Sharing a Bed but Nothing Else: Bed Burial Traditions in First Millennium <scp>ad</scp> Europe

This article concerns the practice of bed burial, a rare funerary custom found in some sixth- to early tenth-century ad graves ranging from southern Germany to Scandinavia and England. Existing research has often overlooked the diversity of bed burials, focusing mainly on the reconstruction of the beds, their style, the status of the deceased, and the objects associated with them, without examining the broader implications of the ritual. Here, the author explores the variations in bed burials, their relationship to the deceased, the artefacts linked with them, and the surrounding contexts. Her study is based on a new assessment of every aspect of the ritual, including the location of the graves, the biological and social identity of the deceased, the burial assemblage, and whether the beds were complete. This approach aims to demonstrate that the practice of bed burial should be addressed in the plural.