medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
"Chapter 5 is dedicated to remembering the dead in pre and post-
Conversion England. The author traces the changes from actual goods deposited
in the grave to permanent markers above ground and eventually commemoration
by the Church, described by the author as a complex form of communal memory
in which the cult of the saints, liturgical remembrance, memorial feasting,
and almsgiving all play a role. In this system commemoration is paid for
by the dead and unlike the pre-Conversion burial rituals, it offers the
opportunity of eternal remembrance. In Chapter 6 the author compares the
portrayal of feasting and fasting in art ranging from the Bayeux tapestry to
Beowulf with the attitudes towards feasting displayed by the Church. While the
eternal banquets promised to the faithful are described in positive terms,
secular feasting usually carries negative connotations."
c
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Received: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:58:15 AM EDT
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Subject: TMR 08.03.19 Lee, Feasting the Dead (Adamson)
Lee, Christina. <i>Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon
Burial Rituals</i>. Anglo-Saxon Studies 9. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press,
2007. Pp. xiii, 176. $80.00. ISBN 9781843831426.
Reviewed by Melitta Weiss Adamson
University of Western Ontario
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Feasting around the grave is an old custom. It is found in the
burials of high-status Romans, and among the Merovingians and Alemannic
tribes, but research has so far been lacking whether it was also practiced in
Anglo-Saxon England. Following in the footsteps of Bonnie Effros and her
multidisciplinary work on death in Merovingian Gaul, Christina Lee
examines the role of food and feasting in Anglo-Saxon burial rituals through
the analysis of archeological data and textual evidence and traces the
changes that occurred over time as a result of Christianization. In her
Introduction she emphasizes the importance of food as the most basic human
need and as a means to create cultural identity. For her theoretical approach
she uses the studies on food by the anthropologists Claude Levi-Strauss and
Mary Douglas, and the literary critic Rolandes Barthes, as well as the study
on gift-giving by the sociologist Marcel Mauss. Her stated goal is to "show
that food offerings found in pre-Christian cemeteries were part of an
elaborate system of signs that contain meaning." (2) In the chapters that
follow she offers a "grammar" for food and food-related items at Anglo-Saxon
grave sites, and suggestions for the interpretation of the signs not all of
which the reader will necessarily find convincing.
Before embarking on the analysis of the animal bones present in Anglo-
Saxon cremation and inhumation sites and in the backfills of graves, the
author devotes Chapter 1 to an overview of the food consumed in Anglo-Saxon
England, focusing in particular on animal husbandry and crops and cereals.
She
observes that domestic animals, in particular cattle, were the primary meat
source, with sheep gradually gaining in popularity. Also discussed are the
roles of pork, horse meat, freshwater fish, barley, rye, oats, wheat, flax,
and some fruits and legumes in the Anglo-Saxon diet. From the archeological
evidence found in the excavations of settlements, she then turns to the
information on diet that human skeletons can provide thanks to modern science,
such as the study of isotopes. While food deficiencies were to blame
for many of the diseases and a low life expectancy, especially among women,
some diseases, such as diabetes, occurred as a result of prolonged obesity
even then. In the absence of written sources regarding the diet of the general
population, she discusses the information contained in the various
monastic rules of the early Middle Ages, and concludes the chapter with an
overview of the food obligations between king and subjects in Anglo-Saxon
England. Lee argues that the reciprocity that can be observed in the area of
food and drink among the living also extended to the dead in Anglo-Saxon
society.
Chapter 2 focuses on animal bones in Anglo-Saxon burial archeology
and their possible symbolic functions. With grave goods primarily a phenomenon
of the pre-Conversion period, it is in the final phase that the most elaborate
burials are found. While on the Continent food deposits in graves were
consistent with the diet of the rich, Lee does not find the same
correlation in the data from Anglo-Saxon England. In cremations, which were
the predominant form of burial in the fifth century, human and animal
bones are usually found in the same vessel, with the type of animal chosen
being dependent on the age and gender of the deceased, as the author points
out.
