By that point, the church was under the authority of one of William the Conqueror’s knights, a Norman lord who had been rewarded for military service with land and the rights that went with it.

A private church in this context was not a public place of worship in the modern sense.

It was attached to a lord’s estate, under his control, and burial within it was a mark of status, not a simple civic act.

Being buried inside a Norman knight’s private church was not something just anyone could arrange.

Whoever Conquest Man was, he mattered to someone.

What The Body Told Scientists