Grave-mounds and Their Contents / A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt

Fig. 324.

CHAPTER XI.

Anglo-Saxon Period—Distribution of Anglo-Saxon Population over England—General characteristics of Grave-mounds—Modes of Burial—Poem of Beowulf—Interments by Cremation and by Inhumation—Articles deposited with the Dead—Positions of the Body—Double and other Interments—Burial in Urns—Cemeteries and Barrows.

The grave-mounds and cemeteries of the Anglo-Saxon period present marked and decided features of difference to those of either of the preceding periods; and again, the characters of these mounds and cemeteries vary in different parts of the kingdom, according as such districts were inhabited by different tribes or peoples.

The date usually assigned to the first coming of the Saxons into England, after the final departure of the Romans, is the middle of the fifth century. They landed on the Isle of Thanet, and shortly afterwards established themselves in Kent, and became a kingdom. “Within thirty years another body of Saxons settled upon the south coast of Britain, taking possession of the tract now called Sussex, or the South Saxons. At the beginning of the sixth century a third detachment from the same Germanic family landed further westward, and founded the kingdom of the West Saxons, in which was included the Isle of Wight. From the same source which supplies the brief notices of these events, we learn that towards the middle of the sixth century were formed the states of the East and Middle Saxons, in the districts which, in consequence, took the names of Essex and Middlesex. We also gather that the Angles who settled in the east and north-east of Britain, and in the interior parts, probably made their first descents towards the middle of the sixth century; so that the kingdoms known as those of the East Angles (Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire), the Middle Angles, the Northumbrians (from the Humber northwards), and Mercia (on the borders of Wales), appear not to have been definitely settled until at least a century after the landing of the Saxons in Kent, in A.D. 449. Vague and unsatisfactory as are most of the details of Saxon history, the gradual subjugation of Britain by successive immigrations of Teutonic tribes may at least be accepted as the most reconcilable with reason; and there seems nothing very repugnant to the more rigid rules of criticism to regard these tribes under their historic designation of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles; and, further, to believe that at least a century was required to transform Britain, after the Romans, into a heptarchy of Teutonic kingdoms.

“Testing our Saxon antiquities with reference to the usually received chronology of the advent and settlement in Britain of the Teutonic tribes, it would be no unimportant result should they be in accordance with accepted historical facts. They will be invested with novel and higher interest if they should be found to carry in their form and character certain peculiarities which suggest earlier and later dates, and a diversity of parentage. For instance, if in the remains of the Kentish Saxons and in those of the Isle of Wight we may recognise, from close resemblance to each other, the weapons, the ornaments, and the domestic implements of the Jutes; if, in the cemeteries of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, we may, in like manner, identify the funeral usages of the Angles; and in remains found in the midland and western districts see still different peculiarities, but which point to a kindred origin; it is not improbable that discoveries may enable us to resuscitate, as it were, our remote predecessors; to restore to those of the various Saxon kingdoms the very objects which accompanied them when living: to the men, their weapons; to the women, their peculiar jewellery, and those more humble and homely objects which we may look upon as emblems of their domestic virtues. It is not a slight analogy in some instances only that will establish this theory; it must spring from the remains themselves, and be palpable and convincing, or it must be rejected.”[48]

Bearing this in mind, and also bearing in mind the modifications which only a few years make in fashions and customs; and also bearing in mind that although for convenience sake, as well as for want of more definite knowledge, we call the whole population by the one term of Anglo-Saxons, yet they were divided into as distinct classes, or families, or tribes, as at the present day; we shall quite readily understand why the modes of burial, and the objects found in the graves, of one district are different from those, although coeval, found in others. At the present day we use the general term Englishmen for the whole of our population, and no better or clearer term could be adopted; but we must bear in mind that the differences both of appearance, of habits, of customs, of dialect, nay, of almost everything, are as marked among us as if the inhabitants of the various counties were each settlers from different nations. The men of Derbyshire, for instance, are as far removed as well can be in general character and in language from those of Somersetshire; and these, again, are both totally dissimilar from the “Men of Kent,” from the Lancashire operative, from the Yorkshiremen, or the men of Devonshire, Hampshire, and many other counties. Each of these districts has, and always has had, and long, long may it continue to have! its own peculiar customs, its own peculiar habits, its own peculiar observances; and each has what might almost be termed a nationality of its own, which it holds despite the levelling influence of railways and other modern contrivances. If it is so at the present day, with a settled population of so many centuries’ standing, how much more must it have been so when each district was peopled by a different tribe of settlers, speaking to some extent different languages, holding different views, following different occupations, and observing different customs!

The grave-mounds and cemeteries of these different districts exhibit a marked difference in modes of burial, in style and decoration of pottery, and in characteristics of other remains, which will be made apparent in the following resumé of their varied contents. Thus, as Mr. Smith says, “in Kent one of the most conspicuous features in the Saxon sepulchral remains is the richly ornamented circular fibulæ. These are sparingly found beyond the district occupied by the earliest Saxon settlers. When they do occur, here and there, they are exceptions; but throughout the county of Kent it would be a rare occurrence to discover a Saxon funeral deposit without an example of this elegant and peculiar ornament. In Suffolk, in Norfolk, in Cambridgeshire, in Northamptonshire, in Leicestershire, and further north, these circular fibulæ do but casually appear, but others of a totally distinct character abound. In Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire are found saucer-shaped fibulae unlike either of these two classes, and forming a third variety. In Suffolk, in Cambridgeshire, in Leicestershire, and in other parts, have been repeatedly found metal implements or ornaments, which I have designated by the modern name of chatellaine, to give some notion of their form and use. These remarkable objects in no instance have been found in Kent, but other objects have been found in Kentish barrows which have nowhere else been discovered.”

The sepulchral remains of the Anglo-Saxons are of two general classes—barrows and cemeteries—and in these the modes of burial have been both by inhumation and by cremation.