ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



parts of Germany east of the Rhine, west of the upper Elbe and Saale, 

 and north of the Main.^ In Liineburg and Verden cremation was uni- 

 versal and exclusive, only two skeletons occurring in three thousand 

 interments. A striking contrast is to be found in Normandy, where the 

 Abbe Cochet in the course of his excavations in the vicinity of Dieppe 

 found only one case of cremation among several hundred graves. This 

 would suggest that paganism had become extinct, but the activity of 

 missionaries in these parts in the middle of the seventh century forbids 

 us to conclude that the abbe came across none but Christian interments. 



Norfolk however is not an extreme case, for though cremation was 

 evidently the prevailing custom during the pagan period, there are 

 several undoubted instances of extended burial in this part of East Anglia, 

 and these not confined to any one locality, but occurring in various 

 parts of the county and sometimes in connection with urn-burials. Here 

 and there perhaps in East Anglia an intrusive settlement of adventurers 

 had brought with them funeral rites different from those practised by 

 their Anglian neighbours, but here was not the last refuge of Romanized 

 natives who preserved their religion and may be their Christianity in the 

 presence of the pagan stranger. The graves in question contain nothing 

 that is obviously connected with Roman culture and much that is dis- 

 tinctively Teutonic, while they are scattered over the face of the county 

 and no two groups occur in the same neighbourhood. 



Attention has already been drawn to the unproductive nature of urn- 

 burial from the antiquary's point of view. Rare indeed are the instances 

 in which anything is found with the calcined bones but a shattered 

 comb, a pair of tweezers or a string of beads ; and the discovery of 

 one or more spearheads with an urn at Pensthorpe ^ is almost the only 

 exception in Norfolk. The uniformity observed in interments of this 

 kind is a powerful argument in favour of larger and more valuable relics 

 belonging to burials in which the rite of cremation had not been observed. 

 This is a practical certainty where richly ornamented brooches, which 

 must have been attached to the clothing of the dead, and in some cases 

 still reveal the texture of the cloth, have escaped all injury, and remain to 

 show the sumptuous fashions of the time. 



On these grounds certain of the Norfolk finds can be safely classed, 

 according to Kemble's method, as ' unburnt Teutons of the Iron age.' 

 There is such a distinct break between the post-Roman and the Viking 

 periods that there can be no hesitation in assigning the extended burials 

 in Norfolk to the period between the fifth and the eighth centuries. 

 The character of the ornamentation would be evidence enough, apart 

 from all considerations of burial reform consequent on the acceptance of 

 Christianity in this country. By the middle of the eighth century the 

 use of churchyards for interments had become general, and it is reason- 

 able to suppose that as the common folk abandoned the tombs of their 

 fathers in the open country they were also induced to surrender the 



* cf. Lindenschmit, Handbuch der deutschen Alterthumskunde, pp. 77, 106-7. 

 ^ 'Norwich Museum Catalogue (1853), p. 23. 

 327 



