CHAPTER VII

SURVIVALS IN BURIAL CUSTOMS

A discussion of burial customs might, in the absence of a little careful

selection of material, tend to become rather gruesome. This may be

conceded at the outset, but, fortunately, an impersonal treatment is

possible, and one need not even imitate the mournful example of “Old

Mortality.” There is nothing morbid in a dispassionate review of customs

which, in all ages and among all peoples, seem to have been general,

because born of that vicissitude which is the common lot of man.

Perhaps, in some measure, the antiquary may be able to reach the

standard of stoicism set up by John Earle: “His grave does not fright

him [the antiquary], because he has been used to sepulchers, and he

likes Death the better, because it gathers him to his fathers[657].”

Already we have spoken of the orientation of graves, and the degradation

of the barrow to the grave-mound. Several kindred matters must now

receive attention, and in a later chapter, when chariot-burial is

considered, our eyes will again be turned backward. For customs are like

crystals with several facets; to get a true perception we must, in each

case, frequently change our point of view.

A few more instances of the development of funeral monuments may be

first noted. It has been shown elsewhere that the churchyard headstone

may be traced back, step by step, to the unhewn menhir set up by

primitive man on some bleak moorland. Within the last two or three

years, there have been discovered in France and Italy remarkable

connecting links, in the so-called “statue-menhirs,” prehistoric stones

rudely carved

[Illustration:

FIG. 53. Inscribed, ornamented, round-headed cross, Sancreed

churchyard, Cornwall. In the head of the cross is a figure of Our

Lord in relief. The shaft is decorated with interlaced work, and

contains a panel with an imperfect inscription.

]

to represent the human head and trunk[658]. The evidence derived from

observing the gradual evolution is corroborated by strange cases of

survival. Thus in St Martha’s churchyard, near Chilworth, Surrey, low

headstones, untouched by any tool, have been set up in considerable

numbers. The slabs are merely masses of ironstone dug out of the Lower

Greensand of the hill on which the church is built. Pursuing another

line of descent, Mr J. Romilly Allen claimed that a similar kind of

coarse monolith had developed into the “wheel-cross” and the

“free-standing” cross of Christian churchyards[659] (Fig. 53 and Fig.

62). The dolmen, or “stone-table,” a familiar prehistoric monument, has

been replaced by the family vault and the altar-tomb, the ossuary of

Brittany, the flat tombstone of the village graveyard, and the

sarcophagus of the cathedral[660]. The cromlech, a circle of upright

stone pillars, is by some believed to have been the forerunner of the

temple and the round church[661]; but this claim may be waived, as not

fully proven (cf. p. 99 _supra_). More plausible is the theory that the

rude, unfashioned grave-stake is represented to-day by the humble wooden

cross of our cemeteries[662]. Each of these examples of unconscious

imitation and modern survival might be examined at some length, but the

theories which they illustrate are now so familiar as to be commonplace.

Not quite so well known is the theory that we have derived our custom of

placing shrubs on graves from our heathen forefathers of the Bronze Age,

who were wont to plant trees on their burial mounds[663]. Mr Grant Allen

argued, with some reason, that the pine-trees so frequently found on

round barrows in the South of England are survivors of those placed

there by the first mound-raisers, since the Scottish pine is not now

indigenous to that tract of country[664] (cf. p. 401 _infra_).

Attempts have been made to connect the noun “barrow” with the verb “to

bury,” but the relationship cannot really be upheld. The primary notion

involved in “barrow” was that of a height, while “to bury” was

associated with concealment or covering. The word “barrow,” it may be

remarked, went out of use in English literature before A.D. 1400, but it

survived locally in dialects, and was ultimately taken back into the

nomenclature of archaeology[665]. But, though philology forbids us to

bind these two words together, the actual continuity between

mound-burial and pit-burial, as we have seen, has never been completely

broken. Something has been said about the later development of barrows

and megaliths; it is now desirable to trace the earliest representatives

of our wooden coffin. To begin with, we notice that coffins did not come

into universal use until a little over two centuries ago. This is proved

by numerous terriers and by minutes of parish vestries. In London, it is

true, burial in the simple winding-sheet seems to have been discarded so

far back as the early years of Elizabeth, but in remote districts the

custom lingered much later. Thus in the Isle of Man, down to the early

part of the eighteenth century, the bodies of the poor were wrapped in a

blanket fastened with a skewer, and were carried on a bier to the grave.

A hundred years afterwards, coffinless burials survived to a

considerable extent in county Wexford. Sir R. Phillimore quotes Lord

Stowell’s dictum that funerals were either “coffined” or “coffinless,”

and were charged for accordingly. The use of coffins is extremely

ancient, but at first the custom was by no means common[666]. There

appears, in fact, to have been no real uniformity in this, as in many

other practices, since the earliest days of English Christendom. And in

this lack of system we find at once an approximation to the customs of

the barrow period, when corpses were either enclosed, or buried without

a cist, the exact reason for the difference of treatment being not

always explicable by the general ideas held at the time.

Lest there should still be any doubt of the antiquity of coffins, it is

necessary to recall those coffins of the Middle Ages (Fig. 54), often

hewn out of a single block, and familiar to persons who have inspected

the relics of ruined abbeys and the nooks and corners of our existing

parish churches. These stone coffins are obviously the representatives

of prehistoric tombs, though they may not be in the true British line of

descent. Rather do they suggest the Roman coffins of stone, lead, or

brick (Figs. 55 B, 56). Occasionally, Roman coffins of stone are

[Illustration:

FIG. 54. Mediaeval stone coffins. A. From Wellesbourne churchyard,

Warwickshire (Bloxam’s _Mon. Archit._). There is a hole in the

bottom of the coffin, as in the prehistoric specimen from

Gristhorpe (Fig. 55 B). An almost exact replica of this coffin may

be seen in the Guildhall Museum, London, associated with a

thirteenth century lid bearing a foliated cross. B. From Eynesford

church, Kent. This specimen has a raised head-rest.

]

found, covered with a lid of undoubted Saxon workmanship, proving that

there had been a re-adaptation. We note, in passing, that the stone

coffin must be carefully distinguished from those hog-backed or coped

stones which were employed as grave covers in early Christian times, and

to which Mr Romilly Allen assigned a Saxon or Scandinavian origin[667].

With respect to the wooden coffin, commonly adjudged as of Christian

design, there is occasionally some difficulty. At Colchester, wooden

coffins have been found associated with leaden ones,

[Illustration:

FIG. 55. A. Prehistoric coffin, formed of a hollowed oak trunk,

found in a barrow at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough. The bark is

still adhering to the timber. A hole (3´´ × 1´´) has been cut in

the bottom of the coffin. The relics indicated that the grave

probably belonged to the Bronze Age. (After T. Wright.)

B. Roman coffin of baked clay, Aldborough, Yorkshire. (After T.

Wright.) The shapes of such coffins are rather variable.

]

[Illustration:

FIG. 56. Roman coffin of lead, found at Colchester. Length 4´ 3´´;

depth, exclusive of lid, 9½´´; width at head 15´´, at foot 11´´.

The lid has overlapping edges. The decoration consists of scallop

shells, concentric rings, and lines of beaded ornament.

]

and have been taken to indicate a Christian element among the

population. In connection with the leaden coffins were found Roman

coins, mainly, of the Constantine group, so that the burials were of

late date. Yet, although there were probably many converts in that part

of England by the time of the Diocletian persecution, A.D. 303, Mr Guy

Maynard, who records the discoveries, admits that there is little

corroborative evidence of the Christian character of the graves[668].

Looked at from either standpoint, the association of coffins and coins

seems to show a period of transition.

We are able, however, to extend our view much beyond the Roman invasion,

and to find the counterpart of the coffin in many primitive burials.

Some of the stone cists which enclosed unburnt bodies of the older

Bronze Age barrows are actually described as “coffin-shaped

receptacles[669].” A Bronze Age barrow at Hove, Brighton, contained an

oak coffin in which objects of bronze, stone, and amber had been

deposited with the skeleton[670]. Belonging to the same period was the

famous barrow of Gristhorpe, near Scarborough; in this example the

interment had been made in a hollowed oak trunk, specially prepared for

the purpose[671] (Fig. 55 A). King Barrow, near Wareham, Dorset, was

found to be raised over a coffin, wherein a cup of shale had been

deposited with the body[672]. Mr J. R. Mortimer asserts that traces of

wooden supports for protecting the body are often found. In a barrow at

Easington, in Holderness, broad slabs, made from the trunk of a willow,

formed the covering. It would be superfluous to continue the list, but

should the reader desire to examine further material in justification of

the plea of continuity, he will find ample opportunity in Mr Llewellynn

Jewitt’s interesting volume[673].

The Roman and pre-Roman periods have been considered; we turn to the

Romano-British burials, and proceed in the forward direction.

Gen. Pitt-Rivers discovered “dug-out” coffins at Woodyates, and other

sites in Cranborne Chase, and he inferred the former existence of

further specimens by the presence of nails which were associated with

the burials. To ascertain whether the record can be extended into later

historical times, we might turn especially to our Northern churchyards.

Some examples of the stone cell, found at Alloa and elsewhere, are

described by Sir Arthur Mitchell as being simply cists, enlarged so as

to avoid doubling up the body[674]. Later stages of survival are

witnessed by the rude box-shaped tombstones of many churchyards in

Devonshire, Gloucestershire, and other counties[675]. Stone coffins have

been dug up in the Dorsetshire graveyard of Worth Matravers, almost

identical with those which have been unearthed from barrows in the

surrounding Isle of Purbeck. In short, it is clear that the stone coffin

and the table tombstone are derived from the ancient stone cist, and

this, in its turn, bears some analogy to the chamber of the long barrow.

This endurance of custom becomes the more remarkable when we remember

that great changes have occurred in the mode of treating the corpse at

burial. At first there was inhumation; then we have a period during

which inhumation and cremation were, to some extent, contemporaneous,

while, as a variant, partial burning of the body was common. Cremation

gradually becomes obsolete, and earth-burial again comes into vogue. If

we carry back our thoughts to the advent of Christianity into Britain,

we see that the trend of custom was the exact reverse of that which

obtains in our day, when cremation is very slowly replacing

earth-burial. The substitution of inhumation for the funeral pyre is one

of the four chief distinctions drawn by Mr Romilly Allen between the

burial customs of the Celtic pagans and the Celtic Christians[676]. Yet

the change was a slow one; in the remote fastnesses of the country, the

custom of burning bodies lingered for generations, though it was

generally extinct in the fourth century of our era[677]. Indeed,

Macrobius, the critic and philosopher, who wrote at the beginning of the

fifth century, declared that cremation had been discontinued for so long

a time that it was only from books that he could glean information

concerning the custom[678]. Whether the turnover from cremation to

earth-burial were always the result of religious or of racial influences

is a moot point[679]. The evidence seems to prove, as already hinted,

that in Britain the cause was mainly religious (p. 263 _supra_), though

one dare not assert that religion was the sole cause. Cremation must

always have been a comparatively expensive process. Someone has well

said, “To this day we speak of the ashes of the great, and the bones of

the poor.” At all events, transitions may be noted, as in the case of

the famous flat-earth burial-ground at Aylesford, which was referred to

in the preceding chapter. The ashes of the “family circle” represented

at Aylesford had been enclosed in urns, and then placed in pits, as

before stated (p. 261 _supra_). Sir A. J. Evans supposes that the

variation of custom was due to the influence of Belgic conquerors. The

urn-burials represented at Aylesford superseded the old skeleton

interments of the late-Celtic peoples, as exemplified in the

“chariot-burials” of Yorkshire, where the skeleton of the departed

warrior is laid alongside the chariot[680]. In Scandinavia and Northern

Germany there was a further intermediate stage, for the ashes were

sometimes deposited in the grave without any enclosing urn. To such

graves the Northern archaeologists apply the term “Brandgruben,” or

cremation pits. This mode of burial is connected with the La Tène period

of culture[681].

Though this question of cremation may appear to have slight connection

with the use of coffins, a little study will show that there is a bond

of association. The ashes of the dead were, it is true, usually

enshrined in a cinerary urn, and this vessel was often placed in a

chamber specially constructed for the purpose. But it was the coffin

which was essentially a receptacle for preserving the entire body, and

which therefore became the sign of earth-burial. Dr Rock lays down the

rule that bishops, kings, and persons of rank were interred in stone

coffins, while the bulk of the people had coffins of wood. Whenever the

receptacle was made of wood, and not of stone, one might have supposed

that it would readily become an accessory in the rite of cremation. This

was apparently not the case, though, obviously, proof would be difficult

to obtain. The body seems to have been burnt in an open pyre, not

enclosed in a chest. Contrariwise, in a Saxon cemetery at Sibertswold,

in Kent, ninety-nine of the coffins had been “submitted to the fire,”

the bodies themselves being unburnt. Again, in the early Christian

burials a cist of stones, instead of a coffin, was sometimes placed

around the corpse[682], but there was no reversion to the funeral pyre.

Yet, as already noticed, the employment, in isolated instances, of rude

coffins, to say nothing of the cists by which they were foreshadowed,

was probably in some measure contemporary with the general pagan custom

of burning the dead. There was an overlapping of custom. Such seeming

anachronisms, while they puzzle, do not greatly surprise the

archaeologist, to whom such occurrences are no new feature. He

frequently sees remote traces of the beginnings of a practice of which

the general adoption was long delayed; he observes rites and customs

overlapping in time and struggling for victory; and, in his own day, he

is a witness of extraordinary vestiges and of ceremonies which must be

deemed reversions or “throw-backs.” The overstepping of one burial rite

by another of older origin is not a whit more inexplicable than the

contemporaneous use, by man, of diverse kinds of clothes or of varying

types of habitation. It is perhaps the more difficult problem to

determine, in the absence of additional data, why, at a particular

period, one group of men is found dwelling in pile-houses on the margins

of lake or mere, while another class frequents caves and rock-shelters,

and a third prefers the wattled hut with sunken floor, and roof of reeds

or heather. Convenience was doubtless a partial cause of these

diversities, just as belief was the great regulator of burial customs,

but this is not the full answer. We must look to primary race

distinctions, in which were the germs of the variations, and to the fact

that human immigrations to Britain occurred at intervals, so that mental

as well as physical territories were invaded and transgressed.

A remarkable instance of anticipation will illustrate, to some extent,

what has just been said. The antiquary is well aware that, during the

Stuart period, in order to encourage the woollen industry, statutes were

passed (A.D. 1666, 1678, 1680), which made it compulsory to bury the

dead in woollen shrouds. An interesting chapter of burial-lore might be

written on this curious subject, for the Acts, though they had long been

in abeyance, were not repealed until late in the reign of George III.

(A.D. 1814)[683]. The practice is recalled in our own day when, by

request of the dying person, the body is enfolded in some special garb,

usually of wool, before being committed to the earth. The strange

circumstance, however, is that such a custom should have been

foreshadowed in the far-away past. In Danish burials belonging to the

earliest Bronze Age, the bodies are sometimes found to have been placed

in hollowed tree trunks, and the remains show that a woollen shroud had

been used. Skeletons wrapped in a woollen textile have likewise been

discovered at Rylston, in the Western Riding of Yorkshire[684]. I have

provisionally regarded these instances as revealing anticipations rather

than origins, but it is possible that many intermediate examples could

be supplied. One of these gradations is perhaps traceable in the custom

of burying a person in his ordinary dress. If these links were

complete, there would obviously be entire continuity, but if we

encountered a gap, it is probable that the eighteenth century practice

would have to be considered as a “throw-back.”

It is now time to review the custom, still common among uncivilized

peoples, and once extremely popular in Britain, of placing objects with

the corpse in the grave. A mass of evidence has been collated and

examined, and though only a portion can be given here, we must, while

shunning tediousness, present as much detail as is actually profitable.

A rough preliminary classification of these funerary objects would

include, (1) weapons and useful implements; (2) amulets, talismans, and

symbolical objects; (3) trinkets, ornaments, and decorative articles;

(4) a miscellaneous group, partly useful, partly symbolical or

commemorative. It is necessary to premise that this classification is

conventional, and lacks well-defined boundaries, hence, while dealing

with one series of relics, other groups will be forced upon our

attention, producing, later, unavoidable repetition.

That the groups enumerated have a somewhat arbitrary basis is rendered

clear when we perceive a principle running through the whole series,

most effective in prehistoric days, but probably reaching, in a vague

and partial manner, to the utmost confines of modern religious thought.

This principle, which must be briefly outlined, has been well described

by Professor Tylor under the name of Animism. The term implies the

doctrine of Spiritual Beings or Souls--a deep-lying belief in the

two-fold nature of both animate and inanimate objects, as opposed to the

teachings of Materialistic philosophy[685]. Animism supplies us,

according to Professor Tylor, with “a minimum definition of

Religion[686].” The primordial idea, which impelled early man to acts of

worship, was, according to this theory, the belief that not only his own

fellows, but the beasts, trees, and surrounding objects, natural or

artificial, possessed spirits--ethereal images, as it were--of

themselves. Hence the dead man must be provided with food, weapons, and

other necessaries; not that these material objects themselves, but

their corresponding phantasmal shapes, might, when disembodied,

accompany the departed warrior or huntsman on his journey to the

spirit-world[687]. In the earliest times, when the dead man was thought

to be merely asleep, it may have been believed that the actual objects

were of service, but at a later period, when it was recognized that the

soul had actually left the body, the weapons were burnt, or perchance

broken, before being interred. The precise mode of transmission of the

simulacral forms to the dead man’s service was left in vague suspense,

but the duty was clearly understood. The spirit of the weapon or

ornament must be set free; the ghost desired the immaterial wraiths or

shadows, not the solid earthly utensils. Mr Grant Allen has ingeniously,

and with considerable force, contended that the two faiths may be

correlated with the Long-Barrow Period and the Round-Barrow Period

respectively. During the former age, when inhumation was in fashion, the

life of the grave was considered to be as material and real as life on

the earth, and the weapons would serve equally well for both worlds.

Among the cremationists of the Bronze Age who imagined the existence of

“a realm of incorporeal disembodied spirits,” the ghost was conceived to

be immaterial, therefore the weapons were broken or charred with

fire[688]. It must further be noted that Mr Grant Allen, along with some

other writers, does not altogether accept Professor Tylor’s theory of

animism. He does not believe that the ideas involved in animism are

demonstrably primitive[689], and, following in the footsteps of Herbert

Spencer, he seeks the origin of religion in ancestor-worship and its

associated ancestral ghosts. According to this hypothesis, objects were

first placed in, or on, the grave, to propitiate the dead. As fear of

the corpse gradually diminished, respect became the dominant idea, and

ghost-worship and shade-worship were established. Between this

“Humanist” school of thought, and that of Animism, as represented by

Professor Tylor and Professor Frazer, a reconciliation may, to some

extent, be effected[690]. We may perhaps look upon ancestor-worship as a

sub-division of the animistic belief, and as tending towards a higher

plane of religion. Professor Frazer, in his work on _Totemism and

Exogamy_, has cleared the ground by showing that totemism, which has

often been regarded as a primitive religion, is only occasionally found

in connection with the doctrine of external souls. In pure totemism, the

totems are in no sense deities, to be propitiated by offerings or

sacrifices. Professor Westermarck declares that there is no

justification in facts for regarding the worship of the dead as “the

root of every religion.” The spirits of the dead were not originally

conceived as the only supernatural agents existing. Whichever be

considered the primitive type of religion is a matter which will not

greatly affect our present review of the facts of continuity. Nor need

we feel much concerned with a third claim--that certain races may have

reached the pastoral stage of society without passing through the

nomadic stage, and may have been worshippers of the sun or some of the

other external powers of Nature without embracing animism.

From the animistic side itself, Professor Tylor has uttered a

significant warning against straining the theory. While in the vast

number of cases, the idea of object-souls is, he informs us, both clear

and explicit, yet it is notorious that there are peoples who sacrifice

property or deposit offerings to the dead from other motives. Affection,

fancy, or symbolism, a desire to abandon the dead man’s property,

anxiety to appease the hovering ghost, may each, in particular cases,

be an efficient motive[691]. Again, although the animistic conception,

so far as primitive peoples were concerned, was world-wide in its

extent, yet, in our day, and among civilized folk, the system seems to

be drawing in its outposts. It has outlived the belief in the objective

reality of apparitional souls or ghosts; the notion of the souls of

beasts is similarly being left behind. The central position is now held

by the doctrine of the human soul[692].

A still more modern theory, the psychological, is put forward by Mr A.

E. Crawley, in his recent work, _The Idea of the Soul_. Mr Crawley

considers that the world of spirits is a mental world, and that the soul

itself is “the mental duplicate of reality.” As soon as man had the

power of perception to enable him to form a memory-image, he possessed a

soul. The mental replica of the object perceived was, in the earlier

stages of savage life, concrete, though immaterial; at a later period,

under the influence of language and science, abstractions were formed.

One is bound to add that Mr Crawley’s theory does not seem to meet with

general approbation, though it will have to be reckoned with in all

future discussions.

We shall expect, from these preliminary observations, to encounter

various gradations of belief as we proceed to consider the evidence for

continuity of custom respecting burial gifts. In order that the forest

may not lose its importance by being considered in detail, tree by tree,

let us keep to our proposed classification, and glance first at the

practice of burying weapons and other useful objects with the dead.

Though the custom was not a marked feature of the Long-Barrow Period,

the original inspiration dates from that age at least. The Round-Barrow

epoch, however, was pre-eminently associated with the burial of weapons

and utensils. A rough enumeration made by Canon Greenwell showed that

about one-fifth of the barrows which he had opened contained implements

of some kind, the commonest materials employed in the manufacture being

stone, bronze, or horn. To be exact, out of 379 burials by inhumation or

cremation, 77 had associated implements[693]. A study of the researches

of Mortimer and Pitt-Rivers will give similar results. Nor when we trace

the story onwards to the advent of Christianity, does the force of

custom diminish, even if its direction becomes slightly changed. Flint

scrapers and useful instruments of many kinds are turned out of graves

belonging to the Roman period, just as Early Iron Age burials yield

corresponding relics. A fragment of a flint celt was found with a Late

Roman or Early Saxon burial at Leicester[694], while a Saxon grave at

Ash, in Kent, yielded a polished celt, together with a Roman

fibula[695]. The celt, in this instance, was evidently an heirloom from

an earlier period, and had been regarded by its finder with

superstitious reverence. One need scarcely recall the celebrated Saxon

tumulus in Taplow churchyard, Buckinghamshire (p. 81 _supra_), which

contained, in addition to Anglo-Saxon relics of the ordinary kind, flint

flakes, cores, and scrapers[696]. On the Continent, flint arrow-heads

are frequently found with Merovingian remains dating from the fifth to

the eighth centuries of our era. In one case, an iron sword of the

Frankish period accompanied the arrow-heads. Such occurrences are not

well-attested with respect to Britain, though the collocation of flint

and bronze articles is frequent[697]. The most remarkable instance of

the survival of celt-burial is that supplied by the tumulus in Flanders,

described by Evans. Within this barrow, arranged in a circle around the

body, the mourners had placed six celts in an upright position. The

celts, seemingly of different ages, had been gathered from the surface

of the soil, and deposited within the tomb as amulets[698]. There can be

little doubt, however, that the custom, thus shorn of its primary

significance, was once the expression of a deep conviction of service.

An ancient Vedic hymn, or dirge, has the words, “Take not the bow from

the hand of him who lies dead.” Does not also Ossian give instructions

to Oscar on this very subject? “Remember, my son, to place this sword,

this bow, the horn of my deer, within that dark and narrow home, whose

mark is one grey stone[699].” When we observe that parallel ideas are

actually common the world over, we shall be inclined to believe that

Macpherson has here recovered a bit of genuine Celtic tradition. Thus,

the Greenlanders inter bows and other weapons with the dead, the

Turanians of Eastern Asia bury axes, flints, and food, and supply the

deceased warrior with a spear that he may be ready for future

combat[700].

There is no need to press this point, but having carried the custom to

Saxon times, when objects of stone still survived along with such burial

relics as iron swords, daggers, and knives, let us consider one or two

later observances. In Mediaeval days, burial in armour was considered

most honourable. Not seldom, the warriors lay uncoffined, their shroud a

panoply of iron. Their arms and weapons, again, were suspended over the

tomb. This practice lasted a long time, and allusion to it may be found

in Shakespeare. Laertes, speaking of the burial of his father Polonius,

complains of

“his obscure funeral,

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones[701].”

And Iden, in the second part of _Henry VI._, inquires,

“Is’t Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?

Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed,

And hang thee o’er my tomb when I am dead[702].”

Every ecclesiologist is familiar with such arms and accoutrements as are

here mentioned. Dr J. C. Cox has enumerated churches where personal

armour is still preserved[703]. No further digression can be made here,

but the reader may again be reminded that many armorial relics belong to

a later period, and are counterfeits which constituted part of the

undertaker’s trappings (cf. p. 159 _supra_). One attenuated survival

lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century in the form of square

or lozenge-shaped hatchments (= “achievements”), made of wood. On these

wooden shields, which, after the funeral, were nailed up in the church,

were blazoned the coats-of-arms borne by the family of the deceased

person. The most recent spectacle of this kind, surprisingly belated,

was witnessed at the church of Hunmanby, in the East Riding, during the

year 1897[704].

Strangest of all the warrior superstitions was that exemplified in the

ceremony of offering food to weapons. The custom, which is plainly

traceable to pagan ideas of worship, continued without interruption, we

are assured, until the reign of Elizabeth. One instance must suffice.

Sir Howel-y-Furyall, known to his fellows as “Sir Howel of the

Battle-axe,” a weapon which he wielded bravely at Poitiers, ordained

that his axe should be hung up in the Tower of London, and a “messe of

meat” served before it daily. The injunction was obeyed, and each day,

after the rite had been completed, the food was distributed to

beggars[705].

Arms and food do not, however, complete our list of serviceable gifts to

the dead. Among implements of this nature must be reckoned divers kinds

of fire-producers. Excavations have shown that flint and iron pyrites

were occasionally concealed in round barrows, while, in the mounds of

later periods, a piece of iron replaced the customary mineral nodule.

These ignition agents, the forerunners of our “strike-a-lights” and

tinder boxes, are found so late as the Saxon period. Certain small

“nests” of chipped flints occurring in Merovingian, Frankish, and Saxon

sepulchres, are also believed by some authorities to have been intended

for fire-kindlers[706], by means of which the departed spirit could be

provided with cheerful warmth. To the present writer this theory is not

entirely satisfactory, at least as regards the later developments of the

practice. The cases just cited seem to be analogous to those described

by Pitt-Rivers, who repeatedly found, in British barrows, urns filled

with chips of flint[707]. In a notable barrow at Winkelbury Hill, on a

Northern spur of the Wiltshire Downs, not only was the urn packed with

flakes, but it was surrounded by a mass of similar objects[708]. Besides

the flakes placed in the cist or urn itself, we have to take into

account the very common occurrence of flint spalls in the body of the

mound, a sight familiar to the barrow-digger. The number of chips is

often out of all proportion to what might be incidentally brought

together in piling up the substance of the mound from the surface soil.

They were evidently struck off for the particular occasion. Now,

although the germ of the ceremony may be discoverable in the burial of a

trimmed flint and a lump of iron pyrites, there is no manifest virtue in

the multiplication of the chips. Each tribesman may indeed have thrown

in his tributary flint, or perhaps a handful of small flakes, but the

intention would scarcely be to increase the opportunities of procuring

fire. Rather do the chips seem to represent some esoteric doctrine, such

as that which was held by the primitive Lapps. Hidden in the flint lies

the spark, the emblem of life and animation, ready to burst forth. The

scattered flakes of flint were therefore probably the proofs, not alone

of dutiful respect, but of a strong faith that the dead man was merely

asleep, that his spirit would return. Pliny’s _Natural History_ has been

credited with the statement that Northern peoples used to throw flint

chippings into graves in order to confine the dead within those dark

dominions. Pliny does, indeed, describe certain stones that consume dead

bodies, and other kinds that have the power to preserve the corpse, and

to turn it into stone[709]. But the reference to the flint flakes, as

commonly given, is bibliographically incorrect, and, although the

passage may exist, I have not been successful in finding it. Except for

the sake of the reason assigned to the custom, the passage is

unimportant, since we possess actual relics as a testimony of the

practice. What is of more interest is the fact that we have a reference

to the custom as apparently existing in Shakespeare’s day. When Ophelia

is about to be buried, the surly priest makes complaint:

“She should in ground unsanctified have lodged

Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,

Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her[710].”

From this passage it seems clear that a ceremony, which, if I interpret

it aright, was originally indicative of respect, had degenerated into a

mark of disgrace. The potsherds and flint chips were known to be a mark

of heathen burial, and were therefore reprobated by Christians, without

any inquiry as to their purport. There is an alternative explanation:

the idea of laying the evil spirit, so that it should not wander abroad

and annoy the living, may at some time have been operative. If this

assumption be well founded, it might be urged that the priest had caught

an echo of the superstition, and actually believed that the ghost of a

suicide might return. The usual annotation of the lines, to the effect

that Ophelia is worthy only of pagan burial, comes a little short of the

whole truth, and one of these ideas--respect or fear--is required to

round off the meaning. In support of this view, the case of the Czechs

is apposite. When returning from a funeral, it is the custom of this

folk to throw stones, mud, and hot coals in the direction of the grave

to deter the spirit from following the burial party[711]. Again, the

purpose of wearing mourning is believed to have arisen from attempts to

disguise the person, so that pursuit by the dead may be evaded; or, as

Mr E. S. Hartland contends, the intention was to express sorrow and

abasement, so as to deprecate the malice of the disembodied spirit[712].

Yet, in spite of these by-theories, one is led to believe that the

earlier intention of the funeral flints was to express honour and

respect, though the feeling may have been tinged with wholesome fear. To

this extent the theory of ancestor-worship, as opposed to that of

animism, receives some confirmation.

A passage occurring in Herodotus has been noted as throwing some light

on the custom, while not affording an actual explanation. The writer is

describing the ceremony of purification observed after funerals by the

Scythians in Europe. A cavity was made, or a dish was placed in the

middle of a specially constructed tent. Into this hollow they threw

stones heated to a transparent brightness (λίθους ἐκ πυρὸς διαφανέας

ἐσβάλλουσι ἐς σκάφην)[713]. This description, however, does not really

apply to the rite which we are considering, for Herodotus goes on to say

that hemp-seed is put on the red-hot stones. The intention was to

prepare a kind of vapour bath, and also probably to induce

intoxication[714]. In other words, the heated stones seem to have been

our familiar “pot-boilers,” common on all prehistoric camping-grounds,

and capable of a purely industrial explanation, though often applied to

a ceremonial purpose.

Returning to the shards alluded to by the priest at Ophelia’s grave, we

note, as an illustration, that Pitt-Rivers found considerable quantities

of broken pottery in the Romano-British graves of Dorset and Wiltshire.

A remarkable coincidence must now be mentioned. Douglas, writing his

_Nenia Britannica_ in 1793, had noticed that pebbles and fragments of

pottery were often mixed with the earth which had been scattered over

the corpses in Saxon graves. The shards were generally of more ancient

date than the interment[715]. Douglas had lighted upon the passage in

_Hamlet_, already quoted, and had connected it with the superstitious

Saxon practice. Over half a century later, Mr W. M. Wylie, who was

exploring Saxon graves at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, came upon

quantities of similar burial shards. The vessels which had furnished the

fragments had not been newly broken for the occasion, since the pieces

did not correspond, but had been previously collected and kept in

readiness. Along with these potsherds were found pebbles that had been

fired, as well as scoriae from iron smeltings, obtained perhaps from the

neighbourhood of Cirencester, not far away[716]. After referring to the

description of the Scythian custom, which has just been quoted from

Herodotus, and after making a half-hearted attempt to connect the

Scythians with the Northern Teutons, Wylie cites the now-famous lines

from _Hamlet_. That Wylie should have independently come to the same

conclusion as Douglas, and should have called attention to the same

Shakespearean allusion, is very noteworthy, for he had never read

Douglas’s work[717].

Although we are considering relics which were judged to be of use to the

dead, we have transgressed our limits, and have been compelled to glance

at the ceremonial aspect. Yet before we can safely return to the main

inquiry, we must notice some instances of survival in this matter of

potsherds. Numerous records tend to show that the deposition of pieces

of earthenware in Christian graves was not an uncommon practice during

the Middle Ages. At once, however, we must make a reservation: the

scraps of pottery may, to some extent, represent vessels in which

charcoal had been deposited, but which afterwards were fractured by the

sexton’s spade. For the broken pottery is sometimes, but not always,

associated with charcoal, while, as we shall see, the charcoal is often

found alone. The Rev. R. Ashington Bullen found traces of the custom at

Little Stukeley, Huntingdonshire. At a depth of 4½ feet, graves were

found to contain fragments of Mediaeval pottery, possessing a greenish

glaze, but no charcoal was discovered[718]. Canon Atkinson states that

potsherds were also found near Dunsley chapel, Yorkshire, which was

probably demolished prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This

capable antiquary, whose eye was well trained for the work, observed

charcoal and broken crocks in abundance in the old churchyard graves of

Danby-in-Cleveland. The charcoal occurred in lumps of the size of a

small bean. Occasionally, out of half a spade-graft of mould brought to

the surface, from one-third to one-half would be principally charcoal.

Fragments of coarse red pottery, partly glazed on the interior surface,

and without doubt of Mediaeval age, were also constantly lighted upon.

About a wheelbarrow full of shards was turned up within a quarter of a

century, few graves being dug without some scraps being encountered. The

charcoal and the pottery were not actually found in contact,

nevertheless Canon Atkinson believed that charcoal, in the form of live

coals [_Qy_ live charcoal, i.e. “coal” in the older sense?] had been

placed in earthen vessels. The reason for this opinion is not given, nor

does the hypothesis harmonize with all the related facts. Canon

Atkinson, while granting that the idea of purificatory energy may have

underlain the custom, stated that collateral evidences showed a desire

to keep the spirit in abeyance[719]. These opinions have been dealt with

in advance; it remains to be noted that Danby churchyard seems once to

have formed part of an open field. “That pagan Danes were laid to their

rest there I make no doubt; and that they were the fore-elders of a

Christianized generation or series of generations is equally

certain[720].” These details, though interesting, are unimportant; the

essential matter is that the bulk of the pottery was of Mediaeval

date--the narrator allows for exceptions--and must therefore have been

employed in Christian times (see p. 287 _supra_). The practice had

possibly a direct lineal descent from the Bronze Age. In one barrow

belonging to that period, a deposit of burnt bones was underlain by

wood, and was covered with charcoal and wood ashes, probably the remains

of the funeral pile[721]. On the other hand, a barrow which was opened

by Canon Atkinson contained pieces of charcoal, varying in size from a

bean to a nutmeg, scattered through the material of the mound[722].

Other cases might be given from the investigations of Pitt-Rivers. Late

Frankish cemeteries have yielded fragments of charcoal[723], and the

same may be said of Mediaeval graves in France[724]. The accidentals of

cremation ceremonies clearly survived the essentials, and a pagan

custom was engrafted on Christian rite. The Mediaeval churchman’s

explanation of the charcoal is thus given by Durandus: _Carbones in

testimonium, quod terra illa ad communes usus amplius redigi non potest,

plus enim durat carbo sub terra quam aliud_[725]; that is: Charcoal is

employed to show that the earth can no longer be put to ordinary uses,

because charcoal endures underground longer than any other substance.

Is there any known instance of the actual use of flint flakes at

Christian funerals? Research has so far given a negative reply, but a

scrap or two of evidence may be produced. Canon Atkinson found flint

chippings and even the ruder kinds of implements in the churchyards of

Cleveland[726]. The present writer picked up a flint flake from a

newly-dug grave at Northolt, Middlesex, and another, a long, thin

specimen, with a “back ridge,” at Warlingham churchyard, Surrey. The

risks of drawing an inference from such isolated occurrences as these

are both numerous and patent. The churchyard was once part of the open

country, and these flakes might, perhaps, originally have been derived

from the surface soil. Again, chips of a rough kind fall as waste when

flint is dressed and squared for church walls. A sufficient knowledge of

the properties of modern and ancient flakes enables the observer to

dismiss this source of error, though it must be stated that both at

Warlingham and Northolt flint forms a portion of the structural

materials. Now the two flakes described were not whitened by exposure

and dissolution of the colloidal portion of the silica. They had

retained their old unpatinated surface, save that a polish had been

acquired; one may therefore conclude that they had lain for a

considerable period in a close impervious clay or loam. Probably they

had been dug from a depth of two or three feet below the surface. The

specimens were certainly ancient. Should instances of this nature be

recorded with a fair degree of frequency, the meaning might be

deciphered in either of two ways: the adaptation of a pagan site for a

Christian place of worship, or the casting of flint chips into a

Christian grave. Whether the occurrence of quantities of ancient

splinters of flint near a churchyard, as at St Paul’s Cray, Kent, must

be interpreted in the same manner, is not so clear. I prefer to await

further records, which are, from the nature of the case, difficult to

procure. The flints are mysterious witnesses, at most, and the sceptic

may justly scorn their testimony, if asked to consider these objects

alone. But the triad of flints, potsherds, and charcoal, stands

moderately firm. Concerning the charcoal, we have fortunately, apart

from the relics, the words of Durandus to help us to read the ostensible

meaning. But assume that we were unaware of the Mediaeval character of

some of the graveyard pottery, who would believe that the custom of

interring potsherds was observed at so late a period? The sceptic would

say that the scraps represented prehistoric urns accidentally occurring

in the churchyard soil. We should be justified in refusing our assent at

the outset, but we should have to reconsider the matter when we found

that the habit of breaking vessels and utensils over the dead is common

among many races[727]. Moreover, there is a record, within the last

thirty years, of a Lincolnshire woman’s breaking pottery over her

husband’s grave, because she had forgotten to inter the perfect vessels

with the body. At present, then, we must allow that there is a possible

preliminary case in favour of the flints, if these should be now and

again detected.

Let us summarize the last few paragraphs. The original purpose of

placing apparently useless potsherds with the dead was to provide the

departed tribesman with the spiritual utensils thus represented, the

spirit-forms having been liberated by the breaking of the vessels.

Similarly, the charcoal, the calcined pebbles or “pot-boilers,” and the

few scraps of flint, would supply him with fire, first material,

afterwards spiritual. Thus he had the means of making a fire, and of

carrying water and hot embers. “Poor indeed,” says Professor T. Rupert

Jones, “was the greatest of the heroes, on his dreary death-path, who

had not ‘a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal

out of the pit’ (Isa. xxx. 14)[728].” So far, the theory agrees well

with the explanation given respecting votive implements and weapons.

Moreover, we can see how the idea of “laying the spirit” with hot stones

and fractured flints may have arisen. The homeless ghost would be happy

only when fealty had been proved by funeral gifts. Careless or daring

folk who neglected to pay the tribute would, in dreams, receive visits

from the disembodied dead. Where no affection or respect existed,

experience might teach that formal adherence to custom was prudent. The

explanation based on actual needs seems only to suffice for those cases

where the flint and earthenware gifts are solitary, or at any rate, few,

like the celts and arrow-heads. Wherever the flint flakes are counted by

scores, and the potsherds, broken, it may be, from vessels made

expressly for the sepulchre, are representative of many individual

pieces of pottery, the idea involved seems to be, not mere utility, but

dutiful respect, tempered, as some will have it, with fear.

It may be submitted that, just as the Bedouin Arabs are wont to set up

groups of stones around the burial-place of a fakir, so the chief

members of a prehistoric tribe, each carrying his portion, produced the

accumulation of flint spalls. True; but this does not support the

suggested explanation that the flakes were strike-a-lights. So soon as

the multiplication of fire-kindlers--if we assume that the flakes were

at first of this nature--reached to the extent of filling an urn or

cist, utility must have been the waning, and reverence the waxing

principle. The idea that material objects could benefit the dead

lingered, it is true, for ages, and in some half-hearted manner

persisted, as we shall see, until our own day, but it was ultimately

overpowered by the growth of symbolical rites. It remains to notice

Pitt-Rivers’ theory that the broken pottery may have been buried to mark

the site of a barrow, but how this mode of indication could be effective

that cautious and experienced investigator does not suggest. In a

boundary tumulus, entombed pottery might be significant, but even

there, it could not form a visible memorial.

Reverting for a moment to the subject of fire-kindlers, I would remark

that many of the objects known to archaeologists as flint “scrapers”

were probably ignition agents[729]. Consequently, to call such flints

“thumb-scrapers,” or oval scrapers, as is often done by the

barrow-digger, is to push aside a debateable question by means of an

assumption. Scrapers they may have been, but it is at least permissible

to believe that they were also fire-producers. In due time, the

strike-a-light became a specialized article, but both scraper and

fire-kindler continued to find a place in the grave. Pliny speaks of the

discovery of mirrors and “body-scrapers” (_specula quoque, et

strigiles_)[730], in ancient tombs. These strigils, which Philemon

Holland quaintly renders “currycombes[731],” and Littré, as _instruments

pour les oreilles_[732], were actually, in Roman days, the scrapers of

horn or metal, used by the bather to remove impurities from the skin.

Thus, considered as a scraper, the strigil reaches back to the rounded

flint with trimmed edges, and forward to the Mediaeval “sleeker” of

stone or metal, employed by the currier in tawing hides. As a

“slick-stone” of black glass, degraded, doubtless, to the ornamental

stage, the object again appears in Islay, associated with a burial of

the Viking period[733]. Later records of the scraper, and of the

strike-a-light, definitely illustrative of the theory of funeral gifts,

seem to be lacking.

A survival of the custom of furnishing the dead with fire-kindlers is

partially traceable in the ancient practice of depositing a candle in

the grave, to light the dead man on his way. In Ireland a hammer was

also interred, to enable the deceased person to knock at the gates of

Purgatory, while a sixpenny piece secured admission[734]. Within the

last generation a native of Cleveland was buried with a candle for the

purpose of obtaining light, a bottle of wine for nourishment, and a

penny to pay the ferryman[735]. The village of Bucklebury, Berkshire, by

the way, supplies an instance of a different kind; in a grave apparently

modern, two bottles of beer had been placed but no candle[736]! In

Lincolnshire a groat, “a mug and a jug,” were placed in the coffin. The

Lincolnshire widow, who had forgotten to deposit the mug and the jug in

the grave, broke the crockery, as we have seen (p. 292 _supra_), and

laid the fragments on the mound. In one case, where a bottle, full of

pins, was found in a recently opened grave, the explanation can probably

be found in sympathetic magic. The pins had been used to touch warts on

the skin, and the operative belief was either that the warts were

transferred to the dead person, or that, as the pins rusted, the warts

would die away. The former explanation is the more likely, else the pins

might as well have been buried anywhere. Mr England Howlett asserts that

the burial of a candle in the coffin was once common. He throws doubt on

the theory of the provision of light for the dead, and claims that the

candle was emblematic of an extinguished life. Support for this new

theory is sought in the custom of immuring candles in the foundation of

churches and houses, of which, Mr Howlett says, many examples are

known[737]. Owing to the amount of correlative evidence bearing on the

question of fire-kindlers and fire-worship, I prefer to regard the

candle as representing the attenuated symbolism of light and heat.

Even while referring to candles, we have been forced to observe another

burial-gift--the coin placed in the hand or mouth. Since the coin had

originally a supposed useful purpose, a few words may be devoted to it.

The practice is at least as old as the time of the ancient Greeks, who

were accustomed to place an obolus in the dead person’s mouth. To a

classic origin, however, in the ordinary sense of the term, the custom

cannot be limited. It prevailed in pagan Germany[738], and in Christian

England. Professor Tylor cites examples from several countries, and

gives a list of authorities. De Groot states that the silver coin

deposited in the mouth of the corpse by the Chinese has replaced the

earlier cowrie, just as it has superseded the cowrie for purposes of

currency[739]. The custom of coin-burial was well known to the

Romano-Britons, as is proved by the excavations of General Pitt-Rivers

in Cranborne Chase. We are compelled, therefore, to postulate a more

extended history than Greece or Rome would afford. Even in England the

belief must have been profound, even touching, in its sincerity. Silver

coins are occasionally dug up in English churchyards, and the tradition

runs that such money had originally been placed in the mouth of the

corpse[740]. Evidence of this kind prevents a too confident acceptance

of Mr Romilly Allen’s conclusion that the idea of Charon’s penny ceased

with the introduction of Christianity[741]. The spirit, if not the

precise tradition, of the ancient custom long survived with some

intensity. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff relates how an old Burgundian

woman, being asked why she had placed a sou in the hand of a dead child,

replied, _C’est pour payer le trajet à Charon_. The narrator supposes,

with fair reason, that this incident revealed the lasting influence of

Roman civilization over the Gaulish people[742]. The woman may have

heard, or read, the classic tradition, but this is rather improbable.

Folk-memory had seemingly retained the orthodox explanation, but the

custom itself may go back to the time when the newly invented coin

replaced some cruder amulet. From what centre, or centres, the belief in

the virtue of the coin was transmitted, is at present unknown.

An illustration drawn from the writings of Mr Thomas Hardy will

doubtless be pardoned, since much genuine Wessex folklore has been

presented to us in the garb of fiction by that shrewd observer and

archaeologist. In _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ [i.e. Dorchester], after

having been told of the death of Mrs Henchard, the reader is treated to

a rustic gossip on death in general. Mrs Cuxsom gives her own little

commentary, and then proceeds to quote the words of her dead neighbour:

“And there’s four ounce pennies, the heaviest I could find, a-tied up in

bits of linen, for weights--two for my right eye, and two for my left.

And when you’ve used ’em, and my eyes don’t open no more, bury the

pennies, good souls, and don’t ye go spending ’em, for I shouldn’t like

it.” In the sequel, a servant buries the coins in the garden, but

Christopher Coney digs them up and spends them. One of the listeners,

Solomon Longways, excuses this action, and can see “no treason in it,”

but the general verdict ran: “’Twas a cannibal deed[743].”

Now we may be certain that this conversation describes, in all essential

details, the Wessex superstition. Within our own times, Northumbrian

folk were wont to bury a penny piece just under the soil of a newly-made

grave. And it is a very common belief that misfortune will follow him

who desecrates the coin--the ferryman’s penny--by ignoble use. If, as is

probable, the “eye-coin” be the genuine representative of this penny, it

has degenerated into a humble accessory of the death-chamber; it is not

now even deposited in the grave. Nevertheless, the segregated coin must

not be put again to everyday uses. Well did Jowett of Balliol in

luminous phrase speak of “underground religion,” that strain of

superstition which cannot be banished from the peasant mind. Nor,

indeed, does orthodoxy, at least as understood by provincial or

unthinking folk, raise any serious demur to the observance.

We cannot accept as adequate the superficial explanation that the penny

is simply used to close the eyes. This is the immediate purpose, of

course, but it does not explain why a penny, though certainly an object

of convenient size and shape, should alone be used. Least of all does it

account for the placing of coins in the mouth, or of burying money in

the grave. Norwegian folk-lore supplies us with a curious correlative.

When the Norwegian peasant takes earth from the churchyard to succour

ailing children, he must bury silver coins in place of the stolen

specific. Customs like these carry us back, by almost imperceptible

transitions, to the building of the British barrow, and to the interment

therein of flawless arrow-head or fractured celt. Following the

centuries forward, we may dimly surmise why the various changes took

place; glancing back, we marvel that the beliefs have been clung to so

tenaciously.

[Illustration: FIG. 57. Grave-celt, of polished flint, from Murols,

Puy-de-Dôme (Author’s collection). Length 2⅛´´; greatest width 1⅛´´.]

We must now leave our first group of objects--the axes, the knives, the

arrow-tips, with fire-kindlers, pottery, querns, spindle-whorls, and all

similar appliances, in order to give some attention to the next division

of the relics. This class, it will be remembered, comprises amulets,

talismans, and symbolical objects. Some difficulty arises when we try to

separate these from the purely decorative articles, but there are

certain relics whose purpose does not seem to admit of doubt. The tiny

polished celts, of which an example from Puy de Dôme is shown in Fig.

57, must have been charms. Specimens much smaller than the one

illustrated are often met with. Still more convincing are the small

amber axes which Professor Montelius has described as occurring in

Scandinavia: these cannot have had any economical use.

Examples of objects wholly symbolical or protective are furnished by the

white or transparent pebbles frequently found in ancient graves. In the

innermost chamber of a Scottish cairn opened by Dr Angus Smith, at

Achnacree, near Loch Etive, a row of quartz pebbles, each larger than a

walnut, was seen displayed on a granite ledge. Canon Greenwell, who

examined cairns containing similar objects near Crinan, thought that the

stones had a symbolical meaning[744]. Similarly, Mr Reddie Mallett

discovered shield-shaped masses of quartz deposited in the Celtic

Cemetery at Harlyn Bay, Cornwall[745]. Smooth white pebbles, sometimes

five or seven in number, but never more, and usually arranged in

crosses, were found in graves under the fallen ramparts of Burghead, in

Elginshire[746]. The belief in the virtues of selected pebbles was of an

enduring kind, for crystals of quartz and white stones (“Godstones”)

were commonly placed in Irish graves within recent times. In ancient

Irish graves the finding of such objects is of common occurrence.

Pebbles of other hues have also been discovered, representing a small

colour-series[747]. The fisher-folk of Inverary have a practice, which

outruns all memory, and which is independent of everything save

tradition, of placing little white pebbles on the graves of their

friends[748]. More might be said concerning these white stones--the

symbols of justification in the Apocalypse[749], the sacred comforters

of the dying Hindoo, the counters by means of which the ancient

Thracians recorded their happy days[750]. We will, however, pass to a

more elaborate kind of amulet, the crystal ball which is often found in

Saxon graves. Sometimes the crystal is mounted with a silver band or

ring, as if its owner had carried it in suspension. From a consideration

of the passage in _Beowulf_ respecting the value of such amulets in

protecting the head from the blows of the enemy, from a knowledge that

crystal pendants have, until modern times, been deemed efficacious in

stanching the flow of blood, and from a study of parallel beliefs and

divinations existing among various races, we conclude that these objects

were prized as talismans. It is noticeable that Mr Roach Smith did not

accept this interpretation, and regarded the balls simply as objects of

which the use was less obvious than that of the ordinary funeral

relic[751].

[Illustration:

FIG. 58. Necklaces from British round barrows.

A. Barrel-shaped jet beads and pendant of like material, with six

smaller glass beads. Tan Hill, Wiltshire. Four-ninths of real size.

B. Amber beads and links, much decayed. Lake, Wiltshire.

Four-ninths of real size.

]

Whether we ought to consider the amber beads of British barrows as

charms, or, like their fellows of glass and clay, as ornaments solely,

is a moot point. The abundance of the beads increases when we reach the

Saxon period. Perhaps, where they are numerous, they formed part of a

necklace (Fig. 58). In more than one instance an amber bead was found

attached to, or lying near, a skeleton. I am inclined to put the amber

beads in a special class because of the virtues formerly assigned to

this substance. Amber shielded the living from evil, and it sped the

departed on their long journey. Decoration, therefore, was not the sole

reason for the selection. Elton quotes an ancient Welsh poem, in which

is described, with “Homeric minuteness,” the amber ornaments of the

British chief Gododin:

“Adorned with a wreath was the leader, the wolf of the holm;

Amber beads in ringlets encircled his temples;

Precious was the amber, and worth a banquet of wine[752].”

The amber dug out of British barrows is usually of the red variety, not

blackish or honey-coloured. Much archaeological warfare has been waged

as to its place of origin. Along the East coast of Britain, from

Ramsgate to Aberdeen, specimens are frequently picked up, generally of a

yellowish tint. A native source, however, is not perhaps to be assigned

to most of the amber beads. From their great abundance in Saxon tumuli,

Elton favoured the hypothesis that the main supply came from over the

North Sea[753].

The supposition that amber beads were credited with occult virtues is

strengthened by folk-lore. Such beads were popularly believed to render

the wearer proof against witchcraft. St Eloi forbade women to wear these

objects around the neck[754]. Zest is added to our inquiry by the

superstition about the “lammerbeads” (Scotch, _lammer_ = amber; cf. Fr.

_l’ambre_), of Tweedside, which, on being dug out of ancient barrows,

were worn as charms for the cure of weak eyes and sprained limbs, and

were ultimately handed down as cherished heirlooms[755].

Among the other articles which seem to have been prized for magical or

protective properties may be mentioned wolves’ teeth and boars’ tusks,

perforated for suspension as charms[756]. Mention, too, must be made of

a naturally perforated flint to which a fossil echinoderm (_Micraster_)

was attached, found by Mr E. Lovett on the breast of a skeleton in a

barrow on the Sussex Downs[757]. This last example leads us

imperceptibly to our third group of funeral relics, wherein fossils

occupy an important position. This third class includes articles

primarily of an ornamental or decorative character. Reviewing the

fossils first, we notice that primitive man had learned at an early

period to collect and store up the flint echinoderms left among the

residual drift of the surface over which he daily trod. We may pass by,

with but a hasty glance, the fossil “sea-urchins” dug up in great

numbers by Pitt-Rivers in the Romano-British villages at Rotherly

(Wilts.) and Woodcuts (Dorset), since these echinoderms are believed to

have served purely secular purposes, such as those of coinage[758]. In

like manner the ammonites, pierced for spindle-whorls, unearthed at the

Glastonbury lake-village, may be dismissed as not being graveyard

specimens.

The most famous instance of the occurrence of echinoderms in

burial-mounds is that recorded by Mr Worthington G. Smith from a round

barrow on Dunstable Downs. The description of this discovery, which is

not without pathos, is worthy of even greater renown than it has yet

achieved. The barrow, on being opened, revealed the skeleton of a woman,

clasping the almost perished relics of a child. One is tempted here to

compare the later superstitious practice of burying an unbaptized child

at the feet of an adult, to prevent the child-spirit from wandering

around its former home. It has been suggested that the child may have

been buried alive with its mother. Be this disquieting thought well

based or not, the objects associated with the burial were of a striking

nature. Besides celts and scrapers of flint, the excavators found a

dozen fossil echinoderms. On extending the diggings, nearly 100 more

specimens came to light, and after repeatedly shovelling and raking the

soil which formed the tumulus, still more, to the number of over 200,

were added to the spoils. Mr Smith, who was unfortunately not present at

the first opening of the mound, concluded that the fossils had formed a

border around the bodies. In his fascinating volume, _Man the Primeval

Savage_, he has given us an interesting illustration of the grave as it

was probably arranged before the mound was piled over it (Fig. 59). The

fossils were of two species: the “Heart urchin” (_Micraster

cor-anguinum_) and the “Fairy loaf” (_Echinocorys ovatus_, Leske =

_Ananchytes scutatus_)[759]. A belief became somewhat generally current

among archaeologists that these “urchins” had been directly obtained

from the chalk. If that had been the case, the fossils would have been

composed of unabraded flint, with a whitened surface, or the “tests” or

outer coverings would have been of calcite, with an amorphous interior

filling of chalk. But this opinion, confidently and frequently repeated,

seemed to credit the Bronze Age man with much too great a familiarity

with chalk fossils. It appeared strange that he should have extracted

the fossils from the parent chalk by the aid of a deerhorn pick or a

celt of flint or bronze. The presumption was more likely that the

specimens were silicified “casts” which had been dissolved out of the

chalk mass ages previously, and which, lying on, or near the surface,

when the primitive settler tilled the downs for a livelihood, met with

the approval of his keen eye. Accordingly, I wrote to Mr Smith, who, in

a letter dated 3 May, 1909, stated that this supposition was

correct--the fossils were of flint, and had been washed out of the

Clay-with-Flints. In other words, they had not been derived immediately

from the parent chalk.

It may be appositely remarked in this place that the fame of fossil

echinoderms is well attested by the folk-name “Fairy loaf,” already

given, not to speak of such genuine popular terms as “Shepherd’s crown”

or “Shepherd’s helmet” (_Echinocorys_), and “Sugar loaf” (_Conulus =

Echincconus = Galerites_). Concerning the Fairy loaf, the legend runs

that whoso will keep a specimen in his house shall never lack bread.

[Illustration:

FIG. 59. Skeletons of woman and child, surrounded by fossil

echinoderms. The relics were found by Mr Worthington G. Smith in a

round barrow on Dunstable Downs.

]

But the watchful eye of the barrow-builder saw other derelict fossils

besides Micrasters and their allies. Man of the Neolithic and Bronze

Ages, though deficient in the artistic skill of his Palaeolithic

predecessor, exhibited some selective taste even in matters of daily

life. Often one lights upon an implement which has been made from a

particular substance chosen for its natural beauty. Thus, one perforated

hammer is of a green colour; another, of gneissose rock, is banded

alternately black and white; a third, from a Wiltshire barrow, contains

a mass of fossil serpulae (worm-tubes). Sir John Evans, who records the

last-named example, leaves it an open question whether superstition or

love of beauty determined the choice[760]. While, as already suggested,

the detached fossil was probably regarded as a charm, the section of

such a fossil, visible on the surface of a polished celt, or the

delicately moulded impression of a shell on a flint flake, was carefully

left untouched, mainly for artistic reasons. One occasionally sees an

axe in which a fossil remains intact, yet the tool was meant for

everyday use. Scrapers, too, are often deftly fashioned from portions of

a banded flint, and many arrow-heads chipped from agate or chalcedony

speak of beauty as well as utility. In the course of time such objects

may indeed have appealed to their owners as talismans.

Endowed, then, with acute vision which was trained to a high degree

along certain lines, and gifted with the first glimmerings of artistic

taste, prehistoric man learned to appreciate any conspicuous and

attractive-looking fossil. That very common chalk fossil, which seems to

have settled down finally to the name of _Porosphaera globularis_, and

which is by general consent now regarded as a sponge, was a special

favourite with men of the Barrow period. This small, spherical fossil,

unfortunately nameless among common folk, occurs somewhat plentifully as

a flint “pebble” in drift gravels which have originally been eroded from

the chalk. Sometimes the _Porosphaera_ has a natural perforation,

corresponding with one of its diameters, and thus the searcher could

obtain a ready-made bead. By stringing together these fossils, a

necklace was formed, and of these necklaces, the “threads” of which have

perished, the number of flint “beads” found in the barrows supply

convincing testimony. The salient fact is that, in several recorded

instances,

[Illustration:

FIG. 60. Specimens of the fossil sponge _Porosphaera_ (=

_Coscinopora_) _globularis_, with orifices artificially enlarged.

A, B, C, sections of the fossil; A, with hole artificially enlarged

at both ends; B, in the middle; C, at one end only. D, E, F, show

the natural shapes of _Porosphaera_, and the attempts made to

enlarge the openings. H, J, K, L, exhibit sections of the “beads,”

which contained a little organic matter, probably the remains of

the ligament by which the beads were strung. G is a perforated

fossil shell.

]

the fossils were found in groups; thus precluding natural agencies as a

cause of their occurrence. In ordinary circumstances, the fossils would

be isolated and scattered throughout the gravels somewhat sparingly.

Moreover, Mr James Wyatt, who examined over 200 specimens of

_Porosphaera_, believed, from markings which were visible when sections

were cut, that in several cases the hole had been artificially enlarged

with a drill[761] (Fig. 60). To enumerate barrows which have yielded

this particular fossil would be wearisome, but another globular fossil,

the beautifully ornamented echinoderm known as _Cidaris_, deserves a

note. Evans records his having seen specimens of this fossil bored so as

to form part of a Saxon necklace, and, in other cases, to serve as

spindle-whorls[762].

Among the other grave-mound fossils, those of cephalopods find a place.

A considerable number of belemnites lay in a “large” [i.e. British or

pre-Saxon] Dorsetshire barrow opened in the eighteenth century by

Colonel Drax. Douglas, who saw the specimens, figures one of them in his

_Nenia Britannica_[763]. Canon Greenwell found a portion of an ammonite

lying beside a skeleton in one of the Yorkshire mounds[764]. It is well

to remember that a black ammonite, of which the species is not stated,

is associated with the religious ceremonies of the Brahmans, being

regarded by the devout as the embodiment of Vishnu[765]. Some of the

larger fish teeth, occurring as fossils, also come in our list. In a

tumulus described by Dr Henry Woodward, the sides of the grave were

lined with the teeth of _Lepidotus_ (= _Sphaerodus_) _gigas_, a Mesozoic

fish allied to the “bony pike” of North American lakes and rivers. In

one case a locket-like arrangement was noticed, a kind of keyhole having

been cut in the tooth[766]. I record this evidence, but not having seen

the specimens referred to, cannot express an opinion on the individual

example, and will merely say that the artificial nature of the hole is

antecedently probable. But it is only right to add that doubt has been

cast on the necessity of invoking human skill to explain certain of

these orifices. Some species of boring mollusc may possibly have been

the real agent. One recalls the controversy respecting the perforated

sharks’ teeth of the Crag formation. To explain this feature, Mr H. A.

Burrows suggested that the cavities originally represented hollows for

the passage of blood-vessels, and that the perforations had been

completed by subsequent friction and solution. It remains to be noted

that the first collectors of fossil fish teeth lived in Palaeolithic

times, since specimens, associated with flint flakes, were found at the

celebrated “Palaeolithic floor” at Stoke Newington[767]. Similarly,

fossil and “recent” shells, perforated for suspension, have been found

in the Palaeolithic caves of France and Belgium[768]. A limestone

cavern, opened by M. Dupont in the latter country in 1860, yielded a

collection of fossil molluscan shells, including _Cerithium_, which must

have been brought a distance of 40-50 miles. Accompanying the fossils

were a piece of fluor spar and other curiosities, so that it has been

suggested, with reason, as well as mirth, that here was a primitive

museum[769]. British barrows have furnished specimens of the joints of

encrinites (“sea-lilies”), known in folk-lore as “St Cuthbert’s

beads[770].” In one case the specimen had actually been bored for

stringing[771]. It is probable, indeed, that from the earliest ages men

have never ceased to collect these beautiful little “beads.”

Land-and sea-shells, not usually so hard as the fossil species, have

also been assiduously collected by early man for funeral gifts. It has

been asserted that nearly every barrow on the Chalk Downs contains

land-shells[772]. Limpet shells have been found under the megaliths of

Cornwall and Brittany[773]. Saxon graves in Kent frequently yield, not

only native land-and sea-shells, but also exotic cowries, which must

have come from the East[774]. Necklaces made of the curious little

shell, known from its shape as the “elephant’s tusk” (_Dentalium_), are

recorded from barrows, and there is also a note of the discovery of the

“Venus’s ear” (_Haliotis_)[775]. The catalogue might be extended, but it

is already long enough to illustrate the topic under discussion.

Mention must be made of a parallel custom which was observed in Lapland

in both ancient and modern times. Old Lappish graves opened near

Varanger Fiord contained, besides our familiar quartz and flint, numbers

of sea-urchins, presumably, though it is not explicitly so stated,

belonging to recent species[776]. More interesting were the

snail-shells, known by the Laplanders as _Hundsjael_, or “dog-souls,”

and mussel-shells, or “cow-souls.” It seems that the natives, down to a

comparatively recent period, treasured fossils and queerly-shaped stones

as fetishes. Nordvi, who opened the graves, conjectured that the shells

were substitutes for living dogs and cows, these animals being too

precious for sacrifice[777]. This explanation is plausible as an

explanation of this particular case. The natives of Ceylon, however,

employed shells of a certain species for funeral purposes[778], and

altogether the custom is too widely known to be explicable on narrow

grounds. To round off these examples, we may note the strange cases

reported from Frampton church, near Boston, in Lincolnshire. Several

stone coffins, discovered in this church, were found to be filled with

sand, together with the shells of cockles and other molluscans. The

shells had evidently been placed in the receptacles by design, and as

the bones had not perished, the speculation was put forward that the

purpose of the shells was to preserve the skeleton[779]. This solution

of the puzzle does not appear to be allowable, but the circumstances are

certainly peculiar. The fact that the coffins were filled with material

leads us to suspect that they had been tampered with at some unknown

period[780]. Alternatively, we may suppose that the maritime folk of

Frampton were especially given over to the belief in shells, and carried

the principle to extremes. For the graves of sailors and fishermen are

eminently marked out for shell decoration, though, it is true, these

ornaments are now placed above ground. Frequently one reads of the

practice being observed when a sailor dies in a strange land.

Our list of grave ornaments is by no means exhausted. Brooches and pins,

armlets and bracelets, trinkets of gold or silver, perforated boars’

tusks and crescents of wolves’ teeth, are among the relics known to the

barrow-digger. Oftentimes, the decorative and the useful objects lie

side by side. We have already noticed Pliny’s allusion to mirrors. A

valuable commentary is afforded by the old Swedish custom of depositing

a looking-glass in the coffin of an unmarried woman[781]. Instances of

the discovery of golden ornaments abound in archaeological handbooks. We

look around for an instance of survival, and meet with a startling

example of recent date. The incident took place at the funeral of Lord

Palmerston in Westminster Abbey, in 1865, and is thus described by Mr

Moncure D. Conway: “The rain fell heavily, the wind howled about the old

walls, and in that darkness the body was lowered--gold rings along with

dust falling on the coffin[782].” This story is of the provoking kind

which makes the reader put questions, but Mr Conway, alas, has now also

passed beyond the reach of inquiries, and we must be content with the

definite statement, inherently probable, and made in all honesty.

Perhaps light may come from a study of the practice of presenting rings

at funerals to the mourners,--a custom frequently alluded to by John

Evelyn in his _Diary_. Were these funeral gifts ever thrown into the

grave as votive offerings?

With the foregoing incident we may compare the evidence given in the

_Victoria History of Cornwall_, tending to show that the practice of

burying rings, coins, and other articles, was common in Cornwall during

the Mediaeval period and lasted until the latter part of the sixteenth

century. Still more singular is the persistence of the practice of

laying combs along with the other mortuary furniture. Wooden combs are

not unusually found in settlements of the Bronze Age[783], and examples

in bone are of common occurrence on Early Iron Age sites. It is

believed, however, that some of these combs were employed, not for

arranging the hair, but for pressing home the weft in the manufacture of

fabrics[784]. But when we approach the Saxon period, we find the

ordinary comb installed as a recognized grave gift. Contemporary burials

on the Continent, in North France, in Luxembourg, in Belgium, tell the

same story[785]. The Saxon combs, incised with lines and circles, were

laid in the graves both of men and women. Turning to our _Hydriotaphia_,

and reading once more of Browne’s discovery, in his beloved Norfolk, of

“nippers” and “combs handsomely wrought[786],” we are tempted to pursue

the matter. The sequel is curious: combs, in later history, appear to

have been reserved for burials of members of the priestly order. The

beginnings of the practice are seen as early as the days of St Cuthbert,

on whose breast was found, when his body was disinterred in Durham

Cathedral, a plain simple Saxon comb of ivory[787]. Later records are

numerous, and it has been conjectured that the combs were those which

had been used at the first tonsure of the novice[788]. The comb played

an important part in Mediaeval ritual, as related by Dr Daniel Rock.

These objects were of ivory, elaborately carved, and studded with gems.

At the High Mass, the hair of the celebrant was combed by someone

appointed for that purpose, this coadjutor varying according to the rank

of his superior[789]. Mr Romilly Allen, in discussing the changes in the

methods of sepulture brought about by the spread of Christianity,

asserts that no objects were placed in the grave with the Christian

dead[790]. This pronouncement, even when made by such a high authority,

must not be accepted literally. Apart from the comb, ecclesiastics had

other special articles buried with them. Mr Allen himself notices the

striking exception of burying a crozier in the coffin of a bishop[791].

The chalice and paten were also commonly deposited with priests.

Specimens of these articles, with a pair of scissors, were found in the

coffin of St Cuthbert. Dr Rock tells us, too, that small wooden crosses,

gilded with metal, were placed in the coffin, and on the breast of the

corpse was a parchment scroll, inscribed with the Absolution. Again,

while on the one hand, Professor Tylor has shown that the early

Christians of Rome and Greece retained the heathen custom of placing in

the tomb articles of toilet and children’s playthings[792]; on the

other, records prove that in our own country there has always been a

secret longing to place gifts in the grave. The truth seems to be that,

down to our own day, there has existed among the more ignorant classes

an undercurrent of belief, essentially pagan in its origin, usually

driven under by the external pressure of orthodoxy and public opinion,

but so strong and permanent, that it often reaches the surface, to the

surprise of the more intelligent folk. But the heathen belief has been

present all the time, and need not greatly astonish us, since the most

advanced materialist is frequently a victim of trivial superstitions

which are scouted by scientific men as absurd and baseless.

The fourth group of articles with which we have to deal, comprising

objects partly useful and partly symbolical or commemorative, will not

detain us long. The sole reason for considering this miscellaneous group

separately is its diversified character--the objects do not so readily

fall into classes. One or two modern examples will illustrate the kind

of collection sometimes met with. While this chapter was being written,

the daily newspaper supplied an account of the burial of a gipsy woman

and her son at Tiverton. All the woman’s jewellery was deposited in her

coffin, and, by the side of her son, the mourners laid his watch and

chain. All the other personal effects were burned. A short time

previously the same journal had recorded the funeral of an old mountain

hermit at Carnarvon. The dead man was buried in his ordinary clothes,

and with him were placed his pipe, his tobacco pouch and walking-stick.

Only a whim, exclaims the careless reader, but the fancy was not bred

for the first time in the brain of that old recluse. Other folk, not

unobservant, recognize that such a miscellany of votive offerings is

evidence of an older condition of culture, and that the variety of

objects proves only the decay of tradition, with a consequent confusion

of ideas. To some degree this is true, but the ethnologist and the

archaeologist can decipher the meaning otherwise, and can show that

primitive peoples love to offer a wealth of objects. First, the student

of ethnology notices similar customs prevailing in many countries. The

practice was well known to the ancients, and the translator of Ovid has

thus rendered the idea:

“Tombs have their honours, too, our parents crave

Some slender present to adorn the grave....

They only ask a tile, with garlands crowned,

And fruit and salt to scatter on the ground.”

Salt, by the way, was formerly strewn on graves in the North of England.

Sir William Turner tells how the grave of an aboriginal Australian

savage, who was buried only a little over sixty years ago, contained a

varied assortment of articles, not all of quite the same age.

The list included a large piece of flint and the handle of a

pocket-knife--probably fire agents--a clay pipe, an iron spoon, and the

remains of a rusted pannikin[793]. In Bengal, modern graves have

revealed such diverse objects as rice, tinfoil coins, pipes, paper

houses, and models of boats[794]. Thus the custom under notice, though

of isolated occurrence in Britain, has its correlative in other lands.

But even in Britain, one hears whisperings of weird customs. A lock of

wool used to be placed in the coffins of Wiltshire shepherds. The

traditional explanation was that shepherds are often unavoidably absent

from church, and the wool was a guarantee that the nature of the man’s

calling would not be overlooked at the great assize. But elsewhere we

read of the desire to inter some tool or vessel typical of the

occupation of the deceased person; and with this habit we might connect

the practice, common in Scotland and the North of England, of carving

tools and implements on gravestones.

[Illustration:

FIG. 61. Roman Sepulchral chest, found at Avisford, Sussex. The

chest was formed out of a single block and was covered with a flat

slab. The square glass vessel in the middle contained calcined

bones. Around this vessel were disposed three earthen vases with

handles, several paterae, a pair of sandals, an oval dish, with

handle, scalloped round the edge, containing a transparent

egg-shaped agate. Three lamps are fixed on supporting projections

of stone.

]

The archaeologist advances to inspect examples of early tombs rich in

funeral relics. He pauses a moment to remark the abundance of objects

sometimes found in Saxon graves: swords and buckets, rivets and nails,

weighing scales and bunches of keys, drinking-cups, brooches, buttons,

and many other articles[795]. The Romans, too, besides entombing coins

and jewellery, added such objects as sandals, glass vessels, and

amphorae[796] (Fig. 61). The taste for accumulating grave-gifts can be

observed in the earlier Barrow period. A Bronze Age barrow at Aldbourne,

Wiltshire, supplies perhaps the most noteworthy example. This grave

contained an exceptional number of articles. Besides the “incense-cup,”

with its characteristic ornament, the excavators found, among the burnt

bones, a small bronze knife and two bronze awls, each tool bearing signs

of having passed through the funeral fire. Beads were also discovered,

wrought from such different materials as glass-paste, amber, and

lignite, and one from the stem of an encrinite. The list further

included a large flat ring and a pendant ornament of lignite, a conical

button made of shale, a small polished pebble of haematite, and the cast

of a cardium shell, presumably in a fossil condition. The flint flakes,

the arrow-heads and shards, the bones, tusks, and teeth of animals,

which complete the list[797], seem unimpressive by the side of such a

collection. Here then, in very early times, we see the system of funeral

gifts highly developed. The abundance of objects displayed in the

Aldbourne barrow may indicate the burial of someone whose importance was

pre-eminent, but in other cases, where the number, rather than the

value, of the gifts is noticeable, there seems to have been a desire to

supply the deceased person with all things conveniently obtainable.

Food, weapons, and charms, ornaments and luxuries were thus provided.

Our modern representative relics of this cultural stage furnish a list,

meagre by comparison, but still significant by reason of its eclectic

character. The same idea, materialized in somewhat different forms,

impelled the man of old and the man of yesterday. Belief in a future

state, at times modified by fear and faint in its expression, at others

amounting to a profound conviction, has tinctured almost all of our

funeral ceremonies. Savage and sage, for some thousands of years past,

seem to have acted towards the dead in accordance with the word of our

English philosopher: “It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw

at a man to tell him he is at the end of his nature[798].”

We have yet to review, very briefly, three or four interesting subjects

which fall within the scope of this already lengthy chapter. The Burial

Service of the Anglican Church provides for earth to be cast on the

coffin “by some standing by,” while the priest pronounces the solemn

words, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This combination

of phrases has been traced to a similar passage in the Sarum Manual, a

passage founded in turn, it is supposed, on several Biblical

expressions[799]. A little doubt, however, hangs over the ultimate

origin of the words of the Commendation, though the precise form of the

phrases may be due to Scriptural influence. The idea underlying the

words, and its mode of operation, are alike ancient. For my part, I

think that the expression plainly points to a time when cremation and

inhumation were both familiar to the community; that is to say, some

equivalent words were used when the early Christians of Britain had

begun to combat, not altogether with success, the system of burning the

body. If the words “earth to earth” and “dust to dust” stood alone, it

might fairly be argued that the compilers of the earliest Services

believed literally in the creation of man from the dust. But the phrase

“ashes to ashes” forbids that interpretation. It has, so far as may be

known, never been taught that man originally came from ashes, though,

figuratively, in moments of contrition, he has declared himself to be

“but dust and ashes.” The collocation of the phrases seems to betray a

compromise between modes of burial. Parenthetically, we note that the

Roman practice, as described by Horace, was to cast earth three times

upon the body[800]. Until this was done, the spirit could not enter

Elysium. It is probable that a like custom goes back to the Barrow

period. Canon Greenwell supposes that, at a barrow funeral, each of the

tribesmen carried his portion of earth, probably in a basket[801]. This

conjecture receives support from the conduct of certain South African

tribes, the members of which share the task of scooping together the

material for the burial-mound, using however, for that purpose, the

hands alone. The same procedure is followed by Lascars when burying a

comrade in a strange land[802].

Let us examine a little further this co-operation of the mourners, as

testified by actual survival. As already stated, the rubric directs that

the earth shall be cast upon the body “by some standing by,” while the

priest repeats the collect or “Commendation.” In practice, the sexton

usually throws in the earth, although I feel certain that I have more

than once seen the officiating clergyman perform this office. The

rubric, as we know it, was formulated in the year 1552. Prior to that

date, the soil was cast upon the corpse by the priest[803]. We may take

it that this was the more common practice in Mediaeval times. The

ceremony was also rendered symbolical in some districts by strewing the

earth in the form of a cross[804]. Again, as in the Ritual of Brixen,

the priest scattered the earth three times with a shovel[805]. In the

Greek rite, too, the lot fell to the priest[806]. Among the Jews, each

relative of the dead person threw earth on the coffin[807], and there

are records of a like observance in Christian communities[808]. The

daily newspapers occasionally report instances of the practice in our

own day. Taking these isolated examples, and comparing them with the

custom, once common in rural England, of five or six persons assisting

the sexton to fill up the grave[809], we can outline a simple

hypothesis. The early Christians probably followed their heathen

contemporaries in allowing the interment to be a common labour.

Afterwards, the throwing in of handfuls of earth--and perhaps of ashes

also (cf. p. 290 _supra_, concerning charcoal)--was a rite in which many

took part, the antiphonal service being chanted during the act. In the

later Mediaeval period the priest seems largely to have usurped the

office. The Reformation allotted the function once more to the mourners

in general, at least nominally, and on rare occasions the right is still

exercised. The original meaning is forgotten, and symbolism is evoked to

explain the practice. And just as some writers are content to see, in

the ashes, merely a symbol of penitence and humiliation, as illustrated

in the old Ash Wednesday observances, so other authorities, with what

appears to be a short view, deem the earth simply typical of man’s

reputed origin and mortality: _Hodie mihi, cras tibi_. It seems more in

accord with facts to recognize the bit of soil thrown into the grave as

a vestigial proof of the continuity of habit, weakened to some degree

because the ceremony, instead of being generally shared by the mourners,

is performed vicariously by the sexton.

The next survival to claim our attention is illustrated by the

Lancashire custom, in vogue not further back than the year 1888, of

sending a small sheaf of wheat to be distributed, at the time of the

funeral, to the relatives of the deceased person[810]. At once the words

of the Burial Service, and the Scriptural allusion to the “corn of

wheat,” come to mind[811]. The ancient Christians considered wheat to be

a symbol of the resurrection of the body, and this idea is exemplified

on a gem described by De Montfaucon. The ear of wheat, carved in wood or

stone, seems to perpetuate an old pagan belief. The custom, in varied

forms, is as widespread as it is time-honoured. At a modern Greek

funeral two men were observed carrying each a dish of parboiled wheat to

be deposited over the corpse[812]. General Pitt-Rivers quotes Professor

Pearson to the effect that the burning of corn on graves was forbidden

by the Church in Saxon times[813]. This ban implies that the practice

had its roots in pagan soil, so that all that the Christians did was to

change the underlying principle. General Pitt-Rivers himself found ears

of corn mixed with the sand near a Romano-British grave which contained

a skeleton, and he also recorded the finding of charred wheat in

contiguity with skeletons belonging probably to the Roman period[814].

Closely connected with these observances is the practice of placing corn

and other articles of food on the grave. Instances are multitudinous. In

the recesses of the Pamirs, corn, berries, and flowers are the

offerings[815]; the Spaniards deposit bread and wine on the anniversary

of death; the Bulgarians hold a special Feast of the Dead on Palm

Sunday, and eat the remains of the funeral offerings[816]. The subject

is, indeed, wide and complicated. At the back of the attenuated ceremony

of to-day lies the primitive belief in the life of the dead, with the

consequent feasts and sacrifices. The inquiry, upon which we cannot now

enter, soon leads us into an investigation of the corn-gods and “gods of

cultivation,” which are associated with the religions of primitive

folk. For a discussion of these matters, the reader is referred to the

exhaustive works of Professor Frazer and Mr Grant Allen.

With respect to the burial feasts of the prehistoric period, the line of

descent might be easily traced. The funeral suppers given by the Greeks

and Romans to the relatives of a dead person are frequently referred to

by classical authors. Similar feasts are mentioned by our English

writers from the time of Robert de Brunne (fl. A.D. 1288-1338)

onwards[817]. Huge repasts--shall we not say orgies?--continued in

fashion until the eighteenth century at least. Brand relates that, at

the funeral of a Highland lord in 1725, not fewer than 100 black cattle

and 300 sheep were slain “for the entertainment of the company[818].”

Nowadays the feast has dwindled, in most localities, to a glass of wine

and a biscuit. But there have been some amazing exceptions. Canon

Atkinson, in the earlier years of his incumbency at Danby-in-Cleveland,

about the middle of the nineteenth century, found that the “funeral

bak’d meats” were held in high esteem. On the death of a villager of

importance, invitations were sent out “not merely by the score, but by

the hundred. I have myself counted,” he says, “more than three hundred

seated in the church on at least four, if not five, different occasions.

And the rule is, and, still more, was, that the preponderating majority

of these ‘went to the burial’ at the house where the corpse lay,

beginning at ten o’clock and continuing to drop in, according to

convenience or distance to be traversed, throughout the morning and

afternoon till it became time to ‘lift the body’ and make a start for

the church. And all these were fed--entertained, rather--at the house of

mourning, if it chanced to be that of one of the principal inhabitants.”

All day long there were relays of visitors, from a dozen up to a score,

smoking and drinking at the house[819]. During the latter part of the

entertainment glasses of wine were handed round, with crisp cakes,

colloquially known as “averils” or “averil bread[820].” Canon Atkinson

traced this word thus: _averil_, _avril_, then by transposition, _arvil_

or _arvel_ (= heir-ale). This “heir-ale,” or succession-ale, thus stands

for the feast at which the heirs drank themselves into their father’s

land. It is interesting to note that this etymology is supported by the

highest authorities--for example, by the _New Oxford Dictionary_.

Whilst insisting on the continuity of custom and folk-memory, as proved

by survivals, it would be very unwise to ignore the changes which have

been gradually taking place since the Barrow period. Looking, for the

moment, at extreme cases, the actual result appears to reveal a wide

gap, and for the sake of contrast, I will quote Mr Grant Allen’s

fanciful description of the burial of a chieftain in a long barrow on

Ogbury Downs, Wiltshire. The passage is long and somewhat ornate, but,

because it is probably correct in most of the details, and helps us to

“visualize the past,” it shall be given in full. “I saw them bear aloft,

with beating of breasts and loud gesticulations, the bent corpse of

their dead chieftain: I saw the terrified and fainting wives haled along

by thongs of raw oxhide, and the weeping prisoners driven passively like

sheep to the slaughter: I saw the fearful orgy of massacre and rapine

around the open tumulus, the wild priest shattering with his gleaming

tomahawk the skulls of his victims, the fire of gorse and low brushwood

prepared to roast them, the heads and feet flung carelessly on the top

of the yet uncovered stone chamber, the awful dance of blood-stained

cannibals around the mangled remains of men and oxen, and, finally, the

long task of heaping up above the stone hut of the dead king the earthen

mound that was never again to be opened to the light of day till, ten

thousand years later, we modern Britons invaded with our prying,

sacrilegious mattock the sacred privacy of the cannibal ghost[821].”

A curious side-question is raised by this mention of funeral feasts--the

difficulty sometimes felt in accounting for the abundance of teeth,

human and non-human, in ancient graves. Granted, that the heads of

animals might be thrown into the grave as uneatable, or, perchance, as

having accredited virtues, and granted, again, that teeth are among the

most durable portions of a skeleton, the facts are occasionally

puzzling. Baron de Baye suggests that the heads of sacrificial

animals--he is referring to the Saxon period--were fixed on large stakes

as offerings to the gods, and that, as the heads decayed, the teeth

became detached, and were scattered over the ground, to be accidentally

mixed with the soil when a fresh burial took place[822]. The explanation

may be partially true, but one thinks that a simpler solution is at

hand, in the successive interments and sacrifices which would be

associated with one grave. This would lead to inevitable mingling of

bones and teeth, and if, as is probable, the skeletons of the dead were

often kept some time before they were buried, the confusion would be

increased. This would account for the numbers of human teeth found in

the Late-Celtic cemetery at Harlyn Bay, not corresponding to the

skeletons with which they were associated. In one cist there were

twenty-three teeth which did not belong to that particular

interment[823]. Though putting forward the prosaic explanation of

unintentional mixture, I think that there is another phase of the

question--the superstitious. Among primitive folk there is commonly a

belief in the efficacy of human bones as talismans. The atlas and axis

bones of the neck have been preserved for this purpose, and the skull

especially has been treasured and worshipped[824]. It is very probable

that pieces of human skulls which had, either in life or after death,

undergone the operation of trepanning, were kept as mascots. And,

remembering the part played by teeth in folk-lore and superstition, one

is compelled to retain an open mind on the subject of teeth found in

ancient graves. Messrs Spencer and Gillen have described, in a vivid

manner, the ceremony of knocking out the teeth, as performed by some of

the tribes of Central Australia. The operation is accompanied by the

drinking of blood as an act of fealty, the displaced teeth being

pounded, laid on a scrap of meat, and eaten by a specified

relative[825]. Again, in Cornwall, the very county, as it happens, in

which Harlyn Bay is situated, teeth were formerly stolen from the

coffins under the floors of churches and sold as charms against

disease[826]. According to the Devonshire superstition, a tooth bitten

out of a churchyard skull will ward off toothache, and the Shropshire

peasant has a similar legend[827]. All over England we hear of the fancy

for preserving or ceremonially burning teeth which have been extracted.

Somersetshire women would hide the teeth in their hair[828], but more

usually, the teeth, like the parings of the nails and locks of hair, are

burnt, lest they should fall into the hands of an enemy who, by

“sympathetic magic,” might injure the whole body of the owner[829]. The

most suggestive evidence, however, comes from Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and

Cornwall. In those counties all the teeth shed during a person’s

lifetime were saved and placed in his coffin, being “required at the

Resurrection.” Authentic instances are on record[830].

We have now surveyed, however inadequately, our modes of burial, the

forms of the graves, the gifts deposited with the dead, and funeral

feasts, and incidentally we have noticed a number of superstitions. We

may fittingly terminate the discussion by glancing at the closing

ceremony of a modern funeral--the placing of flowers on the grave. The

practice has its aesthetic as well as its religious side, and

represents the refinement of ideas which are really very ancient. Even

in the time of Durandus, the funeral evergreens were deemed to be

symbolical only[831]. The rite of strewing graves with flowers was

symbolical, too, among the Romans. Yet this kindly ceremony belongs, in

the first place, to the pre-Christian age[832], and we are bound to

believe that the original objects scattered over the dead were neither

evergreens nor flowers. Perhaps these prototypes were the flints and

shards of which we have spoken. These “forgotten things, long cast

behind,” have reappeared, in a more attractive guise, and, consecrated

by time, have secured a firm hold in the sentiments of European

nations.