study of medieval bur-
ial archaeology. Three themes are considered in closer detail: a shift towards the study
of individuals and the micro-scale; the special treatment of the graves of infants and chil-
dren; and the ‘deviant’dead. Finally, medieval burial is situated within the sphere of
public archaeology, reflecting on the different types of ‘value’that are accorded to medi-
eval burials and how this shapes the research questions that we ask about medieval
death. All archaeological remains have the potential to hold social value as heritage,
contributing to people’s sense of identity, belonging and place, but human remains
1
Department of Archaeology, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AH r.l.gilchrist@reading.ac.uk
2
Klevn€as 2016a.
3
Fahlander 2020.
120
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
DOI: 10.1080/00766097.2022.2003610
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduc-
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Medieval Archaeology, 66/1, 2022

require scrupulous consideration.
4
What contemporary value do we project onto late-
medieval burials—emotional, religious, political, economic?
UNLEASHING HETERODOXY
The material evidence of medieval death has attracted a long tradition of scholar-
ship: antiquaries investigated elite tombs from the late 18th century onwards, and begin-
ning in the mid-20th century, medieval graves were routinely excavated as part of the
archaeological investigation of medieval churches and monasteries.
5
But social questions
were directed towards medieval burials only relatively recently, in sharp contrast with
other periods of archaeological study, where burial evidence has long underpinned the
most vibrant research on past social lives. Both the interpretative potential of medieval
burial archaeology and the diversity of funerary practices were underestimated until
around 30 years ago. Medieval burials were previously characterised by historians and
archaeologists as homogenous and normative, representing a narrow range of mortuary
behaviour controlled by a religious elite.
6
The evidence base for medieval burial has burgeoned with commercial archae-
ology and the excavation of large (principally urban) medieval cemeteries. Approaches
to interpretation began to change in the 1990s, as the discipline of medieval archaeology
matured both in terms of data collection and theoretical awareness. Large-scale studies
in Denmark, France and England confirmed common trends in medieval European
burial over time, such as the increasing use of coffins and the decreasing numbers of
grave goods.
7
In general terms, burial rites became more uniform from the 12th century
onwards, perhaps coinciding with the increasing centralisation of the Church and the
formalisation of the doctrine of purgatory. However, in recent decades archaeologists
have identified a varied cultural repertoire of medieval Christian burial practices, includ-
ing the use of grave linings and coffins, devotional objects and apotropaic materials
placed with the corpse, and the systematic organisation and management of cemetery
space. To what extent can we discern a coherent tradition of medieval European
Christian burial practice? The graves treated most consistently were those of religious—
priests, monks, nuns and ecclesiastics entered the afterlife equipped with their emblems
of religious office and clothing of consecration.
8
Distinctive rites were practised in multiple regions of Europe, suggesting the mobil-
ity of people and/or the transmission of religious ideas about the afterlife. These include
the ‘funeral pots’containing charcoal that were commonly placed on coffins in France
and Denmark; timber rods or staves deposited in graves in England and Scandinavia;
papal bullae interred with the dead, especially in France and England; and scallop shells
associated with burials particularly in Germany and Scandinavia.
9
However, regional
studies also demonstrate significant differences arising from specific cultural contexts
and conversion histories; for example, Estonia’s forced conversion in the 13th century
4
Jones 2017; Stutz 2016, 29.
5
Gerrard 2003.
6
Aries 1981; Binski 1996; Rodwell 1996; Daniell 1997;O’Sullivan 2013.
7
Kieffer-Olsen 1993; Alexandre-Bidon 1998; Daniell 1997; Gilchrist and Sloane 2005.
8
Ibid; O’Sullivan 2013.
9
Prigent 1996; Jonsson 2009; Dabrowska 2005; Haasis-Berner 1999; Gilchrist and Sloane 2005; Højmark
Søvsø and Knudsen 2018.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 121

led to the persistence of pre-Christian burial rites into the 16th century, including cre-
mation rites in remote areas, and food and other offerings placed in inhumation buri-
als.
10
In northern Finland, the extended process of Christianisation prompted locally
distinctive traditions, including hybrid burial practices and the continuation of crema-
tion alongside Christian rites in the 13th–14th centuries.
11
The regional nuances and
chronological variations of the shared tradition of medieval European burial have yet to
be mapped, but local differences are apparent between cemeteries even in the same
region. While burial practices drew largely upon a common vocabulary of Christian
mortuary rites, individual cemeteries demonstrate idiosyncratic preferences in traits
including positioning of the body, the shape of the grave, the prevalence of ‘multiple
burials’(ie the interment of more than one individual in a single burial plot), the fre-
quency of clothed burial, or the selection of specific objects and materials placed with
the dead. Archaeology is a persuasive rejoinder to contemporary textual sources detail-
ing medieval burial practices, such as the 13th-century liturgist, William Durand of
Mende.
12
Religious authors present a picture of strictly controlled orthodoxy, but they
had little insight into lived religion in ordinary communities, for example the agency of
women and the family in funerary rites. Archaeologists place increasing emphasis on the
social role of funerary landscapes in creating a sense of place, a collective local identity
that connected the communities of the living and the dead.
13
Medieval Christian burial rites differed significantly from contemporary Jewish
and Muslim traditions. Perhaps the most striking contrast is the greater emphasis in
Islam and Judaism on bodily integrity after death, resulting in the protection of burials
from subsequent disturbance. In contrast, Christian cemeteries routinely reused ceme-
tery space, resulting in the intercutting of graves and the disturbance of bones that were
collected as charnel. For example, the excavation and analysis of Jewbury, the medieval
Jewish cemetery in York (c 1177–1290), confirmed there was very little intercutting of
graves (12%) in comparison with Christian cemeteries in medieval York.
14
There was
greater uniformity in burial practice within the Jewish cemetery: 70% were in the same
burial position, supine and fully extended, and there were no personal objects included
with the dead. However, Jewbury also demonstrated that normative Jewish burial rites
were modified in diaspora contexts, resulting in variations in grave orientation and the
use of iron coffin nails (rather than the wooden dowels specified in Orthodox practice).
Local variations are also becoming apparent in the study of Muslim burial practices in
Sicily and Al-Andalus (the medieval Iberian Peninsula). The expectation was for Muslim
corpses to be wrapped in shrouds and placed in the grave on their right side, oriented
towards Mecca; the use of grave markers and grave goods was discouraged, and single-
occupancy graves were the norm. However, Sarah Inskip has noted considerable varia-
tions in Al-Andalus in the positioning of the body in the grave, and the placing of per-
sonal grave goods in around 2% of burials.
15
10
Valk 2001.
11
Ik€aheimo et al 2020.
12
Thibodeau 2007.
13
Semple and Brookes 2020.
14
Lilley et al 1994.
15
Inskip 2018;2016.
122 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

