Recent research by Andrew Reynolds has interrogated the archaeological record for evidence of Anglo-Saxon execution cemeteries. This chapter will discuss how osteological evidence can aid our interpretation of Anglo-Saxon capital punishment and give insight into the types of evidence that might aid in the identification of corporal punishment from skeletal populations. The importance of correctly interpreting skeletal trauma is paramount, but this can be supported by scrutinising the palaeodemographic profile of execution populations, studying burial position, and understanding the decomposition process and the significance of post-depositional disturbance of burials. The essay will lay down a framework for the successful identification of corporal and capital punishments, with reference to Anglo-Saxon documentary sources.

Archaeological Evidence of Capital and Corporal Punishment

Separate execution cemeteries were first founded in the seventh century, and continued to be used throughout the later Anglo-Saxon period, and sometimes as late as the twelfth century. Many of these cemeteries were located close to hundred boundaries, away from community cemeteries and settlements. Prior to this development, during the fifth and sixth centuries, deviant burials were usually found within normal community cemeteries, rather than in liminal locations.

The introduction of separate execution cemeteries during the seventh and eighth centuries has been linked to the conversion to Christianity in the seventh century, and the rise of churchyard burial in the eighth. From this time onwards it was no longer the norm to include wrongdoers in community cemeteries. Although this has been linked to the influence of the Church, it is generally agreed that the early English Church showed little interest in enforcing churchyard burial, at least in the centuries immediately following the conversion. Indeed, the first law code referring to the exclusion of criminals from burial in consecrated ground, II Æthelstan 26, dates to the early tenth century. Churchyards appear to have been consecrated from the tenth century onwards, and from this date it is legitimate to argue that the unbaptised, suicide victims, and criminals were excluded from burial in consecrated ground; however, in practice such people were already buried away from churchyards and other community cemeteries at a much earlier date. The foundation of execution cemeteries in the seventh and eighth centuries suggests that the process of state formation, rather than the influence of the Church, governed their development.