Death and burial pre-Reformation

 Summary. Dying, death and burial involved a series of rituals intended to give salvation and ultimately eternal life. Receiving the last sacraments was essential, though proved difficult with death from plague. It was necessary for the dead to be given all rites to avoid hell and damnation. Place of burial depended on status.  Cranmer’s Prayer Book, 1552, signalled the end of the church assuming prayer would affect life after death.

    In 1276, the average length of life from birth was around 31–5 years (those born with wealth could expect at least another 10 years). Infant mortality was high with one third not reaching their 5th birthday. As much as 20% of women died from childbirth and complications that followed. Death was common and a constant threat. Between 1348 and 1351 and periodically afterwards, plague accentuated this deep concern. Images in church of hell and judgement, such as on rood screens, must have been a consistent reminder of needing to approach death with a pure heart.

 

Cadaver tomb said to be Dean Thomas Haywode (Haywood) who died in 1492. The dried skeleton sculpture would be a reminder of death. If it had an upper part this would show the individual in life.

 

For a church dying, death and burial involved a series of rituals intended to give salvation and ultimately eternal life.[1] Priests were obliged to visit the sick and give a blessing. This could be a challenge to large, rural parishes. The priest would vest himself, ring a passing-bell and be accompanied by a clerk when travelling by horse or foot to the dying. Seriously ill parishioners would receive an anointing and a mass. A crucifix would be placed in the house for the gravely ill to see. After aspersing water and saying prayers, the priest asked, presumably in the vernacular, for the individual to profess their faith by responding ‘I believe.’ Then followed questions to assess the depth of sins committed. If the individual died without completing their penance, then the family and friends had to undertake the penance, which often meant giving alms. The priest offered the crucifix to be kissed and then prayers to remit the sins confessed.[2] The dying were anointed with holy oil on each eye, ears, lips, nostrils, hands, feet and back (or navel for a woman).

  

Anointing. 1445–50. Painting by Roger van der Weyden. Wikipedia Commons

 

After washing his hands with saltwater, the priest gave a blessing and prayers for healing. Finally, he questioned whether the individual believed in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine and, if so, gave a shortened mass with a wafer given to the mouth.[3]

Last rite, Dutch school of painting, c. 1600. Wikipedia Commons.

 

            If the priest could not reach the dying, then psalms were read and prayers given, especially invoking the Trinity and saints (Chad and Mary for Lichfield), in the cathedral. A passing bell might have been rung.[4]

            After death, prayers and psalms were said around the body. The body was washed and given a white shroud (white only if in faith). The coffin was surrounded by a black cloth to show death. Sometimes, the body was then placed in the church with mourners ‘watching’ overnight. There was an ancient custom for close ones to drink, sing and dance, but this was discouraged by the church. If available, a priest might sing the psalms. If the deceased had been kept at home, it was taken for burial in a borrowed community-coffin accompanied by loved ones carrying candles. This could be a long journey and out of the parish. The cortege would normally have to arrive early morning, but occasionally a service would be held after the mid-morning mass.

            At the cathedral the coffin was taken to the chancel, whilst mourners stayed in the nave. A service of matins for the dead was given. High status deceased might have a sermon with the clergy robed in black or blue vestments.[5] Clergy and wealthy could be buried within the cathedral. Burial around Chad’s gravesite was generally favoured by deans whereas bishops were usually interred close to the high altar. Sometimes canons were buried in the aisles. They were usually buried in a stone coffin or in a stone-lined grave topped with a ledger stone becoming part of the floor. The stone recorded the death date as the most important time for the life remembered. Ordinary folk were buried in the cemetery in shallow (0.4–0.7 m deep) earth graves[6] wrapped in a shroud. The grave might be aspersed with water, censed and blessed. The priest scattered earth to the grave in a configuration of a cross before it was closed.[7] Sprigs of rosemary were often carried by people in the funeral procession and cast onto the grave, much as wreaths are today.

