Medieval Europe is often seen as a deadly cultural moment, often due to the abuse of the ‘Dark Ages’. However, analysis has revealed that new ideas could spread rapidly as communities became interconnected, creating a remarkable united culture in Europe.
Dr Emma Brownlee, Department of Archeology, University of Cambridge, studied how major changes in burial practices in western Europe spread faster than previously thought – between the 6th – 8th centuries AD, burying people with special local grave goods largely abandoned in favor of a more regular, unadorned burial.
“Almost everyone from the eighth century is simply buried in a bare grave, with no objects attached to it, and this is a change that has been seen all over western Europe,” said Dr Brownlee. .
To study this change, Emma examined more than 33,000 graves from this period in one of the largest studies of its kind. Statistical analysis was used to create a ‘heat map’ of the practice, monitoring how it changed in frequency over time.
The results of this analysis, published in the journal Archeology, indicating that changes in good practice began to decline from the middle of the sixth century in England, France, Germany, and the Low Countries, and by the early eighth century, it had been abandoned completely.
“The most important finding was the shift from burial with grave goods to burial without contemporaries throughout western Europe,” Dr Brownlee said. “While we knew this was a wide-ranging change before, no one had been able to show before how closely the change was in areas that are very far apart.”
Crucially, this contemporary movement provides strong evidence that medieval Europe was a well-connected place, with regular communication and exchange of ideas across large areas.
Evidence of long-distance trading has been seen around this time, and it is perhaps in this way that these connections were made easier. As the idea spread between communities, social pressure led to more people accepting it. As more people did, this pressure grew – explaining why the distribution of unadorned gifts seemed to accelerate over time.
With people sharing more similarities, this strengthened the connections themselves as well.
“The change in funeral practice will have further strengthened these links; with everyone burying their dead in the same way, a medieval traveler could go anywhere in the Region. Europe and see familiar practices, “said Dr Brownlee.
Europe interconnected with trade and long-distance travel may enable the dissemination of new ideas to create a shared culture with a modern feel, but in reality, Europe has been ‘ global ‘for over a thousand years.
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