SPIRITUAL STRATEGIES: MEDIEVAL MOURNING, MATERIALITY AND
MARGINALITY
Over the past decade, research in medieval burial archaeology has largely rejected
previous assumptions of orthodoxy and normativity in medieval death rituals. A unique
archaeological contribution has revealed funerary rites that were never documented in
religious texts, highlighting the agency of mourners and the role of families and com-
munities, particularly women.
16
This is glimpsed especially through objects placed in
intimate contact with the corpse during the preparation of the body for burial. These
were often modest objects such as beads and coins, or devotional items, including papal
bullae; these artefacts are exceptional in terms of their rarity and survival, represented
in perhaps 2–3% of excavated high- to late-medieval graves.
17
Recent research pays
more explicit attention to mourning, grief and loss, especially in relation to the graves of
infants and children. A strong interest has emerged in how diverse social groups were
treated in death, including children, the disabled, and non-normative, ‘deviant’catego-
ries such as executed criminals.
18
To what extent do these trends coincide with the
wider field of burial archaeology and with the historical study of medieval death? What
is distinctive about medieval burial archaeology?
Recent historical study of medieval death examines similar themes, including a
strong focus on treatment of the corpse, parental grief and mourning, folk practices and
the lived religion of death, and the deviant dead.
19
It is therefore surprising to find so lit-
tle collaborative, interdisciplinary engagement between medieval historians and archae-
ologists around the subject of medieval burial. Historians and art historians tend to
approach burial through questions of patronage and commemoration, in contrast with
the more bottom-up, ‘marginal histories’advocated by archaeologists. The emerging
archaeological focus on marginalised people also highlights racial diversity and health
disparity in medieval Europe; for example, a study of London’s Black Death cemetery
examined the forensic ancestry, ancient DNA and isotopes of a sample of 41 individuals,
seven of whom yielded evidence for Black African ancestry or dual heritage.
20
‘Marginalised histories’are also a characteristic feature of post-medieval burial archae-
ology,
21
while the ‘materiality of death’has come to prominence in the mortuary
archaeology of all periods, emphasising treatment of the corpse and ritualised practices
performed in relation to death, including deviancy and violent death.
22
There has been
growing interest in theorising the dead body as a material object and exploring the
materiality of the grave in terms of emotional relationships between the living and the
dead.
23
In early medieval burial archaeology, the theme of materiality focused on the
sensory performance of funerary rites to structure memory; it is argued that burials were
framed as poetry or theatre for the living.
24
The lens of ‘performance’has impacted less
explicitly on late-medieval burial archaeology, although graves have been analysed in
16
Eg Gilchrist 2008;2012; Murphy 2011;2017; Chapman 2016; Jensen 2017; Cootes et al 2021.
17
Gilchrist and Sloane 2005.
18
eg Murphy and Le Roy 2008; Reynolds 2009; Dawson 2016.
19
Eg Schmitz-Esser 2020; Korpiola and Lahtinen 2015; Rollo-Koster 2016.
20
Redfern and Hefner 2019.
21
Renshaw and Powers 2016.
22
Fahlander and Oestigaard 2008; Stutz and Tarlow 2013a; Stutz 2016.
23
Robb and Harris 2013; Stutz and Tarlow 2013b; Renshaw and Powers 2016.
24
Williams 2006.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 123

terms of ritual performances and visual displays that structured active relationships
between the living and the dead, such as the dressing of the corpse and the lining of the
grave with highly visible materials.
25
The agency of the medieval dead has been
explored via the medium of saintly relics, but also through the dangerous and disruptive
dead, the belief in medieval ‘revenants’(reanimated corpses) and how this impacted on
burial practices (discussed below).
Deeper reflection on materiality has stimulated innovative work on post-burial practi-
ces, including grave opening, reuse and deliberate destruction, together with the curation
of human remains and grave furnishings.
26
The growing literature on post-burial practi-
ces in Viking and Anglo-Saxon archaeology focuses principally on themes of memory,
personhood and the commemoration of ancestors. In a late-medieval context, post-bur-
ial practices have been explored through the curation of human remains in charnel
houses and practices of secondary burial (‘translation’) in churches and cemeteries.
27
For
example, the deliberate retention, storage and curation of crania and long-bones have
been confirmed by recent study of the extant 13th-century charnel house at Rothwell
(Northants) and excavations at St Peter’s, Leicester.
28
The preservation of bones aimed
to safeguard Christian resurrection, while the practice of collective charnelling facilitated
the deliberate ‘forgetting’of individual dead.
29
Previously regarded as functional, post-
depositional disturbances, medieval post-burial practices have been reframed as spiritual
strategies connected with commemoration and the belief in purgatory.
Medieval burial archaeology retains a strong interest in the integral connections
between mortuary practices, religion and concepts of the afterlife. In contrast, the study
of prehistoric burial tends to emphasise questions about the living, and early medieval
burial archaeology focuses more on memory of the dead.
30
The theme of materiality
has encouraged wider exploration in medieval burial archaeology of a range of spiritual
beliefs beyond the formal religious doctrines of the Church. In discussing post-medieval
death, Sarah Tarlow argues that burials serve as a prism for exploring parallel dis-
courses around theology, science, folklore and society.
31
This perspective is equally per-
tinent to medieval burial practices, which are increasingly understood as complex and
sometimes contradictory spiritual strategies, ranging from the orthodoxy of ecclesiastical
burials to the diversity of vernacular practices integrated with lived religion.
32
An excellent example is the Gaelic cemetery of Ballyhanna (Co Donegal, Ireland),
which illustrates how a variety of spiritual strategies were compatible within a single
community.
33
The majority of graves date from 1200–1650: grave goods included
objects commonly associated with Christian devotion and pilgrimage, including two
paternosters and a scallop shell, but there were also objects associated with folklore,
such as a prehistoric arrowhead buried in the hand of a young woman (Fig 1). In
Ireland, prehistoric lithics were associated with the Si, fairies or supernatural beings that
25
Gilchrist and Sloane 2005; Jonsson 2009; Inall and Lillie 2020.
26
Fahlander 2021; Klevn€as 2016b.
27
Craig-Aitkins et al 2019; Gilchrist and Sloane 2005, 194–99.
28
Crangle 2016; Craig-Aitkins et al 2019; Gnanaratnam 2009.
29
Farrow 2021.
30
Stutz 2016; Klevn€as 2016a.
31
Tarlow 2013.
32
Gilchrist 2020.
33
McKenzie and Murphy 2018; McKenzie et al 2015.
124 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

were culturally associated with prehistoric monuments and artefacts. These objects were
collected and curated from medieval to modern times, used for healing or kept in houses
and farm buildings to protect humans and animals from harm.
34
In this mortuary con-
text, the prehistoric lithic can be interpreted as an apotropaic or healing object. Large
numbers of white quartz pebbles were associated with the Ballyhanna dead: they
occurred in association with 52 burials, and in 18 cases, were placed in the hand or
near the hands, resting on the pelvis. White quartz pebbles are a medieval folk tradition
FIG 1
Protective objects placed in medieval graves included natural materials and curated objects such as prehis-
toric lithics. (a) A young adult female excavated at Ballyhanna, with a flint arrowhead lying near the left
hand (not preserved). (b) Detail of the late-neolithic/early Bronze-Age arrowhead. Reproduced with per-
mission from McKenzie and Murphy 2018;photos
#
Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd and Jonathan Hession;
annotation by Libby Mulqueeny; Ballyhanna Research Project, National Roads Authority/Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
34
Dowd 2018.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 125

associated particularly with burial in Ireland and Scotland, again regarded as healing or
protective objects.
35
What is striking in the case of Ballyhanna is that some burials con-
tained both quartz pebbles and more orthodox devotional objects, including two women
who were buried with a paternoster and scallop shell respectively. The Ballyhanna dead
also demonstrated a broad range of body positions, including two adult women buried
in a tightly flexed position, both of whom exhibited advanced tuberculosis. The flexed
burial of a young adult male had his hands placed as if he were at prayer, with a quartz
pebble located at his hip. Catriona McKenzie and Eileen Murphy conclude that subtle
differences in burial treatment were used deliberately by families at Ballyhanna: ‘the liv-
ing were personalising the burials of particular people’, possibly the most vulnerable,
those with specific illnesses, or those who were especially pious.
36
A QUESTION OF SCALE: FROM INDIVIDUAL LIVES TO THE GLOBAL
MIDDLE AGES
The wider field of mortuary archaeology has turned towards the study of local,
micro-scale traditions, prompted by methodological innovations in the scientific record-
ing and analysis of skeletons that have increased awareness of variability in burial rites.
37
The approach of archaeothanatology (anthropologie de terrain) was pioneered by the French
physical anthropologist Henri Duday to examine the biological and social components
of burials in combination, often revealing subtle patterning within single graveyards.
38
It
emphasises the taphonomy of the corpse and grave, taking factors of decay and depos-
ition into account to reconstruct the burial context and position of the body. Applied in
a medieval context, it is useful in identifying wrapping or shrouding of the body in the
absence of surviving textiles or pins (evident through bilateral compression of shoulders
and arms). It has also discerned localised patterns in the positioning of medieval corpses,
for example in relation to their age. At Ballyhanna, neonates and infants were more
likely to be placed in a non-supine position and younger children were more likely to be
placed on their sides.
39
This approach can also be used for close comparison of two or
more cemeteries of a similar type. Eleanor Williams compared the burial customs of two
monasteries of the Cluniac order, at Bermondsey Abbey (London) and Notre Dame, La
Charite-sur-Loire (Burgundy); burials at Bermondsey were dated 1100–1430, while
those at Notre Dame were mid-11th century to mid-13th century. Williams concluded
that the French monastery was more consistent in its mortuary rites than its English
counterpart, including in the placement of limbs and the wrapping of the corpse.
40
Even amongst the most orthodox monastic orders, we find local variation at the
micro-scale.
A shift towards the study of individual burials has been driven by advances in sci-
entific techniques including the study of isotopes, ancient DNA and the human micro-
biome (coprolites and dental calculus), which allow investigation of life histories. These
methods are used to reconstruct the life experience of individual medieval people. For
35
Gilchrist 2020; Tarlow 2013.
36
McKenzie and Murphy 2018, 70.
37
Fahlander and Oestigaard 2008.
38
Duday 2009.
39
Murphy 2017.
40
Williams 2018.
126 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