            Christians were buried with their head to the west and feet to the east. At Lichfield the east-west alignment of the cathedral is poor and graves in the Close have shown variable alignments which might be due to lack of space at the time of burial. Often a cross was added to the grave. A priest’s coffin found in the nave excavations, 2003, was covered with a white cloth on which was painted a Greek cross (+) and alongside were two broken sticks arranged in the same way. In some graves a broken measuring rod has been found.[8] Sometimes a wax cross was placed on their chest. The priest’s coffin had a pewter chalice on the lid with a veil covering it and a wafer stuck to the veil; a reminder to have mass when reaching paradise. Bishops were buried with religious and secular artefacts and sometimes bullae from the pope.[9] Parliamentarian soldiers, 1643, removed from the tomb of Bishop Scrope a silver chalice and a crozier of considerable value. The idea that Christians, unlike pagans, were buried simply without grave goods is not true.

Drawing of a chalice found in a grave in the middle aisle in 1785.

14th-century oak coffin covered with a cloth showing a red cross. On top is a pewter chalice and paten covered with a linen corporal concealing a wafer. Note also two broken sticks.

The burial service used for children is unclear, but some were buried close to adults. Money was left by the wealthy for candles and prayers to be said in the following days, or every month (month’s mind) for a year, or on anniversaries (year’s mind). Often alms were given for the poor and sometimes money bequeathed to pay for their burial or for them to say prayers for the deceased. The wealthy would request mourning for 30 days. 

              There has been a modern interpretation of medieval burial as being superstition and ritual intended to keep the dead from reappearing in some form to harass the living. This is an exaggeration from a few cases recorded in isolated churches. From very early times there is much evidence to show the dead were invariably respected and given a sympathetic burial. There is also the charge that the church used burial to make money. Payment was necessary,[10] but there were reduced charges for the poor and disadvantaged.

            Orme concluded ‘a medieval church was almost as much a place of the dead as it was of the living.’[11] The 1552 Cranmer’s Prayer Book signalled the end of the church assuming prayer would affect life after death.[12] The church from now on prayed for Christ’s work in life and for his grace in death.   

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[1] Information is mostly from N. Orme, Going to church in Medieval England, (New Haven and London: 2022), 337–47. See also M. Gray, ‘Deathbed and Burial Rituals in Late Medieval Catholic Europe.’ In  A companion to death, burial and remembrance in late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, c. 1300-1700, Chapter 3. (Leiden, Netherlands: 2020), 106–131.

[2] For many, the soul lay in purgatory waiting for all sins to be pardoned by God. Purgatory became accepted in the Catholic church at the Council of Lyon, 1274. The concept predates Christianity because it was a belief of Orthodox Jews. It is not mentioned in the Bible.

[3] Mass was not offered to children, the insane and anyone likely to vomit the elements. It could be offered again to adults if ever they recovered.

[4] Two rings for a woman and three for a man.

[5] Lichfield Cathedral was stated to have a large wardrobe of vestments in the time of Walter Langton.

[6] Archaeology found Chad’s grave to be recessed 0.8 m into the sandstone bedrock of the cathedral.

[7] Cremation in this time was strongly forbidden. Criminals, suicides, and the unbaptised could not be buried in consecrated ground. This was relaxed in 1547; clergy had to bury whoever was brought to the church.

[8] A reminder we have no defence after death. Monarchs have been buried with a broken staff of office.

[9] At Lichfield these valuables were removed by Parliamentarian soldiers in the Civil War, 1643.

[10] A London church charged 8 pence for an adult burial and 4 pence for a child. The sexton digging the grave and ringing the bell might charge 6 pence. A member of a Guild could expect to receive help with their payment. There are many records of poor people paying 1 penny, and the paupers being buried on the north side of a churchyard without ceremony. Those buried in the cathedral would have had to pay much.

[11] Note 1. Orme, (2022), 348.

[12] Diarmaid Maculloch expressed it as ‘the church surrendered its power over death.'

It has to be the 'Lichfield Hoard'.

 Summary. The Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon) hoard found 2009 in Hammerwich 4.4 miles from Lichfield was most likely an archive of treasure stored in Lichfield. Now known as the Staffordshire Hoard, it is emblematic to all that was happening in the ecclesiastical centre of Mercia. Its many Christian pieces strongly indicate a link with the cathedral. The questionable alternative hypotheses are stated and reasons given why it should be seen as the ‘Lichfield Hoard’.

    When a metal detector found gold around 11am on 5 July 2009 in a field on the edge of the parish of Hammerwich it started an unresolved argument on where had it come from, whose hoard it was and who should look after it.

