Early Medieval English Childhood and Grave Goods: Mortuary Symbols of Emotion, Affection and Parenting?

The early medieval English inhumed or cremated their dead with grave goods in a furnished burial ritual that continued into the eighth century, after the official conversion of the English to Christianity. Within this ritual, children under the age of 10 – the age at which, according to the earliest English laws, children took on adult responsibility – were normally buried with fewer grave goods than adults in graves that indicated less economic investment. Conversion brought with it literacy, including writing in the vernacular Old English. While the earliest written records begin only at the end of the furnished burial ritual, the words the English used to describe their own perception of the experience of childhood, the difference between adult and childhood experience, the emotional bonds between parent and child, and the role of objects in expressing and celebrating those bonds, provide a useful starting point for re-thinking the ‘low value’ items commonly buried with children in the furnished burial ritual.