example, the presence of exotic lapis lazuli pigment in the dental calculus of a woman
from Dalheim (Germany), 45–60 years of age and dating to the 11th–12th century, has
been interpreted as evidence that she was a nun involved in manuscript production.
41
The study of specific individuals has also been used to inform understanding of the
experience of medieval disability, disease and social relationships around dying. This
trend is exemplified by the ‘bioarchaeology of care’approach, a framework for assessing
the evidence and possible health-related care of individuals with pathologies that indi-
cate long-term disease and disability. Medieval case studies include a male skeleton
excavated from the leper hospital of St James and Mary Magdalene, Chichester (West
Sussex), and two women from medieval Poland, one with leprosy and the other with
gigantism (all dating to the 12th–14th century).
42
Osteobiography has emerged to complement the more quantitative approaches of
osteology. It focuses on the intimate scale of the individual, and is often more qualitative
and theoretically engaged, prioritising social questions alongside the study of health and
disease.
43
Osteobiography offers a more humanistic framework to consider how people
experienced their lives, including their health, diet, geographical origins and mobility,
genetics and appearance, incidents of violence and ill health, ageing and death.
44
It is
regarded as a distinctive genre in bioarchaeology, likened to the process of writing his-
torical biographies or microhistory, in that proxy evidence of different types and scales
is layered to achieve a narrative.
45
While the starting point is the case study of a specific
individual, it can also be used to inform historical understanding of a much broader
range of social issues and relationships. An excellent example is the study of three buri-
als from medieval Trondheim, Norway: three skeletons dating to the 13th century were
examined to reconstruct birthplace, mobility, ancestry, pathology and physical appear-
ance.
46
The skeletons were chosen to represent ordinary people buried in the Nidaros
graveyard, dated 1175–1275, all aged in their 20 s or 30 s. The evocative names given
to the case studies convey their most significant stories: ‘the girl who travelled far’(Fig
2), ‘the woman of central European descent’and ‘the man who needed surgery’. Their
osteobiographies emphasise the diversity and mobility of the medieval urban population,
with around 40% of Trondheim’s population originating from outside the city. Isotopic
analysis and assessment of mitochondrial DNA suggests that the two women had trav-
elled considerable distances to Norway, one potentially from north-western Russia and
the other from the Alps. The man is likely to have been born in Norway but not in
Trondheim; he had undergone trepanation, a highly skilled surgery, and the first case to
be recognised from medieval Norway.
Osteobiographies yield intricate narratives of ordinary medieval lives in more
detail than historical sources could ever allow.
47
The individual scale of analysis high-
lights the active agency of women, whether as craftspeople, or as economic and spiritual
agents.
48
The authors of the Trondheim osteobiographies explore the heterogeneity of
41
Radini et al 2019.
42
Tilley 2017; Roberts 2017; Matczak and Kozlowski 2017.
43
Hosek and Robb 2019.
44
Eg Kn€usel et al 2010.
45
Hosek 2019; Robb et al 2019.
46
Hamre et al 2017.
47
Robb et al 2019.
48
Radini et al 2019; Hamre et al 2017.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 127

the medieval urban population and the social and cultural barriers that migrants would
have traversed, following European trade routes to the Norwegian city or attracted as
pilgrims seeking healing from the local saint, Olav. Osteobiographies hold the potential
to move from micro to macro-scale, offering new perspectives on the ‘global Middle
Ages’—medieval connectivity and interaction on a global scale, including the mobility
of people, materials, objects, ideas and diseases.
49
SPECIAL DEATHS: INFANT AND CHILD BURIALS
Not long ago, children were regarded as a neglected topic in mortuary archae-
ology.
50
Gender and feminist archaeology has prompted closer attention to family rela-
tionships, domestic life and female agency.
51
These social questions also accelerated
bioarchaeological research on children, while the theoretical model of the life course
served as the catalyst in uniting social and bioarchaeological perspectives on ageing.
52
FIG 2
Craniofacial reconstruction of female skeleton from the Nidaros graveyard, Trondheim, representing a
complex immigrant history. Analysis of oxygen isotopes suggests she was possibly born in north-western
Russia, while her mitochondrial DNA indicates her mother may have been from southern or central
Europe. Her cranial morphology shows Mongoloid-type traits, suggesting an Inuit or Asian influence.
Image reproduced with permission from Hamre et al 2017;
#
Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University.
49
Holmes and Standen 2018.
50
Fahlander and Oestigaard 2008.
51
Eg the journal Childhood in the Past, est 2009; Murphy and Le Roy 2017.
52
Mays et al 2017b.
128 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

The life course contextualises individual stages of life, such as infancy, within the
broader continuum of the human lifetime, and places it within the cultural context of
age cohorts, generations, and social domains including the family, household and beliefs
surrounding death and the afterlife.
53
The exceptional treatment of children’s graves is
emerging as a common pattern across medieval Europe, despite the general under-rep-
resentation of infant and child graves in medieval cemeteries.
In parish church cemeteries in Britain, infant and child graves were selected most
often for the inclusion of grave goods including dress accessories, domestic objects and
amulets for healing and protection, such as beads and crosses, and apotropaic materials
such quartz, jet and animal teeth.
54
At St Clemens in Copenhagen (dated c 1000–1536),
small polished stones were found placed on the chest or arms of children, interpreted as
amulets placed as emotional acts or ‘special signs of affection’.
55
Distinctive containers
were sometimes used for perinatal infants, including objects associated with the house-
hold, such as baskets, chests or even roof tiles, in northern Italy, recalling pre-Christian
Roman rites.
56
Children’s graves were often distinguished spatially: in Scandinavia, they
were buried close to the walls of the church or in the western part of the cemetery; simi-
larly, in Britain they clustered near the porch or near the font within the church, or
around particular features in the cemetery.
57
At the village of Wharram Percy (N
Yorkshire), an area to the north of the church was reserved for pre-term infants, neo-
nates and infants aged up to one year, interpreted as a special zone for those not yet
weaned.
58
There were also nuances in the positioning of child corpses in the grave: a
comparative study of skeletal remains from Taunton Priory (Somerset), St Oswald
(Gloucester), and St Gregory (Canterbury, Kent), concluded that non-adults were placed
most commonly in a supine position with arms at their sides, in contrast with adults,
who were generally arranged with their arms across their stomachs.
59
Infants were
sometimes placed on their sides in a flexed position, interpreted as a natural sleeping
posture; for example, a 14th–15th-century burial at Poulton (Cheshire) and numerous
examples at St Rombout’s, in the city of Mechelen, Flanders (Belgium).
60
The singular treatment of infant and child graves is often interpreted as an expres-
sion of parental grief. Aubrey Cannon and Katherine Cook have challenged this
assumption, arguing that material evidence may reflect ‘coping strategies’in response to
infant death rather than grief.
61
They suggest that the segregation of infant burials was
a way of reducing encounters with their graves, a means of ‘moving on’emotionally,
rather than prolonging grief. In a late-medieval context, archaeologists have the benefit
of historical sources to contextualise understanding of parental responses to infant death,
in particular the miracle stories associated with saints’tombs.
62
Ideas about the afterlife
affected burial location: infant and child graves were often placed prominently to benefit
from more frequent intercessory prayers. Nevertheless, we should perhaps evaluate the
53
Gilchrist 2012.
54
Gilchrist 2020; Chapman 2016.
55
Jensen 2017, 207.
56
Gilchrist and Sloane 2005, 77; Cootes et al 2021; Crow et al 2020.
57
Jonsson 2009, 153; Gilchrist 2012, 206–8.
58
Mays 2007, 86.
59
Dawson 2016.
60
Gilchrist and Sloane 2005, 155–6; Cootes et al 2021; Van de Vijver et al 2018: 271.
61
Cannon and Cook 2015.
62
Eg Aldrin 2015; Crow et al 2020.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 129

