Early Christians, Immigrants and Ritualized Practice

A Case Study of South-eastern Bornholm

Abstract

The article studies and explains funerary rituals observed in early medieval cemeteries of south-eastern Bornholm from the perspective of theory of practice. Rituals, although sharing certain elements with other types of human practices, are viewed as special actions due to their formality fixity and their outcomes. It is argued that the analysis of the funerary rituals practised by the communities of early medieval Bornholm can, on one hand, yield information about non-verbal expression of the identity of their members and, on the other hand, illuminare the circumstances and the reaction to the social and political change that took place on the island 1000-1100 AD.