Chapter VII: Survivals in Burial Customs (1)

A discussion of burial customs might, in the absence of a little careful selection of material, tend to become rather gruesome. This may be conceded at the outset, but, fortunately, an impersonal treatment is possible, and one need not even imitate the mournful example of “Old Mortality.” There is nothing morbid in a dispassionate review of customs which, in all ages and among all peoples, seem to have been general, because born of that vicissitude which is the common lot of man. Perhaps, in some measure, the antiquary may be able to reach the standard of stoicism set up by John Earle: “His grave does not fright him [the antiquary], because he has been used to sepulchers, and he likes Death the better, because it gathers him to his fathers[657].”

Already we have spoken of the orientation of graves, and the degradation of the barrow to the grave-mound. Several kindred matters must now receive attention, and in a later chapter, when chariot-burial is considered, our eyes will again be turned backward. For customs are like crystals with several facets; to get a true perception we must, in each case, frequently change our point of view.

A few more instances of the development of funeral monuments may be first noted. It has been shown elsewhere that the churchyard headstone may be traced back, step by step, to the unhewn menhir set up by primitive man on some bleak moorland. Within the last two or three years, there have been discovered in France and Italy remarkable connecting links, in the so-called “statue-menhirs,” prehistoric stones rudely carved

FIG. 53. Inscribed, ornamented, round-headed cross, Sancreed
churchyard, Cornwall. In the head of the cross is a figure of Our
Lord in relief. The shaft is decorated with interlaced work, and
contains a panel with an imperfect inscription.
]

to represent the human head and trunk[658]. The evidence derived from observing the gradual evolution is corroborated by strange cases of survival. Thus in St Martha’s churchyard, near Chilworth, Surrey, low headstones, untouched by any tool, have been set up in considerable numbers. The slabs are merely masses of ironstone dug out of the Lower Greensand of the hill on which the church is built. Pursuing another line of descent, Mr J. Romilly Allen claimed that a similar kind of coarse monolith had developed into the “wheel-cross” and the “free-standing” cross of Christian churchyards[659] (Fig. 53 and Fig. 62). The dolmen, or “stone-table,” a familiar prehistoric monument, has been replaced by the family vault and the altar-tomb, the ossuary of Brittany, the flat tombstone of the village graveyard, and the sarcophagus of the cathedral[660]. The cromlech, a circle of upright stone pillars, is by some believed to have been the forerunner of the temple and the round church[661]; but this claim may be waived, as not fully proven (cf. p. 99 _supra_). More plausible is the theory that the rude, unfashioned grave-stake is represented to-day by the humble wooden cross of our cemeteries[662]. Each of these examples of unconscious imitation and modern survival might be examined at some length, but the theories which they illustrate are now so familiar as to be commonplace. Not quite so well known is the theory that we have derived our custom of placing shrubs on graves from our heathen forefathers of the Bronze Age, who were wont to plant trees on their burial mounds[663]. Mr Grant Allen argued, with some reason, that the pine-trees so frequently found on round barrows in the South of England are survivors of those placed there by the first mound-raisers, since the Scottish pine is not now indigenous to that tract of country[664] (cf. p. 401 _infra_).

Attempts have been made to connect the noun “barrow” with the verb “to bury,” but the relationship cannot really be upheld. The primary notion involved in “barrow” was that of a height, while “to bury” was associated with concealment or covering. The word “barrow,” it may be remarked, went out of use in English literature before A.D. 1400, but it survived locally in dialects, and was ultimately taken back into the nomenclature of archaeology[665]. But, though philology forbids us to bind these two words together, the actual continuity between mound-burial and pit-burial, as we have seen, has never been completely broken. Something has been said about the later development of barrows and megaliths; it is now desirable to trace the earliest representatives of our wooden coffin. To begin with, we notice that coffins did not come into universal use until a little over two centuries ago. This is proved by numerous terriers and by minutes of parish vestries. In London, it is true, burial in the simple winding-sheet seems to have been discarded so far back as the early years of Elizabeth, but in remote districts the custom lingered much later. Thus in the Isle of Man, down to the early part of the eighteenth century, the bodies of the poor were wrapped in a blanket fastened with a skewer, and were carried on a bier to the grave. A hundred years afterwards, coffinless burials survived to a considerable extent in county Wexford. Sir R. Phillimore quotes Lord Stowell’s dictum that funerals were either “coffined” or “coffinless,” and were charged for accordingly. The use of coffins is extremely ancient, but at first the custom was by no means common[666]. There appears, in fact, to have been no real uniformity in this, as in many other practices, since the earliest days of English Christendom. And in this lack of system we find at once an approximation to the customs of the barrow period, when corpses were either enclosed, or buried without a cist, the exact reason for the difference of treatment being not always explicable by the general ideas held at the time.