special treatment of infant and child burials more critically. Does emotion fully explain
the range of distinctive funerary treatments? How did beliefs about the afterlife affect
behaviour towards the child corpse and grave? Could there be other factors in play,
such as cultural ideas about the ontological status of the infant body? In other words,
what did infant and child burials do?
This question is pertinent to understanding multiple burials, which in medieval cem-
eteries of all types feature a high proportion of children and infants. For example, the
eight double burials at Wharram Percy all involved children. At St Clemens,
Copenhagen, 23 of 25 multiple burials involved children, comprising either two to three
children buried together, or an adult buried with a child placed close to their chest or
neck. A survey of multiple burials in medieval Irish cemeteries confirmed that 50% of
examples comprised juveniles interred with adults.
63
Two different processes can be dis-
cerned in multiple burials: 1) simultaneous interments, with two or more children
interred together (Fig 3), or one or more adults buried with children; and 2) burials sep-
arated in time but reusing the same plot, often involving infants or young children
superimposed on the earlier grave of an adult. What motivated mourners’selection of
this burial rite for children—what did multiple burials do? Were they linked to ideas
about the afterlife, perhaps the belief that children needed adult protection and guid-
ance when entering the terrifying realm of purgatory? This may have been particularly
pertinent in cases where the child had died before they were able to walk unaided, given
strong belief in the material continuity of the body in purgatory.
64
Some insight to cul-
tural beliefs about death may be found in medieval ghost stories: where children occur,
they are represented as innocent souls seeking assistance in purgatory.
65
The adults
included in these multiple burials may have been intended to protect children in the
afterlife. Conversely, was burial with children regarded as efficacious to adults? In a
late-medieval context, children aged under two were regarded as ‘holy innocents’and
may have served as mutually protective companions to adults journeying through purga-
tory.
66
We are familiar with medieval belief in the healing and protective power of
saints’bones and relics; is it possible that other categories of the medieval dead, particu-
larly infants, were sometimes perceived to carry positive agency?
67
The Church taught that prior to baptism, infants were regarded as liminal beings
that carried the taint of Original Sin. It was believed that the souls of unbaptised foe-
tuses were confined to Limbo and their corpses were prohibited from burial in conse-
crated ground, recorded by Durand of Mende (c 1286), among others.
68
However,
archaeological evidence confirms that local communities sometimes defied canon law by
burying unbaptised infants in consecrated ground. This is confirmed by the identifica-
tion of burials of women who died in childbirth with the foetus buried in utero, and pos-
sible clandestine burials of perinatal infants located on the margins of cemeteries, with
archaeological examples of both practices recorded in Britain, Ireland and Italy.
69
The
Irish cillinı, vernacular burial grounds reserved principally for unbaptised infants, are
63
Mays 2007, 85; Jensen 2017, 205; Murphy and Donnelly 2019.
64
Bynum 1995; Gilchrist 2012, 209.
65
Mays 2016.
66
Gilchrist 2012, 207–9.
67
Schmitz-Esser 2020, 615–33
68
Thibodeau 2007,bkI,ch5.
69
Gilchrist 2012, 209; Crow et al 2020; Cootes et al 2021; Murphy 2021.
130 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

now understood to be post-medieval in date: they proliferated during the Irish Counter-
Reformation movement.
70
Local practices varied, with unbaptised infants permitted
burial in consecrated ground in some regional and social contexts, whereas in others,
dedicated burial grounds were established. By the 13th century, it was common to bap-
tise infants within a few days of birth and emergency baptism could be undertaken by a
layperson if the child was at risk; however, the church prohibited baptism of miscarried
or stillborn infants. Miracle stories reveal that stillborn infants were taken to medieval
FIG 3
Multiple burial of two children in the cemetery west of the priory at St Gregory, Canterbury. Both chil-
dren were approximately two years old at death and the grave dates to the 12th century.
#
Canterbury
Archaeological Trust; reproduced with permission.
70
Ibid 2011.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 131

shrines in large numbers to be temporarily revived for ‘emergency’baptism, prompting
the development of several hundred sanctuaries for miracle baptism in France, Belgium,
Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy. Folk practices were
employed to verify life; for example, the tiny corpses were warmed over hot coals and
brought into the (cold) church, where a small goose feather was placed on the lips. By
means of thermal lift, the feather moved briefly upward and was regarded as a sign of
life. The infant could then be baptised and buried in consecrated ground—reassuring
distraught parents that its soul would not languish in Limbo. One of the most popular
sanctuaries was the shrine of the Holy Virgin in Oberb€uren (Switzerland), where 250
FIG 4
Contrasting treatment of infant age groups buried in Swiss churches. Bottom: At Bleienbach, (unbaptised?)
foetuses and perinates were present and clustered towards the north-western corner of the nave. Top: At
Kirchlindach, only older infants were present inside the church, clustered towards the chancel.
Unbaptised infants were excluded from the church and baptised infants were buried in a privileged pos-
ition near the high altar. Reproduced with permission from Hausmair 2017. Distribution map: Barbara Hausmair,
background:
#
Arch€aologischer Dienst des Kantons Bern.
132 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

late-medieval infant burials have been excavated, most premature and likely the recipi-
ents of miracle baptism, tightly packed together in burial rows or pits.
71
Barbara Hausmair highlights the importance of contextual understanding of social
attitudes towards the unbaptised dead. The location of infant graves was influenced by
the sacred topography of the cemetery, ideas about the afterlife and the value placed on
young children by specific communities. She shows significant variations between three
cemeteries in Switzerland and Austria, demonstrating local differences in what was per-
ceived to be the most efficacious space for salvation and in the age groups of infants
that were permitted burial inside churches (Fig 4). An infant cemetery was excavated at
St George on Mount G€ottweig (Austria), consisting almost entirely of premature and
neonate children. It was sited prominently on the mountain’s highest elevation and
Hausmair concludes that the choice of site reflects the ambivalence with which unbap-
tised infants were perceived. The cemetery was highly visible, but also secluded and con-
tained: its elevated position brought these infants closer to heaven, while maintaining
physical distance from the Christian community and its dead, perhaps a compromise
between spiritual intercession and emotional closure.
72
‘DEVIANCY’: THE RISE OF THE RESTLESS DEAD
The study of medieval burial has recently emphasised violent death, ritualised
treatments of the corpse and all aspects of deviant death.
73
The term ‘deviancy’is inher-
ently problematic, given its pejorative connotations in contemporary usage, often sug-
gesting sexual perversion. It signals negative value and subjective judgement, implying
that non-normative rites of burial were deliberately selected to stigmatise the dead.
74
Nevertheless, the term is used by archaeologists to refer both to social categories of indi-
viduals that received alternative burials rites (such as executed criminals and unbaptised
infants) and to graves that are non-normative in terms of location, construction, or posi-
tioning of the body. More rigorous consideration of cultural context and terminology
has been called for, to distinguish ‘minority’and ‘atypical’burial rites from practices
that may be regarded as truly deviant within a medieval Christian context;
75
in other
words, funerary treatments that may have been intended to convey disrespect, punish-
ment, or humiliation of the dead. It is also essential to evaluate archaeological context
and grave taphonomy when interrogating specific non-normative practices such as
prone burials.
76
What precisely do we mean by ‘deviancy’in a late-medieval burial context? The
widest definition encompasses all burial rites outside those prescribed by the Church,
including non-normative practices within consecrated spaces, such as prone or staked
burials and post-burial practices, including translated burials. However, it may be useful
to exclude ‘atypical’rites: those that occur relatively frequently within consecrated
ground, such as oddly positioned or misaligned burials and multiple burials, together
71
Gutscher 2017.
72
Hausmair 2017;2018.
73
Eg Murphy 2008; Gardeła and Kajkowski 2013; Damman and Leggett 2018; Betsinger et al 2019;
Alterauge et al 2020.
74
Asp€ock 2008.
75
Gardeła2017; Vargha 2017.
76
Moilanen 2018.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 133

