How to dispose of bodies, what to say about the dead, how long to remember them, what their memory is owed: these are questions that every human community answers, and the answers vary enormously across cultures and periods.

Medieval Christian communities in England practiced burial in consecrated ground as both a religious obligation and a social act.

The community of the dead in a churchyard was, in a sense, a map of the community of the living: who had been part of the parish, who had been wealthy enough for a fine burial, who had been important enough for interment inside the church rather than outside it.

Conquest Man’s burial inside St Peter’s, in an oak coffin with specific grave goods, represents a decision by his community to treat him with a particular level of care and honor.