Deviant burials in rural environment in the High Middle Ages – ritual, the lack of ritual, or just another kind of it? (original) (raw)

The present article revisits the term deviant burial. It argues that this term is rather subjective, as each case depends on our present interpretation, contemporary practice and contemporary understanding. Furthermore, most of those deviant burials that do not occur in cemeteries are individual, isolated cases, and therefore a comprehensive interpretation is difficult. As a solution, this article explores deviant burials that have occurred in a single community, a village that existed in the High Middle Ages in the area of present day Budapest. The article reviews the burials, which were placed inside the churchyard (or at least in its immediate environment), but not according to the contemporary norms and practice. Such acts are the rituals and superstitions of everyday life, and are rather different from the ideal picture we derive from written sources (where they either do not or rarely appear). For this reason, when one is studying the ritual behaviour of people, material evidence should not be neglected, as it is only through such evidence that valuable details may be perceived. In the light of such evidence, this article distinguishes between, atypical, non-normative, and deviant burials.

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