The fact that animal bones are also found outside a vessel, and
frequently show butchery marks, leads Lee to speculate that they could be
evidence of funerary feasting by the mourners, perhaps to pass the time during
the lengthy cremation process. For her analysis of the distribution of animal
bones in inhumations, the author uses age, gender, status, and burial
position as criteria, and manages to tease out of her material some
fascinating correlations that indicate a display of the dead and
their grave offerings that was by no means accidental but minutely
choreographed and highly meaningful. The presence of bones in the backfill of
inhumation sites is again seen by Lee as an indication of possible meals at
the grave side.
The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of displacements of actual
animal bones with animal symbolism on grave objects.
In Chapter 3 the emphasis shifts from the animal bones to the food
containers found in Anglo-Saxon grave sites, of which Sutton Hoo is one of the
most prominent and most thoroughly studied. Coptic bowls, glassware from the
Rhineland, and drinking vessels in silver and bronze from Byzantium
speak not only to the high status of the deceased but to an extensive network
of cultural relations. Again the author tries to establish distributions of
objects according to gender, status, age, and burial position of the
dead. She points to the symbolic replacement of pots with potsherds, and
speculates that the deliberate breaking of objects may have been part of the
funerary ceremony.
From bones, vessels, and backfill, Lee widens the scope in Chapter 4 to
examine other features of Anglo-Saxon graves and the immediate
surrounding that may provide evidence of feasting at the grave side. Among
them are burnt stones, charcoal remains on the body or in the grave fill,
postholes, and the presence of hearths at cemeteries. With regard to postholes
she argues that rather than mark the grave, they may have been used to erect
temporary <i>cellae memoriae</i>, a type of structure used in some regions of
Germany for meals to commemorate the dead. While the combined presence of
animal bones, charcoal, and postholes may suggest feasting by the mourners,
Lee does admit that there is no conclusive link between postholes and food in
Anglo-Saxon England. She concludes the chapter by contrasting the cemetery's
function of "establishing and remembering identity" (102) with a new form of
memory as a result of Christianization. It was no longer tied to
grave goods, but to payment to the Church in return for salvation of the soul
through prayer.
Chapter 5 is dedicated to remembering the dead in pre and post-
Conversion England. The author traces the changes from actual goods deposited
in the grave to permanent markers above ground and eventually commemoration
by the Church, described by the author as a complex form of communal memory
in which the cult of the saints, liturgical remembrance, memorial feasting,
and almsgiving all play a role. In this system commemoration is paid for
by the dead and unlike the pre-Conversion burial rituals, it offers the
opportunity of eternal remembrance. In Chapter 6 the author compares the
portrayal of feasting and fasting in art ranging from the Bayeux tapestry to
Beowulf with the attitudes towards feasting displayed by the Church. While the
eternal banquets promised to the faithful are described in positive terms,
secular feasting usually carries negative connotations.
In her Conclusion, Lee briefly summarizes the developments from Anglo-Saxon
cremation and inhumation to the commemorative practices introduced by the
medieval Church.
Christina Lee's book is well researched and makes excellent use of
sources, especially German ones, from a variety of disciplines. Although she
states that there "is enough evidence to propose that the grave was a place
where eating and drinking had an important role and even took place on
site" (99), all the evidence for the latter claim is ultimately circumstantial
and still leaves this reviewer unconvinced that funerary feasting was a
regular feature of Anglo-Saxon burial rituals. The book contains eight plates
and a number of diagrams several of which are unfortunately very hard to read.
In addition, the text is full of typos and syntactical errors and would have
benefited greatly from a thorough proofreader. The individual chapters are
uneven not just in length but also in quality, adding to the impression that
the manuscript was rushed into production. There is no doubt that Christina
Lee knows her field well. She has certainly succeeded in writing an intriguing
book in this unexplored area of Anglo-Saxon Studies that in parts is as
engaging as an episode of CSI. However, it should be seen for what it is, a
somewhat hastily written first account of the evidence but by no means the
last word on the subject.
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