I should be very glad to have some distinct information on the above
subject, especially in explanation of any repositories of human bones in
England? Was the ancient preservation of these skeleton remains always
connected with embalming the body?--or drying it, after the manner
described by Captain Smythe, R.N., to be still practised in
Sicily?--and, in cases in which dry bones only were preserved, by what
process was the flesh removed from them? for, as Addison says, in
reference to the catacombs at Naples, "they must have been full of
stench, _if_ the dead bodies that lay in them were left to rot in open
niches." The catacombs at Paris seem to have been furnished with bones
from the emptyings of the metropolitan churchyards. In some soils,
however, the bones rot almost as soon as the flesh decays from them.
There are, possibly, many bone-houses in England. I have seen two of
considerable extent, one at Ripon Minster, the other at Rothwell Church,
in Northamptonshire; and at both places skulls and thigh bones were
piled up, in mural recesses, with as much regularity as bottles in the
bins of a wine-cellar. At Rothwell there was (twenty years ago) a great
number of these relics. The sexton spoke of there being 10,000 skulls,
but this, no doubt, was an exaggeration; and he gave, as the local
tradition, that they had been gathered from the neighbouring field of
Naseby. A similar story prevails at Ripon, viz. that the death-heads and
cross-bones, which are arranged in the crypt under the Minster, are the
grisly gleanings of some battle-field.
Now, if these, and other like collections, were really made after
battles which took place during any of the civil wars of England, some
details would not be unworthy of the notice of the picturesque
historian; _e.g._, was it the custom in those unhappy days to disinter,
after a time, the slightly-buried corpses, and deposit the bones in the
consecrated vault?--or was this the accidental work of some antiquarian
sexton of the "Old Mortality" species?--or was the pious attention
suggested by the ploughman's later discoveries--
"Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro," &c.?
Any report from the places where there happen to be bone-houses,
together with the local tradition assigning their origin, would I think,
throw light on an interesting and rather obscure subject.
Ecclesfield, Dec. 31. 1849.