Spiritual Middens

Abstract

That objects were deliberately concealed in post-medieval English buildings as part of a secular folk ritual is clearly one of the central arguments of this book. Mostly, as has been made clear, those finds comprised small groups of personal artefacts hidden behind walls, under floors and in thatch roofs. These are defined here as ritual concealments. Less attention has been paid by researchers to the much larger collections found in specific voids, usually near chimneys. In most cases these voids, which effectively became shafts down to the floor below, were not sealed over at the top end, and so continued to be available for receiving much larger numbers of redundant personal objects over the years. These are defined as spiritual middens. The examination of these bigger assemblages has given greater opportunities for analysis. Once they have been recorded during excavation, the objects from each can be grouped to consider specific ways in which they might have allayed the household’s fears of possible misfortunes. Because to date there is no historical record of this practice or the motivation involved, these collections give us our best chance to try understand certain aspects of the lives and fears of the former inhabitants of some historic houses.