Conquest Man was almost certainly a person of some substance in his community: his burial in an oak coffin, with specific grave goods and a position inside the church building rather than merely in the churchyard, suggests he was not a destitute individual.

But he was not a lord, not a bishop, not a documented historical figure.

He represents the large middle range of medieval English society about whom the textual record is largely silent.

Through archaeology, osteology, ancient DNA, and isotope analysis, he can now speak, in a limited way, about who that middle range of people were and where they came from.

His continental European ancestry, his physical characteristics, his burial customs, his position in a church at a crossing point of the Humber: these details add texture and specificity to an understanding of post-conquest England that the textual sources alone cannot provide.