Guernsey.
VAULT INTERMENTS (Vol. ii., p. 21.): BURIAL IN AN ERECT POSTURE (Vol.
viii., pp. 329. 630.): INTERMENT OF THE TROGLODITÆ (Vol. ii., p. 187.).
In the 4th book of Evelyn's _Sylva_ there is much interesting matter on
this subject, besides what has been quoted above; and, to those herein
interested, the following extract from Burn's _History of Parish Registers
in England_ will doubtless be acceptable:
"Many great and good men have entertained scruples on the practice of
interment in churches. The example of the virtuous and primitive
confessor, Archbishop Sancroft, who ordered himself to be buried in the
churchyard of Fresingfield in Suffolk, thinking it improper that the
house of God should be made the repository of sinful man, ought to
command the imitation of less deserving persons: perhaps it had an
influence over the mind of his successor, Archbishop Secker, who
ordered himself to be buried in the churchyard of Lambeth. The Bishops
of London in succession, from Bishop Compton to Bishop Hayter, who died
in 1762, inclusive, have been buried in Fulham Churchyard."[1]
Of the same opinion were Dr. Edward Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle; Sir
Matthew Hale, who used to say that churches were for the living and to
churchyards for the dead[2]; Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, who "did not
hold God's house a meet repository for the greatest saint;" and William
Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, who made a canon in his synod to the following
effect:
"IX. Ut corpora defunctorum deinceps in Ecclesiis non humentur, sed nec
intra quintum pedem a pariete extrorsum."
Sir Thomas Latymer, of Braibroke in Northamptonshire, by his will directed
thus:
I, Thomas Latymer of Braybroke, a fals knyghte to God, &c., my wrecchyd
body to be buried where that ever I die in the next chirche yerde, God
vouchsafe, and naut in the chirche, but in the utterist corner, as he
that is unworthy to lyn therein, save the merci of God."
{279}
Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of St. Asaph, was buried in a churchyard,
although, from his having generously repaired and endowed his cathedral, he
might be considered to have a claim of interment within its walls; and
Baldwin, the great civilian, severely censures this indecent liberty, and
questions whether he shall call it a superstition or an impudent ambition.
Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who made vaults under the
chancel, and even under the altar, when he rebuilt the choir of Canterbury,
about 1075.[3]
"The Irish long retained an attachment to their ancient customs and
pagan superstitions; and the custom of burying in consecrated ground
was not universal in Ireland in the twelfth century on the arrival of
the English, as we find it enjoined in the Council of Cashel, held in
1172, mentioned by Cambrensis. A short time since some small earthen
tumuli were opened on the Curragh of Kildare, under which skeletons
were found standing upright on their feet, and in their hands, or near
them, spears with iron heads. The custom of placing their dead erect
was general among all the northern nations, and is still retained in
Lapland and some parts of Norway; and the natives of North America bury
their dead sitting in holes in the ground, and cover them with a mound
of earth."--_Transactions of the R. Irish Academy_, vol. iii.
A Query I proposed (Vol. ii., p. 187.) in reference to the Trogloditæ never
having been answered, I shall, perhaps, be allowed to use this opportunity
myself to furnish an apposite and explanatory quotation, viz.--
"Troglodytæ mortui cervicem pedibus alligabant et _raptim cum risu et
jocis efferebant_, nullaque loci habita cura mandabant terræ; ac ad
caput cornu caprinum affigebant."--Coelii Rhodigini, _Lectiones
Antiquæ_, p. 792.
I shall conclude with the _rationale_ of the erect posture, as illustrated
by Staveley in his _History of Churches in England_:
"It is storied to be a custom among the people of Megara in Greece, to
be buried with their faces downwards; Diogenes gave this reason why he
should be buried after the same way, that seeing all things were
(according to his opinion) to be turned upside down in succeeding
times, he, by this posture, would at last be found with his _face
upwards, and looking towards heaven_."