IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 514: Death Rules!: Maintaining and Transgressing Funerary Rules across Medieval Europe

Organiser:	Eleanor Williams, School of Humanities, University of Southampton
Moderator/Chair:	Ben Jervis, Independent Scholar, Romsey
Paper 514-a	The Rules of Engagement: Destructive Practices in Early Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries (Language: English) Ruth Nugent, Department of History & Archaeology, University of Chester Index terms: Archaeology - General, Pagan Religions
Paper 514-b	Break a Rule but Save a Soul: The Infant Cemetery of St Georg, Göttweig, Austria (Language: English) Barbara Hausmair, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Universität Wien Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - General, Canon Law, Religious Life
Paper 514-c	Rules and the Cluniac Death-Course (Language: English) Eleanor Williams, School of Humanities, University of Southampton Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - General, Monasticism
Abstract	Burial practices do not simply reflect rules about the treatment of the body and cemetery space. This session will conceptualise the cadaver as mediating experiences of death; as a locus of agency and a touchstone between the living, the dead, the landscape and rules - a moderating force grounded in past practice. We consider how rules mediated perceptions of death, how were rules embodied, how were rules exerted throughout the death-cycle, and how did they interact with the agency of the dead. Using case studies, we will explore how rules mediated the intersection between life and death.