Since I posted about the Anglo-Saxon discoveries at Trumpington in
Anglo-Saxon Christian burial discovery there have been further links provided through the Medieval Religion discussion group
A report from last year can be read
here , and now the parallel with the contemporary grave of a young girl at Ely who is thought to have been associated with the monastery there, as explained
here, suggests a monastic origin.
An article in Friday's
Independent [Ugh!] has a clearer indication of the archaeologists' rationale for thinking the site at Trumpington to be monastic, and can be read
here.
In particular the article says that the bodies "were interred adjacent to a high status settlement consisting of a 12 metre long timber hall and at least half a dozen other buildings with substantial semi-subterranean storage cellars" and that the finds included " fragments of posh French-originating shiny black ceramic wine jugs - in England a type of pottery previously found mainly on monastic sites."
In summary "The female graves, the high status nature of the site and the Christian burial rite all combine to suggest that the princess and her companions may well have been nuns – and that the settlement may have been part of a nunnery. It’s known that the various newly Christianized Anglo-Saxon monarchs of the time competed with each other to establish monasteries and nunneries as a proof of their Christian piety. Indeed it’s conceivable that the princess’s parents enrolled their daughter in such a nunnery to further demonstrate their commitment to their new faith (a common practice at the time)."
A reader's query about the future of the bones is one I cannot answer. These days archaeologists are sensitive to the fact that these are human remains, and indeed the law takes note of the fact of a dead body being discovered. Whether there will be eventual reburial or possibly preservation in an ossuary to enable future study I would not know. If a site is clearly a Christian burial local churchers sometimes provide a new burial place.