Lest there should still be any doubt of the antiquity of coffins, it is necessary to recall those coffins of the Middle Ages (Fig. 54), often hewn out of a single block, and familiar to persons who have inspected the relics of ruined abbeys and the nooks and corners of our existing parish churches. These stone coffins are obviously the representatives of prehistoric tombs, though they may not be in the true British line of descent. Rather do they suggest the Roman coffins of stone, lead, or brick (Figs. 55 B, 56). Occasionally, Roman coffins of stone are

FIG. 54. Mediaeval stone coffins. A. From Wellesbourne churchyard,
Warwickshire (Bloxam’s _Mon. Archit._). There is a hole in the
bottom of the coffin, as in the prehistoric specimen from
Gristhorpe (Fig. 55 B). An almost exact replica of this coffin may
be seen in the Guildhall Museum, London, associated with a
thirteenth century lid bearing a foliated cross. B. From Eynesford
church, Kent. This specimen has a raised head-rest.
]

found, covered with a lid of undoubted Saxon workmanship, proving that there had been a re-adaptation. We note, in passing, that the stone coffin must be carefully distinguished from those hog-backed or coped stones which were employed as grave covers in early Christian times, and to which Mr Romilly Allen assigned a Saxon or Scandinavian origin[667]. With respect to the wooden coffin, commonly adjudged as of Christian design, there is occasionally some difficulty. At Colchester, wooden coffins have been found associated with leaden ones,

FIG. 55. A. Prehistoric coffin, formed of a hollowed oak trunk,
found in a barrow at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough. The bark is
still adhering to the timber. A hole (3´´ × 1´´) has been cut in
the bottom of the coffin. The relics indicated that the grave
probably belonged to the Bronze Age. (After T. Wright.)

B. Roman coffin of baked clay, Aldborough, Yorkshire. (After T.
Wright.) The shapes of such coffins are rather variable.
]

FIG. 56. Roman coffin of lead, found at Colchester. Length 4´ 3´´;
depth, exclusive of lid, 9½´´; width at head 15´´, at foot 11´´.
The lid has overlapping edges. The decoration consists of scallop
shells, concentric rings, and lines of beaded ornament.
]

and have been taken to indicate a Christian element among the population. In connection with the leaden coffins were found Roman coins, mainly, of the Constantine group, so that the burials were of late date. Yet, although there were probably many converts in that part of England by the time of the Diocletian persecution, A.D. 303, Mr Guy Maynard, who records the discoveries, admits that there is little corroborative evidence of the Christian character of the graves[668]. Looked at from either standpoint, the association of coffins and coins seems to show a period of transition.

We are able, however, to extend our view much beyond the Roman invasion, and to find the counterpart of the coffin in many primitive burials. Some of the stone cists which enclosed unburnt bodies of the older Bronze Age barrows are actually described as “coffin-shaped receptacles[669].” A Bronze Age barrow at Hove, Brighton, contained an oak coffin in which objects of bronze, stone, and amber had been deposited with the skeleton[670]. Belonging to the same period was the famous barrow of Gristhorpe, near Scarborough; in this example the interment had been made in a hollowed oak trunk, specially prepared for the purpose[671] (Fig. 55 A). King Barrow, near Wareham, Dorset, was found to be raised over a coffin, wherein a cup of shale had been deposited with the body[672]. Mr J. R. Mortimer asserts that traces of wooden supports for protecting the body are often found. In a barrow at Easington, in Holderness, broad slabs, made from the trunk of a willow, formed the covering. It would be superfluous to continue the list, but should the reader desire to examine further material in justification of the plea of continuity, he will find ample opportunity in Mr Llewellynn Jewitt’s interesting volume[673].

The Roman and pre-Roman periods have been considered; we turn to the Romano-British burials, and proceed in the forward direction.

Gen. Pitt-Rivers discovered “dug-out” coffins at Woodyates, and other sites in Cranborne Chase, and he inferred the former existence of further specimens by the presence of nails which were associated with the burials. To ascertain whether the record can be extended into later historical times, we might turn especially to our Northern churchyards. Some examples of the stone cell, found at Alloa and elsewhere, are described by Sir Arthur Mitchell as being simply cists, enlarged so as to avoid doubling up the body[674]. Later stages of survival are witnessed by the rude box-shaped tombstones of many churchyards in Devonshire, Gloucestershire, and other counties[675]. Stone coffins have been dug up in the Dorsetshire graveyard of Worth Matravers, almost identical with those which have been unearthed from barrows in the surrounding Isle of Purbeck. In short, it is clear that the stone coffin and the table tombstone are derived from the ancient stone cist, and this, in its turn, bears some analogy to the chamber of the long barrow.

This endurance of custom becomes the more remarkable when we remember that great changes have occurred in the mode of treating the corpse at burial. At first there was inhumation; then we have a period during which inhumation and cremation were, to some extent, contemporaneous, while, as a variant, partial burning of the body was common. Cremation gradually becomes obsolete, and earth-burial again comes into vogue. If we carry back our thoughts to the advent of Christianity into Britain, we see that the trend of custom was the exact reverse of that which obtains in our day, when cremation is very slowly replacing earth-burial. The substitution of inhumation for the funeral pyre is one of the four chief distinctions drawn by Mr Romilly Allen between the burial customs of the Celtic pagans and the Celtic Christians[676]. Yet the change was a slow one; in the remote fastnesses of the country, the custom of burning bodies lingered for generations, though it was generally extinct in the fourth century of our era[677]. Indeed, Macrobius, the critic and philosopher, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century, declared that cremation had been discontinued for so long a time that it was only from books that he could glean information concerning the custom[678]. Whether the turnover from cremation to earth-burial were always the result of religious or of racial influences is a moot point[679]. The evidence seems to prove, as already hinted, that in Britain the cause was mainly religious (p. 263 _supra_), though one dare not assert that religion was the sole cause. Cremation must always have been a comparatively expensive process. Someone has well said, “To this day we speak of the ashes of the great, and the bones of the poor.” At all events, transitions may be noted, as in the case of the famous flat-earth burial-ground at Aylesford, which was referred to in the preceding chapter. The ashes of the “family circle” represented at Aylesford had been enclosed in urns, and then placed in pits, as before stated (p. 261 _supra_). Sir A. J. Evans supposes that the variation of custom was due to the influence of Belgic conquerors. The urn-burials represented at Aylesford superseded the old skeleton interments of the late-Celtic peoples, as exemplified in the “chariot-burials” of Yorkshire, where the skeleton of the departed warrior is laid alongside the chariot[680]. In Scandinavia and Northern Germany there was a further intermediate stage, for the ashes were sometimes deposited in the grave without any enclosing urn. To such graves the Northern archaeologists apply the term “Brandgruben,” or cremation pits. This mode of burial is connected with the La Tène period of culture[681].

