The Query of H.E. (Vol. i., p. 321.) seems to infer that the use of
coffins may be only a modern custom. In book xxiii., chapters i. and
ii., of Bingham's _Antiquities of the Christian Church_, H.E. will find
ample proof of the very early use of coffins. During the first three
centuries of the Church, one great distinction betwixt Heathens and
Christians was, that the former burned their dead, and placed the bones
and ashes in urns; whilst the latter always buried the corpse, either in
a coffin or, embalmed, in a catacomb; so that it might be restored at
the last day from its original dust. There have frequently been dug out
of the barrows which contain Roman urns, ancient British stone coffins.
Bede mentions that the Saxons buried their dead in wood. Coffins both of
lead and iron were constructed at a very early period. When the royal
vaults at St. Denis were desecrated, during the first French revolution,
coffins were exposed that had lain there for ages.
Notwithstanding all this, it appears to be the case that, both in the
Norman and English periods, the common people of this country were often
wrapped in a sere-cloth after death, and so placed, coffinless, in the
earth. The illuminations in the old missals represent this. And it is
not impossible that the extract from the "Table of Dutyes," on which
H.E. founds his inquiry, may refer to a lingering continuance of this
rude custom. Indeed, a statute passed in 1678, ordering that all dead
bodies shall be interred in woollen and no other material, is so worded
as to give the idea that there might be interments without coffins. The
statute forbids that any person be put in, wrapt, or wound up, or buried
in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud, unless made of sheep's wool only;
or in any coffin lined or faced with any material but sheep's wool; as
if the person might be buried either in a garment, or in a coffin, so
long as the former was made of, or the latter lined with, wool.
I think the "buryall without a coffin," quoted by H.E., must have
referred to the interment of the poorest class. Their friends, being
unable to provide a coffin, conformed to an old rude custom, which had
not entirely ceased.