Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T14:52:11.996Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Punishing Bodies and Saving Souls: Capital and Corporal Punishment in Late Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Get access

Summary

The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sutton Hoo is renowned for its prestigious seventh-century pagan burials, many of which were marked by mounds and accompanied by rich grave goods. In the centuries after the cemetery was founded, however, the site was given over to another purpose: the execution and burial of criminals. While a number of these executions may have occurred in the generations immediately following the high status burials, judicial sentences continued to be carried out at Sutton Hoo through the eleventh century, with the prevalence of decapitated, mutilated, and shamefully buried bodies attesting to the increasing punitive powers of English kings. The continuous use of an ostentatiously pagan site by later, Christian Anglo-Saxons suggests that it was no arbitrary decision to inter capital offenders at Sutton Hoo. Rather, this deliberate placement was intended to isolate the bodies of the condemned in a liminal area replete with heathen associations – an area conspicuously removed from the holy ground in which the pious were buried. The site's prominent pre-Christian monuments would have provided a visually striking inversion of burial ad sanctos, and the association of mounds with demons and spirits of the heathen damned during the late Anglo-Saxon period would have implied that those buried in such a place were unworthy of Christian salvation. While a virtuous Christian would be buried in hallowed ground, near the relics of saints and surrounded by prayers of the pious, an executed offender would be buried among heathens, beyond the Church's jurisdiction, where no prayers would be offered to help rescue his soul from hell.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Haskins Society Journal 20
2008 - Studies in Medieval History
, pp. 39 - 57
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×