Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burial Customs, by Andrew Reynolds

Different Strokes: Judicial Violence in Viking-Age England and Scandinavia

“…Most of these are pre-existing, such as at Meon Hill (Hampshire), Staines (Middlesex), 36 Reynolds considers the various aspects of English deviant burial to manifold effect and considers each in relation to the Christianization process (Reynolds 2009, 34-60). Portions of Reynolds's findings have been problematized (Lambert 2012, for example) and nuanced further (Klevnäs 2016a, 2016band Aspöck 2011, for example), however, much of his study remains convincing, particularly when it comes to individual graves and well-documented 'execution cemeteries' which we shall focus our attention on. 37 Fruitful work has been done to examine possible outlaw hideouts, such as Surtshellir in Iceland (Guðmundur Ólafsson and others 2010); however, these studies can only demonstrate that these sites were occupied by individuals removed from society.…”