Open AccessBook
Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain
TLDR
In this article, Howard Williams presents a fresh interpretation of the significance of portable artefacts, the body, structures, monuments and landscapes in early medieval mortuary practices, and argues that materials and spaces were used in ritual performances that served as 'technologies of remembrance', practices that created shared'social' memories intended to link past, present and future.Abstract:
How were the dead remembered in early medieval Britain? Originally published in 2006, this innovative study demonstrates how perceptions of the past and the dead, and hence social identities, were constructed through mortuary practices and commemoration between c. 400–1100 AD. Drawing on archaeological evidence from across Britain, including archaeological discoveries, Howard Williams presents a fresh interpretation of the significance of portable artefacts, the body, structures, monuments and landscapes in early medieval mortuary practices. He argues that materials and spaces were used in ritual performances that served as 'technologies of remembrance', practices that created shared 'social' memories intended to link past, present and future. Through the deployment of material culture, early medieval societies were therefore selectively remembering and forgetting their ancestors and their history. Throwing light on an important aspect of medieval society, this book is essential reading for archaeologists and historians with an interest in the early medieval period.read more
Citations
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Placing the Dead: Tombs, Ancestral Villages and Kinship Organization in Madagascar
C. C. Harris,Maurice Bloch +1 more
Journal Article
Ancient landscapes and the dead: the reuse of prehistoric and Roman monuments as early anglo-saxon burial sites: the reuse of prehistoric and Roman monuments as early anglo-saxon burial sites
TL;DR: The reuse of prehistoric and Roman structures by early medieval cemeteries has received much less attention and discussion as mentioned in this paper, and it is suggested that the landscape context of early Anglo-Saxon burial rites provides considerable evidence for the social and ideological significance of the dead in early Anglo Saxon society.
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Passing into Poetry: Viking-Age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology
TL;DR: In this article, a model to explain the variation of individual expression in mortuary behaviour is proposed, focusing on the evident deliberation shown in the precise selection and placement of objects, and in the treatment of animals (and sometimes humans) killed as part of the funeral process.
Book
Ritual, Belief and the Dead in Early Modern Britain and Ireland
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce religious belief, scientific belief, social belief, and folk belief and conclude that these beliefs are related to the same beliefs as ours: "Religious belief" and "scientific belief".
Journal ArticleDOI
Grave goods in early medieval burials: messages and meanings
TL;DR: For instance, the authors show the importance of the disposal of polluted items in the grave, and of protecting the living in Roman and early medieval periods, as well as the role of biographical representations (metaphors) during the funeral.
References
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Book
How Societies Remember
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an account of how bodily practices are transmitted in, and as, traditions, and argue that images of the past and recollected knowledge are conveyed and sustained by ritual performances and that performative memory is bodily.
Book
On Collective Memory
Maurice Halbwachs,Lewis A. Coser +1 more
TL;DR: The first comprehensive English-language translation of Halbwachs' writings on the social construction of memory was published by Coser as mentioned in this paper, which fills a major gap in the literature on the sociology of knowledge.
Posted Content
The Social Life of Things
TL;DR: The authors examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past, focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations.
Journal ArticleDOI
The temporality of the landscape
TL;DR: In this article, the temporality of the landscape may be understood by way of a "dwelling perspective" that sets out from the premise of people's active, perceptual engagement in the world.