Dissertation
Death and all its customers
Changing burial rites in Early Medieval Northern Gaul, 450-600 CE
- Author
- Lippok, F.E.
- Date
- 12 June 2025
- Links
- Scholarly Publications repository
This dissertation examines how early medieval rural communities expressed agency reflected in their changing burial practices. It argues that life-cycle rituals — such as funerals, marriages, and coming-of-age ceremonies — were essential in creating and maintaining social ties across dispersed communities, and that the substantial investment in burial rites points to a ritual economy wherein social and economic life were deeply intertwined. Studying 2,680 graves from 17 cemeteries across Northern Gaul, Femke Lippok identifies widespread, simultaneous changes in the composition and spatial placement of grave goods. These shifts reflect growing intercommunity connections, resulting in shared funerary practices. Yet, persistent local burial practices crucially highlight the resilience of community-specific agency. Burial practices in the late fifth and sixth centuries CE reveal a complex tapestry of shared practices, local agency, life histories, and access to networks that bound early medieval societies together.