Though this question of cremation may appear to have slight connection with the use of coffins, a little study will show that there is a bond of association. The ashes of the dead were, it is true, usually enshrined in a cinerary urn, and this vessel was often placed in a chamber specially constructed for the purpose. But it was the coffin which was essentially a receptacle for preserving the entire body, and which therefore became the sign of earth-burial. Dr Rock lays down the rule that bishops, kings, and persons of rank were interred in stone coffins, while the bulk of the people had coffins of wood. Whenever the receptacle was made of wood, and not of stone, one might have supposed that it would readily become an accessory in the rite of cremation. This was apparently not the case, though, obviously, proof would be difficult to obtain. The body seems to have been burnt in an open pyre, not enclosed in a chest. Contrariwise, in a Saxon cemetery at Sibertswold, in Kent, ninety-nine of the coffins had been “submitted to the fire,” the bodies themselves being unburnt. Again, in the early Christian burials a cist of stones, instead of a coffin, was sometimes placed around the corpse[682], but there was no reversion to the funeral pyre. Yet, as already noticed, the employment, in isolated instances, of rude coffins, to say nothing of the cists by which they were foreshadowed, was probably in some measure contemporary with the general pagan custom of burning the dead. There was an overlapping of custom. Such seeming anachronisms, while they puzzle, do not greatly surprise the archaeologist, to whom such occurrences are no new feature. He frequently sees remote traces of the beginnings of a practice of which the general adoption was long delayed; he observes rites and customs overlapping in time and struggling for victory; and, in his own day, he is a witness of extraordinary vestiges and of ceremonies which must be deemed reversions or “throw-backs.” The overstepping of one burial rite by another of older origin is not a whit more inexplicable than the contemporaneous use, by man, of diverse kinds of clothes or of varying types of habitation. It is perhaps the more difficult problem to determine, in the absence of additional data, why, at a particular period, one group of men is found dwelling in pile-houses on the margins of lake or mere, while another class frequents caves and rock-shelters, and a third prefers the wattled hut with sunken floor, and roof of reeds or heather. Convenience was doubtless a partial cause of these diversities, just as belief was the great regulator of burial customs, but this is not the full answer. We must look to primary race distinctions, in which were the germs of the variations, and to the fact that human immigrations to Britain occurred at intervals, so that mental as well as physical territories were invaded and transgressed.

A remarkable instance of anticipation will illustrate, to some extent, what has just been said. The antiquary is well aware that, during the Stuart period, in order to encourage the woollen industry, statutes were passed (A.D. 1666, 1678, 1680), which made it compulsory to bury the dead in woollen shrouds. An interesting chapter of burial-lore might be written on this curious subject, for the Acts, though they had long been in abeyance, were not repealed until late in the reign of George III. (A.D. 1814)[683]. The practice is recalled in our own day when, by request of the dying person, the body is enfolded in some special garb, usually of wool, before being committed to the earth. The strange circumstance, however, is that such a custom should have been foreshadowed in the far-away past. In Danish burials belonging to the earliest Bronze Age, the bodies are sometimes found to have been placed in hollowed tree trunks, and the remains show that a woollen shroud had been used. Skeletons wrapped in a woollen textile have likewise been discovered at Rylston, in the Western Riding of Yorkshire[684]. I have provisionally regarded these instances as revealing anticipations rather than origins, but it is possible that many intermediate examples could be supplied. One of these gradations is perhaps traceable in the custom of burying a person in his ordinary dress. If these links were complete, there would obviously be entire continuity, but if we encountered a gap, it is probable that the eighteenth century practice would have to be considered as a “throw-back.”

It is now time to review the custom, still common among uncivilized peoples, and once extremely popular in Britain, of placing objects with the corpse in the grave. A mass of evidence has been collated and examined, and though only a portion can be given here, we must, while shunning tediousness, present as much detail as is actually profitable. A rough preliminary classification of these funerary objects would include, (1) weapons and useful implements; (2) amulets, talismans, and symbolical objects; (3) trinkets, ornaments, and decorative articles; (4) a miscellaneous group, partly useful, partly symbolical or commemorative. It is necessary to premise that this classification is conventional, and lacks well-defined boundaries, hence, while dealing with one series of relics, other groups will be forced upon our attention, producing, later, unavoidable repetition.

