Street House Bed Burial

Following up the Trumpington Meadow discovery (see earlier blog) I decided to do a bit more research into the other Anglo Saxon bed burials discovered in the UK to see if there is any more tangible evidence to back up my theory set out in The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone that there was a merger between Druids and Christians in 454 AD.  My first stop is at Street House in Teeside where excavations within an Iron Age enclosure produced the discovery of a cemetery including a bed burial. 

The archaeologists conclude the east-west orientation of the graves and the symbolism on the bracteates, coins and pendants they also discovered suggest the deceased were Christian but they are puzzled as to why the cemetery is within an Iron Age/pagan enclosure.  I can answer that.  In the two centuries between 454 AD and the Synod of Whitby at the end of the seventh century it was the common practice for Christian Druid monasteries of the Celtic Church to be set up using Iron Age sites - Finian in Ireland for example used an Iron Age fort and Columbanus continued the practice on the continent but there using Roman forts changing the shape of a monastic settlement from circular to rectangular or square.  Partly this was practical but it was also a visible sign of the collaboration between Christian and Druids. The lack of Iron Age artefacts is accounted for by the fact that the new religious occupants would have cleared away any military detritus as unsuitable for a Christian settlement. I note that they also mention that the site was in use between 650 and 700.  In other words after the Synod of Whitby the monastery was moved away from a pagan/druid site to a site that was wholly Christian breaking with the idea of continuous occupation. 

 Among the coins the archaeologists found were a number were of reused coins of the Corieltauvi tribe dated AD43 which had clear Christian symbolism engraved into them.  The date is significant.  According to The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone Christianity comes to Britain independently of Rome being brought by Joseph of Arimathea directly from the Holy Land.  Whether Joseph of Arimathea was personally concerned or not the book gives us a date.  Christianity comes to Britain around AD40.  The coins indicate the date at which Christianity arrived in the north-east which is perhaps why they are to be found among the burials.  This is exciting because the archaeology again backs up the documentary evidence of the book.