An intense thunderstorm and a passing van with Viking Office Supplies written on the side was portentous, or so some initially thought! The finder and land owner could not agree who benefitted. There were difficulties on who should look after the hoard, was it Stafford or Stoke? It has been written “the genuine need for secrecy and security, to protect the site from looting, was extended to absurdity by excluding proper consultation. Even the later period of fieldwork in March 2010 was carried out without wider consultation”.[1] It even needed a third visit to the field in 2012 to make sure everything had been found and it had not.[2] Many wanted to interpret the hoard and rush into print before it was completely analysed. How pundits were allowed to conclude the date of burial must have been the latest date of fabrication of certain pieces was an embarrassment. Displays with a huge reconstructed helmet suitable for a Roman centurion and emphasising warriors forever fighting have warped the history.

 

Field in the parish of Hammerwich. Taken around 2000. Note the unexplained crop mark

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                                             The dig in 2009. Thanks to Erica Bayliss for three images.

Even giving it a name was unfortunate. Traditionally hoards are named after the site where it was found and the magazine editorial in British Archaeology (Nov/Dec issue 109, 2009) proposed ‘Hammerwich Hoard’. 

Hammerwich Parish sign. Note the strange Staffordshire logo.

 Then several articles thought the site was in an ancient area known as Ogley Hay and this name was proposed.[3] Ogley has only been known since the Domesday Survey and could not have been part of the earlier settlement of Hammerwich.[4] A letter to British Archaeology (May/June issue 130, 2013) by the author pointed to the inappropriate Ogley Hay name. It was followed by the equally obscure designation of The Staffordshire Hoard. Ownership had now acceded to the museums and their great need to display the only gold Anglo-Saxon hoard that is without coins. It was frequently said we had not seen anything like this before.[5] Its problematical handling has perhaps not been seen before.

            Without an accurate name came all kinds of conjecture as to why the hoard was buried in a comparatively nondescript place. That is, within the plough level of soil on a rise of marginal land within a boggy heath and alongside an old Roman road (Watling Street) that had become an Anglo-Saxon pathway. Also close to a pathway west from Lichfield that eventually reached Wales and a stream that eventually joined the river Tame.

Map of area before development of A5 and M6 (Toll).

    The theories for the hoard sadly showed how easy writers conjured the most elaborate opinions. Claiming ‘that no one will ever know for sure’ and then detailing an elaborate plot weaved into some historical context is disingenuous. The following have been floated:

1.  It was King Penda’s incalculable treasure obtained from the Northumbrians, 655.[6] A tribute hoard.[7]
2. A leftover from a raiding army that had to leave in a hurry. For example, the Welsh attacking Mercia or even Northumbrians.[8] An angst hoard.
3. An assemblage of unwanted items destined for melting and recycling which never reached the forge.[9] A smith’s hoard.
4. A leftover from a Viking raid on a Royal Hall.[10] A plunderer’s booty hoard.
5.  A collection amassed by thieves and left as a deposit in a pagan sanctuary.[11] Bullion becoming a stash.
6. A votive offering comparable to Scandinavian deposits of broken military gear left in lakes or buried in defined areas.[12] A sacrificial hoard.

In defence of these wild theories, it needs stating they are based on behaviours thought to have occurred with other hoards and deposits; they are not isolated ideas, but that does not make them relevant. Surely, no two hoards have ever been buried for the same reason.

 The astonishing fact concerning all these suppositions is the nearness of Lichfield (Licetfelda) and an early cathedral-church initiated by King Wulfhere, developed by King Æthelred and adorned by King Offa which was never mentioned. Lichfield was air-brushed out of the story.[13] When the kings were mentioned they were on manoeuvres, never at home or in their ecclesiastical centre. Somehow Sutton Hoo cemetery can be 4.4 miles from Rendlesham’s royal enclosure (50 hectares containing a hall 23 x 10 m), but no one accounts for the Hammerwich find spot being 4.4 miles from Lichfield and an eccesiastical centre on a large site surrounded by a ditch.

Sutton Hoo site with the mound where the ship burial was found in the middle. Its archaeology suffered from predispositions that needed later correction. Its helmet is the best reconstruction, but not to be taken as certainty.

