Charcoal burials: Frequently Asked Questions
What is a charcoal burial?
Charcoal burials are graves where a layer
of charcoal is present in the grave fill. Often this layer is found
under the body; in other cases it can be above the body, or both under
and over. In at least one case, a fragmentary burial was "completely
encased" in a layer of charcoal. Charcoal burials may or may not
include coffins. Broadly speaking, charcoal burials are one of a
variety of "foreign substance" burials found in early medieval Europe.
Other substances sometimes used to line graves or found in association
with bodies include leaves, wheat, lime, and ash. It might also be profitable to consider
charcoal burial as one of a number of ways of defining the space of the grave --
graves in this period are sometimes lined with crushed chalk or mortar, or have
a row of stones or stone slabs along their edges.
Where are charcoal burials found?
So far, charcoal burials are known from Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
Iceland, Greenland, Ireland and France. There are probably many more burials in
other countries -- if you know of examples, you could email me. My research focuses mainly
on charcoal burials found in Britain. At present, most
known sites come from large urban churches like the minsters and cathedrals of
Hereford, York, Gloucester, Winchester, Exeter and Durham. There seem to a large number of sites in
the south of the country, a small amount in the north and northeast,
and hardly any in the northwest. I have yet to find any sites from
Wales, although this does not mean they don't exist. In
addition, the heavy concentration in the south is not unknown in
archaeology; it may result from the greater number of excavations
carried out, or from different preservation conditions. One aim of my
research is to identify whether or not these regional patterns match the
overall distribution of excavated Anglo-Saxon church cemeteries.
It can be difficult to assess some of the foreign examples, because of differences
in reporting. Charcoal burials in France, for instance, occur within a wide variety of
uses of ash, charcoal and burning debris in graves. In many cases, it's difficult to tell
whether a particular burial is what we would call a "charcoal burial," or whether there
is merely some present in the grave fill.
Why were people buried with charcoal?
Some archaeologists
believe that charcoal burials have an important symbolic character, representing penance or the state of the soul.
Others tend to support more functional explanations
for charcoal burial, suggesting that the charcoal was used to absorb
bodily fluids from decomposing bodies. Charcoal may also represent a
symbolic purification of the grave cut in some way, or be used to define
the space of the dead body in the same way as a coffin or other grave structure.
The most detailed discussion of the possible
symbolism of charcoal burials is Victoria Thompson's article "Constructing
Salvation" in Lucy and Reynolds (eds), Burial in Medieval England and Wales (2002).
Thompson's book, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England, also addresses charcoal
burials as well as the symbolism of death in the Anglo-Saxon period generally.
Why do some people receive charcoal
burials but not others?
Regardless of the overt symbolic content of charcoal burial, the
distribution patterns of charcoal burial, both between churches and within cemeteries,
suggest that the rite was being used to negotiate identity in some way; it was not applied
to all burials, and is sometimes observed clustered in particular areas.
My preliminary study for this research, conducted as an MA
thesis at the University of Durham in 2003, indicated that within my
sample area, charcoal burials were significantly more likely to occur
in the case of adult males. At some sites, it appears that charcoal
burials may reflect high status. One of the burials at Durham has been identified as Ranulf
Flambard, bishop of Durham, and other sites have high concentrations of
charcoal burial near the church, a prestigious burial location.
Other sites with charcoal burials are high-status, but there are also examples
from smaller, less prestigious churches. Charcoal burials may have indicated
membership in a family, community or religious group. It is also possible
that the significance of charcoal burials changes over time as the
symbolism of the dead body changes. Answering this question is really the main goal
of my research.
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