Caring for the dead in later Anglo-Saxon England

Abstract

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] \n \nThe textual evidence for attitudes to death and the regulations surrounding burial \nin the tenth and eleventh centuries includes law-codes, penitentials and homilies. \nThere have been numerous studies of this evidence, including that by Tinti elsewhere \nin this volume, and therefore only a brief review is offered here. Law-codes \nreveal concern with where the dead should be buried and with ensuring that \nvarious payments, including those for mortuary provision, should be made to the \nappropriate church. The payment known as soul-scot, a burial tax which was paid \nto the minster church, is not codified until the early eleventh century, but is clearly \nof earlier origin given that it is mentioned in charters of the late ninth century. In \na law-code issued by King Æthelred in 1008 it is stated that ‘if any body is buried \nelsewhere outside the proper parish (rihtscriftscire), the payment for the soul is \nnevertheless to be paid to the minster to which it belongs’, which implies that the \nincome to minster churches was under threat. Indeed, the observations of Ælfric \nof Eynsham c.1006 imply that there was sometimes priestly competition to tend \nto the bodies of the deceased, and doubtless also to claim the funerary dues: \n‘Some priests are glad when men die and they flock to the corpse like greedy \nravens when they see a carcass, in wood or in field; but it is fitting for [a priest] . . . \nto attend the men who belong to his parish (hyrnysse) at his church; and he must \nnever go into another’s district to any corpse, unless he is invited.’

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