Across Britain, there are over 100 possible early-medieval linear earthworks commonly termed dykes; in total, they stretch for over 400 kilometres. They vary in size from those just 100 metres in length to the famous Offa’s Dyke, which is over 95 kilometres long. There have been studies of individual dykes (Noble and Gelling 1983 for example) and general discussions of the larger examples (Squatriti 2002 for example), but no systematic attempt to catalogue and analyse them all. Their size and number suggests these earthworks were probably an important aspect of early-medieval life and have the capacity to tell us a great deal about the societies that built them. Dating such earthworks is difficult even with modern archaeological techniques and, as few early-medieval written sources survive, historians have often incorrectly ascribed enigmatic dykes to this period. This present study ascertained which dykes probably belong to the early-medieval period and contains a comprehensive gazetteer of them in the appendix. It also discusses how the dykes relate to the surviving written records, how many people were involved in their construction, what were their functions and what dykes can tell us about the processes that created early-medieval Britain. It calculated that far fewer people were needed to build them than many previous studies had supposed. While some were estate boundaries and King Offa may have ordered the building of the dyke that bears his name to bolster his power, it is argued that many of these earthworks were designed to prevent raiding. The dykes were a symptom of the endemic low-intensity warfare and small-scale forays into neighbouring territories that often characterised this period.

This work deals with "special" burials among the Anglo-Saxon and Slavs in the early medieval period. The individuals in these graves are frequently labelled as "deviant", "criminals", as "socially other". This dissertation aims to focus more on the possible danger which "special" individuals represented for their communities after their death and on the possibility that the “special” burials were those of potential revenants or vampires. The introduction begins with a brief sketch of the evolution of approaches to burial by archaeologists and historians writing in English. It goes on to argue that “deviant burial” is not a self-explanatory category, but can be applied to a variety of very different inhumations. It suggests it might be better termed “special’ burial or the burial of the “special’ dead and formed part of regular inhumation practice; and it argues that the best way to understand these practices is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural framework. In particular, it discusses the possible insights offered by the development of the cognitive study of religion and belief, with particular reference to death and burial practices and introduces a “theoretical alternative model” for accessing how the deceased was treated from corpse to the grave. Chapter 1 examines Anglo-Saxon "special" burials, focusing on selected cemeteries where we can observe multiple occurrences of "special" burials or the employment of several "special" practices in one locality. These will first be analyzed with regard to the location of deposition and secondly compared within the wider framework of Anglo-Saxon "special" burial practices. Comparison with "special" funerary rites recorded elsewhere in the world by anthropologists will lead to the proposal of an alternative approach to some of recent and current interpretations of these practices. Chapter 2 focuses on Slavic archaeological material represented by the "special" graves excavated in Slovakia and the Czech Republic: both burials from cemeteries and also a group of individuals deposited in a range of objects found during excavation of Slavic settlements - in grain silos, wells or pits. As with Anglo-Saxon graves, the Slavic "special" burials are analyzed from the point of view of location and then in more global context of Slavic society. The possible interpretations of these findings are discussed. Chapter 3 focuses on the primary sources and their descriptions of "pagan" funerary rituals. It charts shifts in ideas and attitudes towards "special" funeral practices ranging from descriptions of these "pagan" practices, through efforts to delimit and penalize them in the law codes, to narratives of revenant sightings and descriptions of how to recognize and destroy them. This chapter will indicate some of the theories and new approaches proposed in the thesis. The concluding chapter brings these strands together. In particular, it discusses the possible insights offered by the development of the cognitive study of religion and belief, with particular reference to death and burial practices. It examines the changing patterns of religion - from traditional or "pagan" to Christianity – and the ways in which this change influenced both "special" burial practices and perceptions of vampires and revenants, with particular reference to the Christian doctrine of Purgatory. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the theories proposed on the basis of the material collected in this work and reference to corresponding interpretative shifts in present day archaeology and history.

This thesis considers how religious literature represented sickness and disability in Anglo- Saxon and post-Conquest England. Based on Gospel accounts of Jesus's healings, narratives of miracle-cures were highly valued within medieval Christian culture. By analysing a selection of miracle-cure narratives from the main period of miracle writing in England, from the age of Bede to the late twelfth century, this project considers the social significance of such stories. All miracle-cures followed the pattern of a spiritual triumph over the material world, but this thesis focuses on how hagiographers represented human experiences of sickness and disabilities. The first two chapters of this thesis address the conceptual structure of the project. The first explains the two areas of scholarly theory that underpin this thesis. These are the use of narrative sources for historical study; and sociological conceptualisations of bodily difference. The second chapter orientates the case-studies selected for this project in their context. Miracle-cures were recounted in relation to other aspects of the culture of medieval England, most importantly the theology of sainthood and of sin. The remaining three chapters of the thesis provide detailed thematic analysis of selected miracle-cure narratives. The third chapter asks how the spiritual experience of bodily difference was understood. The next chapter considers the physical understandings of a body that was affected by either sickness or disability, and the links between miracle-cure narratives and contemporary medical theory. The fifth and final chapter addresses the representation of social aspects of sickness and disability in these texts, in particular the moralising rhetoric of such texts in favour of community support. This thesis concludes with a discussion of how modern Disability Studies and scholarship on medieval culture benefit from interaction with one another.