with rarer rites such as heart burials, practised by an elite minority. Mass burials of fam-
ine and plague victims in consecrated ground could also be excluded, for example those
excavated at the hospital of St Mary Spital (London) and Thornton Abbey
(Lincolnshire).
77
Burial customs associated with judicial execution may also be regarded
as ‘atypical’rather than deviant in a late-medieval context. From the 12th century
onwards, executed criminals in England were buried in consecrated ground within hos-
pitals, monasteries and parish churches. At St Margaret in Combusto (Norwich), a docu-
mented place of burial for hanged felons (12th–15th century), excavations revealed that
40% of interments were part of multiple burials that included prone individuals,
dumped in the grave face down.
78
These non-normative burial rites were expedient
measures tolerated within consecrated ground.
A recent study of prone burials in Germany, Austria and Switzerland examined
95 examples from 60 sites.
79
Multiple correspondence analysis identified common pat-
terns, including the over-representation of males and the predominance of adults, par-
ticularly young adults; the only examples of prone child burials occurred in the context
of multiple burial with adults. A significant difference was observed in the spatial context
of prone burials dating to the high medieval period (c 1000–1250) versus those of late-
medieval and post-medieval date. High medieval, prone male burials were often located
in the most prestigious holy spaces; for example, a prone male was interred close to the
portal of St Peter’s church on the Kleiner Madron near Flintsbach (Bavaria), accompa-
nied by four coins, polished stones and a Mithraic gem. The authors conclude that in
central Europe during the High Middle Ages, prone burial may have been intended as
a pious expression of religious humility, whereas prone burials dating to the late-medi-
eval and post-medieval periods were more likely to be sited in marginal spaces, and
therefore may have conferred disrespect.
In a late-medieval Christian context, a tighter definition of deviancy might focus
on burials outside consecrated ground. This includes the mass graves of the battle dead, such
as Towton (Yorkshire, 1461), Visby (Gotland, Sweden, 1361) and Aljubarrota (Portugal,
1385).
80
However, efforts were made to move the battle dead to consecrated ground:
some of the dead from Towton were exhumed 20 years after the battle, while those
from Bosworth Field (1485) were moved to Dadlington Church in 1511.
81
These trans-
lations demonstrate the high social value placed on the battle dead and the spiritual
imperative of resting in consecrated ground. In what circumstances were individuals
deliberately interred outside consecrated ground? The most common practice is infant
burial in domestic or settlement contexts, occurring across Europe and typically inter-
preted as evidence for infanticide or the hasty disposal of the unbaptised. Relatively
common in central Europe are infant burials interred in clay pots within houses, gener-
ally interpreted as a form of surreptitious disposal.
82
In England, domestic burials of
infants are more often found dug into the exterior walls of houses and covered with sub-
sequent floor deposits, confirming that the buildings were still occupied. These infants
ranged from birth age, to 3–6 months, and some at least would have been baptised.
77
Connell et al 2012; Willmott et al 2020.
78
Reynolds 2009, 233; Stirland 2009.
79
Alterauge et al 2020.
80
Kn€usel 2014.
81
Curry and Foard 2016.
82
Gardeła and Duma 2013.
134 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

What did domestic infant burials do, in a medieval Christian context? Burial of an infant
within a domestic dwelling may have been a deliberate ritual act, one possibly con-
nected with women’s rites of fertility and the protection of future unborn children.
83
Such burials may have carried positive agency, valued by mothers for their emotional
resonance and magico-religious power.
Archaeologists are becoming more alert to medieval burials in un-consecrated
ground, recently discussed in relation to central Europe, Croatia and Ireland.
84
By the 12th
century, burial outside the hallowed ground of the churchyard was limited to mortal sinners
and non-persons (ie those outside the Church). It was regarded as a punishment more ser-
ious than execution, because it prevented the completion of a ‘good death’and rendered
the dead a spiritual outcast for eternity.
85
How then, might we account for such burials?
Were these heretics, social outcasts, victims of violence or famine, or those too poor to pay
the burial fee? In some cases, might this unorthodox practice represent a form of religious
dissent? Several late-medieval burial grounds have been excavated in Ireland that were not
associated with churches, including Athboy (Co Meath) and Mullagh (Co Longford). These
burials followed Christian conventions: they were aligned E/W, often shrouded and
arranged in formal rows. The remains of three adult females and an infant were discovered
in a 13th-century midden at Swords (Co Dublin). One was aligned E/W and the head was
marked by pillow stones, confirming a degree of care in placing the corpse.
86
In England,
one disturbing example shows casual or disrespectful disposal of human remains, or possibly
even racially motivated murder. In 2004, the remains of six adults and 11 children were dis-
covered in a well shaft in Norwich, located next to the precinct boundary of the College of
St Mary in the Fields. Dating by radiocarbon and pottery placed the burials in the
12th–13th century and two-thirds of the group were aged under 20years at death, includ-
ing one adolescent, two children aged 10–15years, and five children below the age of
five.
87
This highly unusual burial context may represent the disposal of victims of famine or
disease, or potentially violence against the Jewish population of Norwich. Ancient DNA
analysis carried out for a BBC documentary in 2011 suggested they could be Jewish, and in
2013, the remains were given Jewish burial.
88
Even graves identified as possible ‘revenants’are found in consecrated ground:
revenants were believed to be re-animated corpses that returned from the grave with
malicious intent.
89
Documented stories of corporeal zombies are relatively rare in medi-
eval western Europe, perhaps a few dozen and all from northern regions (England,
Iceland, Germany), in contrast to thousands of tales from across Europe of incorporeal
ghosts.
90
Recorded remedies for revenants included decapitating or burning the corpse,
or binding the coffin with locks and chains. Medieval graves that contained padlocks,
manacles, detached skulls, or charred materials have been discussed as potential candi-
dates for revenants.
91
However, stories of revenants in northern Europe were
83
Gilchrist 2012, 219–23.
84
Alterauge et al 2020; Krznar and Tkalcec 2017; Shine and Travers 2012.
85
Bynum 1995, 204; Davis 2016; Schmitz-Esser 2020, 484.
86
Shine and Travers 2012; Brady and Kelleher 2000.
87
Emery 2010.
88
BBC News 2011,2013; Sophie Cabot, pers comm.
89
Caciola 1996; Watkins 2010; Schmitz-Esser 2020.
90
Black 2016; Schmitt 1998.
91
Gilchrist 2012, 194–6; Gordon 2014.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 135

