burial rules and practices 135Germanic peoples had practiced cremation or exposure,
but these customs were deemed pagan and suppressed, as
was the inclusion of grave goods with the deceased, per-
haps intended for use in the next life. From these graves
Christians were to rise with their body restored on the
day of LASTJUDGMENT.
TOMBS, MONUMENTS, AND FEESOver the course of the Middle Ages, the church evolved
other options of disposal and commemoration, usually
involving payments to the clergy. All this was complicated
by the belief in the saving power of the bodies of the mar-
tyrs and eventually of all the saints. Christians in the late
antique world and early Middle Ages asked to be buried as
close as possible to a martyr’s tomb or a reliquary in a
church. They soon were erecting monuments or tombs in
memory to themselves, which soon required inhumations
and moving of tombs to the outside of a structure of the
church. The clergy, however, were allowed to maintain the
privilege of burial inside; occasionally was a great patron
of the church given a similar privilege. This practice
caused many wealthier and more powerful families to sup-
port particular churches where their family could erect
prestigious memorials to their ancestors. This in itself
became a great source of clerical and ecclesiastical
incomes when combined with the expected fees for a
mere service and simple inhumation.
Monks, and later the mendicants, became particu-
larly concerned with this activity and such patronage for
the monasteries and huge new urban churches. The dead
also had to be memorialized and prayed for by continu-
ing masses and prayers by the clergy. Those services, too,
required payment in addition to a fee for the funeral
itself. All this financial activity caused considerable con-
flict about the income from such fees between the parish
and the monastic and mendicant clergy.
See alsoCEMETERIES;GOKSTAD SHIP; PURGATORY;OSE-
BERG FIND;SUTTONHOO.
Further reading:Robert Chapman, Ian Kinnes, Klavs
Randsborg, eds., The Archaeology of Death(Cambridge: