The Southern doorway is somewhat more common than the Northern; where
both exist, the Southern is more in favour with the worshippers. On a
balance of observations, I find that the Southern side of a church is
more
[Illustration:
FIG. 62. Churchyard cross, on the South side of Bakewell church,
Derbyshire. The cross, which belongs to the latter half of the
eighth century, is complete, except the top arm. It exhibits
foliage and fine interlaced work, with sculptured figures
illustrating the Life and Death of Christ. (See _Vict. Hist. of
Derby_, I. pp. 280, 287.) The cross is supposed to indicate a
pre-Conquest burial ground.
]
elaborately decorated than the Northern (cf. p. 239, _supra_, and the
reservation there made), a fact illustrated in the mouldings and
capitals (Fig. 63), the window tracery and the painted glass. The
bishop’s throne is customarily placed on the South side of the
cathedral. The so-called “low side windows” (Fig. 64) occur most
frequently in the South walls. Those curious oblique passages, known as
squints or hagioscopes, cut through church walls (cf. p. 148, _supra_),
are most commonly Southern features, in which case they often point
directly to the Southern entrance of the building. In this country, we
are accustomed to look for the cloisters of a Benedictine abbey on the
South side of the church, but in Italy the covered way usually lies to
the North[845]. Here, all symbolism seems to be stripped away, and
primal considerations of comfort gain the ascendancy. Our variable
climate renders a sunny outlook desirable, and we notice efforts to
secure this end in the familiar arrangement of old farmsteads, where the
barns and enclosures frequently stand to the South of the dwelling. In a
hot country, like Italy, coolness and shade would be sought, hence we
find the dissimilar ground plan of the Italian abbeys.
[Illustration:
FIG. 63. Capitals, Seaford church, Sussex, (c. A.D. 1190.) A, from
the North arcade, bears the ordinary stiff-leaved foliage of the
period. B, from the South arcade, has elaborate carvings
representing the Crucifixion, the Stoning of Stephen, and the
Baptism of Christ.
]
But if the arrangement of the cloisters be adjudged a mere matter of
economy and convenience, there exist well-rooted superstitions which
cannot be so explained. “The front of everything to the South,” is an
old Irish maxim, and though, as Mr W. G. Wood-Martin suggests, the
saying may have reference to the ceremony of making the deiseal, or
right-hand circle, yet the words are pregnant of folk-custom. Formerly
the Irish ploughman turned the head of his horses towards the South
before yoking or unyoking. Taking an English example, we find that in
Suffolk, wherever the churches possessed both a
[Illustration:
FIG. 64. Quatrefoil low side window, on the South side of the
chancel wall, Tatsfield church, Surrey. c. A.D. 1300. A feature
most frequently found on the South side of churches.
]
North and a South entrance, it was the practice to carry the coffin into
the building by the South door, allow it to rest at the West end of the
aisle, and then take it out by the North door[846]. In Lincolnshire, the
North door was entirely reserved for funerals, the South and West doors
being used for weddings and christenings[847]. At baptisms, again, there
was a prevalent belief that the Holy Spirit entered the church by the
South door, while the devil departed through the opening opposite--the
Devil’s Door (Fig. 65). Lastly, to abbreviate our list of superstitions,
Pennant may be cited, to the effect that in North Wales the mourners
used to bring the corpse into the churchyard by means of the South gate
only[848]. With this we may compare the Welsh superstition that a
healing spring should have an outlet towards the South, and should be
visited at midsummer. Girls who wished to know their lovers’ intentions
were accustomed to spread a pocket-handkerchief over the water of the
well. If the waters pushed the handkerchief towards the South, so Sir
John Rhŷs informs us, the lovers were honest and honourable; if the
article shifted Northwards, the omen was bad. These marked preferences
for the South prove that the motive involved was sentimental as well as
physical.
[Illustration: FIG. 65. Devil’s Door (Saxon), Worth church, Sussex.
According to legend, the exorcized spirit passed through this door at
the time of the baptismal renunciation.]
We have referred to the superstitions connected with the East and the
South, and we now follow the sun to the region where he descends into
the dark underworld. Professor Tylor neatly expresses the symbolism of
these three positions: “Man’s life in dawning beauty, in midday glory,
in evening death[849].” The West, then, represents the kingdom of the
dead, and, by transfer of ideas, the territory of alien peoples. A
natural metaphor makes it the abode of shadow, of sleep, of ignorance of
the Divine. In sharp contrast to these ideas is the teaching of certain
races that the West is the Garden-land, the Earthly Paradise, “the new
heaven and the new earth[850].” Such notions, so directly contradictory
to the first-mentioned, seem to indicate worship paid to the setting sun
(cf. p. 217, _supra_).
The older advocates of the Asiatic origin of the Aryan peoples were led
captive by the proverb, “_Ex oriente lux_.” This phrase doubtless
influenced philologists like Pott and Müller, while to Grimm must be
credited the complementary epigram, “the irresistible impulse towards
the West[851].” Along with the fallacy hidden in these aphorisms there
is some amount of truth. Berkeley’s assertion, “Westward the course of
Empire takes its way,” is historically justified, and is still apposite
to a large degree. The more modern idea, expressed by Kipling, “Oh, East
is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet[852],” though
correct as a key to manners and customs, may be much canvassed if
applied to actual migrations of men. To carry our parallels further
would lead us to the purely fanciful, and would evoke the derision of
the scornful. Yet the mention of one more whimsical belief may be
pardoned on the ground of its age. Peter Heylyn gave utterance to the
idea two and a half centuries ago, though it is likely that he was a
borrower from earlier geographers. He tells us that the poets turn their
faces to the West, the Fortunate Islands, “so memorized and chanted by
them.” To the poets, then, the North is the right hand, the South is
left. But to the “Augures of old, and in our days, to Priests and Men in
holy Orders, [who] usually in sacrifice and divine oblations convert
themselves unto the East,” the South is the right hand. Astronomers face
the South, because in that way the motions of the planets may best be
observed. Finally, geographers, who have “so much to do with the
Elevations of the Pole,” turn their faces to the North, and, to them,
the left hand is West[853].
If the West, according to one superstition, is the realm of death, what
shall be said of the North? From that quarter no sunny rays are sent
forth. The North blast brings ice and snow. A time-honoured tradition
makes all fogs and storms rise from the Northern heavens[854]. Even
to-day the Wiltshire peasant avers that thunder always comes from the
North, though the sound may reach the ear from another direction[855].
The Northern slopes of an undulating meadow are overrun with moss and
tussocks of coarse grass. But lichens, lovers of sunlight, avoid the
North side of trees. An East-to-West wall built further North of East
than 41° 26´ can, in latitude 51° N., receive no rays of the sun except
on the South side. In the same manner a chancel which is deflected very
much towards the North gets no sunshine on that side, except in the
early morning, and then only in the summer season. Let hardy souls, like
Kingsley, extol the North wind, if they desire, but the mass of men will
still hold the icy blast in detestation. Hence the superstitions
regarding the North are closely knit with physical dislike and
discomfort, and rest on a basis of sound reason.
Bearing these facts in mind, we are not astonished to learn that early
beliefs allocated the North to the Spirit of Evil. The idea is rife
throughout the heathen legends of Northern nations[856]. The underworld,
in Teutonic mythology, is placed under the third root of the ash tree,
Yggdrasill, “low down toward the North,” where there is cold, eternal
night. In this mist-hell, the unhappy sojourner wanders down valleys
deep and dark; he enters joyless caverns; oftentimes, too, he hears the
roaring of the waterfall which belongs to the demons[857]. Nor are such
ideas confined to heathen folk. Again and again, in the Old Testament,
especially in Job and Isaiah, “the sides of the North” are represented
as the abode of the Prince of Darkness[858]. Even the New Testament has
faint allusions to the same belief. Naturally, then, English literature
became permeated with this idea. Shakespeare, all-embracing in his
references to prevailing superstitions, makes La Pucelle invoke
demons--“substitutes under the lordly monarch of the North[859].” In
_Paradise Lost_ we are told how the banded powers of Satan appear in
“the spacious North,” where the arch-rebel has erected his throne[860].
Milton recurs to the idea several times; thus, in one of the sonnets, we
meet with the epithet, “the false North[861].” Later poets, perhaps
unconsciously imitating Milton, have expressed the same fancy. Kirke
White, in the _Christiad_, the poem on which, as Southey tells us, the
hapless young poet bestowed most pains, placed his hosts of demons among
the impenetrable fogs and lamenting gales--
“Where the North Pole, in moody solitude,
Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around[862].”
These illustrations show that the Northern quarter of the heavens was
the source of much superstition. The simple childish myth was often
amplified. Origen taught that the place of everlasting damnation was at
the earth’s centre, and that the entrance was situated at the North
Pole. Each time the Aurora Borealis flashed, the gates of hell opened
anew, and the wicked on earth were warned of their doom[863]. The
doctrine of fear of the North creeps in everywhere. The parish church,
according to some writers, is most suitably built on the North side of
the graveyard, so that it may not cast a shadow on the graves[864]. This
“rule” is undoubtedly beset by many transgressions, but it embodies a
tendency, and I have noticed some remarkable confirmations. Many
churchyards have but a very narrow strip of ground lying to the North of
the edifice. In spite of these instances, I consider that the
generalization is too definite, and that the alleged reason lacks
adequate support. The superstition concerning the Northern, or Devil’s
door, on the contrary, is general and well-authenticated.
[Illustration:
FIG. 66. Gateway, at Eastern entrance to St Stephen’s church,
Coleman Street, London. The carving (5 feet × 2½ feet) on the upper
portion was originally over the North gateway. The subject is the
Day of Judgement, and the figures are in high relief. The Judge is
seen enthroned above, Satan is falling from heaven, and the dead
are rising from their coffins. Representations of this kind are
often called “Dooms.”
]
The building itself affords evidence of the current superstition. Part
of this testimony was put forward, inferentially, when the South was
being considered; one or two additional facts may now be noticed. On the
Northern gate of the church, there were sometimes represented the
terrible scenes connected with the Last Judgement. An elaborate example
of this treatment formerly existed over the Northern gateway of St
Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and another at St Stephen’s, Coleman Street
(Fig. 66), though in each case the craftsman’s work now occupies a
different position[865]. Gloomy subjects, like the one mentioned, were
also reserved for the North face of the church by those Mediaeval
sculptors whose sermons in stone warned many long-past generations.
Rheims Cathedral has the terrors of the Last Day thus depicted on its
North side. The arrangements of the church services also show traces of
the influence now under discussion. In the North of Europe, where the
usual rule for orienting churches is observed, the Gospel is read from
the North side of the altar, so that, according to Mediaeval symbolism,
light may be given “to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of
death[866].” Or, as Durandus has it, the North side is allotted to
sinners, and the Gospel calls sinners to repentance[867]. Conversely,
the Epistle is read from the South side, the abode of the faithful and
the converted. If one person has to read both the Epistle and the
Gospel, he crosses from the South to the North before reading the latter
service. To account for this change of position, other reasons have been
advanced. Some writers think that the spread of the Word from the South
to the North is intended; others declare that the crossing over was a
matter of mere convenience. Moreover, while a similar custom prevailed
in the early churches of Rome, the position of the reader in those days
was to the right or left of the celebrant; consequently, where the
building was not alined East and West, the mystical interpretation could
not apply. Whatever be the origin or the date of the introduction of the
custom, it seems fairly conclusive that some such symbolical meaning was
understood during the Mediaeval period[868]. Nevertheless, we should be
on our guard against the meticulous and over-strained interpretations
which the symbolists are wont to produce for the most trivial ceremonies
and occurrences. Most readers will recall the passage in Ecclesiastes
concerning the fall of the tree to the South, or to the North. On these
expressions, Coverdale, in his treatise entitled “Praying for the Dead,”
bases a far-fetched fragment of symbolism. It runs as follows: “As men
die, so shall they arise; if in faith in the Lord, towards the South,
they need no prayers; they are happy, and shall arise in glory
presently; if in unbelief, without the Lord, towards the North then are
they past all help, in the damned state presently, and shall rise in
eternal shame[869].”
To descend to the prosaic affairs of life, we notice some curious facts
which seem to confirm the evil reputation of the North. It may be deemed
a trifle, but why did our ancestors, under the old open-field system of
cultivation, divide their territories into East, West, and South
Fields[870], not North? To reply that, since the land was cultivated
chiefly under a three-field system, with its three-course rotation of
crops, one quarter of the compass must necessarily be omitted, is
scarcely satisfactory. Why should it be the North particularly which is
avoided in the allotment of areas and in the nomenclature? Besides,
where the two-field system was in vogue, we commonly find East and West,
rather than North and South. One does not wish to press such nice
points, but was it by chance that in the old Lombardic boundary treaties
the Northern tract was styled “_nulla ora_[871]”? Undoubtedly, it is a
fair response to say that these matters were instinctively settled on
principles of convenience and physical comfort. The motive for the
choice was at first probably thus simple, but supplementary ideas sprang
up, and tended to harden the preference into a rule. One or two further
illustrations will now be given.
A study of the ancient Pilgrims’ Way of the South of England shows that
the Mediaeval wayfarers, and, doubtless, the far earlier prehistoric
folk, preferred to travel along the Southern slope of the hills, and
consistently avoided the Northern. The Southern, or drier, side of a
stream was also selected, wherever the pathway chanced to follow a
watercourse for a short distance. Mr Hilaire Belloc states that he has
counted but four exceptions to this rule in the whole course of the
Mediaeval Pilgrims’ Way. And, again, where the Mediaeval track leads to
a church, Mr Belloc asserts that it passes on the South side, leaving
the building on the North[872]. One exception seems to have been
overlooked by Mr Belloc--the church of Paddlesworth, near Snodland, in
Kent, which has the Pilgrims’ Way passing by its North door. Another
apparent exception, at Puttenham, Surrey, is accounted for by a modern
diversion of the old road.
Isaac Taylor, writing to prove the predilection of our forefathers for
the South, once asserted that there are more villages named Sutton than
Norton, Weston, or Aston[873]. He gave no statistics in support of his
contention, but the clue seemed worth following. I have therefore
examined the place-names contained in the most recent Post Office Guide,
and have supplemented these from other lists. All village-names
consisting of a single compounded word, one member of which is clearly
derived from the Cardinal Points, were counted and classified. Doubtful
examples were set aside; many others, though disguised under curious
orthographies, were properly included. The result showed
32 Nortons, + 58 other place-names obviously
traceable to “North” 90
52 Suttons, + 49 other place-names obviously
traceable to “South” 101
35 Astons and Eastons, + 38 other place-names
obviously traceable to “East” 73
41 Westons, + 63 other place-names obviously
traceable to “West” 104
As might have been anticipated, the disparities are not so great as
Taylor’s statement implied, because, on the whole, the village-names run
in pairs; a North keeps company with a South. With respect to North and
South, there is indeed a slight preponderance in favour of the sunny
quarter. The Wests, likewise, outnumber the Easts, from which we may
infer that a sheltered situation was operative in determining the choice
of a site. The coombe which opened towards the West or South, and the
hill-slope similarly situated, would attract the first settlers.
The place-names which consist of two separate words, one of which was a
prefix indicating position, revealed somewhat similar preferences. Of
this class, comprising such names as North Cheam and West Ham, there
were 241 Wests to 181 Easts, thus confirming the first list. Then came a
surprise; 164 Norths against 133 Souths. There are, it is true, names
like North Cotes, with no corresponding South Cotes[874], but this also
holds good conversely. On the other hand, it is probable, either that
these double names which have not coalesced represent comparatively
recent parochial divisions (e.g. East and West Horsley, Surrey), or that
one name is a modern imitation or duplicate of the other (e.g. East and
West Wickham, Kent, several miles apart, the first being a later
geographical distinction). If any support is lent to Taylor’s dictum
therefore, it could only come from a consideration of names originally
given to genuinely ancient settlements, and to obtain these names a very
accurate and intimate study of thousands of local documents would be
necessary.
Though not strictly concerned with the Cardinal Points, an old custom
which bears on the question of sites may be noticed here. This is the
pastoral habit, adopted by primitive shepherd folk, of living, during
summer, in booths or tents set up on elevated pastures, and of
descending, in winter, from these grazing grounds to the plains, where
there were substantial houses, each having its ox-stalls and other
outbuildings. The “summer-houses” may be preserved for us in many
place-names, as in Somerscales and Summer Lodge, Yorkshire; Somersby,
North and South Somercoates, Lincolnshire; besides Somergranges,
Somersall, Summerley, and many others in other counties. With these
places, one may compare the Norwegian settlements, known as _saeters_,
which exist to-day. There are also, in England, _sets_ or _seats_ (=
summer abodes), such as Moorseats, Outseats, Runsett, and
Thornsett[875]. The names indicative of winter sites are not so common,
perhaps because, representing permanent settlements, they required no
distinctive term; that is to say, it was the temporary hut which called
forth the need of a separate name. Against twenty “Summers” there are
opposed only nine “Winters,” reckoning the seventeen Winterbournes once
only: it is questionable whether this last name is an instance in point,
since it probably denotes a site where an intermittent stream was wont
to appear after rainy seasons. From the nature of the case, we should
expect no “Summerbournes.” Of the other Winters, one or two, like
Winteringham, may be reminiscent of a Saxon family name. The late Mr T.
W. Shore considered that not only the various Winterbournes, but also
Winterton and Winteringham, signify “Wendish” settlements, _Windr_ being
an old name applied to Northern nations[876]. This idea seems too
fanciful and strained, the more so, because, in the case of
Winterbourne, a simple explanation based on familiar physical phenomena
is at hand.
Returning to our proper subject, we find a curious superstition which
merits detailed examination, namely the general antipathy of country
folk to burial on the North side of the churchyard. This strange
aversion must have come within the experience of most antiquaries and
folk-lorists. During the peregrinations of many years, the writer has
collected a large number of instances illustrative of the belief, and a
few of these will be submitted.
So recently as the year 1904 there was buried, in a quiet Surrey
churchyard, the body of a well-known public man who had poisoned himself
shortly after receiving a sentence of penal servitude. The newspapers
duly recorded that the interment took place on the North side of the
churchyard, and that a specially adapted service was read, but no one
seemed to notice the significance of these details. An explanation, as
we shall see, is nevertheless discoverable. A few years earlier, in
1899, during the discussion of a Burials Bill, then before the House of
Commons, it was alleged that in most village churchyards there remained
burial accommodation sufficient for some time to come. Against this
plea, it was urged that the space still available was usually situated
on the North side of the graveyard, and that there was a rooted
objection among villagers to burial in that quarter. The Home Secretary
replied that he had never heard of the prejudice, and a somewhat general
incredulity as to its existence was revealed among the Commoners.
Thereupon a correspondent, writing to _Notes and Queries_, clinched the
argument based on superstition by quoting the inscription on a tombstone
in the graveyard of Epworth, the village of the Wesleys. The epitaph ran
thus:
“That I might longer undisturb’d abide,
I choos’d to be laid on this Northern side[877].”
Such a wish was no new, crazy fancy, for earlier instances are on
record. From an account published in 1657, we learn that Benjamin
Rhodes, steward to Thomas, Earl of Elgin, requested to be buried on the
North side of Malden churchyard (Bedford), “to crosse the received
superstition[878].” Combining the last two incidents, we may infer that
the Northern portion of the churchyard was little used, and that neglect
was due to its ill-repute. So, then, in the remark made by Edmund Burke,
“I would rather sleep in the Southern corner of a country churchyard
than in the tomb of the Capulets[879],” the indication of the Southern
position is not mere rhetoric. Let us proceed to examine some further
instances, in order to show that our generalization is sound.
At Winterton, a village not far from Epworth, at the time of the
controversy of which mention has been made, the burials on the North
side had all taken place within living memory. It was a matter of doubt
whether “a dozen gravestones, over fifty years old, could be found in as
many parishes in [that] deanery on the North sides of churchyards[880].”
Another Lincolnshire village, Springthorpe, had no Northern graves;
while, at Saltfleetby All Saints, so recently as 1880, as the present
writer can avouch, not a single stone or grave existed on the North
side, though monuments were closely crowded on the South side. Dr Alfred
Gatty, who was vicar of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, for more than fifty
years, once stated that, in the early nineteenth century, there were
practically no interments in the North yard of his church. In the year
1823 a clergyman was buried in that portion, and the evil reputation was
banished[881]. Morwenstow, Cornwall, Hawker’s beloved “Daughter of the
Rock,” formerly exemplified the same superstition[882]. The prejudice
was especially strong in Norfolk[883]. It was also very prevalent in the
neighbouring county of Suffolk[884]. At Newbourne, in that county, while
the graveyard was filled on the South, East, and West, the turf had long
appeared unbroken on the North. “The bishop had never walked on it,” so
ran the story, and all endeavours to break down the superstition proved
fruitless for many years[885]. In churchyards situated in the Border
Counties, on both banks of the Tweed, the prejudice is barely removed
even at the time of writing. John Brand (A.D. 1744-1806) discovered
that, in his day, the belief still pervaded many “inland and Northern
parts,” but had been “eradicated from the vicinity of the metropolis.”
He quotes numerous authorities to prove that the prejudice was also
rampant in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales[886]. Another eighteenth century
writer, none other than Gilbert White, recorded that the Southern side
of the churchyard of Selborne had “become such a mass of mortality that
no person [could] be there interred without disturbing or displacing the
bones of his ancestors.” However, “two or three families of the best
repute” had begun to bury on the North side, and White had hoped that,
by degrees, the prejudice might wear out[887].
Frequently we encounter evidence which, without directly alluding to the
superstition, implies its existence. A curious bequest made at the close
of the seventeenth century will serve as an illustration. Archbishop
Tenison having presented a burial ground to the parish of Lambeth, it
was deemed necessary, in order to lessen the number of Southern
interments, to charge double fees for that portion of the yard[888].
Additional testimony, though inconclusive, is gleaned from an
examination of the position of the fabric with respect to the
churchyard. As already stated, in many instances the North yard is all
but non-existent. This is the case at Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex; Caterham
and Weybridge, Surrey; Littleton, Middlesex; Barnet, Hertfordshire;
North Cockerington, Lincolnshire; Upper Beeding, Falmer, Street,
Bishopstone, and West Dean, in Sussex; Manningford Bruce,
Bradford-on-Avon, and Amesbury, in Wiltshire. The list could be greatly
extended. At the last-named village there were no gravestones in the
North yard at the time of my visit in 1901. Mr J. T. Micklethwaite has
pointed out that, when an aisle was added to Wakefield parish church
during the twelfth century, it was built on the North side, because at
that period all the burials were on the South side[889]. One is
compelled to regard this line of evidence as only partially
satisfactory, not because the instances are insufficiently numerous, but
because cases can be cited where the South yard, not the North, is very
narrow and insignificant. At Whitchurch, Oxfordshire; Alciston, Sussex;
Hatfield Peverel, Essex; and Chertsey, Surrey, the burial ground is cut
off almost sheer with the South side of the church. Nevertheless these
instances are much fewer than those in which the North yard is so
treated, and to this extent the theory stands good.
More satisfactory confirmation of the belief is afforded by the actual
disuse of the North graveyard in many parishes. A reference to Fig. 21
(p. 77 _supra_) will show that, a century back, scarcely a headstone was
to be seen on the North side of Chislehurst churchyard, yet we know that
numerous examples existed on the South side. One may visit village after
village and find that the tombstones on the North side are all erections
belonging to the last half-century. The writer’s notebook abounds with
instances of this kind, but it would serve no purpose to give the
catalogue here. Two or three striking examples may, however, be quoted.
At Faringdon, or Farington, Hampshire, where Gilbert White was once
curate, there is a large strip of graveyard towards the North, yet, on
visiting the place in 1899, I found not a single tombstone in that
quarter. At Yateley, in the same
[Illustration: FIG. 67. Norham churchyard, Northumberland. North side,
showing the undisturbed turf, and absence of tombstones.]
county, the Southern area has been enlarged, though the Northern portion
was still partly available. Strangest of all was the case of Eversley,
which is not far distant from the last-named parish, and which is always
associated with the name of Charles Kingsley. Here, at the date just
mentioned, an additional plot of burial-ground on the opposite side of
the road had been consecrated, yet the Northern part of the old yard
remained unfilled. Whatley, in Somerset, had only four graves on the
North side in 1910, and all of these were recent. The North yard was,
indeed, small, yet it still had accommodation, in spite of which fact
the churchyard had evidently been enlarged on the South. Widdicombe,
Devonshire, had no Northern tombstones in 1906, and Denton, in Sussex,
but one stone on the North side in 1910. In the same year, I found no
stones on the North yard proper at Norham, Northumberland; a group of
elms occupied the space enclosed by the Northern boundary and an
imaginary line continued from the East wall of the church (Fig. 67). In
1911, no North stones existed at Ford, Sussex, and Abbotsham and
Countisbury, Devon.
A note of warning must now be uttered. The antiquary who is bent on
examining this question will doubtless be guided, in the absence of
documentary proof and of modern excavations, by two kinds of visible
evidence: the level, unbroken condition of the turf, and the age of the
tombstones, if these be present. A perfectly even area of turf is, as we
shall see, not distinctly conclusive against the existence of former
interments, since it may only imply carelessness in the raising, or in
the preserving, of any possible grave-mounds. The evidence deduced from
tombstones, too, must always be judiciously weighed. The absence, or the
modernity, of the monuments is a fair test, if applied only to the
period during which such memorials are known to have been erected. But
the investigator will be on his guard against giving what Bishop Butler,
in fine phrase, termed “an otiose assent.” If the level state of the
sward agrees with absence of gravestones, we may infer, either that no
burials have taken place, or that they have been of a peculiar and
exceptional nature. The wearing down of undisturbed mounds by
atmospheric denudation may be left out of consideration, as being an
unlikely occurrence.
Speaking generally, the upright headstone and the outdoor altar-tomb go
back no farther than the middle of the seventeenth century[890]. It has
been surmised that existing churchyard monuments which exhibit an
earlier date may have been, in some cases, originally set up inside the
building[891]. But genuine outdoor stones are found which belong to the
late sixteenth century at least. There are two dwarf headstones on the
South side of Branscombe churchyard, Devon, dated 1570 (? 1579) and 1580
respectively[892]. Headstones belonging to the fifteenth century have
been recorded from Thrapstone, Northampton; Lavenham, Suffolk;
Blyborough and Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire; and Loversall,
Yorkshire[893]. An allusion to the upright stone occurs in _Hamlet_:
“He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone[894].”
Where flat slabs occur in the churchyard, they are frequently a century
earlier than the upright stones. Specimens of these early “ledger
stones” may be seen in the church porches at High Halden, Kent (1583),
and Wellington, Somerset (1589). There seems to be little doubt that
this form of monument is much older as a class than the vertical,
lettered stone. The ledger stone is a familiar object on the floors of
churches, as a Mediaeval relic, and it is, no doubt, this kind of
monument which is referred to as having been sometimes ejected from the
sacred building[895]. There is strong reason for believing that rude,
uninscribed wooden crosses preceded the upright headstones.
Working by the light of these facts, the searcher will discover that
there is ample proof of the unpopularity of the North graveyard for
three centuries past. And it would appear that there is good ground for
the supposition that the unpopularity was as great, or even greater,
during the long period which elapsed before stone monuments came into
general use. These conclusions are based on the cumulative evidence of
individual instances, but some remarkable exceptions to the rule demand
due consideration.
Frequently, where one finds the oldest headstones on the North side, a
probable reason can be advanced. Thus, in Norfolk, a county where the
superstition is common, the three contiguous parishes of Garvestone,
Reymerstone, and Thuxton, have the majority of burials on the North
side. The explanation may be that the main entrance to the church, in
each case, is by the North porch. Expressed otherwise, the North yard is
the portion most traversed by the villagers on their way to the
services[896]. Burlingham St Andrew has the North side of the yard well
filled, while, so late as 1899, there were no burials on the South side.
This is the more extraordinary, since the parishioners used the Southern
porch as an entrance, and the local territorial family, the
Northern[897]. We might conjecture, though there are no data at hand,
that this was a case like that of Selborne, described by White, in which
some highly-placed person or persons set a bold example, and helped to
destroy the tradition. At Martin Hussingtree, near Worcester, all the
burials, down to the year 1853, were on the North side, but it is
noteworthy that the only entrance to the church was from that
quarter[898]. Similarly, at Oystermouth, Glamorganshire, the graves were
thickly clustered to the North of the church. A few only lay at the East
and West; and not one on the South, but here, again, the sole access to
the building was from the North[899]. Numerous other instances have come
under the writer’s own notice, tending to show that the objection to
Northern burial is partly neutralized by the position of the church
door, especially in those cases where only one door exists. Should there
be two or three entrances to the church, the one most employed seems to
be connected with the burial customs--the Western entrance to a smaller
degree than the other. Needless to say, it is not the position of the
doorway which primarily provoked the belief, though it may have modified
the practice. As a matter of actual statistics, it will be found that,
where there are two or three ways of approach, the South door is the one
most used.
Is it a coincidence that the South is the prevailing quarter for the
churchyard yew and the ancient cross, and that this sunny side has other
superstitions attached to it? Mr Harry Hems asserts, with truth, that
churches and churchyards generally lie to the North of the roads which
give access to them (cf. p. 335 _supra_), and he seems to imply that
some cases of preference may be explained by the position of the roads
which lead to the fabric[900]. But surely, this is mistaking the effect
for the cause. The problem is: why should the churches have been built
on the North side of the road? Had they been erected on the opposite
(South) side, worshippers would have been admitted from the reverse
point of the compass (the North). Some early pagan belief influenced the
choice of position; casual or arbitrary circumstances, including,
occasionally, the disposition of roads and pathways, may have held the
belief in check. The road, assuming that it existed before the church,
could scarcely have influenced the position of the latter, in the
absence of superstition. While we admit that Mr Hems’s rule is fairly
safe, it must not be forgotten that, where churches are built to the
South of the road, the pathway often winds round the Western tower to
give admission by a South door--an important aim with the builder.
Candour now compels us to notice a few records, which, in view of the
particulars already given, seem inexplicable. The church of
Ashby-de-la-Zouch is said to be built so near the South wall, as to
indicate that the North side was clearly intended for burial[901].
Streatley, in Berkshire, is one example out of a fair-sized list,
exhibiting a large North yard with very old stones. The ancient church
of Swanscombe, Kent, had, on the whole, its oldest monuments towards the
North, but the South doorway had been blocked by masonry. In most
instances of this kind there is doubtless some circumstance, or series
of circumstances, which would explain the departure from custom. Let us
pause a moment to consider the exact importance of these exceptions.
The headstones, it will be remembered, carry us back only a few
centuries. But, so far as these memorials reach, they tell
overwhelmingly in favour of the superstition. Twenty years ago, this
evidence was much more patent to the eye. A very general exception,
however, must be made of the town churchyards, in which the old
tombstones are often found evenly distributed over the available space.
Several reasons may be adduced for this non-observance of the usual
practice. The town church, as a rule, stands centrally in its graveyard;
it is commonly approached by several alleys and paths, leading from a
thoroughfare or market-place; it is frequently cruciform in plan, with
North and South doors, and this design, wherever met with, seems to have
had some effect in counteracting the fears of the ignorant. Above all
these reasons, must be set the fact that populous districts would
soonest lose touch with the superstition, so that, even before the era
of headstones, the belief retained but a comparatively feeble foothold
among the inhabitants of towns. The argument from monuments fails in
cases such as these. We must seek the tradition in the rural districts,
and turn back to a time when it was more firmly held. We shall then see
that the present exceptions, numerous as they are, cannot invalidate the
general practice. They represent what Professor L. C. Miall, writing on
a vexed question in botany, calls “negative exceptions.” I venture to
repeat his witty illustration: “A wooden leg is used to enable a man to
walk when he has lost his natural leg. If you saw a one-legged man
walking with a pair of crutches, and no wooden leg at all, would that
shake your belief in the motive for using wooden legs[902]?” The
“negative exceptions” which we have been studying may, indeed, testify
to a weakening of tradition, or occasionally, to its apparent local
non-existence, but they do not abolish it, or change its purport one
whit. How it chances that, of two adjacent parishes, the present-day
evidence shows the belief at work in the first, but seemingly unknown,
or in abeyance, in the second, is a matter upon which we can only
speculate. The puzzle reminds one of the difficulty which meets the
palaeontologist when he strives to explain why one line of animal
descent stops, and remains fixed, while another continues to develop;
why creatures which seem to be completely adapted to their surroundings
become extinct; why one species or genus is taken, and another left.
We now go behind the testimony of the tombstones, and meet some apparent
contradictions. When the turf on the Northern side of a churchyard is
broken up, for the first time, as the sexton thinks--since there are
neither mounds nor tombstones to serve as “frail memorials,” bones are
sometimes discovered. At Bottesford, Lincolnshire, though the North yard
had been wholly unused until our day, yet when graves were actually
dug, traces of former burials were revealed[903]. The churchyard of
Swinhope, in the same county, yielded stronger proofs. Seven or eight
very old interments, closely grouped, were found; in one case there was
a coffin formed of loose slabs of chalk[904]. The late Canon A. R.
Pennington, of Utterby, again in the same county, told the writer of his
surprise when bones were thrown out of the first grave made towards the
North of his church. It is a fair inference that no mounds had been
raised over the earlier interments. Further instances could be added,
but these will suffice. The details concerning the Swinhope interments
are peculiar, especially the finding of the chalk coffin. These
particular burials may point to the building of the church on a
pre-Christian site. The other examples, however, have a different
interpretation; namely, that the Northern portion of the churchyard was
formerly reserved for the bodies of murderers, suicides, excommunicated
persons, and still-born or unbaptized children[905]. That the custom is
not yet obsolete is attested by the case already described on p. 341
_supra_, which is one of many.
This ecclesiastical rule has found its expression in literature. A
modern poet, Professor A. E. Housman, has deftly wrought the tradition
and the practice into his sad story, _A Shropshire Lad_:
“To South the headstones cluster,
The sunny mounds lie thick;
The dead are more in muster
At Hughley than the quick.
North, for the soon-told number,
Chill graves the sexton delves,
And steeple-shadowed slumber
The slayers of themselves.”
Parochial histories supply the facts necessary for the confirmation of
the tradition. Brand cites the case of a burying-ground in Edinburgh,
where the North was reserved for the unbaptized and suicides. The
graveyard belonged to the Quakers, and thus is of especial
interest[906]. Another record tells how, a century ago, the body of a
murderer who had been executed at Lincoln was carried to Swine, over
the Yorkshire boundary, and was there interred on the North side “as the
proper place in which to bury a felon[907].” To the Irish peasantry, the
North is the “wrong side,” and we have a contemporary account of a
murder in the year 1786, which incidentally states that the malefactor
was buried on the “wrong side” of Turlagh churchyard[908]. Miss
Gordon-Cumming found that, among the Hebrideans, the belief was full of
vitality. A young Englishman, who had committed suicide, was carried
head foremost to a grave on the North side of Portree church, and was
there buried, with his head towards the East, instead of towards the
West. Even this qualified reception into consecrated ground sometimes
meets with opposition, from fear that a suicide so buried will cause the
herrings to desert the coast. The suspicious fishermen have been known
to dig up a corpse from the kirkyard, secretly, by night, and to
re-inter the accursed thing either on the shore, at low-water mark, or
on the summit of a high mountain. Burials of this kind have taken place
on the top of Aird Dhubh, and also on a mountain on the border of
Inverness and Ross-shire, two years after the original sepulture[909].
Still bearing on this question, it has been suggested that a part of the
churchyard, presumably the Northern, was formerly left unconsecrated for
the burial of such persons as have been enumerated. Burn, in his
_History of Parish Registers_, expressly states this as a fact, and
gives, as an example, “the single woman’s churchyard,” in Southwark,
where the dead bodies of the inmates of the licensed stews were
buried[910]. This part of the graveyard was frequently known as the
“back side[911].” The West of England tradition taught that this area
was designedly left unconsecrated to serve as a playground for the
village children. To speak more generally, the North was reserved for
the village sports during the period when these were permitted in the
churchyard. And, although there seems no clear proof that butts for the
use of archers were set up in the churchyard itself, the ground
immediately adjoining the North boundary was so used. Such a strip of
land, of some length, known as “the Butts,” lies to the North of the
churchyard at Beeston-next-Mileham, in Norfolk[912], and at Coleshill,
in Warwick. The theory of non-consecration, though not for the purposes
just named, receives some support from Durandus, who observes that to be
buried on the North side is to be buried “out of sanctuary[913].” And
through all the centuries which have rolled away since the date of this
learned ecclesiastic, the country folk have shunned the North side,
which lies “benighted in the midday sun.” There was always a dislike of
lying alone in death. The accustomed path, leading to the South door,
was trodden by the assembling worshippers[914]. Under the shadow of the
graveyard cross or the sombre yew the country folk could stop to whisper
a prayer. In far-away times, Gregory the Great had taught that it is
more profitable to be buried in the churchyard than in the distant
cemetery, because, in the former case, the survivors may frequently
behold the sepulchres as they enter the sacred building, and may put
forth their petitions. (Cf. p. 262 _supra._)
The distant cemetery, mentioned by Gregory, seems oftentimes to have
formed an incentive to church-building in its neighbourhood. It would
appear that the earliest Christian graveyards, like the cemeteries of
the heathen, were often unenclosed. Being hallowed spots, a preaching
cross would be erected near the graves. The setting up of a cross, the
“truly precious rood,” must precede the actual building of the church,
according to the decree of the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 530). This act of
consecration was the work of the bishop of the diocese. Durandus notices
the claim of some churchmen that a space of thirty feet around the
church ought to be set apart for burial, while others contended that the
space actually enclosed by the circuit of the bishop was
sufficient[915]. Though the cross may at first have been portable and
adapted only for temporary use, yet a permanent symbol was frequently
employed. The heathen Saxons are said to have had a rooted dread of
entering an enclosed place of worship, lest they should be the victims
of supposed magical rites[916]. An enclosed graveyard was also a decided
innovation. So late as the reign of Canute, one class of building, the
“feld-cirice” (= field-church), was unprovided with a graveyard. As time
passed away, however, boundary hedges were planted, or walls were built
around to form a burial-ground. The sacred garth, as well as the
building, became a sanctuary, with its “benefit of adjuration,” and its
right of appeal to trial by ordeal. The actual enclosure of spaces
around the churches dates from about the year A.D. 750. (Cf. remarks on
the early cemeteries in Chap. VI.) The practice must have been loosely
observed, for we find, down to the year A.D. 1603, statutes and canons
repeatedly enforcing the law[917].
Chance excavations sometimes attest the early laxity of custom. Outside
the churchyard wall of Kirby Grindalythe, in the East Riding, stretching
towards the West, are many ancient interments. This fact seems to
indicate, either that the Norman church originally stood in an unfenced
portion of the hillside, a part of the cemetery being excluded when the
wall was built, or that the open wold had been used for burials,
Christian or pagan, before the church was erected[918]. Gilbert White
was of opinion that the churchyard of Selborne was once larger, and had
extended to what was, in his day, the vicarage garden[919]. Maplescombe
church, the ruins of which were referred to on p. 38, seems to have
never been properly fenced in from the fields. The retired churchyard of
Branxton, in Northumberland, which lies within a bowshot of Flodden
Field, has at least two features which are illustrative of our subject.
The present churchwarden, Mr John Rankin, the representative of a family
which has long held that office, informs me that the graveyard was
formerly unfenced, save on the South side, where a thorn hedge separated
it from the road. On this side, also, there is a narrow strip of land
which contains no graves, and which, Mr Rankin asserts, has, through an
oversight, never been consecrated. (Cf. p. 343 _supra._) The churchyard
at Norton, near Evesham, was unenclosed, except on the Eastern side,
down to the year 1844. It stood in a grass field which formed part of
the church glebe, thus illustrating Wordsworth’s lines, descriptive of
an Oxfordshire parsonage:
“Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,
Is marked by no distinguishable line[920].”
The sonnet from which these lines are taken seems to show clearly that
the poet was writing of a churchyard which was open on one side. Again,
one often discovers churches of ancient foundation standing apart in the
fields, and having a fence composed of wooden rails or iron hurdles of
such modern date that one is forced to believe that the area has only
been shut in for a few generations. The church of Little Washbourne,
Gloucestershire, already ruinous when I saw it in 1888, is an instance
which comes to mind. The tiny church of Woldingham (Fig. 68), which is
situated near the escarpment of the North Downs, lay in the open fields,
and the ground was apparently unenclosed down to the year 1852. The
building, which measured only 30 feet by 17 feet, was rudely constructed
of flints and “firestone” (from the Upper Greensand), but has since been
restored more than once. The old structure was “desolate [and]
dilapidated” so far back as the time of Evelyn[921]. The illustration
shows the restored church of a century ago. To-day the building is
approached by a short road. The visitor will notice how small a strip of
ground was left on the North side when the boundaries were marked out.
Seeking examples elsewhere, we observe that, in the marshland of East
Lincolnshire, churches must have been built before the district was
effectively drained, and therefore, before the existing boundary ditches
or dykes were cut[922].
[Illustration:
FIG. 68. The restored church of Woldingham, Surrey, as it appeared
in 1809. (Manning and Bray.) The view seems to be taken from the
North side. Behind the church, on the South side, is a large yew,
much decayed, and partially hollow. To the right, just out of the
drawing, is a huge ash, which to-day measures 20 feet in
circumference at a height of 3 feet from the ground. The churchyard
was probably unenclosed until a comparatively late date.
]
The prejudice against burial on the North side can be traced beyond the
advent of Christianity. It is one of those “clinging faiths and fears”
which beset the early folk of these islands. As a result of the
examination of several hundred British barrows, Canon Greenwell found
that, in secondary burials, bodies were rarely deposited on the North
side of the mound, the most favoured positions being towards the South
and East[923]. Mr J. R. Mortimer, after quoting Canon Greenwell’s
observations, confirms them by the testimony of the mounds of
Yorkshire. Canon Atkinson’s experiences yielded similar results. During
the course of many years, he opened some eighty “houes” or grave-mounds
in his own district of Danby-in-Cleveland, and found one interment only
in which the body “lay a little, and but a little, North of the magnetic
East-and-West line[924]” (i.e. the median line). The evidence derived
from megalithic monuments and prehistoric dwellings and settlements
tends the same way. The chilly North was shunned; the brilliant East and
the gracious South were courted. These ancient preferences were
emphasized in the building of temples and Christian places of worship.
Egregious among these old-world superstitions stands the hatred of the
North. All the inherited antipathies of primeval folk were long retained
by their civilized successors, and hence the Northern portion of the
graveyard was allotted to those who were deemed spiritually undeveloped
or spiritually lost.
Another fact which tends to prove the continuity of the superstition is
that, during the Romano-British period, the bodies of persons who had
committed suicide were not allowed to be burnt. The prohibition was
afterwards extended to those who had died in their infancy[925].
Surveying the general question of suicide, one or two intermediate
stages of folk-custom may be noted. In the early days of English
history, suicides and murderers were buried at crossroads. It has been
argued that this procedure was not altogether intended to heap indignity
on the corpse, but that the intersecting roads were emblematic of the
Cross, for which reason such spots were therefore deemed
self-consecrated[926]. That this idea was prevalent two or three hundred
years ago, one would not care to deny; nevertheless it was a late
accretion. Else, why was a stake driven through the body of the person
so interred? Dishonour to the dead may not, indeed, have been the
primary motive which impelled the survivors to behave in this manner,
although a desire to prevent the ghost walking was doubtless a strong
constituent[927]. The living would naturally object to the burial of a
criminal or murderer near an inhabited house[928]; the ghost, angry at
being disembodied, according to the elementary notions of our
forefathers, might walk abroad, and wreak vengeance or disaster on
whomsoever it would. This fear was common among priscan folk, and is
widespread even at the present day. Professor Frazer has shown how the
natives of Uganda bury still-born babes, and children born feet
foremost, at cross-roads. Women, passing by, throw dust or grass on the
mound to prevent the spirit entering themselves and being reborn. The
bodies of suicides are also burned at cross-roads. Westermarck has
collected and collated many analogous practices and beliefs from such
far-sundered countries as India and Servia, Japan and Morocco[929]. If,
following this high authority, we are disposed to agree that the
crossways were believed to disperse such energy as might be ascribed to
the deceased person[930], that this mode of interment diverted diseases,
and warded off all evil influences from the living, we shall the more
readily perceive why the superstition retained its vitality in later
times. When the Cross became the symbol of the new religion, the old
belief about suicides was reinforced so far as the idea of protection
was concerned, though the superstition might be weakened in respect of
any supposed indignity to the dead. Even here, however, there is room
for further investigation, and writers like Mr Andrew Lang have
questioned whether the supposed efficacy of the Cross is a sufficient
explanation[931]. The idea of abandonment, as it appears to the present
writer, must have been an essential portion of the ceremony, and this
was the natural consequence of the theory that the soul of the suicide
was self-doomed to perish.
A middle stage of the belief is illustrated by the Scottish practice of
burying self-murderers outside the churchyard, but close by the wall.
(Cf. p. 352 _supra._) This plan was afterwards modified to the extent
of allowing the body to come technically within the yard, but to be
placed actually beneath the wall, so that no one might walk over the
grave[932]. In England, we find constant reference to the burial of
suicides in the open fields. The custom of driving a stake through the
bodies of persons found _felo de se_ has been noticed. This brutal
treatment, excusable in folk who, in the dawn of the world, had a real
horror of ghosts and vampires, was only abolished by law in the year
1823[933]. Yet, as if to prove the unequal working of the human mind,
and to exemplify the truism that like customs have not everywhere the
same lease of life, we find remarkable exceptions to the rule. While the
barbarous belief concerning suicide still held its sway, church
discipline was, on the whole, gradually relaxing, and ordinary burials
were permitted to take place within the sacred building. Then came the
exception which we have examined. A certain part of the burial-ground
was devoted to burials of murderers and suicides. In at least two cases,
as attested by parish registers, the bodies of murderers were admitted
into the church, though still on the North side of the fabric (A.D. 1616
and 1620)[934]. The fact is, that one can scarcely mention a single
custom or tradition which has not been disregarded exceptionally at
certain periods, though the main current has flowed on almost as
strongly as ever. No doubt each particular infraction was the result of
powerful local influences. For, even to this hour, as has been clearly
shown, the body of the suicide or the manslayer may be interred in the
churchyard, and yet remain, according to the superstition, “out of
sanctuary.”
CHAPTER IX
THE CHURCHYARD YEW
The student who attempts to master the problem of the churchyard yew
finds himself in danger of being bowed down by the burden of conflicting
facts and theories.
With respect to the facts, there lies at hand a note-book containing the
jottings of years, but so plethoric are its pages, that a mass of detail
must be correlated and much matter shorn away before the case can be
presented with any degree of lucidity.
Concerning the theories, folk-memory lends us little help. It does not
ring true, and there is more than a suspicion that it has been
influenced by ideas gathered from the printed book of the ecclesiologist
and the antiquary.
“Things are as they are, and the consequences of them will be what they
will be, wherefore, then, should we desire to be deceived?” Following
the spirit of Butler’s philosophy, let us leave aside all hypotheses for
the present, and review the facts. It will conduce to clearness if the
particulars are summarized in due order.
The botanist will tell us that the yew (_Taxus baccata_) is a
fine-grained, slow-growing tree belonging to the sub-division Taxineae
of the Natural Order Coniferae, or Pinaceae. Its timber is tough,
durable, and elastic, so that there is some truth in the New Forest
proverb: “A post of yew will outlast a post of iron.” The trunk of the
yew is deeply channelled, and its reddish-brown bark easily peels off.
Looking at the narrow, leathery leaves, which are dark and glossy on the
upper surface, but rather pale on the undersides, one might casually
conclude that they are arranged in two rows on opposite sides of the
twig. Closer inspection, however, proves that the leaves spring from all
sides of the axis, but that a twist at the base of each leaf gives a
false appearance of a plain double series[935]. The yew is dioecious,
that is, the male and the female flowers grow on separate trees, but
occasionally both kinds of inflorescence may be seen on the same tree.
Over a large area of the Northern Hemisphere our familiar yew is met
with, and an allied species grows in North-East America and Japan. The
columnar variety (var. _fastigiata_), known as the Irish, or Florence
Court yew, is said to have originated as a wild sport at Florence Court,
in county Fermanagh, about 130 years ago[936]. Its outline looks very
unlike that of the common yew, which has horizontal branches, and it has
no further practical bearing on our subject.
It is important to note that the yew is demonstrably indigenous to
Britain. It can be traced back not merely to the Neolithic Age[937], but
even to the Glacial period[938]; hence there need be no debate
concerning its possible introduction in later times.
Whether the yew be poisonous--no unimportant matter, as will shortly be
seen--has been discussed frequently and at great length. The disputants
often argue at cross-purposes, each side in turn misapprehending the
exact point at issue. Having read all the literature which is reasonably
accessible on this subject, I am convinced of the overwhelming proof
that the yew has poisonous properties, though the noxiousness may be
comparatively slight at certain seasons, in certain years, and with
respect to certain animals. The results are most fatal when the beasts
eat the leaves on a fasting stomach. When the leaves are dry and tough
there is the additional evil of indigestibility. Yet there is an
opposing fact. Mixed with three or four times their bulk of other food,
green yew leaves are actually employed as fodder for cattle in times of
scarcity. Records of this custom come from Hanover, Hesse, and other
parts of the Continent. Stated in general terms, then, the poisonous
principle (taxine) cannot be very intensely concentrated; it may even be
inoperative until acted upon by the juices of the stomach. Again, the
pulpy portion of the fruit is eaten with impunity, but the stones are
considered highly injurious. Sufficient references are given in the
footnote to obviate further discussion here[939], but it will be seen
later that the modern theory was preceded by an empirical knowledge
which harmonizes well with the ascertained facts.
The belief in the pernicious properties of the juice of the yew is,
indeed, as old as Pliny, who tells us that arrows were dipped in the
poison (_toxicum_), and that the hurtfulness might be neutralized by
previously driving a brass nail into the tree[940]. He adds that some
writers have asserted that _toxicum_ was formerly _taxicum_, from the
name of the yew (_taxus_). The assumption seems to be that _taxus_ is
connected not only with τάξος, a yew, but also with τόξον, a bow (τὰ
τόξα = _bow and arrows_, and perhaps _arrows_ only)[941], and φάρμακον,
poison. But even if these links be allowed, the claim is vitiated by the
refusal of the lexicographers to admit such a word as _taxicum_.
Caesar informs us that Cativolcus, one of the rulers of the Eburones,
poisoned himself with yew[942]. Since a doubt has been raised whether
the Latin _taxus_ and the Greek τάξος accurately represent our word
“yew,” it may be said that the latest authorities on both languages
give that rendering to the respective words[943]. It must nevertheless
be observed that there is an alternative word in Greek, for one of the
several meanings of σμῖλαξ, or μιλαξ, is “yew.” Pliny’s word _tristis_
(sad), applied to _taxus_, stands good therefore for the yew. It has
been suggested that the Greek word is allied to τάξις, arrangement (from
τάςςω = I arrange), the allusion being to the apparent double row of
leaves.
Before leaving the philological section, some English equivalents of the
word must be noticed. “Early Modern English” forms include _yewe_,
_yeugh_, _eugh_, _yowe_, etc. These come to us from the Middle English
_ew_ or _u_, and these, again, represent the A.S. _īw_ and _eów_[944]. A
seventh century manuscript has a still earlier form, _īuu_, and this is
said to be the oldest spelling in any Teutonic language[945]. There are,
says the _Century Dictionary_, Danish, Old High German, Spanish, Old
Irish, Welsh, Gaelic, and Cornish equivalents, and of these, the Celtic
forms are possibly original and not derivative[946]. Professor W. W.
Skeat supports the Celtic origin of the word _yew_, which, by the way,
is quite distinct from the word _ivy_, although the various forms of
_yew_ and _ivy_ suggest one another[947]. Dr Schrader says that the Old
High German word _iva_, in the sense of “yew,” disappears as we go
further East, and, in Sclavonic dialects, signifies a willow. The same
holds good of the word for “beech,” and Dr Schrader believes that the
change is due to the thinning out of these trees Eastwards. In
Lithuania, again, the meanings of “fir” and “yew” run into each
other[948]. Professor V. Hehn called attention to the same series of
facts, from which he drew similar conclusions.
The etymological road leading us no further, we take counsel of the
forester and the arboriculturist. We wish to ascertain the greatest age
which the yew is believed to reach.
The older authorities followed implicitly the dictum of the Swiss
botanist Augustin De Candolle, who, basing his conclusions upon a study
of the annual rings of the yew, and upon the sizes of yews of known age,
formulated the rule: An increase in diameter of one line annually. If we
allow an average yearly growth of one line in diameter, we shall
probably over-estimate the rate of growth for very aged trees (“_il est
probable qu’on est au-dessus de la vérité_”), so that while we may, in
practice, reckon each line of the diameter as a year, we shall, in
reality, make the trees younger than they actually are[949]. De
Candolle, in another place, admitted that for the first 150 years the
annual growth somewhat exceeded a line in diameter, though for older
trees it was less than this amount[950]. Abridging this rather involved
statement, let us put the rule thus: Up to the age of 150 years the yews
increase annually a line or a little more in diameter, and a little less
than a line afterwards.
Since De Candolle’s day, it has been contended that his estimate makes
the trees too old. Dr J. Lowe, in his interesting volume on _Yew-Trees_,
has combated the conclusions at some length; his chapters are here
freely drawn upon and compared with my own private notes. Dr Lowe’s
estimate, taking young and old trees together, allows a growth of one
foot in diameter for each period of 60-70 years. De Candolle’s rule
would make a like growth represent 144 years at least (1 foot = 144
lines), or, supposing him to have taken the line as one-tenth of an
inch--as some writers mistakenly believe[951]--120 years, or a little
over. In the absence of testimony to the contrary, I think we may safely
consider that De Candolle’s line was reckoned on the one-twelfth basis:
indeed there appears to be no valid reason for doubting this. We note,
in passing, that the calculations of Edward Jesse, the naturalist, made
after measuring trees at intervals, agree closely with those of the
Swiss savant[952].
Between the estimates of De Candolle and those of Dr Lowe, but far
nearer to those of the latter observer, is the determination adopted by
Sir R. Christison and his son, Dr D. Christison. Working on the
eminently scientific method of measuring the increase of girth at a
fixed point during stated periods, these observers decided that one foot
for every 75 years would be more than the average rate of increase[953].
The three varying results may therefore be thus stated:
De Candolle 1 foot represents 144 years
The Christisons “ “ “ 75 years
Dr Lowe “ “ “ 60-70, say 65 years
Mr J. E. Bowman, making use of the trephine, came to the conclusion that
young trees may add two lines per year, and if the soil be very rich,
three lines, but that, after a diameter of two feet has been reached, De
Candolle’s limit of one line yearly holds true. De Candolle’s formula,
Bowman considered, “makes old trees too young, and young trees too old.”
Commenting on Bowman’s mode of experiment, Dr Lowe asserts that it has
“no utility whatever,” because the external rings of the tree--those
reached by the trephine--are not concentric, and are not formed in the
same manner as those of the young shoot. Further, Bowman’s experiments
seem to have been performed on young trees only[954].
The true estimate, therefore, seems to lie between the determinations of
De Candolle and Dr Lowe respectively. The latter writer admits that De
Candolle’s rule is fairly sound when applied to young trees with
undecayed centres, but he stipulates that the tree must be cut down and
proved to have not more than one centre. He refers to the case of a yew
in Kyre Park, Worcestershire, which possesses two huge trunks, united
below, and he proceeds to argue that, if we suppose the tops to have
been broken off underneath the junction, and young shoots to have sprung
up from the base, the trees would have been deemed as old as our most
noted specimens in the British Isles. Such a case, however, would
rarely be encountered in actual experience.
[Illustration:
FIG. 69. Transverse section of yew, showing annual rings. Longest
diameter, 5½´´; shortest, 4⅛´´; number of rings, 51. It will be
noticed that the section is excentric; this is due to irregular
growth. The light coloured, outer zone, is the alburnum, or
sap-wood; the dark, inner zone, the duramen, or heart-wood. The
large, radial cracks are the results of shrinkage. These cracks run
along the lines of the medullary rays, though the actual rays are
much too fine to be seen without a good lens. (For an excellent
description of such a section, see G. S. Boulger, _Wood_, 2nd
edition, 1908, p. 301.)
]
We will now examine De Candolle’s “ring method” a little more closely.
First, what is the botanical theory respecting the formation of the
rings in a tree? In our climate trees make little or no growth during
the winter season, hence the new spring wood, with its wide, thin-walled
vessels, is rather sharply defined against the narrower, compact,
dense-walled vessels which were formed in the preceding autumn or late
summer. The successive concentric cylinders of new wood, therefore, when
seen in cross-section, appear as zones, or “annual rings.” These rings
are well shown in the transverse section of yew (Fig. 69). In vertical
section the rings appear as parallel strips, forming what is popularly
called the “grain” of the wood (Fig. 70). It is true, in general, that
one ring represents one year’s growth. The rule must, however, be
applied under slight reserve. Dr D. H. Scott clamped the branch of an
elm in June, thus increasing the pressure on the cells. The result was
that wood was formed similar to that which is usually associated with
autumn. After six weeks, during which the nutrition had been practically
uniform, the clamp was removed, and another ring was produced.
[Illustration:
FIG. 70. Longitudinal, tangential section of yew. In this section,
taken with the “grain,” the annual rings appear as alternate
parallel strips of dark and light wood. The tracheids, or elongated
thick-walled cells, are invisible to the unaided eye.
A branch is seen emerging on the right, forming a “pin,” which
would be obnoxious to bowyers.
]
The conditions just described were artificial and abnormal, but varying
temperatures, if extreme, might act in a similar manner. Sequoias and
red-woods may naturally form several concentric wood rings in a year, a
result probably due to alternations of heat and cold. Against the danger
of over-calculation of age from neglecting such factors, may be set the
consideration that, owing to damage by frost, or to seasonal
peculiarities, no ring may be formed within the year[955]. In normal
circumstances, “one ring, one year” is a trustworthy maxim.
Unfortunately, to verify this rule, should its accuracy be challenged,
the tree must be cut down--a most undesirable proceeding. Moreover, if
the tree be aged, counting the rings is a matter of some difficulty; one
must use a lens and a pair of needles, moving these “counters” as if
scoring at a game of cribbage. Now Dr Lowe, while doubting whether the
yew may not form more than one ring per year--a contingency that would
seriously upset all computations based on this system--feels confident
that in this country young trees produce one only. He is of opinion that
the ring test consequently holds good for uninjured trees up to 200 or
250 years. Beyond that period, he asserts confidently that the yew
sustains injuries from storm or disease sufficient to invalidate the
rule. To the extent, let us say, of 250 years, Dr Lowe’s assumption runs
parallel with that of De Candolle, who believed that there is
practically no limit to the age of the yew, except disease. After the
third century, Dr Lowe, as we shall soon see, actually claims a more
rapid rate of growth, at least, intermittently.
The errors to which De Candolle’s method is liable are thus epitomized.
A yew which has been maltreated by lopping or injured by the browsing of
animals may thicken and form bosses, and so increase the apparent girth.
Trunks may be fused together. Wounds may prevent the formation of rings.
Small shoots may be enveloped by the spread of the “bark,” and thus a
vast number of rings may be formed which eventually become
concentric[956].
Nevertheless, since we cannot always cut a tree down, some other method
of estimating the age must be followed. And if the actual circumference
be not always the true measure of the normal free-growing parent stem,
our observations should, by way of counterpoise, be correspondingly
numerous. Whoever has attempted to measure a yew, with the object of
employing De Candolle’s rule, will recognize the force of Dr Lowe’s
contentions, yet one cannot but think that the risk of error has been
exaggerated.
We are told, again, that there may be a difference in the number of
rings on the two sides of a tree, even at the same level, in other
words, a given ring may not be everywhere of the same thickness. This is
noticeable in the specimen, Fig. 69. In the famous yew of Darley Dale,
Derbyshire, it is asserted that the number of rings varied from 33 to 66
in an inch of radius, taken horizontally--a curiously neat ratio[957].
Michel Montaigne, so far back as 1581, pointed out that the rings were
narrower on the north side of the tree. Yet these occurrences do not
hopelessly affect our conclusions. The writer possesses a section of a
branch of yew from Offchurch, Warwickshire, which was over-developed on
one side, the result of proximity to a stream, and of a sunny aspect.
The consequent curvature of the heart wood, though certainly
disappointing to the bowyer, who bought the tree, did not prove very
troublesome even to the amateur ring-counter. Taking the average of a
long series of years, and examining a large number of specimens, the
inequalities in such specimens would be found to cancel each other. In
an aged tree like that of Darley Dale, the coalescence of the rings
would be far more perplexing than the unsymmetrical growth.
With respect to one source of error, Dr Lowe seems to answer his own
objection. “A tree may have died on one side,” says he, “or may have
ceased forming, while the other side is growing vigorously.” Yes, but in
that case the error would be one of under-calculation; the yew would be
credited with fewer years than the measurements warranted.
Once again, it is argued that not only may a particular ring have
inequalities of width, but the different rings vary among themselves in
thickness. And we have seen that growth does not increase uniformly with
age. An oak of 50 years had a circumference equal to another which was
four times that age. Nor is the rate of growth always uniformly
diminished as the tree becomes older. De Candolle found an oak, 333
years old, which showed as great an increase between the rings of 320
and 330 as between those of 90 and 100 years. Now it is not mere
captiousness to remark that these figures refer to an oak, not to a
steady-growing yew, though Dr Lowe claims that the observation would
apply equally well to the latter tree[958]. We may repeat: while
variations in rainfall, temperature, and food-supply, correspondingly
affect the rate of growth, it is a matter of common knowledge that our
seasons tend to follow ill-defined cycles, and that a series of such
cycles may be expected to equalize each other with a fair approximation
to exactitude.
[Illustration: FIG. 71. Yew at West end of Tandridge churchyard, Surrey.
Though hollow, it is one of the finest specimens in England.]
A far graver indictment of De Candolle’s figures is contained in the
insinuation that his selected trees were stunted and ill-grown, so that
the rate of growth was made to appear too slow[959]. The supposition, if
well grounded, would severely shake De Candolle’s rule, but at present
it is a supposition merely, as readers of the _Physiologie Végétale_ may
learn for themselves. De Candolle did indeed believe that trees die from
accident or disease rather than from old age, but how could the bias
resulting from such an opinion make the age of a yew greater than it
actually was? An injured tree whose development had been arrested would
be credited with too few years rather than with too many. Take the case
of the Tandridge yew, in Surrey (Fig. 71). Aubrey found that this tree
had a girth of 30 feet at a height of five feet from the ground. Manning
and Bray, about 130 years later, gave the corresponding measurement as
32 feet 9 inches. To-day the reading is only 32 feet 4 inches. Allowing
for some discrepancies in the modes of measurement, the results are
striking. The explanation is that, though the tree is still vigorous, it
has long been hollow, and growth must have been slight, if indeed there
has not been an actual arrest for the past century.
The method, adopted by the two Christisons, of measuring a tree at known
intervals of time, is perhaps open to less objection than that of
assuming a mean rate of growth, based on the enumeration of the rings of
selected specimens. A combination of both systems would be better, if
not ideal. The “interval method,” nevertheless, overlooks the objection
that growth is not quite uniform. De Candolle urged, as already noticed,
that the rate diminishes in aged trees, and gave several reasons. The
roots are farther from the air, and they are also working in competition
with those of neighbouring trees. Should the soil be rocky or otherwise
uncongenial the lessened elasticity of the bark retards growth. Add to
these factors the likelihood of oncoming disease, and the slackened
development would be appreciable. Against these considerations, Dr Lowe
boldly affirms that “there is abundant evidence to show that old trees
grow, at intervals, much more rapidly than young ones”; but he makes
this concession: “they do not, as I have said, grow uniformly, but have
periods of comparative arrest of growth[960].” These pauses, he
believes, are due to the overshadowing head of the tree. Were the head
to be broken every half century or so, rapid growth would again
commence. But to what degree does such a pollarding occur in nature?
Does not the head continue, in the main, to overshadow the trunk and
roots? (The lopping of yews for making bows, as apart from true
pollarding, will be discussed later.) One reiterates, all systems are
liable to error, but some systems are more accurate than others. And the
“interval method,” especially if supplemented by estimating the total
number of rings, according to an ascertained standard rate of increase,
still awaits the coming of a better system to supersede it.
The obtruding difficulty which now meets us is, Where are we to measure
the girth? Sir Robert Christison thought the ground level best, but,
wherever possible, he also measured the tree at five feet from the
base[961]. Yews, however, frequently thicken upwards; there may be
swellings under the branches; the stem is often encumbered by bunches of
young sprays; aged trees are usually deformed, and are studded with
knobs and excrescences. To follow Christison’s plan with the trees at
Dryburgh, Roseneath, and Sanderstead, and other yews which have
protuberances at the base, would result in too liberal an estimate. The
reaction of root-pressure tends to make trees “lift themselves out of
the ground.” Moreover, in exposed situations, scraping animals, such as
rabbits and foxes, lay bare the roots of trees, and increase the
apparent girth. Rain tends to wash away the soil, and so aids in the
deception.
On the other hand, the level of the soil in churchyards is gradually
rising (cf. p. 90 _supra_), and it is primarily with churchyard yews
that we are concerned. Hence it is proposed that the measurement should
be taken at the base, and also at a height of three feet from the
ground. De Candolle recommended a height of two feet for exogenous
trees. Those who have had practical experience in measuring yews, will,
while employing the tape at both these levels, recognize that there must
be a slightly varied treatment for each individual tree. Perhaps, like
Sir R. Christison[962], the investigator will be impelled, where the
trunk is short, to take the girth at the narrowest part.
Unfortunately few actual records have been kept of measurements of yew
trees taken at intervals. One or two cases may, however, be instructive.
At Hurstbourne Tarrant, near Andover (Hants), there are two churchyard
yews, which, the parish register informs us, were planted in 1693 and
1743 respectively. Now, if we accept Dr Lowe’s mean rate of one foot for
65 years, the first tree, when re-measured in 1896, should have been
about 9´ 10´´ in circumference, and the second 7´ 6´´. The actual
measurements were[963]:
1st tree. 8´ 4´´ at base; 6´ 8´´ at a height of five feet.
2nd “ 7´ 3´´ “ “ ; 7´ 3´´ “ “ “ “
Hence Dr Lowe’s rate of growth would be too high for these trees; in the
first example, markedly, yet the trees were still only of moderate age,
and growth must have been active.
Other good records refer to two yews in the churchyard of Basildon,
Berkshire. Details of the measurement of the first tree were entered in
the parish register in 1780, and of the second in 1834, though both
trees had been planted by Lord Fane at a considerably earlier date than
the year 1780. In 1889 the trees were again measured by Mr Walter Money,
and the results thus compared[964]:
1st tree. From 1780-1889, an increase from 6´ 3´´ to
9´ 10´´; a gain of 3´ 7´´.
2nd “ From 1834-1889, an increase from 9´ 2½´´ to
9´ 6´´; a gain of 3½´´.
Now, if it be true, as Dr Lowe’s rule supposes, that a mean period of 65
years represents a gain of one foot in diameter, the first tree should
have increased 5´ 3´´ in circumference, and the second 2´ 8´´. But here,
again, the postulated rate of growth is far too high; in the second
example, nine times too high. Even if we grant that “old trees grow, at
intervals, much more rapidly than young ones,” Dr Lowe’s main rule is
not verified. For it happens that measurements of the first tree were
made at two intermediate dates, 1796 and 1834. During the first period,
1780-1796, the increase was indeed three times as great as Dr Lowe’s
formula would demand, but in the second, and longer period, 1796-1889,
the growth was less than a quarter of the estimated amount. These
measurements of yews, dealing with odd inches, truly suggest some degree
of error, due to the substitution of one observer for another,
nevertheless, we may assume the figures to be roughly correct. At the
same time, these rather surprising results indicate the wisdom of
calling in the aid of the total ring-estimate as a supplementary
witness, since the increase of girth tends to be so variable.
Particulars respecting the growth of yews at Wrexham, as given by John
Timbs, also show that an increase of one foot in 65 years is somewhat
over the limit[965]. More records are desirable, yet the facts generally
seem to favour Dr Lowe’s higher limit of 70 years for each foot of
growth, or even the 75 years proposed by the Christisons. On the whole,
Dr Lowe himself seems to sanction the last-named estimate, for, while he
thinks that one foot in 75 years is “below the average rate of growth,”
yet for purposes of calculation he prefers to adopt that scale[966].
The basis of 75 years, then, shall be taken in the present chapter. Two
reservations, dependent upon what has been said previously, must,
however, be borne in mind. First, seeing that young trees have,
proportionately, a more extended leaf surface than old ones, larger
rings are formed and the 75-years rule will make the trees too old.
Secondly, and more important, there seems to come a period when aged
trees are practically at a standstill; they make no more increase, but
linger until disease and decay set in and slowly drain off the vitality.
Of the yew at Aldworth, Berkshire, it is asserted that it has not
increased in circumference since 1760[967]. I feel sure that this
arrest, though not usually absolute, is very common; hence, for aged
trees, additions to the age must be made after applying the 75-years
rule. Much stress should be laid on this point.
This slightly technical review has brought us so far as this: there was
a certain proneness among earlier observers to over-estimate the age of
the yew, and it is only as a result of modern observation that the
tendency has been checked. Whoever has walked along the Pilgrims’ Way of
the Southern counties, and has stopped to pass his tape-measure around
the oldest yews, must have realized that popular notions concerning the
age of these trees are not justified. Elsewhere, I have attempted to
show that many of these yews are successors of earlier ones, and that
they were designedly preserved by pilgrims and other wayfarers[968].
That explanation embraces the spirit of the folk-tales which point to
existing yew-trees as ante-dating particular Norman or Saxon churches.
The traditions cover the fact that trees have studded the Pilgrims’ Way
for many centuries--a conclusion differing from the reckless guesses of
guide-book antiquaries respecting the vast age of individual existing
yews.
In some few instances, as we shall see, churchyard yews are extremely
ancient, and it is a sound hypothesis that a replacement of dead yews
has often been made, thus bridging over the period which has elapsed
from the introduction of Christianity and the rearing of churches to the
present day. But, in general, deductions drawn from the age of existing
buildings are faulty. A caution must also be entered against
over-estimating the age of particular trees in yew groves which are
known to be ancient. Popular tradition says that the yews in Kingly
Bottom, or Vale, near Chichester, existed when the sea-kings landed. The
legend may be doubted, yet if we were to express it as Dr Lowe
suggests--“yews were there” at that date--the statement would probably
be accurate. Presented in this form, we may fairly assume the statement
true for earlier periods. Doubtless the Neolithic flint-workers of the
Vale, of whose old mines large numbers were discovered in 1910, looked
upon a dusky yew grove as they went to their labours. Once more: in
spite of the oft-repeated assertion that this or that yew is alluded to
in Domesday Book, it is none the less a fact that no individual yew, no
individual tree, in short, is mentioned therein[969].
From a long descriptive list of aged yew trees, slowly accumulated in a
note-book, a few examples only need be extracted. At the head, in regard
to antiquity, stands probably the yew in the graveyard of Fortingal
(Fortingale, or erroneously, Fotheringhall), Perthshire. Sir R.
Christison estimated this tree to be 3000 years old, and deemed it “the
most venerable specimen of living European vegetation[970].” De
Candolle’s determination was about the same as Christison’s. The hollow
stump, which has been carefully railed in, is now the merest wreckage.
The Fortingal yew was measured by Daines Barrington in 1769, when the
circumference was set down as 52 feet[971]. Pennant, a few years later,
gave the result as 56½ feet, so that, reckoning on the 75-year basis,
the tree would at that date be about 1340 years old. Mr C. T. Ramage,
basing his calculations on the observed rate of growth of a yew in
Montgomeryshire, arrived at the total of 1400 years[972]. It is worthy
of notice that a very old ecclesiastical establishment once existed near
the Fortingal yew[973]. Loudon gives us a woodcut representing the tree
as it appeared in 1837[974]; beyond this we have to rely on the figures
quoted, and on oral tradition.
Competing with the Fortingal yew for the premier position, there
formerly existed that of Brabourne, in Kent. It was alluded to by Evelyn
in his _Discourse on Forest Trees_ (1664), as already “supperannuated,”
and it disappeared about a century ago[975]. De Candolle put its age at
more than 3000 years[976], and while this was doubtless an
over-estimate, yet, if the recorded circumference, 59 feet[977], be
correctly stated, the tree was actually more ancient than its Scottish
rival.
A third claimant, from Hensor (Bucks), must be introduced with a
wavering pen. Its circumference, according to Mr J. R. Jackson, of Kew,
was 81 feet[978], hence, if this measurement be accurate, the yews
already mentioned are hopelessly out-ranged, for here we should have a
tree 2000 years old. Unfortunately, this yew no longer remains to tell
its own story, or to allow the measurement to be checked.
The celebrated churchyard yew of Darley Dale, Derbyshire, has suffered
much in reputation owing to travellers’ tales. Half a century since its
diameter was approximately 9½ feet[979], its age may therefore be
roughly estimated as 760-770 years.
A dead yew, under-propped, and chained together so as to preserve the
upright position, stands in the grounds of Kersal Cell, Lancashire. This
cell was founded about the middle of the twelfth century, and Mr Arthur
Mayall has suggested that the seed from which the yew sprang was brought
from the Holy Land at the close of the Second Crusade (1149)[980].
The yews known as the “Seven Sisters,” which grew on a knoll near the
mill at Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, but of which only two remain, have
been deemed by an able, though anonymous, authority to be “most certain
relics” of the mid-twelfth century[981]. The Abbey was founded in A.D.
1135. For the sake of comparison, De Candolle’s figures--1280
years[982]--although too high, may be noted.
The Buckland yew, near Dover, which was removed from the churchyard in
1880, was one of those erroneously reputed to have been mentioned in
Domesday Book. Serious historians, however, like Hasted, do not make
this mistake. The tree was of vast size, though details are now lacking.
At Watcombe, a lonely farm on the roadside between Wantage and
Hungerford, stands a cluster of aged yews, possibly coeval with the
Benedictine cell and church which were built there at the close of the
eleventh century. The trees form a kind of covered way or cloister and
now surround a central pond[983]. Of “Talbot’s yew,” in Tankersley Park,
Yorkshire, it is said that a man on horseback could turn round inside
its hollow trunk[984], and similar stories are related of other yew
trees.
Our catalogue might be extended, but there is scant space to describe
the yew of South Hayling (Hants), 33 feet round at its narrowest
girth[985]; that of Tisbury (Wilts.), 37 feet[986]; of Crowhurst
(Surrey) (Fig. 72), nearly 32¾ feet at a yard from the ground[987]; or
of its namesake, the Sussex Crowhurst, 27 feet[988]. The Chipstead yew,
in Surrey (Fig. 73), and the two yews of Mells, in Somerset, one of
which is shown in Fig. 74, are also well-grown trees. Hambledon, in
Surrey, possesses two good examples; the larger is seen in Fig. 75. A
mere glimpse only can be taken of the Swallowfield yew, Berkshire,
believed by Kingsley to be older than the parish church (built A.D.
1286)[989]; of Evelyn’s specimen at Scottshall (Kent), which he said was
eighteen of his paces “in compasse[990]”; the huge monarch of Twyford
churchyard, Hampshire; and the memorable, oft-described yew of Gilbert
White’s village of Selborne[991].
[Illustration:
FIG. 72. Crowhurst yew, Surrey. East side of churchyard. 32¾ feet
in circumference at a height of 3 feet from the ground. The inside,
which was artificially hollowed in the year 1820, contains a table,
around which a dozen persons can be seated.
]
Before taking final leave of individual trees, an example given by
Strutt claims passing notice. Strutt cites an original charter which
refers to the building of a church at Pérone, or Péronne, in Picardy, in
A.D. 684. In this charter, a remarkable clause was inserted, giving
instructions for the preservation of a particular yew tree. The writer
adds that the tree was in existence in A.D. 1799[992]. If we could be
sure that the charter referred to the identical tree which survived till
the latter date, we should here have a rival to the veterans of
Fortingal and Brabourne.
[Illustration:
FIG. 73. Yew on North side of Chipstead church, Surrey.
Circumference at 4 feet from the ground: 25 feet. The blocked-up
doorway is Transitional Norman (c. A.D. 1175); the arch is round,
but is ornamented with the “dog-tooth.” The Northern position of
the yew was probably determined by the Northern approach to the
church.
]
It has now been made clear that neither the exaggerated estimates of the
earlier school of botanists, nor the under-calculations of recent
writers, are quite satisfactory, and that, as of old
[Illustration:
FIG. 74. Yew, Mells churchyard, Somerset. Girth, at a height of 3
feet from the ground, 11 ft 8 in. A slightly smaller tree stands a
little towards the East, both specimens being situated on the South
side.
]
the middle path is safest. We next ask how the yew came to be planted in
churchyards. One section of antiquaries teaches that the object was to
ensure a supply of evergreens for great festivals, and to furnish, in
particular, “palms” for the procession on Palm Sunday (the second Sunday
in Lent). That the “yew, or palm,” served this purpose is abundantly
proved by entries in churchwardens’ accounts, and by the actual evidence
of living eye-witnesses. Nor is it entirely a valid objection that box,
laurel, broom and willow, have been or are still used for a like
purpose[993]. It is on record, too, that twigs of yew were employed by
the priests for sprinkling the Holy Water, in the Asperges, before
Mass[994]. This class of evidence can be extended. The _Liber
Festivalis_, or “Directory for keeping the Festivals,” an old
[Illustration: FIG. 75. Yew, Hambledon churchyard, Surrey.
Circumference, at 3 feet from the ground, 29 feet; at 4 feet from the
ground, 30 feet.]
black-letter volume dated 1483, states that yew is carried about on Palm
Sunday, “for encheson (= cause)[995] that we have none olyve that berith
greene leef algate (= always)[996].” Irish peasants were wont to carry
sprays of yew in their caps during Passion Week, and to place small
portions beside the crucifix at the head of the bed[997]. On St Martin’s
Hill, near Marlborough, as previously noted (p. 194 _supra_), there is
an ancient earthwork, to which, so recently as 1858, a band of villagers
went in procession on Palm Sunday, carrying boughs of hazel, not of
yew[998]. Although the yew was absent, the ceremony supplies an
interesting link, and the connection of a Christian festival with
prehistoric remains seems to indicate an early origin of the custom.
Again, a well-known ecclesiastical ceremony consisted in the solemn
blessing by the priest, on Palm Sunday, of branches of yew and box,
which were then burnt to ashes, and these were preserved for use on the
Ash Wednesday of the following year[999]. When visiting Wookey, in
Somerset, during the summer of 1906, I was told that the old churchyard
cross, recently restored, was known as “Yew Cross,” because it was
formerly decorated with yew on Palm Sunday. It is an astonishing fact,
moreover, that in the North-West Himalayas the yew is not only an object
of veneration, but its twigs are carried in processions and incense is
made of its timber[1000]. The enthusiastic antiquary might rashly adduce
this as a proof of the Asiatic origin of the “Aryans,” let us rather
suppose, without prejudicing that vexed question, that it is another
instance of similarity of custom developing independently among diverse
races.
Plainly, then, we have obtained at least a partial answer to our
question. Further usages, of a somewhat kindred nature, suggest reasons
for the presence of the tree in the churchyard. Yew branches were
carried by mourners at funerals; sprigs of yew were scattered on the
coffin; corpses were even rubbed with an infusion of the leaves, with a
view to preservation[1001]. Dryden speaks of the “mourner yew”; in
_Twelfth Night_ the clown sings of “My shroud of white, stuck all with
yew[1002]”; allusions are also found in the works of Dekker (1603),
Thomas Stanley (1651), and other seventeenth century writers. The
association of the yew with funerals survived until our day[1003]. Sir
Thomas Browne, discussing, with sonorous eloquence, the burials of the
ancient Greeks and Romans, tells us that “the funeral pyre consisted of
sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant,”
and continues, later, “whether the planting of yew in churchyards hold
not its original from ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of
resurrection, from its perpetual verdure, may also admit
conjecture[1004].”
Turning to a more prosaic theory, we find it urged that yew-trees were
planted in churchyards to protect the fabric from high storms and to
shelter the assembling congregation before the doors were opened. The
chief basis for this opinion is discoverable in the notable statute of
which the date is believed to be 35 Edward I. (A.D. 1307): _Ne rector
prosternat arbores in cemiterio_, that is, the rector must not cut down
trees in the churchyard, save, as the act proceeds to specify, for the
repair of the chancel[1005]. The statute was a repetition of a decree of
the Synod of Exeter (A.D. 1287), which forbade the felling of churchyard
trees, and expressly stated that they are often planted to prevent
injury to the building during storms[1006]. A like prohibition, it is
asserted, though mistakenly, had been earlier embodied in Magna
Charta[1007]. It is more pertinent to the present inquiry to remark that
the law is still binding. A foreign writer, whose name I cannot
ascertain, is quoted as stating that the yew was planted for shade and
_conciones_ (= assemblies)[1008]. With reference to the above-mentioned
decrees, it is argued that the yew would be the principal, if not the
only, kind of tree which needed preservation. If, then, with Gilbert
White[1009], we adopt the shelter theory as one explanation of the
presence of the yew, we tacitly admit that the tree, to have been of any
service, must have been planted long anterior to the date of the
statutes. Was the yew, it will reasonably be asked, well adapted for a
screen or shelter? On the one hand, Dr Lowe urges, as objections, the
tree’s slow growth and the horizontal habit of its branches. Against
this opinion we may set the more plausible view of Daines Barrington,
that the thick foliage of the yew renders it better for the purpose than
other trees[1010]. While not admitting that the shelter theory accounts
for the original intention of the earliest planters, it seems obvious
that even one yew would be effective in breaking the force of the wind
from a particular quarter. Moreover, two or three trees were often grown
in the churchyard. Slowness in reaching maturity would not be an
absolute bar, if, indeed, the tree were not already well advanced in
growth ere the church fabric was actually reared. As a matter of
history, a case cited by Barrington shows that the felling of yews
caused the roof of the church to suffer.
Other trees besides the yew would, without doubt, be also employed;
whether this was the case in primitive times may, however, be
questioned. The “rugged elm” of the _Elegy_ would come into favour in
due course. Examples of magnificent elms are to be seen at North Mimms
(Herts), Iford (Sussex), East Bedfont (Middlesex), and in many Essex
villages. Alfriston, in Sussex, has an immense elm, hollow with age.
Somewhat later, the sycamore, as at Plumpton (Sussex), and the horse
chestnut, as at Thursley (Surrey), were also utilized. This brings us
probably to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though the precise
dates are usually not ascertainable. Cedars occasionally replace the
yew[1011], for example, in the churchyard of Lullingstone (Kent), or
they supplement it, as at Ashtead (Surrey). Rodmell, in Sussex has a
magnificent holm oak, besides a large horse-chestnut and numerous elms.
Walnuts are not uncommon; Mitcham and Great Bookham (Surrey), Clee and
Great Coates (Lincs.), furnish good examples. Boldre churchyard (Hants)
contains a maple which was considered by Gilpin and Strutt to be the
largest in England. A huge ash borders the Eastern yard at Westmeston
(Sussex), but the ash, especially the “weeping” variety, is a feature of
churchyards in the Northern counties. “They, too, had once their
office, they handed on the fire.” Of these miscellaneous trees I have
compiled, from observation, a goodly list, but always one meets the yew,
either sporadically, or in each successive churchyard. Whatever may have
been the case with our indigenous trees, such as the oak, and beech, or
the common elm--a tree now acknowledged to be endemic--at the date
referred to in the ordinances for protection, we do know that the yew
then existed as a churchyard tree. Its most common position--on the
South side of the building--is also that which is exposed to the
prevailing winds and rainstorms.
A very popular theory, and one which merits close examination, is that
yews were grown in the churchyard so as to ensure a ready supply of
material for the manufacture of bows. Even should anyone audaciously
deny that the yew is poisonous, he cannot dispute the existence of an
old-standing belief to that effect. A tree dangerous to cattle, it was
therefore argued, must be grown in an enclosed area. In Mediaeval times,
though perhaps not so commonly in the early Saxon period, such a space
was already furnished by the conveniently fenced churchyard. While we
cannot allow the claim that the fact of the tree’s being poisonous will
account for the felling of yew groves, while, rather, we must believe
that the needs of archery would demand the actual plantation of thickets
and woodlands, there is no reason for doubting that, where an additional
tree was preserved for the village bowyers, the husbandman would desire
to have it railed in. The yew groves, at least those artificially
planted, would usually have their own fences, and would be inaccessible
to cattle. Partly, the bow theory goes against the shelter theory, since
constant lopping would impair the tree’s usefulness as a curtain. The
bow theory, however, is not quite inconsistent with the employment of
sprays of the tree on festal occasions.
To review briefly the subject of British archery let us start fairly at
the Norman Conquest. It is known that the Normans were acquainted with
the cross-bow[1012] or arbalest (prob. from _arcus_ = a bow; _ballista_
= a military engine: the later spelling
[Illustration: FIG. 76. Shooting birds with the cross-bow. From a 14th
century MS. (Strutt.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 77. Shooting at the butts, with the cross-bow. 16th
century. (Strutt.)]
“arrowblest” is discredited), a somewhat complicated weapon, having a
handle or stock, to which was attached a bowstave of yew or steel (Figs.
76, 77). The cross-bow was drawn by means of a stirrup fixed at the end
of the stock, or it was slowly and laboriously wound up by cords and
windlass, and then drawn by means of a lever. Besides this cumbrous
weapon, the Normans, as we learn from the Bayeux “tapestry,” were
accustomed to use the simpler long-bow[1013], a plain arched weapon--a
“self” bow made of a single yew stave. These bows were employed at the
Battle of Hastings, and some writers have hastily assumed that the
long-bow “came over with the Conqueror.” This conclusion cannot be
accepted in silence.
[Illustration: FIG. 78. Saxon bow and arrow; an elaborate specimen. From
a 10th century MS., in the Cotton Library. (Strutt.)]
Able authorities state that the long-bow (Figs. 78, 79) was peculiarly
the weapon of Northern races in general[1014]. The Danes and the Saxons
used it in warfare[1015], and it is noteworthy that we inherit the
Anglo-Saxon words, _boga_, _boge_ (bow), and _arwe_ (arrow), the last
term having been in use so early as A.D. 835[1016]. There is also
evidence, based on examples of decorative ornament and on runes, that
archery was practised in England about the year A.D. 750. By some
authorities the Romans are supposed to have introduced the bow,
presumably the cross-bow, which is really a kind of portable ballista,
into the country[1017]. Sir John Evans, while admitting that the
cross-bow was in use during the Roman period, believes that it was not
known in the Neolithic
[Illustration: FIG. 79. Saxon archers, with long-bows. From an 8th
century MS. in the Cotton Library. (After Strutt.)]
Age, when long-bows made of yew were probably employed[1018]. Between
these two periods vast centuries roll, and we may fairly assume that the
cross-bow does not belong to pre-Roman Britain. But what impresses us is
the conviction that the plain long-bow had never been entirely
superseded. A yew bow, made of indifferent material, consisting of a
single stave about five feet long, was dug out of deep peat near
Cambridge in 1885, and was judged to be prehistoric[1019]. Switzerland
has also yielded a few specimens, but bows of undoubted Neolithic Age
are rare. Reasoning from the unnumbered arrowheads of stone which have
come down to us and which are now preserved in collections, we may infer
that the long-bow was in common use during the Later Stone Age, even
supposing that many “arrow-heads” were really tips for shafts thrown by
hand. We may peer yet further into a darker past, when, as Pitt-Rivers
suggests, primeval man fastened his lance to the stem of a young forest
tree, which he improvised as a spring-trap or an elastic throwing
stick[1020].
This slight digression carries us thus far: the cross-bow may possibly
reach back to the Roman period, but the long-bow is certainly of
prehistoric origin. These conclusions have some bearing on the
artificial planting of yews, and are important to the upholders of the
“bow theory.” It may be advisable, too, to notice the discovery of a
spearhead of yew in the peat of the Fenland[1021].
Now we may return to the Norman Conquest, and the Norman cross-bow. To
wind up and discharge this weapon was obviously a difficult and tardy
process. For every bolt shot by the cross-bowman, the archer could
deliver six arrows[1022]. Mr C. F. Longman and Col. H. Walrond consider
this ratio much too favourable to the clumsier engine[1023]. Be that as
it may, the long-bow, swift and deadly, won for us Creçy and Poitiers.
Aided by their field entrenchments, the English were able to give the
national arm free scope, and the “quarrels” discharged by the Genoese
cross-bowmen were more than answered by the English arrows[1024]. The
scene makes us remember Gilpin’s apposite observation, that the
Frenchman drew a bow, while the English bent a bow. For, in England, the
cross-bow had given the first place to its lightsome competitor in the
thirteenth century[1025]. But the bolt and cross-bow lingered for two
more centuries, until the long-bow itself was struggling for supremacy
with the hand-gun or hand-cannon, which had been introduced about the
year A.D. 1446. A statute, passed in A.D. 1515, increased the property
qualification for using a cross-bow or hand-gun to 300 marks a year,
and this sum was again raised a few years later. At the same time the
use of the long-bow was enforced[1026].
We will now deal exclusively with the long-bow. Statutes relating to
archery are very numerous, and range from the time of Edward I. to that
of Charles II., during whose reign the long-bow practically died out as
a weapon, in spite of many patriotic attempts at resuscitation. Very
pleasant reading is afforded by some of these old ordinances. The first
statute, 13 Edward I. (A.D. 1285), known as the Statute of Winchester,
ordered all males of a certain rank to shoot from the age of seven, and
this act was not repealed until A.D. 1557. Statutes passed during the
reign of Edward III. commanded that bows and arrows should be provided
by the local authorities, and archery should be encouraged. Under
Richard II. all servants were to practise at the target, and Sunday was
specially nominated for the purpose. Henry IV. (A.D. 1405) regulated the
manufacture of arrow-heads, which were to have a steel point, and to
bear the mark of the maker. Most important legislation was passed under
5 Edward IV. c. 4 (Irish Statutes): “Every Englishman, and every
Irishman dwelling with Englishmen, shall have a bow of his own height.”
Later, came laws regulating the importation of bowstaves. Here it should
be explained that the timber of the yew, dense and elastic, was
considered to form the ideal raw material, but modern bowyers have
largely abandoned “self-yew” bows, and seem to prefer a combination of
two kinds of wood, yew for the inner, and hickory for the outer layer.
Since English yew was inferior to that of Spain, Portugal and Italy,
because it suffered from an excess of “pins”--spots from which branches
had been trimmed (Fig. 70, p. 367 _supra_)--importation was necessary.
First, then, bowstaves were ordered to be brought over with other
merchandise, and marked accordingly. Next, they were to be imported with
every butt of wine. The price was fixed, and soon the scale of charges
became complicated. In A.D. 1504, good bowstaves were admitted free of
duty. And so the story might be continued. There are commands to
practise the sport on feast-days, and on every possible occasion; the
quality of the bowstaves and arrows is to be improved; butts are to be
erected or repaired. Entries under this last head are found in parish
accounts extending well into the seventeenth century. The churchwardens’
accounts of Ashburton (Devon) for instance, refer (A.D. 1558-9) to
“lopping the yew-tree” and to payments “to the Bowyer.” So late as A.D.
1772, several thousand bowstaves came to England, chiefly from the
Baltic ports and from Rhineland[1027].
Seeing then, that the making of bows and arrows was, for many centuries,
a leading industry both in England and on the Continent, we are led to
ask to what extent Sir A. Conan Doyle’s lines express historical facts,
since they are obviously not correct as they stand.
“What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew-wood,
The wood of English bows.
So men who are free
Love the old yew-tree
And the land where the yew-tree grows[1028].”
In the first place, it is abundantly clear that yew was the material
most sought after. Roger Ascham says that yew was best for “parfite
shootyng,” and that “Brasell (a hard, red, dye-wood), Elme, Wych, and
Asshe” were “meane for bowes[1029].” Now the importation of foreign yew
was rendered necessary, as already noticed, because the native material
was not the most suitable. More than this, the supply of yew, even with
the addition of cargoes from abroad, was insufficient. Thus, in 1541, to
give one instance only, it was enacted that the bowyer should make four
common bows of “elme, wych, brasil, ashe,” or other wood, for one of
yew. Near London, the proportion might be reduced--two bows of common
wood to one of yew[1030]. Our English yew was so knotty, that, as Brady
sadly remarks, it was “used for bows of boys, and other weak
shooters[1031].” While a bow made of the best foreign yew was to be sold
for 6_s._ 8_d._, a bow of English yew was assessed at a value of 2_s._
only. The main point to be noticed here is that, as an historical fact,
English yew was employed, at any rate, in part. And Warner, a writer of
the late eighteenth century, asserts that among the “lower ranks” there
was, in his time, a tradition that the churchyard yew was the source of
bowstaves[1032]. Apart from the churchyard tree, there were other
supplies. A general plantation of yews, we are informed, was
specifically commanded in 1483[1033]; Strutt cites the remarkable yew
wood on the isle of Inchconakhead, Loch Lomond, as a probable result of
such afforestation[1034]. General Pitt-Rivers suggested a like date and
origin for the yews of Cranborne Chase, and it is possible that several
ancient copses of yew were much extended in area about this time. In the
reign of Elizabeth--so we are told, but I doubt whether the assertion
can be upheld--yews were actually ordered to be planted in
churchyards[1035]. It is also stated that Charles VII. of France (A.D.
1422-1461) commanded that the tree should be grown in all the
churchyards of Normandy expressly to provide wood for cross-bows[1036].
Incidentally, we observe that the yew was employed in making both kinds
of bow. Connecting these facts with the practice of archery on the
village green, and with the ordinances for the repair of the parish
butts, it is a fair supposition that the churchyard yew served, though
perhaps as a secondary purpose of its existence, the demands of the
local bowyers.
Several objections have been raised against this last-named theory. The
inferiority of English yew has been mentioned; in the face of a
constant lack in the supply of yew, the objection is not weighty. Then
it is pointed out that the English churchyard seldom contains more than
one full-grown yew, and as a final word, Hansard affirms that “Every
yew-tree growing within the united churchyards of England and Wales,
admitting that they could have been renewed five times in the course of
a century, would not have produced one-fiftieth of the bows required for
military supplies[1037].” This is a hard saying. But, in fact,
churchyards sometimes have two or three yews, and probably, as Dr Lowe
hints, there may formerly have been more, though few have survived the
severe periodical loppings. Again, it is not claimed that the churchyard
stock of timber was more than supplementary and subsidiary. The yew
avenues and yew groves of many a nobleman’s estate would give toll. To
argue that the churchyard yew could not have been pruned to make bows
because that supply was insufficient, would be as erroneous as if the
future historian were to assert that English wheat could not have been
used for bread in the year 1911, because five out of six loaves were
obtained from external sources. And, as we have already seen, the plain
facts prove that the combined native and Continental stores of yew were
so inadequate that the laws compelled the substitution of other kinds of
timber in fixed proportions.
This deficiency of raw material has led some writers to raise the
question whether the artificial scarcity did not render the planting of
yew trees in graveyards a strict necessity[1038]. Hansard himself admits
that the inferiority of English yew has been too much insisted on[1039].
His other statement--that Henry IV. forbade the royal bowyer, Nicholas
Frost, to trespass for wood on the estates of any religious
order[1040]--does not finally dispose of the claim of churchyard trees,
though, in its own connections, the fact has some importance. A wary
controversialist, with a position to defend, might urge that the
injunction implies a former practice which was now, after this order, to
be discontinued. Here we are concerned, however, to test fairly all the
theories. Without wresting the evidence, there seems good ground for
believing that the churchyard yew supplied its quota of bowstaves to the
village, and that this may have possibly been the case even in the
pre-Conquest period. Not for a moment, however, do I believe that the
needs of archery explain the primary purpose of the first planters.
A faint side-light on the general subject of the utilization of
churchyard trees comes from Rodmell, in Sussex. During the sixteenth
century the rearing of silkworms was one of the industries of this
village, and a portion of the necessary supply of mulberry leaves was
obtained from trees grown in the churchyard. It is stated that specimens
of the trees were still standing in the eighteenth century.
From interpretations based on social economy, to those which make
ornament the primary purpose of the churchyard yew, the leap is not
great, since the latter idea, after running parallel with, may have been
ultimately superseded by the former. Thus, the churchwardens’ accounts
of Bridgenorth (Salop) record the planting of a yew-tree “for reverence
sake[1041].” Again, Giraldus de Barri, commonly called Giraldus
Cambrensis, who visited Ireland about the year A.D. 1184, observed the
yew in burial grounds and holy places. His words are: “_Prae terris
autem omnibus, quas intravimus, longe copiosus amara hic succo taxus
abundat, maxime vero in coemiteriis antiquis, locisque sacris, sanctorum
virorum manibus olim plantatas_, [al. _plantatis_] _et decorum et
ornamentum_ [al. _ornatum_] _quem addere poterant, arborum istarum
copiam videas_[1042].” The style of Giraldus is not beyond criticism,
but his meaning is quite clear: “In this country more than any other
which I have visited, yew-trees, having a bitter sap, abound, but you
will see them principally in ancient cemeteries and sacred places, where
they were formerly planted by the hands of holy men, to give what
ornament and beauty they could[1043].” While offering this as an
explanation of the original intention, Giraldus informs us, in another
part of his work, that, when Henry II. made his expedition to Ireland,
his archers went to Finglas, about two miles from Dublin, and
sacrilegiously laid violent hands on a beautiful group of yews, in a
most irreverent and atrocious manner (“_enormiter et irreverenter
desaevire coeperunt_”)[1044]. This took place, it will be noted, but a
few years before the Welsh antiquary’s own visit to Ireland, as
secretary to Prince John (A.D. 1185). Incidentally, we may glance at a
curious suggestion made by Mr C. I. Elton. Referring to the reputed
introduction of hive-bees to Ireland by St Dominic of Ossory, Mr Elton
supposes that there could have been little bee-culture until the yews
had largely disappeared, for the tree is prejudicial to this
industry[1045]. One would like to hear the opinion of bee-keepers on
this question; so far, one’s own inquiries have been fruitless.
From the idea of ornament we turn to the motive force of superstition.
The most curious example of this folly is given in a fantastic
description by Robert Turner, a seventeenth century writer on botany.
The passage merits full quotation. The yew was planted “commonly on the
West side [this is an error, W. J.] because those places being fuller of
putrefaction and gross oleaginous vapours exhaled out of the graves by
the setting sun, and sometimes drawn into those Meteors called Ignes
fatui, divers have been frightened, supposing some dead bodies to walk,
others have been blasted, not that it is able to drive away Devils, as
some superstitious Monks have imagined; nor yet that it was ever used to
sprinkle Holy Water, as some quarrelsome Presbyters, altogether ignorant
of natural Causes, as the signification of Emblems and useful Ornaments,
have fondly conceived.” The writer further admits that the yew is
poisonous; “yet the growing of it in the Church-yard is useful, and
therefore it ought not to be cut down upon what pittiful pretence
soever[1046].” Turner’s lofty disdain of “superstitious Monks” and
“quarrelsome Presbyters,” coupled with his own ideas of “natural
causes,” is very diverting, but discounts his claim to accuracy. Yet we
notice that, while pressing his own interpretation, he alludes to others
which were probably current in his day. We should remember, moreover,
that Turner wrote nearly two and a half centuries ago, and that he was,
to this extent, nearer the origin of the custom. Consequently, he may
have caught the record of genuine folk-memory, though that might have
already become confused.
In opposition to Turner’s scepticism about the power of the yew to
banish devils, was the popular belief that the tree protects the
graveyard from witches[1047]. Henderson says that the yew was indeed “a
very upas tree to witches,” and that this accounts for its proximity to
the church[1048]. Another writer, Mr W. G. Black, in an excellent paper,
takes a contrary view. Witchcraft was ever most powerful when it
exercised its mysterious influences through instruments usually
connected with the Church. Hence the value of divination by church key
and a book of Psalms; hence charms by coffin-rings and churchyard grass
(cf. pp. 164, 302 _supra_). The yew was actually helpful to witches
because it grew near the church[1049]. To harmonize these conflicting
superstitions is unnecessary, yet they might perhaps be traced along
converging lines to a common source. From religious consecration to
sorcery is a short journey for the ignorant. Besides this, the antiquary
is thoroughly accustomed to what one may call the “contradiction of
localities”; the yew may have been a guardian against witches in one
village, while in the next village the “midnight hag” used it as a
spell. Superstitions and customs cannot be adequately represented in a
unilinear series. The tree of descent throws out branches which lie in
many planes, and the terminal points may often be opposed to one
another.
It chances that a passage in _Macbeth_, easily glided over unthinkingly,
bears upon this subject of the yew’s uncanny properties: “Slips of yew,
sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse[1050].” (_Sliver_, diminutive of Earlier
Mod. Eng. _slive_, a variant of _slip_ = to cut off[1051].) The allusion
to the balefulness of the eclipse arouses no special comment. The “fatal
and perfidious barque” which proved so unfriendly to Lycidas was “built
in th’ eclipse[1052].” The Venerable Bede found it necessary to forbid
Christians to practise witchery by the moon. The Chinese believe that
the eclipsed sun or moon is being devoured by a dragon, and the Hindoos
attempt to ward off the ill-effects of an eclipse by breaking
earthenware vessels and casting out the food contained therein[1053]. It
was natural, then, that eclipses represented times of foreboding and of
mysterious rites. But why employ a “sliver” of yew? The answer is
probably supplied by Sclavonic folk-lore. The devil, or storm-spirit,
claims the yew as his own. To use a beam of this tree, or even a branch
broken off by the wind, that is, a picked-up portion, was unlucky. The
devil would haunt the house of the sorcerer to regain his own. The
witch, therefore, employs a mere insignificant slip, useless either to
woodman or demon[1054]. Or was it that the three hags, being in league
with the Evil One, might lawfully use his instruments?
In German folk-lore, there was a belief that the wood of the yew, ground
to powder, made into paste, and baked in an oven, was a sovereign remedy
against the bite of a mad dog[1055]. Alternatively, a die was made of
yew and letters and signs were cut in the block. Cakes stamped with this
charm (_Toll-holz_) were given to the mad animal. These instances show
that the yew, while feared as of ill-omen, brought its measure of luck
to him who could obtain and use it aright.
The foregoing beliefs seem to form part of a tangled skein, which, if
temporarily dropped, must be picked up again shortly. In the interval,
material of a like nature may be examined.
The dense, heavy tree, “standing single in the midst of its own
darkness,” has been considered a just emblem of sin, death, and
mortality. Being, perhaps, our most deadly indigenous tree, it
materializes the adverse spirit of evil and destruction[1056]. In
partial conflict with this idea, the vitality of the tree, its
longevity, its durable timber, and its evergreen leaves, have suggested
to some minds the Resurrection and the eternal life. This latter fancy
may have been strengthened by the sight of young shoots springing out of
the old, apparently dead, wood, even from a decaying stump, or a hole
entirely hollow, and charred perchance by fire. Whether these symbolisms
are altogether adventitious and derivative, and whether they can be
quite reconciled, are difficult questions. The ideas have a Mediaeval
tinge, but none the less they may be relics of an older mysticism.
The inquiry may be pushed back further, because there are a few
miscellaneous fragments of evidence to be collected. Dr Daniel Rock,
whose volumes show wide research and carefulness in sifting
ecclesiological details, casts aside the bow theory, and proceeds to say
that many of our yews were planted by Anglo-Saxons, and not a few by
British Christians. The hardy evergreen yew is the analogue of the
cypress of hotter climes. The converted Britons, he believes, “often, if
not always, sought to build their churches near to some fine
yew-tree--even then, maybe, a few hundred years old[1057].” Dr Rock
gives the grand yew of Aldworth, Berkshire, as an example of this early
planting, but we can scarcely accept his opinion. Although, by actual
measurement, it was found, as already mentioned, that this tree has not
increased in girth since the year 1760, yet this girth is but 27 feet,
and will not satisfy the claim of so great an antiquity. Undoubtedly the
yew-tree was reverenced in the early times. Two churches, alluded to by
an ancient Welsh bard, were renowned for their prodigious trees: the
minsters of Esgor and Heûllan, “of celebrity for sheltering yews[1058].”
Boswell Syme, the authority for this statement, adds that Heûllan
signifies an old grove. We read, too, of consecrated yews. In the old
Welsh laws, a consecrated yew was assessed at £1, a specimen of
ordinary yew at 15 pence only. With these prices we may compare those of
a mistletoe branch and an oak branch, which were threescore pence and
sixscore pence respectively[1059].
In the North of Scotland the yew was credited with a peculiar property.
A branch of graveyard yew would enable one chief to denounce another, in
such a manner that, while the clansmen standing by could hear the
threats, the intended victim could not hear a word[1060].
Accumulated testimony shows that the yew was an object of veneration in
pre-Christian times. Mr H. C. Coote has dragged forth evidence on this
subject, as on many kindred questions, which had previously lain
unnoticed. “But of these old-world superstitions,” he writes, “that
connected with the yew-tree is the most interesting. For, as of old, it
was associated with the passage of the soul to its new abode,--so ever
since the introduction of Christianity into this country it has
continued to adorn the last resting place of the body which the soul had
left[1061].” He then quotes the poet Statius, who flourished about A.D.
81: “_Necdum illum_ [i.e. Amphiaraum] _aut trunca lustraverat obvia taxa
Eumenis_[1062],” that is, Amphiaraus had descended into Hades so quickly
that the Eumenides, or Furies, had no time to purify him by a touch of
the holy yew branch[1063]. The Furies are also fabled to have made
torches of yew[1064]. In connection with the superstition mentioned by
Statius, a discovery described by Wright is of interest. In a Roman
cinerary urn there was found a dark incrustation of vegetable matter,
believed to be caused by the decay of a branch of yew[1065].
Since, then, the yew called forth tributary respect in pagan times, we
are led nearer the centre of mystery, and the Cimmerian shades close in
rapidly. Can we be sure of the primary cause of the veneration? The tree
has been popularly associated with that much misunderstood priestly
caste, which embraced the Druids of classical writers. Dr Lowe contends
that there is no evidence to show that the Britons held the yew in
reverence; to disprove the notion, he adds, “I have been unable to
discover a single instance of a Druidical stone being associated with a
Christian church[1066].” If, as is fairly evident, “Druidical stone” is
to be interpreted as “prehistoric megalith,” a reference to Chapter I.
will show that such cases were probably not uncommon. Concerning the
Druids and their sacred trees our direct knowledge is scanty, but
absence of allusions to the yew in connection with Druidical rites is
not completely conclusive against the ceremonial virtues of the tree.
Besides, there are some half hints which are not quite negligible.
To speak of the worship of sacred trees would carry us far from our
bearings. Those who desire to study this subject would do well to read
Professor J. G. Frazer’s _Golden Bough_, and the famous seventh chapter
of Mr Grant Allen’s _Evolution of the Idea of God_. From these writers
we learn not only the significance of tree-worship and tree-spirits, but
we understand the inspiring motive of ceremonial tree-planting. The
first trees which grew on barrows may have become rooted there by
accident, such as the chance visits of birds, or the scraping together
of the material of the mound. The trees would receive the more
encouragement from the fact that the soil had been turned over and
laboured. Again, is it too fanciful to suggest that a sacred
grave-stake, freshly trimmed, might occasionally put forth leaves and
take root? Whatever the origin of the practice, direct planting, with a
fixed purpose, would eventually come into vogue. Shrubs, especially
evergreens, would be placed on the graves of dead tribesmen (cf. p. 323
_supra_). Like practices have been recorded the world over. Greeks,
Arabs, Etruscans, Phoenicians, Hindoos, Chinese, and various American
peoples furnish examples. A survival is seen in the English custom of
thrusting slips of bay and yew into the green turf of Christian
graves[1067].
Frequently the round or Bronze Age barrows of the South of England are
topped by the Scotch pine, a tree which is not indigenous to that
region. In Southern Europe the cypress is the favoured evergreen of
tombs and cemeteries, but in Italy and Provence the holm-oak is equally
a conventional graveyard tree. In Northern Europe it is the yew which
receives the place of honour[1068]. Branches of cypress and yew were
employed in ancient Greece and Rome as signals that a household was in
mourning[1069]. No great stress can be laid on the passage from
Macpherson’s _Ossian_, “The yew was a funereal tree, the companion of
the grave among the Celtic tribes. Here rests their dust, Cuthullen!
These lonely yews sprang from their tomb and shaded them from the
storm[1070].” Without daring to re-open the _Ossian_ controversy, one
may, however, hazard the opinion that the passage enshrines a genuine
tradition.
At Knowlton, Dorset, as stated on p. 13 _supra_, the church, which is
now utterly ruined, and which is of Norman, or, as some have supposed,
perhaps even Saxon foundation, stood within a round British earthwork,
one of a small group. The earthworks, which were first carefully
described by Warne, are themselves now nearly obliterated, but a group
of storm-swept yews, it will be recollected, marks the site[1071]. It is
perhaps justifiable to suppose that our early ancestors, like the
churchmen of Mediaeval days, replaced dead or uprooted yews by fresh
saplings. The group of yews at Kingly Vale, to which we have already
paid some attention, stands in the neighbourhood of four barrows, and
numerous excavations, probably prehistoric, dot the turfy slopes of the
hillside.
Folk-lore lends a little help in attaching the yew to prehistoric
observances. Sir John Rhŷs relates a story of an Irish hero, who, by the
aid of his druid or magician, defied the fairies, dug into the heart of
their underground home, and recovered his lost wife. To accomplish
this, the druid used “powerful ogams” written on rods of yew[1072].
O’Curry records a saga wherein the druids employ divination wands made
of yew[1073]. Sir G. L. Gomme thinks that the change from oak or
mistletoe to yew was the result of Christian influence, and that
Druidism continued to exist long after it was officially dead[1074].
This may be so, but, theory for theory, there is a little more reason
for supposing that the early Church diplomatically accepted a settled
custom. Moreover, though the yew was planted in the graveyard, and
though it was pressed into service on Palm Sunday, it is only in modern
times that its branches have been admitted into the sacred building as a
portion of the Christmas decorations. Even to-day an East Anglian
superstition says that if anyone accidentally brings yew into the house
along with the other Christmas evergreens, a death will occur in his
family within a twelvemonth[1075]. This refusal of a place of honour
during the great period of joyousness and festivity seems to indicate
that the tree was originally adopted by the Christians, not from choice,
but from policy; in other words, a pagan emblem was adopted, but not
unreservedly. Yew twigs were appropriate only to the more solemn
services of the Church. Again, the branches were doubtless proper
decorations for a maypole, as one may learn to-day from outlying
districts like the Aland Isles; but for centuries the yew was not
recognized at the great Christian anniversary.
In a legend related to the king of Tara by Finntann, the cultivator and
craftsman of the yew, it is said that the first household vessels were
made of the timber of this tree[1076]. In the British Museum, London, as
well as in the Science and Art Museum of Dublin, many early implements
made of yew are exhibited. Ossian speaks of the war chariot thus: “Of
polished yew is its beam; its seat of the smoothest bone.” This
tradition may point to a former abundance of the tree, or it may denote
a slackening of ceremonial, followed by the employment of yew wood for
economic purposes.
There remain a few more “half-hints.” The Fortingal yew (p. 375 _supra_)
had its career shortened by the lighting of Beltane fires against its
trunk[1077]. The origin of Beltane fires is on all hands admitted to be
at least pre-Roman. Another illuminating fact is that when this aged
tree had become separated into two portions, funeral processions were
accustomed to pass between the limbs[1078].
Readers of Scott will remember that in the _Lady of the Lake_ (canto
iii., st. 8), the fiery cross by which clansmen were gathered to battle
was made of yew, and we may assume that the poet had heard of the
mystical associations of the tree. The lines run thus:
“A slender crosslet formed with care,
A cubit’s length in measure due:
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew.”
We return for a moment to the question of the association of yews with
ancient remains. Professor H. Conwenz, at the meeting of the British
Association in 1901, asserted that there exist some hundreds of
place-names in England, Scotland and Ireland, connected with the word
“yew.” Ireland was especially rich in this respect, and in some of the
Irish localities fossil yew had been found. The statement, if
verifiable, is of deep interest, but our English philologists, up to the
present, do not seem to have dealt with this series of place-names. Near
the churchyard yew of Darley Dale are traces of British dwellings[1079].
The Cranborne Chase yew grove is not far from the camp at Winkelbury,
nor from the Romano-British villages of Woodcuts and Rotherly. Our
churchyards, as shown in Chapters I. and II., are sometimes in
close proximity to prehistoric antiquities. The allusion to
assemblies--“conciones”--around the yew-tree (p. 383 _supra_) may carry
us back to Saxon or even early British customs. At least one example of
such ancient usage has been brought to light by Sir G. L. Gomme. It
refers to the market and fair of Langsett, Yorkshire, which, together
with the manorial court, were held under an old yew. During the
eighteenth century, when the tree still flourished, tradition said that
the meetings went back to time immemorial[1080]. Within these last sixty
years, again, a yearly fair or wake was held on Palm Sunday--a
noteworthy date--under the boughs of the old Surrey yew in Crowhurst
churchyard[1081] (Fig. 72, p. 378).
One further problem remains to be noticed. Why is the yew, in a majority
of instances, placed on the South side of the churchyard, or, failing
the South, why on the West? For it is manifest to the careful observer
that the North side is little favoured, and the East even less. In
discussing the folk-lore of the cardinal points we saw that parishioners
formerly shunned the North side of “God’s Acre,” and craved burial in
the Southern or Western portions. The roots of this preference spread
wide and deep, but even superficially there were reasons good enough. On
the South side stood usually the churchyard cross (p. 328 _supra_). The
main door and the entrance gate commonly faced the noonday sun. In Saxon
times, when, as Dr Rock remarks, the simple building had often only one
door, this door looked to the South[1082]. Clearly this quarter was
popular. Originally, man would be guided in his selection by
considerations of physical warmth; respect for solar influences on
animated nature may have followed. Based on these feelings, ideas of
sentiment, and later, of reverence, would be kindled in the minds of the
worshippers.
For many years I have been collecting details concerning the position of
yews in churchyards. Turning to the county of Surrey, I find well-grown
yews tabulated for 41 churchyards--the list is not quite exhaustive. Of
course, many churches lack the attendant yew. To simplify the question,
we will imagine a median line passing East and West through the church,
and prolonged through the churchyard. Trees standing South-East and
South-West may for our present purpose be considered to be on the South
side; the North-East and North-West corners are similarly reckoned as
North. There remain the yews which occur roughly on the median
line--East or West. On this basis, five Surrey yews were noted as being
on the North side, and only six on the West. One only is recorded as
standing due East. The remainder are situated due South or at
intermediate positions in the sun’s track. Partial explanations may
frequently be offered. In one case of a Western yew, there is a doorway
at the West end only; in another, the tree is rather young, and is a
doubtful claimant to be catalogued. Again, at Chipstead (Fig. 73, p.
379), a noble yew on the North overshadows a blocked-up Northern door of
Transitional Norman date, so that formerly the villagers passed this
tree as they entered the edifice. Still again, one North yew is perhaps
accounted for by the fact that the Southern yard is a mere strip,
though, to present the case fully, we must note that occasionally one
finds a North yew where the Southern burial ground is spacious, and the
Northern actually narrow and stinted.
In order to form a just opinion on the subject of the yew’s position, we
ought to ascertain the earliest plan of the church and the original
extent of the burial-ground. It would then, I think, be discovered that
the space most used for interments, and the porch or door through which
the worshippers generally entered the building, correspond, in the vast
majority of cases, with the position of the sentinel yew. Which is
cause, and which is effect, may be an open question. Did the yew obtain
its place--generally, as we have seen, with the South aspect--because of
the superstitious notions already given, and were the graves afterwards
made in a cluster around it? Or did the accumulating burials on a
particular side call forth a desire for a funereal emblem, a “warder of
these buried bones,” as Tennyson sang? Again, did the yew precede the
church, or the church the yew, or were they co-eval? Probably no single
solution is the true one. Surveying the whole field, I think that the
planting of the yew was generally an after-event, because a preference
for interment on the sunny side goes back to pre-Christian times, and
because the yew is not a universal feature in churchyards. In some few
cases the building and the tree are apparently of equal age; in other
instances, the church may have been built, one imagines, adjacent to an
already existing tree.
The Surrey statistics are borne out by those of Hampshire. Out of
twenty-one ancient yews which I have scheduled for that county, five
only stand on the North side, two on the West, and one on the East. If a
complete list were obtainable, it might tell a similar story. Here, as
in dealing with Surrey, should two yews be present, the classification
considers the older and more important tree; should there be more than
two, the positions of the majority of old trees are taken. It frequently
happens that there are several young trees, in those cases what may be
called a “foundation yew” often dominates the graveyard. Two Easterly
yews and one Northerly are alone recorded for those positions in
Middlesex; two Northerly for Berkshire, and similarly for other
counties, though in no county is the list at all complete. Again, out of
nineteen Normandy villages with churchyard yews, the figures were:
thirteen yews on the South, five West, one North, and none East. Hence,
the preference is French as well as British. In districts where chalk
and limestone are absent, the yew is comparatively scarce. On the
Boulder Clay of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and, in fact, over the North
of England as a whole, the ash, elm, and horse chestnut are the most
usual trees. Frequently they are supplemented by a few pyramidal Irish
yews of no great age.
A rapid co-ordination of details may now be given. The yew appears to
have been held in superstitious respect during the Bronze Age[1083], and
it is possible, in the preceding Neolithic period. The Romans and
Greeks favoured the tree for its funereal symbolism. The earliest
Christians in Britain seem to have adopted the yew as a sacred emblem,
occasionally, perhaps, building their churches by its side; and,
reverencing it because of its hallowed associations, they employed it
for certain gloomy ceremonies. Early Mediaeval symbolists saw in the
tree a type alike of death and of resurrection, and the yew actually
obtained a position in ritual, and prestige in the Church Calendar. Much
later, it crept into the Christmas decorations. Meanwhile, in harmony
with the Mediaeval practice of combining the secular and religious life
of the community, the yew seems to have been in some instances a
trysting-place for open-air assemblies. It sheltered the church fabric
from storms, and, at a time when “England was but a fling, But for the
eugh and the grey goose wing,” it lent its aid in protecting the country
itself. The “sad, unsociable plant” most likely increased
numerically--in churchyards, in avenues, and on upland wastes where it
had flourished in Pleistocene times but had afterwards disappeared.
History tells little of all these incidents, but in the minds of most
men, ignorant or learned, there is an instinctive feeling, not dissonant
with reasonable probability, that this mysterious, old-world tree
derives its dignity and expressiveness from the customs of ages
exceedingly remote. Well might Mr William Watson, sitting--not indeed,
under some aged tree in a sequestered graveyard, but beneath the shade
of the monarch yew near Newlands Corner, in Surrey--sing of the
exceeding longevity of these sentinels, which guard their secrets with
such jealousy:
“Old emperor yew, fantastic sire,
Girt with thy guard of dotard kings,--
What ages hast thou seen retire
Into the dusk of alien things?
What mighty news hath stormed thy shade,
Of armies perished, realms unmade[1084]?”
CHAPTER X
THE CULT OF THE HORSE
It is probable that the story of the horse fascinates more diverse
groups of students than does that of any other domestic animal. Truly,
too, has it been said, though with a touch of cynicism, that association
with this creature will draw out all that is knavish in man, just as it
will encourage acts of the finest heroism. But whether the cynic or the
idealist be right, or each partly right, there can be no denial of the
leading place taken by the horse in the history of man’s conquest of
Nature or in the decisive battles which have determined the supremacy of
nations.
To the expert palaeontologist, who prepares the way for the patient
workers in zoology and folk-lore, the descent of the horse is attractive
because it illustrates, with great beauty and precision, the modern
doctrine of development. From an examination of many collections of
bones, derived both from the Old and the New Worlds, Huxley and Marsh
constructed a general pedigree, of which the details, as discoveries
have gradually accumulated, have been filled in by such workers as Sir
E. Ray Lankester, Dr C. W. Andrews, Mr R. Lydekker, and Professor J.
Cossar Ewart, in Britain, and, in the United States, by Professor R. S.
Lull. We begin, far back in the lowest Eocene division of the Tertiary
period, with a small hypothetical, or at least unidentified, plantigrade
creature, perhaps no larger than a rabbit, with five digits on each of
its fore and hind limbs. It would be difficult to produce a specimen of
the exact ancestral animal which would satisfy all investigators, but
its former existence is doubted by few[1085]. Still keeping to the
Eocene formation, though mounting to a higher horizon--the London
Clay--we come to _Hyracotherium_, which was an animal about the size of
a hare or very small fox, and which fed on the soft, green vegetation
around the margins of lakes and rivers[1086]. _Hyracotherium_ (Fig. 80)
had four toes on its fore feet[1087], with vestiges, or “rudiments,” as
they are unfortunately called, of a fifth. In _Palaeotherium_ of the
Upper Eocene, there are three toes only, but these are nearly equal in
size[1088]. (It may be well to recall the geological systems of the
Tertiary period: they are, in ascending order, Eocene, Oligocene,
Miocene, Pliocene.) In the Oligocene genus _Mesohippus_, of which the
members were perhaps as large as a sheep, there is still a suggestion of
a fourth toe in the fore foot[1089], but the two side toes which are
actually discernible do not themselves quite touch the ground. In
_Hipparion_ of the Miocene and Pliocene formations, the lateral toes,
each terminated by hoofs, were still shorter; and the earlier
_Anchitherium_ was in much the same plight. Both the last-named animals
are now deemed to be off the direct ancestral line of our present-day
horses[1090], but they may stand as early types. Indeed it is difficult
to formulate a genealogy which is everywhere accepted. Chiefly owing to
the migrations which must have occurred, no complete family tree can be
prepared, and all attempts, while true as a whole, are only
approximately correct as regards the detailed relationships. The general
direction being clear, onward we go, passing creatures as large as a
donkey, still preserving vestiges of the lateral toes, till at last we
reach the horses of history. The horse which we know
[Illustration: FIG. 80. The ancestors of the horse and its relatives:
comparison of sizes and forms.
_a._ _Hyracotherium_ (Lower Eocene deposits).
_b._ _Plagiolophus_ (Middle Eocene).
_c._ _Mesohippus_ (Oligocene).
_d._ _Merychippus_ (Miocene).
_e._ _Pliohippus_ (Pliocene).
_f._ Typical modern domesticated horse (_Equus caballus_).
From the _Amer. Jour. Science_, XXIII. p. 167; by the courtesy of
Professor R. S. Lull.]
has but one central, solid-nailed or hoofed toe, but it retains, hidden
beneath the skin, traces of two side toes in the form of the “splint
bones,” as they are called by the anatomist and the veterinary surgeon.
Thus we see that the primitive creature, which throve on the lowlands
and in the damp forests, was succeeded by representatives which had lost
the divided hoof. We infer that a change of habitat had occurred: the
cloven, spreading foot was no longer necessary. Accompanying this
modification, great structural changes were developed in the teeth,
suggesting that the animal had begun to feed on harder, drier herbage.
There are other “decadent remnants” visible in the modern horse, such as
the callosities, or “chestnuts,” of the limbs, which are believed to
have once been functional, possibly as scent-glands[1091]. Viewed as a
whole, the developed genus _Equus_ is larger, swifter, and stronger than
its ancestors, and it is proportionately more supple and graceful.
The story just outlined is not a whispering vision vouchsafed to a few
favoured palaeontologists. Behind the theory there is reality, as may
easily be proved by a study of authoritative works[1092], or by an
examination of the specimens in the Natural History Museum at South
Kensington.
Our first intimation of human contact with the horse is furnished by the
Solutrean and Magdalenian caves and rock-shelters of France.
Representations of the animal, both on the flat and the round, are not
uncommonly found associated with remains of the latter period. The
cavern of Bruniquel, Tarn-et-Garonne (Magdalenian period), yielded
sculptures of horses’ heads, representing carved objects which were
probably portions of javelin-throwers. A fragment of a horse’s rib from
the same site was engraved with three horses’ heads[1093]. From the
cave-shelter of La Madelaine, Dordogne, there was obtained a bone
incised with the figure of a naked man, on each side of which was a
horse’s head[1094]. Other French examples might be given (Fig. 81 A).
Only one English specimen is on record--a polished fragment of a rib,
engraved with the head of a horse, found at Robin Hood’s Cave, Cresswell
Crags, Derbyshire[1095] (Fig. 81 B).
[Illustration: FIG. 81. A. Drawing of a horse, by a cave-man. Dordogne,
France. (British Museum.) The large head and the upright mane are
especially noticeable.
B. Horse’s head, incised on a piece of bone; Limestone cave, Cresswell
Crags, Derbyshire. (British Museum.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 82. Prejevalski’s (or the Mongolian) wild horse
(_Equus prejevalskii_). This animal has a large head, a short upright
mane, and relatively long ears. The body colour is yellow dun, merging
into rufus brown. A narrow dark stripe runs down the back. The
illustration may be compared with the cave-man’s drawing (Fig. 81 A).]
From a casual inspection of these early and priceless works of art, we
might conclude that the horse known to Palaeolithic man was of a stunted
breed, small and heavy, with a large head, rounded forehead, short neck,
and an upright or “hog mane.” But this generalization would be lacking
in precision. Professor Ewart has discriminated three types. The first
type includes horses the features of which closely agree with those of
the wild species (_Equus prejevalskii_) recently discovered in the Great
Gobi Desert. (There is a wide diversity of usage in spelling the
scientific name of this animal, as also the name of its Russian
discoverer.) This horse, a specimen of which is to be seen in the
Zoological Gardens, London (Fig. 82), resembles pre-eminently the Cave
horse just described. The second type embraces animals which resemble
the broad-browed ponies often met with in the Western Highlands of
Scotland, while the third type suggests the slender-limbed,
narrow-headed ponies of Western and North-Western Europe[1096].
Whether Palaeolithic man, even during the latest Cave Period, had begun
to tame the horse, is a question which has been keenly debated. Bones
found by M. É. Piette in the celebrated cave of Mas d’Azil, on the left
bank of the Ariège, in Southern France, were incised with drawings of
horses’ heads. In one example there was a delineation of what are
supposed to be halters, and in another, of some kind of trappings[1097].
I believe that the nature of these ornaments is not widely disputed, so
that the controversy turns upon their exact signification. The trappings
have, indeed, been thought to represent a hunter’s fur cloak, carelessly
thrown over a subjugated horse; and again, with slightly more reason, it
is urged that the “saddle” is imaginary, the lines being merely a
conventional finish to the drawing, comparable to the marks on early
pottery. Again, the use of anything of the nature of a saddle could
scarcely appertain to the earliest stages of domestication. M.
Zaborowski has conjectured that the supposed halters are really lassoes,
and it has therefore been inferred that horses were kept
semi-domesticated in a kind of compound, for purposes of food[1098]. We
may notice, as bearing on this contention, the description given by
Herodotus respecting the Sagarthians, an ancient people allied to the
Persians in speech and in dress. The Sagarthians were in the habit of
capturing their foe--“be it man, or be it horse”--by the aid of lassoes
terminating in nooses[1099]. Canon Rawlinson tells us that this practice
was common to many of the ancient nations of Western Asia[1100]. As to
the horse of the Cave Period, MM. Carl Vogt, Émile Cartailhac, and G.
de Mortillet, consider that its domestication would be possible only by
the help of the dog, the first animal to be tamed; and since remains of
the dog are lacking at Palaeolithic stations, a presumably fatal
objection is lodged[1101]. This view is not, however, uniformly
accepted. M. Julien Fraipont, for instance, grants that the drawings
show that man had tamed the animals represented, but denies that this
implies domestication. The creatures were probably captured young[1102].
But is not this tantamount to an admission that the first step towards
domestication had been taken?
Early man, as a modern humorist has remarked, would indeed at first take
to his heels to avoid the heels of the early horse. But this fear did
not last for ever. Palaeolithic man both hunted the animal and ate its
flesh. At the rock-shelter of Solutré, Saône-et-Loire, there was
discovered, around the primitive hearths, a veritable wall of horse
bones, the relics of thousands of animals[1103]. At La Laugerie, horses’
teeth abounded[1104]. At the rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon remains of the
horse were predominant. It has been urged that these remains were not
those of wild animals. Professor N. Joly supposes that the horse would
be sheltered, and gradually brought to a less precarious condition of
life. He also cites M. Toussaint, who boldly claims that the horse bones
of Solutré are those of domesticated animals. Allowing for minor
differences, it is submitted that the bones are quite similar to those
of modern horses. The quantity of bones and the age of the horses which
they represent--four, five, or six years--are deemed to indicate a
domestic herd. The remains are assembled in one place, and it is
therefore assumed that the horses were boiled, cut up, and eaten at that
spot, just as would be the case with domesticated animals. Had the
horses been hunted in a wild state, they would have been carried
piecemeal from a distance, as is the case with the earliest caves of
the archaeolithic age[1105]. These arguments are by no means without a
flaw, but they carry some weight. And English opinion, so far as can be
gathered, is rather in favour of the theory that the Palaeolithic
cave-men had made tentative efforts in taming the horse. Our English
authorities seem to lay more stress on the Mas d’Azil trappings than do
their French brethren[1106].
When we come to the Neolithic Age, we find an anomaly; the horse seems
to be a much rarer animal than in the preceding period. Yet horses of a
type closely resembling those of the Palaeolithic Age were probably
domesticated in several parts of Europe[1107]. Skulls obtained from
Pleistocene deposits at Walthamstow, Essex, seem, on the one hand, to
indicate a race allied to, if not identical with, the Solutrean
cave-horse of the Mongolian type (_E. prejevalskii_)[1108]. Horse
remains, however, from later superficial deposits, associated with
Neolithic relics only, appear to be rare. Though found amid the ruins of
Neolithic lake-dwellings in Switzerland, bones of the horse cannot be
declared abundant, even at those stations. The British evidence is so
unsatisfactory that some writers, like Lord Avebury, have doubted
whether the horse was known in Britain during the Neolithic Age. Lord
Avebury states that he knows of no well-authenticated instance of the
occurrence of the horse in a long barrow. After analysing the records of
excavations made by Greenwell and Bateman, he concludes that the horse
bones tabulated by these investigators belong to the Bronze Age, or even
to a later period[1109]. Again, Professor Ridgeway, after asserting
that it is by no means clear that Neolithic man had tamed the horse,
conjectures that the primeval horses had become extinct, and had been
replaced by a re-introduced species only at the end of the Bronze, or
the beginning of the Iron Age[1110].
Against these conclusions may be set the opinion of Canon Greenwell: “I
cannot understand how any one with the evidence properly before him can
doubt that the goat, sheep, horse, and dog were, in the earliest
Neolithic times, imported as domesticated animals into this country and
into Switzerland[1111]”--a notable statement. Since it is the horse
alone with which we are now dealing, I select some of Canon Greenwell’s
examples of barrows which yielded bones of that animal. In a round
barrow of the East Riding, two pelvic bones were found associated with
implements of flint and greenstone[1112]. Another round barrow contained
the remains of three horses, accompanied, however, by a bronze dagger as
well as pottery[1113]. The famous Rudstone barrow, in which horse teeth
were discovered, furnished large quantities of implements, all of
stone[1114]. With these typical cases, the reader may compare those
described by Mr J. R. Mortimer, whose researches were also made in
Yorkshire[1115]. If it be objected that round barrows are not Neolithic,
it must be remembered that the Yorkshire round barrows form a special
class. They enclose human remains which do not belong to one race only,
and many of them are now assigned to the Transition period which is
known as the Aeneolithic (i.e. Bronze-Stone Age)[1116]. When stone
implements alone are found in the barrows, the early, or, at least,
transitional character of such mounds is emphasized.
There is other evidence available. Professor Boyd Dawkins has recorded
the discovery of remains of the horse (_Equus caballus_) from five
British bone caves, and from one refuse heap in North Wales, all the
stations being considered as belonging to the Neolithic period[1117].
Mr W. J. Knowles, in a letter to the writer, dated February 10, 1909,
states that he has frequently found teeth and bones of the horse at the
Whitepark Bay site, co. Antrim; the associated implements found there
are classed as early Neolithic or Mesolithic. Although Mr Knowles has
not himself found the relics in the “old floor,” he believes that they
were derived from that level; moreover, the Rev. G. R. Buick has
actually obtained similar remains from this undisturbed “black layer.”
Again, Mr Wintour F. Gwinnell informs me that he has in his possession
horse teeth, which there is every reason to believe were found in
association with a flint celt, also in his possession. The implement and
the teeth were dug up at Wiggonholt, in Sussex. Dr A. Irving, again,
describing to the British Association (1910) horse remains found at
Bishops Stortford, claimed that the relics were those of a late
Pleistocene type of animal, and further that this type persisted down to
the Early Iron Age. Since the associated objects included some which
belonged to the Bronze and Early Iron, as well as the Neolithic,
periods, the age of this particular deposit could not, unfortunately, be
settled beyond dispute. Some have even thought the remains modern[1118].
There is thus a measure of reasonableness in the belief that “the horse
has been here all the time,” as a witty naturalist once expressed it. It
is also not improbable that Neolithic man of Britain had tamed the
animal, and that, partly in consequence, it had become less familiar to
the primitive butcher. That the horse was eaten by man during the Bronze
Age seems proven. The bones and teeth found in grave-mounds of the
period appear to be the relics of funeral feasts. Mr J. R. Mortimer,
who has excavated large numbers of barrows of the Aeneolithic and Bronze
Ages, deems it certain that the horse was eaten at the burial banquet.
He relies for proof mainly on the fact that the bones were always found
detached, and often broken[1119].
From a study of classical references to the horse, and from a comparison
of survivals existing among primitive peoples, one is led to infer that
the horse was first domesticated, not for riding, but for yoking to
carts and chariots. By some writers it is conjectured that there was
even an earlier stage, when Turko-Tartaric tribes impounded the horse
and reared it for the sake of its milk and flesh. In corroboration of
this hypothesis, Professor Ridgeway and Dr O. Schrader refer to the
modern Kalmucks and Tartars, who retain a rooted preference for mares’
milk, a legacy from the days when this liquid was used for daily
nutrition[1120]. Among other races, and in other climes, the ox may have
had a parallel history. But from this debateable ground we move to
matters better attested. Riding a horse (κελητίξειν) was such a rare and
curious exhibition in ancient Greece, that but a single casual instance
is recorded in the writings of Homer. Equestrian exercise was “the
half-foreign accomplishment of the Kentauroi[1121].” It has, indeed,
been suggested that the fable concerning the Thessalian Centaurs, who
were half-man and half-horse, originated in accounts of the earliest
feats of horsemanship. At Marathon (B.C. 490), the Persians, but not the
Greeks, used cavalry. The story of the horse in Greece seems to have
been repeated in Ireland, as shown by the poetical literature of the
latter country. Professor Ridgeway states that, in the earliest Irish
epics, the warriors all fight from chariots--there are no riders on
horseback. In the later cycle--that of Finn and Ossian (A.D. 150-300),
horses are little used, and, when mentioned at all, they are ridden.
Herodotus tells us of tribes who lived North of the Danube and who
possessed horses of a peculiar kind. The description is somewhat
precise. The horses were small and flat-nosed (or “short-faced”) and
were incapable of carrying men (σμικροὐς δἐ καἰ σιμοὐς καἰ ἀδυνάτους
ἄνδράς φέρειν). The animals were covered entirely with a coat of shaggy
hair, five fingers in length--about 3½ inches. (ἐπἰ πέντε δακτύλους το
βάθος--“to the depth of five fingers.”) Though not strong enough to bear
men, the horses, when yoked to chariots, were among the swiftest
known[1122]. While some writers have seen in this passage an allusion to
creatures of the type of the Shetland pony, Professor Ridgeway has
remarked that the description agrees well with the skeletons of horses
found near Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire), especially in respect to the short,
ugly-shaped skulls[1123].
The Hebrew Scriptures contain numerous references to the horse, in
connection with both riding and charioteering. Yet it is noteworthy that
no mention is made of the animal at all until after the return of the
Israelites from Egypt. Earlier enumerations of patriarchal wealth speak
of sheep, oxen, camels, and asses, but not of horses. The first mention
of the horse on Egyptian monuments appears during the 18th Dynasty (c.
B.C. 1520)[1124]. After the Egyptian Captivity, Scriptural allusions
begin to grow common. No lover of literary form will forget Job’s
magnificent description of a war-horse, whose neck is clothed with
thunder, and the glory of whose nostrils is terrible[1125]. It is well,
too, to remember, as an historical event, the establishment, by David,
of a force of cavalry and charioteers after his crushing defeat of
Hadadezer[1126].
The deplorable deficiency of pictorial art in the Neolithic and Bronze
periods deprives us of the means of fully checking the sequence of the
stages in horse-taming in Europe. The rock-carvings, however, of Norway
and Sweden, which date from the Bronze Age, show that the horse was
used for riding and driving[1127]. That this age was preceded, in
Scandinavia or Central Europe, by an era when the horse was employed for
traction and transport only, is very probable. Swiss lake-dwellings of
the Bronze Age seem to indicate an overlapping of the stages. The
discovery, on these sites, of numerous horse-bits and wooden wheels
would suggest that the villagers both rode horses and drove waggons or
chariots[1128].
An incidental matter is of some little interest. How did the very
earliest horsemen--who, by the way, would ride barebacked--mount their
steeds? Stirrups, and perhaps even bridles, were, at the beginning of
the experiments, unknown. Four modes have been suggested as possible:
vaulting, vaulting with the help of a pole or spear, making the horse
crouch, and lastly, as in the old Persian fashion, stepping from a
slave’s back[1129].
That the Britons of Caesar’s day were expert equestrians and
charioteers, is sufficiently clear from the _Commentaries_[1130]. The
great general describes, with manifest admiration, the manner in which
the Britons, suddenly quitting their chariots, charged the Romans in an
unequal contest on foot (_ex essedis desilirent et pedibus dispari
proelio contenderent_)[1131]. More startling still was the amazing
trick, exhibited by the drivers of chariots, of running along the pole,
or standing upon the yoke, while the chariot was going at full speed.
While the Celts of Britain were pre-eminently noted for their fighting
by a combination of infantry and cavalry, some of the more Easterly
Aryan races were unaccustomed to the latter mode of warfare. Dr
Schrader, whose authority has already been invoked on the question of
the use of mare’s milk by tribes living on the Asiatic steppes, brings
out the contrast by a reference to the European Celts. These Celts built
waggons and chariots, and it seems probable, from a study of the Latin
vocabulary, that the Romans were dependent on the vanquished for the
manufacture of such objects. Dr Schrader cites, among other words,
_reda_, a mail-coach, and _carrus_, a waggon, which are derived from
Celtic sources[1132]. To Dr Schrader’s list may be added Caesar’s word
for chariot, _essedum_, and its synonym, employed by Tacitus,
_covinus_[1133].
Since it is not intended to trace here fully the story of the horse in
historic times, a short digression may be allowed in order to notice one
or two important details. That the Saxons practised horsemanship to some
extent is proved by Bede’s allusion to a party of young men trying the
speed of their horses on an open piece of ground[1134]. Much earlier, in
the reign of Alexander Severus, about A.D. 222, there is an authentic
record of horse-races, but these were probably held under Roman
patronage. Like records are known, referring to races at the Roman
stations of Netherby, Caerleon, Silchester, and Dorchester[1135]. King
Athelstan paid some attention to the breeding of horses, and imported
animals from Spain to improve the species[1136]. William of Malmesbury
describes a present sent to this monarch by Hugh the Great, Count of
Paris. A portion of the gift consisted of racehorses (_equos cursores_),
with their rich trappings (_cum phaleris_)[1137]. Again, William
Fitzstephen, writing in the twelfth century, supplies us with a spirited
and detailed account of an English horse-race[1138]. During the reigns
of John and Edward III. horse-breeding received further encouragement;
the latter king forbade the exportation of English horses. Henry VIII.
made various enactments with a like general purpose, but stress was
especially laid on the deterioration of breed due to promiscuous
crossing of strains. The pasturing of entire horses on the common lands
was therefore forbidden[1139]. Gradually the English cart-horse began
to be developed--to some extent, perhaps, from sires and dams of the old
war-horse type. By the time of Charles II., James II., and William of
Orange, marked changes became apparent[1140]. But there is no space at
present to pursue the subject. Else we might refer to the evolution of
the modern racehorse, and the rise of the bewildering breeds which one
sees to-day. In the next chapter, however, it will be shown by what
means the horse came to supplant the ox for work in the fields and on
the high roads.
A subsidiary matter must be lightly touched. Were the horses of
classical times provided with shoes? Much contradictory evidence has
been put forward in reply, and the case seems to depend upon the
periodical swing of ancient opinion and practice, neither of which moved
uniformly. At times, shoeing was entirely deprecated. Yet the feet of
Roman horses of the first century B.C. were often clad with coverings of
reeds or hemp (_soleae sparteae_), or, more rarely, with leather[1141].
These coverings constituted a sort of sandal, and it has been supposed
that their use was temporary, as is the case to-day with the leather
slippers worn by horses when drawing a mowing machine across a lawn.
Thin soles or shoes of iron were also used, being fixed, according to Mr
Basil Tozer, to the leather cap just described[1142]. Whether this were
the actual mode of attachment or not, we find Nero, in the first century
A.D., shoeing his mules with “soleae” of silver, instead of iron, while
his wife Poppaea, with the arrogance of wealth, used plates of gold for
a similar purpose[1143]. Professor Ridgeway supposes that the next
advance from the sole of metal would be to cut a piece out of the
middle, thus economizing material, and giving the horse a firmer
grip[1144]. This lies in the realm of conjecture, but of more direct
importance is Professor Ridgeway’s opinion that there is no reason to
doubt the Roman date of certain horseshoes found in France, seeing that
the associated objects pointed to that period[1145]. Horseshoes of
supposed Roman date are exhibited in various museums. Four specimens are
to be seen in the Guildhall Museum, London; one is sketched in Fig. 83
E.
Richard Berenger (A.D. 1771), in his _History and Art of Horsemanship_,
states that a horseshoe was found in the tomb of Childeric I. of
France[1146] (d. A.D. 481). Berenger gives an illustration of the shoe,
copied from De Montfaucon; it has four nail-holes on each side, and
looks remarkably like the modern article. Mr Tozer asserts that iron
shoes came into regular use in the first half of the sixth century
(A.D.). Yet General Pitt-Rivers describes and figures horseshoes (Fig.
83 A, 83 B) which were found in the Romano-British settlements of
Woodyates and Woodcuts, in Cranborne Chase. He records other specimens,
and asserts that the people of that period shod their horses with
iron[1147]. Professor Ridgeway, while believing it improbable that the
Angles brought with them any particular shape of horseshoe[1148],
reproduces from the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society_
Professor T. McKenny Hughes’s
[Illustration:
FIG. 83. A, B. Portions of small horseshoes, much corroded, found
by Pitt-Rivers in Cranborne Chase. The worn fragment, B, exhibits
three holes, with T-shaped nails. There is a calkin at _k_, formed
by turning up the lower surface of the shoe. C. Ancient horseshoe
found by Mr E. C. Youens, at Edenbridge, Kent. The shoe, which is
formed of wrought iron, is markedly concavo-convex, the convex
surface being the lower one. The “wale-holes” are very near the
edge. There is no raised rim. D. Side view of the same shoe. E.
Small horseshoe, Guildhall Museum, London. Roman layer, City. The
curve is sinuous, the holes are elliptical, and the calkins are
well formed.
]
drawings of seven Old English shoes, two of which, the circular and the
split types, would appear to be rather primitive.
We need not linger over the allusion to horseshoes in Domesday Book. The
reference to the blacksmiths of Hereford, who were liable to be called
upon to make horseshoes for the king at a fixed rate, is well known to
most students.
The circular horseshoe, which has just been mentioned, and which is
occasionally dug up in the Fens, is still commonly employed in
Northumberland. Through the kindness of the Rev. Hastings M. Neville, of
Ford, Cornhill-on-Tweed, I am enabled to give illustrations of this form
of shoe (Figs. 84, 85). The shoe, which has been somewhat abraded by
wear, is markedly convex on the lower surface, and correspondingly
concave where it is fitted to the hoof. In this respect it resembles the
broad shoe (Fig. 83 C, D) of the ordinary outline, discovered in making
a main drainage trench at Edenbridge, Kent. This latter specimen is now
in the possession of Mr C. E. Youens, of Dartford, through whose
courtesy a sketch has been obtained. As in the Northumbrian example, the
“wale-holes” are very near the margin; but while the iron of the former
shoe is carried completely round to give support behind, the Edenbridge
specimen does not even possess calkins--that is, portions projecting
downward at the “heel.” The Edenbridge shoe appears to be Mediaeval, but
it may perhaps be Saxon, or even of earlier date. The specimen should be
compared with the Mediaeval examples in the Guildhall Museum.
The circular form of shoe, according to Mr James Weatherston, the
blacksmith at Duddo, near Norham, Northumberland, is advantageous to a
horse which has a weak “toe” or heel. This shape has been used from time
immemorial. Sometimes a leather sole, covering the whole foot, is placed
between the hoof and the circular shoe. Again, a detachable iron plate,
or “complete shoe,” is occasionally screwed on to the outside surface of
the round one, so that, by removing the plate, the horse’s foot can be
examined without interfering with the shoe. In this case, the leather
sole is omitted. The screws or “cogs” are square-headed, and project to
such a degree that the animal walks on them alone.
[Illustration:
FIG. 84. Round horseshoe, lower convex surface, from Ford,
Northumberland. Greatest breadth 6½ inches.
]
[Illustration: FIG. 85. Round horseshoe, upper concave surface. Scale of
inches shown.]
The purpose of the convexity of the round shoe is to break the shock as
the horse’s foot strikes the ground. The efficacy of this shoe is
specially noticeable with “foundered” horses--those which have inflamed
feet. An animal, thus suffering, tends to tread more on the heel than
the toe, and the convexity allows a better grip to be obtained. Indeed,
the ordinary form of shoe is sometimes slightly bent for the same
reason. The Northumberland practice, with regard to “soles” and round
shoes, while now based on expert veterinary principles, seems to
represent a primitive plan. It is noteworthy that the round form of shoe
is especially prized as a bringer of luck. Obviously, it is the material
of the shoe--witch-hated iron--which is there considered important; all
folk-memory respecting the virtues of the crescentic shape has perished.
Youatt describes a shoe, under the name of the “bar-shoe,” which appears
roughly to correspond to the Northumberland type[1149]. The observant
person will occasionally see a London dray horse wearing a somewhat
similar kind of shoe, the difference being in the hinder portion, which
is either straight or slightly re-entering. This peculiar mode of
shoeing, in all cases, seems to be due to the advice of the veterinary
surgeon. It will be well, for anyone who wishes to pursue the subject,
to read the opinions of the authorities already given (pp. 423 n., 424
n.).
A slight digression may here be made to consider a kindred topic. Iron
objects of peculiar shape, commonly called hippo-sandals, have been
discovered in various places, notably by Pitt-Rivers, in the
Romano-British settlements in Cranborne Chase. Some authorities have
thought that the hippo-sandal represents a kind of horseshoe, but
Pitt-Rivers agrees with Fleming in scouting this theory. The shape, he
considers, would be inconvenient for this purpose. Moreover, horseshoes,
and--so it is believed--ox-shoes, are represented among the relics of
the settlements, so that another type of shoe, he argues, would scarcely
be found at the same spot. This objection is, as Mr C. Roach Smith has
hinted, not conclusive against the use of hippo-sandals for special
occasions. The suggestion was made by Pitt-Rivers that the hippo-sandals
were intended for shoeing the poles of sledges, and he figures a form of
that vehicle in which the shaft skids along the ground. In a footnote,
however, he betrays some uncertainty, and admits that specimens of
hippo-sandals which are displayed in the Museum at Mayence must have
been fitted to the feet of horses, probably as splints when the hoofs
had been accidently broken. The hippo-sandals, in those cases, would
doubtless be attached by cords or straps which passed through the iron
rings. Mr Roach Smith, writing in 1859, stated that iron pattens,
fastened to the hoof by means of leather straps, were still used in
Holland. This fact supplies, doubtless, the key to the puzzle. The
hippo-sandal shown in the illustration (Fig. 86) was discovered, along
with many other relics, at the Roman villa at Darenth, in Kent, and was
first figured by Mr George Payne, in _Archaeologia Cantiana_. About half
a dozen specimens are on view in the Guildhall Museum[1150]. In
connection with this subject it may be noted that Youatt, in his book on
_The Horse_, describes and illustrates a light kind of open-work sandal
for horses with delicate hoofs, made of strap-work and iron clips.
[Illustration: FIG. 86. Hippo-sandal, found on the site of a Roman
villa, at Darenth, Kent, and now in the Rochester Museum.]
A slight retrospect of the shoeing question will be made when we deal
with oxen, but we must now return to the British horsemen of the Early
Iron Age. At that period, so engrossing was the craft of the
chariot-warrior, that care was often taken to provide the dead chieftain
with the means of renewing his pastime elsewhere. Thus it was not
unusual to inter a horse, or chariot, or both of these, in the burial
mound. Keysler quotes numerous instances of the custom, chiefly with
respect to the ancient Scythian and Scandinavian peoples[1151]. Records
also implicate Tartars, Franks, Wends, and Finns as agents in like
ceremonies. A well-known passage in Virgil seems to show that the
practice obtained in classical times. Aeneas, on his descent into the
lower regions, views with wonder the empty chariots of the chiefs, and
the horses feeding at large on the plain. The heroes retained their old
fondness for chariots and shining steeds[1152], and these necessaries
had evidently been deposited in the earth at the time of the funeral.
The English records of chariot-burial are fairly numerous. The Rev. E.
W. Stillingfleet (c. A.D. 1816), and Canon W. Greenwell (A.D. 1876),
excavated several round barrows at a farm called Arras, near Market
Weighton, in Yorkshire, and discovered therein remains of horses,
chariots, and harness. Associated with these mute memorials, there was
found, in one instance, a boar’s tusk, which had been invested with some
ceremonial value, since it was perforated with a square hole, and was
mounted in a brazen case. Interments of this class belong usually to the
Late-Celtic period. A small urn, of unspecified age, dug up near
Eastbourne in 1778, contained about a dozen horse’s teeth. Mr J. Romilly
Allen compiled a considerable list of instances of chariot-burial. Many
others are given in the _Guide to the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum),
as well as in the writings of Messrs L. Jewitt and J. R. Mortimer. So
recently as 1906, a chariot-burial was discovered at Hunmanby,
in Yorkshire, and was described by Canon Green well in
_Archaeologia_[1153]. The “trappings” found in connection with the other
remains comprised bridle-bits, buckles, head-ornaments, and similar
articles.
One of the Wold barrows, which was opened by Canon Greenwell, contained
a whole chariot and the bones of two horses, placed alongside a human
skeleton. In another mound the wheels alone had been buried[1154]. A
third grave yielded wheels and an iron bit[1155]. Similar discoveries
were made at Nanterre, in France; horses were found entombed with
portions of their trappings, together with tires of wheels, and various
bronze and iron objects, evidently betokening a Transitional
period[1156]. In all the foregoing cases we must suppose that the horse
was sacrificed at its master’s funeral--the coincidence of natural or of
violent death must have been exceedingly uncommon save in warfare. The
custom of chariot-burial persisted for centuries into the Christian era,
and an assemblage of relics, kindred to those mentioned, is common in
Scandinavian graves of the Viking Age (A.D. 700-1000), wherein unburnt
bodies were interred[1157]. Again, an Anglo-Saxon grave at Reading was
shown to contain the skeleton of a horse, human bones, and a sword
remarkably rich in its ornament[1158]. At a still later date, A.D. 1389,
when Bertrand Duguesclin was buried at St Denis, several horses, which
had been previously blessed by the Bishop of Auxerre, were sacrificed,
or, as one account says, compounded for by the owners.
Were we ignorant of the foregoing facts, certain modern practices of an
analogous nature would have to be dismissed as inexplicable. Once
acquainted with the ancient instances, however, the student can account
for the atavism which here and there betrays itself. We cannot, of
course, in the absence of overlapping evidence, be certain that the
burial of the horse along with its master is a custom which has never
died out. There may have been a continuous bond of tradition, or again,
folk-memory may have lain almost dormant for centuries, to be
unconsciously revived at a later time. A few instances will now be
rapidly surveyed.
A surgeon, one Mr Thomas Sheffield, dying in 1798, at Downton, in
Wiltshire, left instructions that he should be interred in his garden,
and that, when his favourite horse should die, it was to be laid by his
side. Mr Sheffield was buried as he desired, but in 1807 his body was
removed to the village churchyard[1159]. We are left to infer that the
horse was placed in its master’s grave, as was undoubtedly done in the
case, quoted by Southey, in which a man of Salisbury, “in derision of
religion,” commanded that his horse should be slaughtered and buried
with him[1160]. Again, so recently as 1866, when Queen Victoria’s
huntsman died, his favourite horse was shot, and its ears were placed in
his coffin and buried in his grave in Sunninghill churchyard,
Berkshire[1161]. Parenthetically, we notice that, in Patagonia, the
horse of a deceased person is still killed at the grave[1162]. Such
incidents as these do not seem to be far removed in time from the days
of barrow burial. Not quite so apposite is the case of Wellington’s
horse, Copenhagen, which was buried (A.D. 1836) with full military
honours at Strathfieldsaye (Hampshire), and which was commemorated by a
tombstone bearing an appropriate inscription and epitaph. In thus
honouring his charger, however, the Duke had a prototype in the Emperor
Augustus, who, as Pliny relates, erected a tomb to his horse, on which
occasion Germanicus Caesar wrote a poem[1163]. Turn the facts which way
we will, they seem to tell of an ingrained instinct which unexpectedly
reveals itself to the surprise of the majority of folk--surprise,
nevertheless, which speedily becomes tinged with sympathy.
Not so distinctly a reversion, but still probably a custom derived from
primitive observances, was the Mediaeval ceremony, when a great person
was buried, of leading his horse before the body and presenting the
animal to the ecclesiastical authorities as an obituary due[1164]. Such
legacies were very common, so that a single example will suffice. At the
obsequies of Henry V., three war-steeds were led to the altar, and were
there formally bequeathed to the Church[1165]. It will be fresh in the
memory of all, how, at the funeral of King Edward VII., that monarch’s
favourite horse was led by a groom behind the body of his late master.