documented during a discrete period, c 1130–1230, coinciding with a time of significant
change in theological and medical attitudes towards the corpse. Winston Black has
argued that belief in revenants peaked when scholastics were most anxious about the
fate of the human body after death, and declined as the doctrine of purgatory crystal-
lised, providing explanation for how the body and soul would be re-united.
92
In eastern
Europe, vampire stories emerged in the 11th to 13th centuries, impacting on burial
practices during the transition to Christianity and the change from cremation to inhum-
ation rites. Some prone burials excavated in eastern Germany, Poland, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia exhibit preventative measures including decapitation, staking,
nailing and interment with a sickle across the throat, possibly indicative of belief
in vampires.
93
Burials that were deliberately dismembered and disposed of outside consecrated ground
are the most persuasive candidates for deviancy, ie they were subjected to mortuary
treatments that conveyed stigma or punishment within the context of medieval
Christian beliefs. Such examples are usually interpreted by archaeologists as the victims
of murder or massacre, such as a human torso found in a ditch at Jedburgh Abbey
(Scottish Borders). The articulated rib cage was deposited together with several high-
quality objects: a small comb and a seal or pendant, both of walrus ivory, a horn buckle
and a whetstone. The ditch was then infilled in a single event, dated by a coin of Henry
II to the late 12th century.
94
Dismembered human remains were found deliberately
deposited in several contexts (outside churchyards) in the extensively excavated
Hungarian village of Kana, located in the 11th district of Budapest. The most curious
was a pit dug into an external oven, in which various body parts were interred and then
immediately backfilled.
95
The presence of three skulls allowed the identification of the
remains as female. Some of the body parts were still articulated at the time of burial,
including a torso, indicating interment before full decomposition had occurred.
Comparison can be made with a disconcerting discovery from the Yorkshire vil-
lage of Wharram Percy (Figs 5–6).
96
A pit from a domestic context produced an assem-
blage of 137 disarticulated human bones. The remains were considered by excavators in
the 1960s to be Romano-British in date, because it was inconceivable that corpses of
medieval Christians could have been treated in this way. However, new radiocarbon
dating confirms that they are in fact late-medieval in date. They showed marks of sharp
force trauma, including knife-marks and chop-marks, as well as signs of low-temperature
burning and perimortem breakage. They represent a minimum number of ten individu-
als, comprising both males and females, and ranging in age from two-four years up to
>50 years at death. Strontium-isotope analysis confirmed that the dead were of local ori-
gin, rather than outsiders. The radiocarbon dates confirmed that the bones represent
individuals who died over an extended period, possibly a century, and focusing on the
11th–13th centuries. This macabre assemblage cannot be explained as a single grue-
some episode or the aftermath of a catastrophe. The authors consider two potential
interpretations based on historical context: starvation cannibalism and efforts to quell
92
Black 2016; Bynum 1995.
93
Alterauge et al 2020; Betsinger and Scott 2014.
94
Lewis and Ewart 1995.
95
Vargha 2017.
96
Mays et al 2017a.
136 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

the revenant dead. Some of the long bones were split in a manner consistent with mar-
row extraction, and there were signs of human tooth marks, possibly indicative of canni-
balism. However, the knife-marks focus principally on the head and neck region; the
lack of cuts below the chest area argues against the cannibalism interpretation, based on
comparison with documented cases of (modern) starvation cannibalism. The absence of
FIG 5
Plan of the medieval village of Wharram Percy, showing location of pit complex yielding human remains,
associated with the western row of buildings and separated from the church by a steep escarpment.
Reproduced with permission from Mays et al 2017a.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 137

animal gnawing suggests that the bones were not left exposed but were instead curated
or buried elsewhere, before being redeposited in the pit. The authors conclude that the
evidence supports an interpretation of laying revenants to rest.
Recent archaeological research has made atypical, minority and deviant burial
practices more visible but there has been relatively little critical reflection on what they
may tell us about the social relations of medieval death. Did deviant mortuary practices
constitute illicit acts, carried out in secret, such as the burial of infants in homes, or the
FIG 6
Composite diagram showing distribution of cut marks in the human remains from Wharram Percy. The
cervical vertebrae shown inset come from a single individual, and the cut marks on the occipital bone
shown inset also occur in one (different) individual. Reproduced with permission from Mays et al 2017a.
138 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

disinterment and dismembering of human corpses? What were deviant burials intended
to do? First, it is essential to refine our definition of ‘deviancy’in a medieval Christian
context. As argued above, Christian burial practices encompassed a broad range of
atypical and minority burial modes that carried contextual social meanings; in some cir-
cumstances, even prone burials constituted spiritual strategies to signal pious humility.
97
The term deviancy should be reserved for late-medieval burials outside consecrated
ground, particularly those that have been deliberately dismembered. The fragmentation
and display of corpses was deployed as post-mortem punishment to exclude, segregate
or marginalise, for example in relation to judicial killing in the 10th–11th centuries.
98
What do these strange cases tell us about the agency and ontological status of the medi-
eval deviant dead: were they regarded as human or less than human, treated as
deceased people, objects or ritual materials? Future work should evaluate the incidence
and character of Christian burial in un-consecrated ground and under what circumstan-
ces it might have occurred.
NECRO-POLITICS: MEDIEVAL BURIALS AND PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY
The last decade has witnessed intense self-reflection on the relationship between
archaeologists and the dead—how human remains are excavated, scientifically analysed,
stored, displayed, interpreted and visually reconstructed.
99
The ethical challenges of bur-
ial archaeology stem from the complex relationships of graves to religion, ethnicity, colo-
nialism and minority rights, in addition to the moral rights of the dead themselves.
100
To many outside archaeology, graves possess a semi-sacred quality—the protection of
human remains is widely perceived as an ethical imperative, regardless of whether the
cemetery is consecrated. Conversely, graves and funerary monuments are desecrated in
acts of violence or terrorism connected with religious or ethnic hatred, such as the
ongoing attacks on Jewish cemeteries globally. The agency of the dead is mobilised by
the diverse concerns of the living. This final section examines two current areas of eth-
ical debate where medieval burial archaeology engages with public audiences: ‘celebrity
bodies’, ie the burials of named historical individuals; and graves connected with liv-
ing religions.
The public appetite for ‘celebrity bodies’was demonstrated emphatically by the
discovery of the remains of Richard III in 2012, the final Plantagenet king of England,
who died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, aged 32. Despite his notorious reputa-
tion, the discovery of Richard III prompted an outpouring of local and national pride
and attracted an unprecedented audience for medieval archaeology.
101
His remains
were reburied in Leicester Cathedral in 2015, accompanied by international press cover-
age and pomp befitting a royal funeral, complete with a celebrity descendant officiating
(Benedict Cumberbatch). The ‘Richard III effect’stimulated economic growth and repu-
tational gain for the city, its cathedral and university—and was even credited with
improving the performance of the local football team.
102
Public enchantment with
97
Alterauge et al 2020.
98
Semple and Brookes 2020; Reynolds 2009.
99
Giles and Williams 2016.
100
Tarlow 2006; Sayer 2010; Stutz 2016.
101
Buckley et al 2013; Pitts 2014.
102
Shellard 2016.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 139

Richard III can be contrasted with the reception of an earlier discovery: the remains of
Anne Mowbray, Duchess of York (d 1481), discovered in 1964 in a vault beneath the
Franciscan nunnery of the Minories in Aldgate, London.
103
Anne died aged nine, and
her body was well-preserved in its lead coffin, with remarkable survival of textiles, soft
tissues and tresses of her auburn hair (Fig 7). Her direct living descendants objected to
the scientific study of her remains and demanded immediate reburial; questions were
raised in Parliament and the legality and historical value of the exercise were chal-
lenged.
104
The forensic investigation ceased, and Anne Mowbray’s remains were
reburied reverently in Westminster Abbey, accompanied by international press cover-
age. The sensitivity of this case may relate to Anne’s young age and her well-preserved
remains—the recognisable corpse of a child, rather than a desiccated skeleton. This fac-
tor also influenced public response to the ‘St Bees Man’, one of the best-preserved arch-
aeological bodies ever discovered, excavated in 1981 at St Bees Priory church
(Cumbria). The late 14th-century corpse was quickly reburied in its original lead wrap-
ping, due to local sentiment that he should be returned to rest in peace.
105
In contrast, there was no public outcry raised in relation to the scientific analysis
of Richard III. Since the discoveries of Anne Mowbray and the ‘St Bees Man’, public
attitudes towards dead bodies have been reshaped by popular media, including factual
FIG 7
Opening the lead coffin of 9-year-old Anne Mowbray (d 1481) in 1964, in the presence of archaeologists,
conservators and pathologists from the London Museum, Guy’s Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital.
#
Museum of London; reproduced with permission.
103
Watson and White 2016.
104
Sayer 2010,49–54.
105
Kn€usel et al 2010, 272.
140 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

