A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



may some day render it. Perhaps Kenninghall affords the best typical 

 instance of an unmixed cemetery of extended burials, as the original 

 accounts are fairly explicit and the reHcs are preserved in a public collec- 

 tion. A glance at the contents of these graves would probably leave no 

 doubt as to the mode of burial, even apart from the finding of skeletons, 

 but would also perhaps prompt the question whether they belonged to 

 an AngHan or some other Teutonic tribe. Prominent among them are 

 large square-headed brooches differing from the common East Anglian 

 type that only expands slightly and gradually from end to end, terminating 

 in a conventional head most like that of a horse (figs. 4, 6). These 

 larger brooches bear a strong family resemblance to a number of re- 

 markable specimens from areas in the midlands which were brought 

 under Mercian influence before the close of the pagan period, as War- 

 wickshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Northants, Cambridgeshire 

 and Yorkshire, 



There seems some reason therefore to class the Norfolk examples as 

 Mercian, and in venturing on a distinction between them and the Anglian 

 examples archaeology would be merely adopting a view that has long 

 commended itself to the professed historian ; namely, that the early 

 English kingdoms were not homogeneous but grew out of successive 

 independent settlements in areas that lay open at particular periods. 



Mercian influence began in East Anglia about the middle of the 

 seventh century, and the brooches in question may have been deposited 

 in pagan or semi-pagan graves any time between the year 634, when 

 Oswald fell at Maserfield in a despairing effort to save East Anglia from 

 the Mercian, and the abolition of the pagan practice of burying orna- 

 ments with the dead. If that reform be dated in the middle of the 

 eighth century, the graves of supposed Mercians in East Anglia might 

 be expected to show some traces of Christianity, for the Mercian hold 

 on the kingdom was continuous for a century, and was not relaxed till 

 the defeat and death of iEthelbald at Burford in 754. If the Mercian 

 character of the unburnt burials be insisted on by virtue of the resem- 

 blance of the relics to those from known Mercian areas, then it is 

 possible to see in the change from cremation to extended burials the 

 measure of Christian influence among the Anglians of the midlands, who 

 made their new home in the subject kingdom. But it is perhaps impos- 

 sible to draw a strict line between Mercian and East Anglian remains, 

 for both peoples were in the main of the same stock ; and had not both 

 at first burnt their dead, it might be possible for us to show a close con- 

 nection between them by a comparison of the contents of their graves 

 from the earliest times. As it is, little more can be said than that they 

 agreed to that extent in their funeral customs. 



In addition to the jewels described above, a few objects of Anglo- 

 Saxon date have been found in the county apparently unconnected with 

 interments. There is a bare mention^ of brooches at Oxburgh in the 

 Fens, but two drawings are extant of an interesting specimen from 



* Norwich Museum Catalogue, p. 2 1 . 

 346 



