A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK were so orientated, would it be wise to conclude that all were Christian burials, for that direction was often adopted purely with reference to sunrise and sunset. Suffolk, on the whole, gives colour to the theory that cremation was the earlier practice, for while no relics of late character are associated with the cinerary urns, most of the grave-furniture in the other group indicates the 6th or early 7th century, and it may reasonably be assumed that the Anglians arrived on our eastern coast in some number between 450 and 550."° It is in Suffolk that some of the earliest Teutonic relics have been found ; and a careful comparison of finds in East Anglia with those of counties that were presumably conquered by the Anglo-Saxons after their conversion to Christianity may eventually settle the stages of their advance and lead to a final classification of their remains. Signs of intercourse with Kent were noticed in Norfolk,"^ but are still more evident in Suffolk, and are an interesting confirmation of the historical records. When English history begins in the closing years of the 6th cen- tury, Kent is the dominant kingdom, and the Bretwalda ^thelbert is over- lord of East Anglia. In the year 616 this connexion was interrupted by the death of the Kentish king after a reign of nearly fifty years, and Redwald of East Anglia succeeded to the hegemony of Britain. His kingdom shortly afterwards passed into the hands of the redoubtable champion of the old faith, Penda of Mercia, whose fall at Winwaed in 655 inaugurated the period of Northumbrian supremacy and led to the final evangelization of East Anglia. The northern kingdom, however, was soon overshadowed by Mercia, and the eastern Angles were ruled from the midlands till the foun- dation of the English kingdom by Ecgberht in the second quarter of the 9th century. It is evident therefore that most of the burials that can be identified as Anglo-Saxon by their position or furniture must be referred to the period of Kentish supremacy, and these, for obvious reasons, are inhumations. Those who practised cremation in Early England did not, as a rule, place on the pyre objects of metal or other material that might resist the flames, for if combs survived (as at Eye), brooches and other such ornaments would also have been spared. A corollary from this is that the numerous bronzes found in the county without any notice of interments are probably from inhuma- tions either perished or destroyed, and the probability becomes a practical certainty when such articles are found in pairs or in groups, for objects accidentally lost would be found, if at all, in isolation. On these grounds some of the sites have been marked on the map as burials even where there is no record of human remains either burnt or unburnt. Though East Anglia was the first Danish kingdom in England, and belonged to the Danelagh after the partition under Alfred, it has been inferred from certain social indications that ' Guthrum's Danes did not, like their northern kindred, drive out a portion of the earlier population and establish themselves as a superior class above the remainder, but settled among the original East Anglians on a footing of comparative equality.' '^^ "" Mr. Chadwick quotes Hisloria Briltonum, § 59, but thinks it unlikely that Wehha, the first King of East Anglia and great-grandfather of Redwald, lived at the time of the invasion. {Oripn of the English 'Nation, 183.) '" V.C.H. Norf. i, 345. '" Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, ii, 43;, 240. 354