That the groups enumerated have a somewhat arbitrary basis is rendered clear when we perceive a principle running through the whole series, most effective in prehistoric days, but probably reaching, in a vague and partial manner, to the utmost confines of modern religious thought. This principle, which must be briefly outlined, has been well described by Professor Tylor under the name of Animism. The term implies the doctrine of Spiritual Beings or Souls--a deep-lying belief in the two-fold nature of both animate and inanimate objects, as opposed to the teachings of Materialistic philosophy[685]. Animism supplies us, according to Professor Tylor, with “a minimum definition of Religion[686].” The primordial idea, which impelled early man to acts of worship, was, according to this theory, the belief that not only his own fellows, but the beasts, trees, and surrounding objects, natural or artificial, possessed spirits--ethereal images, as it were--of themselves. Hence the dead man must be provided with food, weapons, and other necessaries; not that these material objects themselves, but their corresponding phantasmal shapes, might, when disembodied, accompany the departed warrior or huntsman on his journey to the spirit-world[687]. In the earliest times, when the dead man was thought to be merely asleep, it may have been believed that the actual objects were of service, but at a later period, when it was recognized that the soul had actually left the body, the weapons were burnt, or perchance broken, before being interred. The precise mode of transmission of the simulacral forms to the dead man’s service was left in vague suspense, but the duty was clearly understood. The spirit of the weapon or ornament must be set free; the ghost desired the immaterial wraiths or shadows, not the solid earthly utensils. Mr Grant Allen has ingeniously, and with considerable force, contended that the two faiths may be correlated with the Long-Barrow Period and the Round-Barrow Period respectively. During the former age, when inhumation was in fashion, the life of the grave was considered to be as material and real as life on the earth, and the weapons would serve equally well for both worlds. Among the cremationists of the Bronze Age who imagined the existence of “a realm of incorporeal disembodied spirits,” the ghost was conceived to be immaterial, therefore the weapons were broken or charred with fire[688]. It must further be noted that Mr Grant Allen, along with some other writers, does not altogether accept Professor Tylor’s theory of animism. He does not believe that the ideas involved in animism are demonstrably primitive[689], and, following in the footsteps of Herbert Spencer, he seeks the origin of religion in ancestor-worship and its associated ancestral ghosts. According to this hypothesis, objects were first placed in, or on, the grave, to propitiate the dead. As fear of the corpse gradually diminished, respect became the dominant idea, and ghost-worship and shade-worship were established. Between this “Humanist” school of thought, and that of Animism, as represented by Professor Tylor and Professor Frazer, a reconciliation may, to some extent, be effected[690]. We may perhaps look upon ancestor-worship as a sub-division of the animistic belief, and as tending towards a higher plane of religion. Professor Frazer, in his work on _Totemism and Exogamy_, has cleared the ground by showing that totemism, which has often been regarded as a primitive religion, is only occasionally found in connection with the doctrine of external souls. In pure totemism, the totems are in no sense deities, to be propitiated by offerings or sacrifices. Professor Westermarck declares that there is no justification in facts for regarding the worship of the dead as “the root of every religion.” The spirits of the dead were not originally conceived as the only supernatural agents existing. Whichever be considered the primitive type of religion is a matter which will not greatly affect our present review of the facts of continuity. Nor need we feel much concerned with a third claim--that certain races may have reached the pastoral stage of society without passing through the nomadic stage, and may have been worshippers of the sun or some of the other external powers of Nature without embracing animism.

From the animistic side itself, Professor Tylor has uttered a significant warning against straining the theory. While in the vast number of cases, the idea of object-souls is, he informs us, both clear and explicit, yet it is notorious that there are peoples who sacrifice property or deposit offerings to the dead from other motives. Affection, fancy, or symbolism, a desire to abandon the dead man’s property, anxiety to appease the hovering ghost, may each, in particular cases, be an efficient motive[691]. Again, although the animistic conception, so far as primitive peoples were concerned, was world-wide in its extent, yet, in our day, and among civilized folk, the system seems to be drawing in its outposts. It has outlived the belief in the objective reality of apparitional souls or ghosts; the notion of the souls of beasts is similarly being left behind. The central position is now held by the doctrine of the human soul[692].

A still more modern theory, the psychological, is put forward by Mr A. E. Crawley, in his recent work, _The Idea of the Soul_. Mr Crawley considers that the world of spirits is a mental world, and that the soul itself is “the mental duplicate of reality.” As soon as man had the power of perception to enable him to form a memory-image, he possessed a soul. The mental replica of the object perceived was, in the earlier stages of savage life, concrete, though immaterial; at a later period, under the influence of language and science, abstractions were formed. One is bound to add that Mr Crawley’s theory does not seem to meet with general approbation, though it will have to be reckoned with in all future discussions.

We shall expect, from these preliminary observations, to encounter various gradations of belief as we proceed to consider the evidence for continuity of custom respecting burial gifts. In order that the forest may not lose its importance by being considered in detail, tree by tree, let us keep to our proposed classification, and glance first at the practice of burying weapons and other useful objects with the dead. Though the custom was not a marked feature of the Long-Barrow Period, the original inspiration dates from that age at least. The Round-Barrow epoch, however, was pre-eminently associated with the burial of weapons and utensils. A rough enumeration made by Canon Greenwell showed that about one-fifth of the barrows which he had opened contained implements of some kind, the commonest materials employed in the manufacture being stone, bronze, or horn. To be exact, out of 379 burials by inhumation or cremation, 77 had associated implements[693]. A study of the researches of Mortimer and Pitt-Rivers will give similar results. Nor when we trace the story onwards to the advent of Christianity, does the force of custom diminish, even if its direction becomes slightly changed. Flint scrapers and useful instruments of many kinds are turned out of graves belonging to the Roman period, just as Early Iron Age burials yield corresponding relics. A fragment of a flint celt was found with a Late Roman or Early Saxon burial at Leicester[694], while a Saxon grave at Ash, in Kent, yielded a polished celt, together with a Roman fibula[695]. The celt, in this instance, was evidently an heirloom from an earlier period, and had been regarded by its finder with superstitious reverence. One need scarcely recall the celebrated Saxon tumulus in Taplow churchyard, Buckinghamshire (p. 81 _supra_), which contained, in addition to Anglo-Saxon relics of the ordinary kind, flint flakes, cores, and scrapers[696]. On the Continent, flint arrow-heads are frequently found with Merovingian remains dating from the fifth to the eighth centuries of our era. In one case, an iron sword of the Frankish period accompanied the arrow-heads. Such occurrences are not well-attested with respect to Britain, though the collocation of flint and bronze articles is frequent[697]. The most remarkable instance of the survival of celt-burial is that supplied by the tumulus in Flanders, described by Evans. Within this barrow, arranged in a circle around the body, the mourners had placed six celts in an upright position. The celts, seemingly of different ages, had been gathered from the surface of the soil, and deposited within the tomb as amulets[698]. There can be little doubt, however, that the custom, thus shorn of its primary significance, was once the expression of a deep conviction of service. An ancient Vedic hymn, or dirge, has the words, “Take not the bow from the hand of him who lies dead.” Does not also Ossian give instructions to Oscar on this very subject? “Remember, my son, to place this sword, this bow, the horn of my deer, within that dark and narrow home, whose mark is one grey stone[699].” When we observe that parallel ideas are actually common the world over, we shall be inclined to believe that Macpherson has here recovered a bit of genuine Celtic tradition. Thus, the Greenlanders inter bows and other weapons with the dead, the Turanians of Eastern Asia bury axes, flints, and food, and supply the deceased warrior with a spear that he may be ready for future combat[700].