     Even more astonishing is the interest shown in linking the hoard with manufactories in East Anglia, Kent and Northumbria without ever seriously considering craftsmen could be living or visiting inner Mercia. Appraisal of the hoard has been eccentric, saying more about the writer and where they came from or how the hoard impacts on their specialism. Ignored or glossed-over pointers for the hoard originating from Lichfield are:

1. The Mercian hegemony, kingly power, military prowess, priestly importance, and the people settled around a significant river could have amassed such treasure. Mercians, particularly under Penda, were better organised than other sub-kingdoms.
2. The collection of pommel caps and sword hilt fixtures over a long time, 520–670, connected perfectly with the early Mercian kingly dynasties.
3.  The Easter Cross and Bishop’s handbell can be linked to a growing Roman church and Bishop Wilfrid. The Easter Cross would fit onto the cover of an altar display book such as St Chad’s gospels. The pectoral cross must have belonged to a bishop. There are pieces that could have belonged to an ecclesiastical elite, such as Mercian earls (eorl). The fanciful idea of Christian pieces came from priests fighting in an army belongs to a sixth-century history. Warriors and priests in the seventh-century kept a respectful distance, except for at the time of festivals like Easter and Christmas when scribes helped warriors write their charters.
4. A lack of blades is easily explained by weaponry being an archive kept in a church.[14] The abundance of sword hilt pieces (97 pommel caps) might just be because the sword is also a cross and the hilt is the head. Did the swords have a spiritual significance? Read Beowulf.[15]
5. Majority of items were bent, broken or misshapen, but not degraded beyond repair. They did not show destruction caused by conflict. It was as if they were removed from use and placed in storage, perhaps ready for repair. As if they belonged to an archive of past treasured objects. There were also sets of pieces and again looked as if treasure from a particular time and place.
6. A lack of horse decoration, coins, protective gear and dress fittings would be appropriate for a church archive and not associated with a royal hall or battle. Female pieces are missing and again this would fit with a church and not a royal household.
7. The inscribed strip with its angst message could be connected to a raid on the cathedral by the Danish Northmen in early 875.[16]^,[17]
8.  Burial could have been at the beginning of an exodus into Wales and linked with the removal of the St Chad’s gospels to north Carmarthenshire.

Drawing of the inscribed strip with its message of woe. A date of 8th or 9th-century has been given.

 

It is time for the elaborate conjectures based on events elsewhere need to be buried and a prosaic, topographical interpretation considered centred on Lichfield. The Staffordshire Hoard is emblematic to all that was happening in the ecclesiastical centre of Mercia.

[1] See Webster et al (2011).

[2] 91 further pieces were found of which 81 were declared treasure.

[3] L. Webster, C. Sparey-Green, P. Perin and C. Hills, ‘The Staffordshire (Ogley Hay) hoard: problems of interpretation’. Antiquity, (2011), 85, Issue 327, 221–229.

[4]  The hoard find spot lay within the extra-parochial area of Ogley Hay, now part of the parish of Hammerwich, according to D. Hooke, ‘The Landscape of the Staffordshire Hoard’, in Papers from the Staffordshire Hoard Symposium, H. Geake (ed.), 2010. See https://finds.org.uk/staffshoardsymposium

[5] Surely Sutton Hoo and the Snettisham treasure (and arguably others) are just as significant.

[6] Burying by the road from Wroxeter and Chester and not the north road to Northumbria needs explaining.

[7] See the post ‘King Penda needs a statue.’

[8] Why a fighting unit of men should then decide to bury their booty is counter-intuitive.

[9] Why a smith’s forge should be close to a boggy waste land requires explanation. The hammer in Hammerwich cannot be cited.

[10] There is no evidence the Vikings went west of Watling Street in this area of Mercia.

[11] Why would thieves want to bury their bullion? Especially in a place where robbers could have worked.

[12] Depositing a cross as a votive offering is unheard of and Scandinavians doing so in England is unknown. It resonates with the site possibly being an Anglo-Saxon weoh.

[13] A display of some of the hoard in the cathedral is not the same as emphasising its significance.

[14] The argument that the hammer welded blades are more valuable than the hilts avoided the question ‘why were the blades not present in a booty or bullion hoard’?

[15] The subliminal suggestion is numerous swords and seax pieces showed the Anglo-Saxons were forever fighting. Barbarians who must have lived before Christianity arrived has now become new folklore.

[16] R. Sharp, The hoard and its history. Staffordshire’s secrets revealed. (Studley: 2016), 76–7.