television programmes on archaeology and procedural crime dramas focusing on foren-
sic investigations. In fact, the ethical concerns raised around Richard III were voiced
primarily by archaeologists, who were uncomfortable with their discipline being used to
manufacture celebrity bodies. Archaeologists object to the idea of ‘monarch-mining’, the
search for royal bodies that sensationalises the medieval dead and fails to consider the
moral rights of deceased individuals to remain undisturbed. We challenge cases like
Richard III as fetishizing the individual dead and divorcing them from the wider inter-
pretative context of medieval society. As professionals, we must consider what we actu-
ally learn from the study of celebrity bodies.
106
These concerns emphasise how the
social ‘value’of medieval burials is different for respective stakeholders—what do celeb-
rity burials do? For the Richard III Society, who initiated the search, there was social
value in honouring Richard III and challenging the negative stereotyping attached to
his memory. The archaeologists involved saw academic value in better understanding
medieval Leicester and the friary church associated with his burial.
107
The wider public
felt a visceral emotional connection to a long-dead king, while the local community rel-
ished their brush with medieval celebrity and appreciated its economic value. Some sub-
sequent research on Richard III has moved beyond the aim of ‘proving’his identity to
contextualising his remains. Jo Appleby has interrogated his life course, exploring how
he consumed high-status foods to negotiate his royal personhood.
108
In retrospect, some
significant research questions have been directed towards Richard III, but they were not
articulated prior to his disinterment. Unless the preservation of celebrity bodies is threat-
ened, archaeologists will continue to debate the ethical propriety and research value of
their excavation.
Archaeologists have also raised ethical concerns about craniofacial reconstructions
based on excavated skulls, arguing that such depictions may constitute voyeuristic intru-
sions on past lives.
109
Advocates of osteobiography acknowledge that there are ethical
risks in the selection of individuals who effectively deputise for an entire place or time-
period. On what basis should subjects be chosen—to be typical, alternative, familiar or
challenging?
110
The osteobiography of a medieval Dutch boy has been criticised for fail-
ing to consider how archaeological narratives intersect with political issues such as
national identity. The ten-year old boy’s grave was excavated at the church of St
Catherina, Eindhoven, and dated to the 13th century. A silver Venetian groat was
found on his chest, possibly a pilgrim sign for Saint Mark’s, Venice. The boy’s DNA
suggests possible links to Mediterranean and north-western European population groups
and his palaeopathology confirms that he suffered chronic ill health during his short life.
But the visual reconstruction of ‘Marcus’shows a white, golden-haired boy glowing with
health: ‘a personification of Dutch-ness’.
111
Archaeological ethics include the need for
critical awareness of the political value of medieval burials, for instance in relation to
discourses around ethnicity and migration. Non-specialists may not fully understand
that craniofacial reconstructions do not constitute historical realities; they are interpret-
ative narratives that inevitably reflect the assumptions of those who created them. Nor
106
Klevn€as 2016a; Giles and Williams 2016; Hosek and Robb 2019.
107
Pitts 2014, 184–93.
108
Appleby 2019.
109
Renshaw and Powers 2016.
110
Hosek and Robb 2019.
111
Arts 2003; M'charek 2011.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 141

can we hope to resurrect the essence of an individual personality, in the case of medieval
celebrity bodies. For example, one might doubt the claim that the reconstruction of the
face of Robert the Bruce (d 1329), based on a skull from Dunfermline Abbey (Fife), is
key to understanding the ‘status, power and resilience as a leader’of ‘the warrior-king
and man beneath the armour’.
112
The study of medieval burials frequently brings archaeologists into dialogue with
living religions. In England, the excavation of medieval graves located on ecclesiastical
land (ie churches still used for worship), comes under the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical
rather than secular law. The Church of England can withhold permission or place
restrictions on archaeological access; for instance, permission was given to excavate buri-
als at a medieval leprosarium (leper hospital) in Oxford but stipulated that recording and
sampling of articulated skeletons must be carried out in situ. Removal of disarticulated
skeletal remains was allowed for scientific study and they were subsequently re-interred,
accompanied by a Christian service.
113
Heritage organisations collaborated with the
Church of England in 2017 to make recommendations for best practice in dealing with
human remains excavated from Christian burial grounds, stating that a balance should
be achieved between ‘ethical considerations derived from Christian theology against the
recognised legitimacy of scientific study of human burials, whilst being aware of public
opinion regarding disturbance of, and scientific work on, human remains’.
114
The excavation and scientific study of medieval Jewish burials have brought
archaeologists into conflict with Orthodox Jewish beliefs. In the 1980s and ‘90 s, excava-
tions took place at medieval Jewish cemeteries without understanding the ethical impli-
cations of the Halacha, the Jewish law that prohibits disturbance or physical
examination of the dead. In Spain, excavations were halted by protestors and skeletal
remains were re-interred without study.
115
Similar tensions occurred at Jewbury in York
in the early 1980s, when the Home Office eventually agreed to the Chief Rabbi’s
demands for the reburial of excavated skeletons before they were fully studied.
116
An
ethical approach to medieval burial archaeology requires the beliefs of descendent com-
munities to be prioritised over the research objectives of secular heritage. Here, lessons
may be learned from ethical methodologies developed for the study of Holocaust sites,
where appreciation of Jewish Halacha Law and the profound, ongoing sensitivities sur-
rounding such sites, has led to an emphasis on non-intrusive archaeological
methodologies.
117
It is vital for research designs to incorporate an ‘ethical epistemology’,
118
to reflect
carefully on ethical questions concerning the dead before study begins, including appro-
priate engagement with descendent and local communities, beyond the emphasis on
‘living family members’that is stipulated in current guidelines.
119
Medieval burials and
funerary landscapes continue to inform perceptions of place and local identity today,
embodying a sense of collective memory and immortality, regardless of family
112
Wilkinson et al 2019.
113
Griffiths and Harrison 2020, 45-6, 127.
114
Advisory Panel on the Archaeology of Human Burials in England 2017,3.
115
Colomer 2014.
116
Lilley et al 1994.
117
Sturdy Colls 2015.
118
Blakey 2008; Sturdy Colls 2015.
119
Advisory Panel on the Archaeology of Human Burials in England 2017,1.
142 ROBERTA GILCHRIST

connections or religious beliefs.
120
There is potential for ethical complexity or conflict in
dealing with medieval burials associated with any living religion or descendent commu-
nity. This includes world religions, neo-paganism and local ‘heritage communities’, who
feel a particular emotional connection to burials in their locality (eg ‘St Bees Man’).
CONCLUSIONS: THE MIRROR OF THE MEDIEVAL PAST
Medieval burial archaeology has experienced a paradigm shift: whereas medieval
graves were previously characterised as static reflections of the social order, they are now
perceived as an active, complex and participative part of communities. Mortuary analysis
has moved to the small-scale, with social and scientific approaches working holistically to
reveal variation and specificity at the level of the individual person and the local community.
While acknowledging the importance of the local and the micro-scale, it is essential that
medieval burial archaeology also keeps sight of the ‘bigger picture’,makingcomparisons
across space, time, and disciplinary boundaries. Large-scale comparative studies are urgently
needed to map diachronic and regional patterns across medieval Europe and to identify the
range and frequency of normative and non-normative rites.
121
Interdisciplinary and com-
parative perspectives offer untapped potential to yield new insights into medieval death,
such as the connectivity of the global Middle Ages and contestation in world religions. Local
variations can be situated within this broader canvas of mortuary practices, to better under-
stand how ‘deathscapes’constructed a sense of place and negotiated relationships between
communities of the living and the dead.
122
Recent approaches have revealed the agency of the family in subtly differentiating
individuals and age groups (particularly infants and children) through the location and con-
struction of the grave, positioning of the body and the placement of apotropaic objects. The
agency of the dead, especially the deviant dead, is now a question of acute importance to
archaeologists, together with the potential of their graves to be socially active, to do some-
thing. The medieval corpse was perceived to hold either positive or negative agency, deter-
mining whether those preparing the burial aimed to assist or hinder the dead in their
transition to the afterlife. So, ‘what did medieval burials do’? The examples examined here
can be understood as ‘spiritual strategies’, whether to convey the piety or memory of the
Christian dead, to enable their healing or transformation in purgatory, or to ensure their sal-
vation and resurrection. Conversely, practices such as dismemberment or burial in un-con-
secrated ground were strategies intended to obliterate and exclude the dangerous or
marginalised dead from the Christian community for eternity. Infant graves served as emo-
tional expressions and coping strategies for grief, but their common occurrence in domestic
contexts and multiple burials may suggest that they held protective as well as affective power.
Burial practices were informed by multiple discourses on the medieval body and engaged
with Christian theology, lived religion, regional folklore and scholastic medicine.
123
Archaeologists currently place highest research ‘value’on the deaths of the mar-
ginal and the subaltern in medieval life, prioritising the study of infants, children, the
diseased and impaired, and all aspects of the non-normative. Would medieval people
120
Badone 2015.
121
eg Alterauge et al 2020.
122
Maddrell and Sidaway 2010.
123
Bynum 1995; Black 2016; Robb and Harris 2013; Gilchrist 2012;2020.
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 143

