Every reader of Ariosto, of Boiardo, or of Berri, is acquainted with the
character of Turpin, as an historian. John Turpin's _History of the Life
of Charles the Great and Roland_ has long since been regarded as a
collection of fables; as a romance written under a feigned name. Its
real character is, however, best described by Ferrario, when he says
that it is not to be considered as "the mere invention of any one
impostor, but rather as a compilation of ancient tales and ballads that
had been circulating amongst the people from the ninth century."
(_Storia ed Analisi degli Antichi Romanzi di Cavalleria_, vol. i. pp.
21, 22.) In such a work we must not calculate upon meeting with facts,
but we may hope to be able to obtain an insight into ancient practices,
and an acquaintance with ancient customs. It is for this reason I would
desire to draw the attention of the reader to a curious mode of
preserving the bodies of the dead, stated by Turpin. He says that the
Christians, being without a sufficient supply of aromatic drugs
wherewith to embalm the dead, disembowelled them, and filled them up
with salt. The passage thus stands in the original:
"Tunc defunctorum corpora amici eorum diversis aromatibus
condiverunt; alii myrrha, alii balsamo, alii _sale_ diligentes
perfuderunt: _multi corpora per ventrem findebant et stercora
ejiciebant, et sale, alia aromata non habentes, condiebant._"--C.
27.
Does any other author but Turpin mention this mode of "salting," or
rather of "pickling" the dead? This is the Query which I put, in the
expectation of having it answered in the affirmative, as I am quite
certain I have met with another author--although I cannot cite his
name--who mentions the body of a Duke of Gloucester being thus preserved
with salt; but unfortunately I have not taken a note of the author, and
can only thus vaguely refer to the fact.