[17] See the post ‘Vikings and Lichfield.’

Cross for a bishop of Mercia

Summary. A broken pectoral cross, dated 7th century, was found in the Staffordshire Hoard that must have once belonged to an important early bishop. It is compared to similar crosses associated with Early Medieval bishops. One possibility is it belonged to Chad.

    In the Staffordshire Hoard was a pectoral cross[1] suitable for a bishop or abbot to wear on their chest. It had an eyelet at the top and the little wear inside the eyelet suggested a leather thong or silk thread threaded through to hang the cross around a neck. The wearer would then turn it upside down and perhaps kiss it. It would be prominent and an obvious symbol of office.

Replica of the Staffordshire pectoral cross.

The cross is similar in size and shape to the cross of St Cuthbert found in his coffin and now held at Durham Cathedral. There is a difference between the two regarding the decoration on the front face. The hoard cross has a pattern of twisted wire filigree in linked coils in a ‘C’ shape like an eyeglass.    

The Cuthbert cross has cloisonne cell-work infilled with garnets.[2] Both have a box structure with a space below the central, prominent cabochon garnet which might have contained some relic making them an encolpion. The date of Cuthbert’s cross has been estimated to be 650–670 and the Staffordshire cross could be equivalent.

 

Drawing of an intact pectoral cross, contrasted with the Cuthbert cross

                    In 1776, a small gold Saxon cross, also with eyeglass filigree, was found in a barrow on Winster Moor[3], Derbyshire. It was missing the middle stone, but the shape and design is very similar to a pectoral cross. It is small being 350 mm long and just under 30 mm wide. If this is a bishop’s pectoral cross, who would have been buried in a barrow on a moor? Bishop Betti is thought to have resided nearby at Wirksworth. A date of 650–700 has been given.

Drawing of the Winster Moor Cross which can be seen in Weston Park Museum, Sheffield.

 

The Holderness[4] cross[5] is equal-armed being 49mm long and wide. It has cloisonne cell-work infilled with garnets like the Cuthbert cross. Bishop John of Beverley served not very far away. A general date of 7th-century has been given.

Holderness Cross, from Commons Wikimedia, D. Pett, The Portable Antiquities Scheme/The Trustees of the British Museum.

 

The Ixworth cross found at Stanton, near Ixworth. Suffolk, c. 1856, is 450mm high. Again, only a general date of 7th-century has been ascribed. It could be connected to the centre at Rendlesham palace 35 miles away.

Drawing of the Ixworth Cross, from the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, Volume 3, 1863, 296.  

 

Three further crosses include those found at Wilton, Norfolk (560 mm high), datable to between 613 and 630, Thurnham, Kent (350 mm diameter) and Milton Regis, Kent, (310 mm diameter). Smaller crosses attached to necklets have also been found, as well as disc shaped crosses. There is a distinct similarity in the filigree work on the face of the cross with two items found in an archaeological excavation at Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland. The Hunterston brooch (c700) also has this feature.

 

A pectoral cross found not far from Lichfield and dateable to the 7th-century could have belonged to any of four bishops from Chad to Headda. All had an association with Lindisfarne so it is not surprising for anyone of them to have had a similar sign of office as worn by Cuthbert. If you accept the Staffordshire Hoard was buried much later, such as in the 9th century[6] then many more known clergy can be invoked, including an archbishop.

[1] Tag: Staffordshire Hoard, Pectoral Cross. The top arm was broken off and another one bent before it was buried, possibly as a deliberate act to damage a faith object. A pectoral cross was mentioned in connection with Pope Hilarius in 461, so wearing such a pendant has a long history.

[2] Four garnets around the centre symbolising the apostles and twelve along each arm denoting the disciples.

[3] Winster is by the river Derwent which flows into the Trent south of Derby. It is approximately 40 miles (65 km) from Lichfield.

[4] Holderness is north of the Humber, but not too far from the mouth of the river Trent. It is approximately 125 miles (200 km) from Lichfield.

[5] A. MacGregor, ‘A seventh-century pectoral cross from Holderness, East Yorkshire.’ Medieval Archaeology (2000), 44, 217-222.

[6] R. F. Sharp, The hoard and its history. Staffordshire’s secrets revealed, (Studley: 2016) Chapter 7.