There is no need to press this point, but having carried the custom to Saxon times, when objects of stone still survived along with such burial relics as iron swords, daggers, and knives, let us consider one or two later observances. In Mediaeval days, burial in armour was considered most honourable. Not seldom, the warriors lay uncoffined, their shroud a panoply of iron. Their arms and weapons, again, were suspended over the tomb. This practice lasted a long time, and allusion to it may be found in Shakespeare. Laertes, speaking of the burial of his father Polonius, complains of

“his obscure funeral,
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones[701].”

And Iden, in the second part of _Henry VI._, inquires,

“Is’t Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?
Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed,
And hang thee o’er my tomb when I am dead[702].”

Every ecclesiologist is familiar with such arms and accoutrements as are here mentioned. Dr J. C. Cox has enumerated churches where personal armour is still preserved[703]. No further digression can be made here, but the reader may again be reminded that many armorial relics belong to a later period, and are counterfeits which constituted part of the undertaker’s trappings (cf. p. 159 _supra_). One attenuated survival lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century in the form of square or lozenge-shaped hatchments (= “achievements”), made of wood. On these wooden shields, which, after the funeral, were nailed up in the church, were blazoned the coats-of-arms borne by the family of the deceased person. The most recent spectacle of this kind, surprisingly belated, was witnessed at the church of Hunmanby, in the East Riding, during the year 1897[704].

Strangest of all the warrior superstitions was that exemplified in the ceremony of offering food to weapons. The custom, which is plainly traceable to pagan ideas of worship, continued without interruption, we are assured, until the reign of Elizabeth. One instance must suffice. Sir Howel-y-Furyall, known to his fellows as “Sir Howel of the Battle-axe,” a weapon which he wielded bravely at Poitiers, ordained that his axe should be hung up in the Tower of London, and a “messe of meat” served before it daily. The injunction was obeyed, and each day, after the rite had been completed, the food was distributed to beggars[705].

Arms and food do not, however, complete our list of serviceable gifts to the dead. Among implements of this nature must be reckoned divers kinds of fire-producers. Excavations have shown that flint and iron pyrites were occasionally concealed in round barrows, while, in the mounds of later periods, a piece of iron replaced the customary mineral nodule. These ignition agents, the forerunners of our “strike-a-lights” and tinder boxes, are found so late as the Saxon period. Certain small “nests” of chipped flints occurring in Merovingian, Frankish, and Saxon sepulchres, are also believed by some authorities to have been intended for fire-kindlers[706], by means of which the departed spirit could be provided with cheerful warmth. To the present writer this theory is not entirely satisfactory, at least as regards the later developments of the practice. The cases just cited seem to be analogous to those described by Pitt-Rivers, who repeatedly found, in British barrows, urns filled with chips of flint[707]. In a notable barrow at Winkelbury Hill, on a Northern spur of the Wiltshire Downs, not only was the urn packed with flakes, but it was surrounded by a mass of similar objects[708]. Besides the flakes placed in the cist or urn itself, we have to take into account the very common occurrence of flint spalls in the body of the mound, a sight familiar to the barrow-digger. The number of chips is often out of all proportion to what might be incidentally brought together in piling up the substance of the mound from the surface soil. They were evidently struck off for the particular occasion. Now, although the germ of the ceremony may be discoverable in the burial of a trimmed flint and a lump of iron pyrites, there is no manifest virtue in the multiplication of the chips. Each tribesman may indeed have thrown in his tributary flint, or perhaps a handful of small flakes, but the intention would scarcely be to increase the opportunities of procuring fire. Rather do the chips seem to represent some esoteric doctrine, such as that which was held by the primitive Lapps. Hidden in the flint lies the spark, the emblem of life and animation, ready to burst forth. The scattered flakes of flint were therefore probably the proofs, not alone of dutiful respect, but of a strong faith that the dead man was merely asleep, that his spirit would return. Pliny’s _Natural History_ has been credited with the statement that Northern peoples used to throw flint chippings into graves in order to confine the dead within those dark dominions. Pliny does, indeed, describe certain stones that consume dead bodies, and other kinds that have the power to preserve the corpse, and to turn it into stone[709]. But the reference to the flint flakes, as commonly given, is bibliographically incorrect, and, although the passage may exist, I have not been successful in finding it. Except for the sake of the reason assigned to the custom, the passage is unimportant, since we possess actual relics as a testimony of the practice. What is of more interest is the fact that we have a reference to the custom as apparently existing in Shakespeare’s day. When Ophelia is about to be buried, the surly priest makes complaint:

“She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her[710].”