have identified these same deaths—and death rituals—as the most significant to them?
To what extent are these trends in archaeological interpretation a projection onto the
past of our own contemporary cultural concerns? An ethical epistemology requires us to
understand how we construct archaeological knowledge about the medieval dead and
how it changes according to the questions that we ask. Feminist and gender scholarship
drew attention to women and children, prioritising themes such as diversity, equality,
care-giving, healing and parenting.
124
Post-processual archaeologies highlighted the
body and materiality, prompting innovative approaches to post-burial practices and the
ontological status of the corpse.
125
The persistent allure of revenants is part of the wider
fascination with zombies and the walking dead in contemporary popular culture, a
theme which is said to emerge in times of social upheaval and collective anxiety in rela-
tion to disease, war and fear of ‘the other’.
126
The growing emphasis on biographical narratives in burial archaeology also reflects
contemporary social concerns. Melanie Giles and Howard Williams observe that biogra-
phies are a vehicle for archaeologists to negotiate their own identities in relation to the dead.
The medieval dead become a mirror for our own time and our own life histories, a means to
explore gender and personhood, ageing and disease, grief and generational relationships.
They also remind us that mortuary archaeology is a form of public archaeology: archaeologists
are mediators who construct narratives about the medieval dead for consumption by the liv-
ing.
127
The model of ‘burial archaeology as public archaeology’promotes reflexive collabor-
ation with stakeholder communities who may be motivated by different questions and
beliefs about the medieval dead than those held by archaeologists. To fully engage with pub-
lic audiences and to represent the entirety of medieval society, medieval burial archaeology
will need to reconsider the place of the orthodox and privileged dead in our scholarship.
The social archaeology of medieval burial is shaped by what we value and the questions that
we ask: the voices from the cemetery are as much our own, as those of the medieval dead.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Sarah Semple for inviting me to reflect on recent developments for a
keynote to the Society for Medieval Archaeology conference in 2018; Karen Dempsey and Mary
Lewis for their helpful comments on the draft text; three anonymous reviewers for their insightful
feedback; and Barbara Hausmair, Eileen Murphy and Bruce Watson for help in obtaining images.
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Resume
Des voix émanant du cimetière :
l’archéologie sociale des sépultures de
la fin du Moyen-Âge par Roberta Gilchrist
Cet article pose un regard critique sur l’étude
archéologique des sépultures allant du Haut
Moyen-Âge jusqu’àlafindelapériode
médiévale (env. 1000–1550), en examinant de
quelle manière les questions posées par la
recherche ont évolué au cours des dernières
décennies et pour quelles raisons. Des exemples
sont tirés des pratiques mortuaires chrétiennes
principalement en Grande-Bretagne et en
Europe du Nord et centrale, pour montrer que
l’on s’intéresse davantage à l’étude sociale de
l’affectif, de l’action et du lieu. La question de la
« valeur » sociale est abordée, pour explorer la
réponse des programmes de recherche disciplin-
aire face à la modification des courants universi-
taires et plus largement aux préoccupations du
public en ce qui concerne les sépultures
médiévales. Les quatre thèmes examinés
caractérisent les principaux développements : 1)
un glissement vers une micro-échelle ; 2) l’explo-
ration de l’affectif, en se focalisant
particulièrement sur les sépultures d’enfants et
de nouveau-nés ; 3) une préoccupation à l’égard
de la « déviance » (pratiques échappant aux
normes) ; et 4) les considérations éthiques ayant
VOICES FROM THE CEMETERY 149

trait à la consommation publique de
l’archéologie des sépultures médiévales. Des
recommandations sont faites concernant de
futurs travaux, notamment la nécessité d’analy-
ses comparatives à grande.
Zusammenfassung
Stimmen des Friedhofs: Die soziale
Archäologie der spätmittelalterlichen
Bestattung von Roberta Gilchrist
Dieser Artikel gibt einen kritischen Überblick
über die archäologische Untersuchung hoch- bis
spätmittelalterlicher Bestattungen (ca. 1000-
1550 n. Chr.) und beschäftigt sich damit, wie
und warum sich die Forschungsfragen in den
letzten Jahrzehnten verändert haben. Anhand
von Beispielen christlicher Bestattungspraktiken,
vor allem aus Großbritannien, Nord- und
Mitteleuropa, wird die zunehmende Bedeutung
der sozialen Erforschung von Emotionen,
Handlungsfähigkeit und Orten aufgezeigt. Die
Frage nach dem sozialen „Wert“wird behan-
delt, wobei untersucht wird, wie disziplinäre
Forschungsagenden auf sich verändernde
akademische Strömungen und Bedenken der
breiten Öffentlichkeit hinsichtlich mittelalter-
licher Bestattungen reagieren. Es werden
vier Themen untersucht, die wesentliche
Entwicklungen darstellen: 1) eine Verlagerung
auf die Mikroebene; 2) die Erforschung von
Emotionen, mit besonderem Augenmerk auf
Kinder- und Säuglingsbestattungen; 3) die
Beschäftigung mit „Devianz“(von der Norm
abweichenden Praktiken); und 4) ethische
Überlegungen bei der öffentlichen Nutzung der
mittelalterlichen Bestattungsarchäologie. Zu den
Empfehlungen für künftige Arbeiten gehören
Vergleichsanalysen in größerem Maßstab, um
diachrone und regionale Muster im gesamten
mittelalterlichen Europa abzubilden und dem
Trend zum Lokalen und Individuellen der
letzten Jahrzehnte entgegenzuwirken.
Riassunto
Voci dal cimitero: l’archeologia sociale
delle sepolture tardomedievali di
Roberta Gilchrist
Questo articolo fa una revisione critica degli
studi archeologici sulle sepolture, da quelle
altomedievali fino a quelle tardomedievali (dal
1000 al 1550 d.C.), esaminando come e
perché le questioni della ricerca siano cambi-
ate nei decenni recenti. Gli esempi sono tratti
dalle pratiche mortuarie cristiane soprattutto
in Gran Bretagna e nell’Europa settentrionale
e centrale per dimostrare la crescente impor-
tanza attribuita allo studio sociale di emo-
zione, potere e luogo. Si affronta la questione
del “valore”sociale, indagando su come i
programmi della ricerca disciplinare rispon-
dano alle correnti accademiche trasformatrici
e alle preoccupazioni dell’opinione pubblica
relative alle sepolture medievali. Si esaminano
quattro temi che caratterizzano gli sviluppi
chiave: 1) spostamento verso la microscala 2)
indagine sulle emozioni, con attenzione spe-
ciale alle sepolture dei neonati e dei bambini
3) preoccupazione riguardo alla “devianza”
(pratiche che violano le norme) e 4) consider-
azioni etiche sull’utilizzo pubblico dell’archeo-
logia medievale delle sepolture. Tra le
raccomandazioni riguardo al lavoro futuro
figura la necessità di analisi comparative su
più larga scala per rilevare le configurazioni
diacroniche e regionali di tutta l’Europa
medievale e controbilanciare le recenti ten-
denze verso la località e l’individuo.
150 ROBERTA GILCHRIST