[Sca-cooks] Feasting the Dead

Johnna Holloway johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu
Thu Mar 6 12:39:31 PST 2008


I came across this book this morning while looking for something else.

Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals by
Christina Lee

It does cover the early period up to the 11th century.
I thought the  chapter on "Pots, buckets and cauldrons: the inventory of 
feasting" might be interesting.


Anglo-Saxons were frequently buried with material artefacts, ranging
from pots to clothing to jewellery, and also with items of food, while
the funeral ritual itself was frequently marked by feasting, sometimes
at the graveside. The book examines the place of food and feasting in
funerary rituals from the earliest period to the eleventh century,
considering the changes and transformations that occurred during this
time, drawing on a wide range of sources, from archaeological evidence
to the existing texts. It looks in particular at representations of
funerary feasting, how it functions as a tool for memory, and sheds
light on the relationship between the living and the dead.

CHRISTINA LEE is a lecturer in the School of English Studies at the
University of Nottingham.

*_Contents_*
1 	   	/Eordan wæstmas/: a feast for the living
2 	   	Bare bones: animals in cemeteries
3 	   	Pots, buckets and cauldrons: the inventory of feasting
4 	   	Last orders?
5 	   	The grateful dead: feasting and memory
6 	   	Feasting between the margins


http://www.boydell.co.uk/43831422.HTM

It's listed at $80 so I have interlibrary loaned it and will take a look.

Johnna



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