From this passage it seems clear that a ceremony, which, if I interpret it aright, was originally indicative of respect, had degenerated into a mark of disgrace. The potsherds and flint chips were known to be a mark of heathen burial, and were therefore reprobated by Christians, without any inquiry as to their purport. There is an alternative explanation: the idea of laying the evil spirit, so that it should not wander abroad and annoy the living, may at some time have been operative. If this assumption be well founded, it might be urged that the priest had caught an echo of the superstition, and actually believed that the ghost of a suicide might return. The usual annotation of the lines, to the effect that Ophelia is worthy only of pagan burial, comes a little short of the whole truth, and one of these ideas--respect or fear--is required to round off the meaning. In support of this view, the case of the Czechs is apposite. When returning from a funeral, it is the custom of this folk to throw stones, mud, and hot coals in the direction of the grave to deter the spirit from following the burial party[711]. Again, the purpose of wearing mourning is believed to have arisen from attempts to disguise the person, so that pursuit by the dead may be evaded; or, as Mr E. S. Hartland contends, the intention was to express sorrow and abasement, so as to deprecate the malice of the disembodied spirit[712]. Yet, in spite of these by-theories, one is led to believe that the earlier intention of the funeral flints was to express honour and respect, though the feeling may have been tinged with wholesome fear. To this extent the theory of ancestor-worship, as opposed to that of animism, receives some confirmation.

A passage occurring in Herodotus has been noted as throwing some light on the custom, while not affording an actual explanation. The writer is describing the ceremony of purification observed after funerals by the Scythians in Europe. A cavity was made, or a dish was placed in the middle of a specially constructed tent. Into this hollow they threw stones heated to a transparent brightness (λίθους ἐκ πυρὸς διαφανέας ἐσβάλλουσι ἐς σκάφην)[713]. This description, however, does not really apply to the rite which we are considering, for Herodotus goes on to say that hemp-seed is put on the red-hot stones. The intention was to prepare a kind of vapour bath, and also probably to induce intoxication[714]. In other words, the heated stones seem to have been our familiar “pot-boilers,” common on all prehistoric camping-grounds, and capable of a purely industrial explanation, though often applied to a ceremonial purpose.

Returning to the shards alluded to by the priest at Ophelia’s grave, we note, as an illustration, that Pitt-Rivers found considerable quantities of broken pottery in the Romano-British graves of Dorset and Wiltshire. A remarkable coincidence must now be mentioned. Douglas, writing his _Nenia Britannica_ in 1793, had noticed that pebbles and fragments of pottery were often mixed with the earth which had been scattered over the corpses in Saxon graves. The shards were generally of more ancient date than the interment[715]. Douglas had lighted upon the passage in _Hamlet_, already quoted, and had connected it with the superstitious Saxon practice. Over half a century later, Mr W. M. Wylie, who was exploring Saxon graves at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, came upon quantities of similar burial shards. The vessels which had furnished the fragments had not been newly broken for the occasion, since the pieces did not correspond, but had been previously collected and kept in readiness. Along with these potsherds were found pebbles that had been fired, as well as scoriae from iron smeltings, obtained perhaps from the neighbourhood of Cirencester, not far away[716]. After referring to the description of the Scythian custom, which has just been quoted from Herodotus, and after making a half-hearted attempt to connect the Scythians with the Northern Teutons, Wylie cites the now-famous lines from _Hamlet_. That Wylie should have independently come to the same conclusion as Douglas, and should have called attention to the same Shakespearean allusion, is very noteworthy, for he had never read Douglas’s work[717].

Although we are considering relics which were judged to be of use to the dead, we have transgressed our limits, and have been compelled to glance at the ceremonial aspect. Yet before we can safely return to the main inquiry, we must notice some instances of survival in this matter of potsherds. Numerous records tend to show that the deposition of pieces of earthenware in Christian graves was not an uncommon practice during the Middle Ages. At once, however, we must make a reservation: the scraps of pottery may, to some extent, represent vessels in which charcoal had been deposited, but which afterwards were fractured by the sexton’s spade. For the broken pottery is sometimes, but not always, associated with charcoal, while, as we shall see, the charcoal is often found alone. The Rev. R. Ashington Bullen found traces of the custom at Little Stukeley, Huntingdonshire. At a depth of 4½ feet, graves were found to contain fragments of Mediaeval pottery, possessing a greenish glaze, but no charcoal was discovered[718]. Canon Atkinson states that potsherds were also found near Dunsley chapel, Yorkshire, which was probably demolished prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This capable antiquary, whose eye was well trained for the work, observed charcoal and broken crocks in abundance in the old churchyard graves of Danby-in-Cleveland. The charcoal occurred in lumps of the size of a small bean. Occasionally, out of half a spade-graft of mould brought to the surface, from one-third to one-half would be principally charcoal. Fragments of coarse red pottery, partly glazed on the interior surface, and without doubt of Mediaeval age, were also constantly lighted upon. About a wheelbarrow full of shards was turned up within a quarter of a century, few graves being dug without some scraps being encountered. The charcoal and the pottery were not actually found in contact, nevertheless Canon Atkinson believed that charcoal, in the form of live coals [_Qy_ live charcoal, i.e. “coal” in the older sense?] had been placed in earthen vessels. The reason for this opinion is not given, nor does the hypothesis harmonize with all the related facts. Canon Atkinson, while granting that the idea of purificatory energy may have underlain the custom, stated that collateral evidences showed a desire to keep the spirit in abeyance[719]. These opinions have been dealt with in advance; it remains to be noted that Danby churchyard seems once to have formed part of an open field. “That pagan Danes were laid to their rest there I make no doubt; and that they were the fore-elders of a Christianized generation or series of generations is equally certain[720].” These details, though interesting, are unimportant; the essential matter is that the bulk of the pottery was of Mediaeval date--the narrator allows for exceptions--and must therefore have been employed in Christian times (see p. 287 _supra_). The practice had possibly a direct lineal descent from the Bronze Age. In one barrow belonging to that period, a deposit of burnt bones was underlain by wood, and was covered with charcoal and wood ashes, probably the remains of the funeral pile[721]. On the other hand, a barrow which was opened by Canon Atkinson contained pieces of charcoal, varying in size from a bean to a nutmeg, scattered through the material of the mound[722]. Other cases might be given from the investigations of Pitt-Rivers. Late Frankish cemeteries have yielded fragments of charcoal[723], and the same may be said of Mediaeval graves in France[724]. The accidentals of cremation ceremonies clearly survived the essentials, and a pagan custom was engrafted on Christian rite. The Mediaeval churchman’s explanation of the charcoal is thus given by Durandus: _Carbones in testimonium, quod terra illa ad communes usus amplius redigi non potest, plus enim durat carbo sub terra quam aliud_[725]; that is: Charcoal is employed to show that the earth can no longer be put to ordinary uses, because charcoal endures underground longer than any other substance.

Is there any known instance of the actual use of flint flakes at Christian funerals? Research has so far given a negative reply, but a scrap or two of evidence may be produced. Canon Atkinson found flint chippings and even the ruder kinds of implements in the churchyards of Cleveland[726]. The present writer picked up a flint flake from a newly-dug grave at Northolt, Middlesex, and another, a long, thin specimen, with a “back ridge,” at Warlingham churchyard, Surrey. The risks of drawing an inference from such isolated occurrences as these are both numerous and patent. The churchyard was once part of the open country, and these flakes might, perhaps, originally have been derived from the surface soil. Again, chips of a rough kind fall as waste when flint is dressed and squared for church walls. A sufficient knowledge of the properties of modern and ancient flakes enables the observer to dismiss this source of error, though it must be stated that both at Warlingham and Northolt flint forms a portion of the structural materials. Now the two flakes described were not whitened by exposure and dissolution of the colloidal portion of the silica. They had retained their old unpatinated surface, save that a polish had been acquired; one may therefore conclude that they had lain for a considerable period in a close impervious clay or loam. Probably they had been dug from a depth of two or three feet below the surface. The specimens were certainly ancient. Should instances of this nature be recorded with a fair degree of frequency, the meaning might be deciphered in either of two ways: the adaptation of a pagan site for a Christian place of worship, or the casting of flint chips into a Christian grave. Whether the occurrence of quantities of ancient splinters of flint near a churchyard, as at St Paul’s Cray, Kent, must be interpreted in the same manner, is not so clear. I prefer to await further records, which are, from the nature of the case, difficult to procure. The flints are mysterious witnesses, at most, and the sceptic may justly scorn their testimony, if asked to consider these objects alone. But the triad of flints, potsherds, and charcoal, stands moderately firm. Concerning the charcoal, we have fortunately, apart from the relics, the words of Durandus to help us to read the ostensible meaning. But assume that we were unaware of the Mediaeval character of some of the graveyard pottery, who would believe that the custom of interring potsherds was observed at so late a period? The sceptic would say that the scraps represented prehistoric urns accidentally occurring in the churchyard soil. We should be justified in refusing our assent at the outset, but we should have to reconsider the matter when we found that the habit of breaking vessels and utensils over the dead is common among many races[727]. Moreover, there is a record, within the last thirty years, of a Lincolnshire woman’s breaking pottery over her husband’s grave, because she had forgotten to inter the perfect vessels with the body. At present, then, we must allow that there is a possible preliminary case in favour of the flints, if these should be now and again detected.

Let us summarize the last few paragraphs. The original purpose of placing apparently useless potsherds with the dead was to provide the departed tribesman with the spiritual utensils thus represented, the spirit-forms having been liberated by the breaking of the vessels. Similarly, the charcoal, the calcined pebbles or “pot-boilers,” and the few scraps of flint, would supply him with fire, first material, afterwards spiritual. Thus he had the means of making a fire, and of carrying water and hot embers. “Poor indeed,” says Professor T. Rupert Jones, “was the greatest of the heroes, on his dreary death-path, who had not ‘a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit’ (Isa. xxx. 14)[728].” So far, the theory agrees well with the explanation given respecting votive implements and weapons. Moreover, we can see how the idea of “laying the spirit” with hot stones and fractured flints may have arisen. The homeless ghost would be happy only when fealty had been proved by funeral gifts. Careless or daring folk who neglected to pay the tribute would, in dreams, receive visits from the disembodied dead. Where no affection or respect existed, experience might teach that formal adherence to custom was prudent. The explanation based on actual needs seems only to suffice for those cases where the flint and earthenware gifts are solitary, or at any rate, few, like the celts and arrow-heads. Wherever the flint flakes are counted by scores, and the potsherds, broken, it may be, from vessels made expressly for the sepulchre, are representative of many individual pieces of pottery, the idea involved seems to be, not mere utility, but dutiful respect, tempered, as some will have it, with fear.

It may be submitted that, just as the Bedouin Arabs are wont to set up groups of stones around the burial-place of a fakir, so the chief members of a prehistoric tribe, each carrying his portion, produced the accumulation of flint spalls. True; but this does not support the suggested explanation that the flakes were strike-a-lights. So soon as the multiplication of fire-kindlers--if we assume that the flakes were at first of this nature--reached to the extent of filling an urn or cist, utility must have been the waning, and reverence the waxing principle. The idea that material objects could benefit the dead lingered, it is true, for ages, and in some half-hearted manner persisted, as we shall see, until our own day, but it was ultimately overpowered by the growth of symbolical rites. It remains to notice Pitt-Rivers’ theory that the broken pottery may have been buried to mark the site of a barrow, but how this mode of indication could be effective that cautious and experienced investigator does not suggest. In a boundary tumulus, entombed pottery might be significant, but even there, it could not form a visible memorial.

Reverting for a moment to the subject of fire-kindlers, I would remark that many of the objects known to archaeologists as flint “scrapers” were probably ignition agents[729]. Consequently, to call such flints “thumb-scrapers,” or oval scrapers, as is often done by the barrow-digger, is to push aside a debateable question by means of an assumption. Scrapers they may have been, but it is at least permissible to believe that they were also fire-producers. In due time, the strike-a-light became a specialized article, but both scraper and fire-kindler continued to find a place in the grave. Pliny speaks of the discovery of mirrors and “body-scrapers” (_specula quoque, et strigiles_)[730], in ancient tombs. These strigils, which Philemon Holland quaintly renders “currycombes[731],” and Littré, as _instruments pour les oreilles_[732], were actually, in Roman days, the scrapers of horn or metal, used by the bather to remove impurities from the skin. Thus, considered as a scraper, the strigil reaches back to the rounded flint with trimmed edges, and forward to the Mediaeval “sleeker” of stone or metal, employed by the currier in tawing hides. As a “slick-stone” of black glass, degraded, doubtless, to the ornamental stage, the object again appears in Islay, associated with a burial of the Viking period[733]. Later records of the scraper, and of the strike-a-light, definitely illustrative of the theory of funeral gifts, seem to be lacking.

A survival of the custom of furnishing the dead with fire-kindlers is partially traceable in the ancient practice of depositing a candle in the grave, to light the dead man on his way. In Ireland a hammer was also interred, to enable the deceased person to knock at the gates of Purgatory, while a sixpenny piece secured admission[734]. Within the last generation a native of Cleveland was buried with a candle for the purpose of obtaining light, a bottle of wine for nourishment, and a penny to pay the ferryman[735]. The village of Bucklebury, Berkshire, by the way, supplies an instance of a different kind; in a grave apparently modern, two bottles of beer had been placed but no candle[736]! In Lincolnshire a groat, “a mug and a jug,” were placed in the coffin. The Lincolnshire widow, who had forgotten to deposit the mug and the jug in the grave, broke the crockery, as we have seen (p. 292 _supra_), and laid the fragments on the mound. In one case, where a bottle, full of pins, was found in a recently opened grave, the explanation can probably be found in sympathetic magic. The pins had been used to touch warts on the skin, and the operative belief was either that the warts were transferred to the dead person, or that, as the pins rusted, the warts would die away. The former explanation is the more likely, else the pins might as well have been buried anywhere. Mr England Howlett asserts that the burial of a candle in the coffin was once common. He throws doubt on the theory of the provision of light for the dead, and claims that the candle was emblematic of an extinguished life. Support for this new theory is sought in the custom of immuring candles in the foundation of churches and houses, of which, Mr Howlett says, many examples are known[737]. Owing to the amount of correlative evidence bearing on the question of fire-kindlers and fire-worship, I prefer to regard the candle as representing the attenuated symbolism of light and heat.

Even while referring to candles, we have been forced to observe another burial-gift--the coin placed in the hand or mouth. Since the coin had originally a supposed useful purpose, a few words may be devoted to it. The practice is at least as old as the time of the ancient Greeks, who were accustomed to place an obolus in the dead person’s mouth. To a classic origin, however, in the ordinary sense of the term, the custom cannot be limited. It prevailed in pagan Germany[738], and in Christian England. Professor Tylor cites examples from several countries, and gives a list of authorities. De Groot states that the silver coin deposited in the mouth of the corpse by the Chinese has replaced the earlier cowrie, just as it has superseded the cowrie for purposes of currency[739]. The custom of coin-burial was well known to the Romano-Britons, as is proved by the excavations of General Pitt-Rivers in Cranborne Chase. We are compelled, therefore, to postulate a more extended history than Greece or Rome would afford. Even in England the belief must have been profound, even touching, in its sincerity. Silver coins are occasionally dug up in English churchyards, and the tradition runs that such money had originally been placed in the mouth of the corpse[740]. Evidence of this kind prevents a too confident acceptance of Mr Romilly Allen’s conclusion that the idea of Charon’s penny ceased with the introduction of Christianity[741]. The spirit, if not the precise tradition, of the ancient custom long survived with some intensity. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff relates how an old Burgundian woman, being asked why she had placed a sou in the hand of a dead child, replied, _C’est pour payer le trajet à Charon_. The narrator supposes, with fair reason, that this incident revealed the lasting influence of Roman civilization over the Gaulish people[742]. The woman may have heard, or read, the classic tradition, but this is rather improbable. Folk-memory had seemingly retained the orthodox explanation, but the custom itself may go back to the time when the newly invented coin replaced some cruder amulet. From what centre, or centres, the belief in the virtue of the coin was transmitted, is at present unknown.