Byways in British Archaeology

The sonnet from which these lines are taken seems to show clearly that the poet was writing of a churchyard which was open on one side. Again, one often discovers churches of ancient foundation standing apart in the fields, and having a fence composed of wooden rails or iron hurdles of such modern date that one is forced to believe that the area has only been shut in for a few generations. The church of Little Washbourne, Gloucestershire, already ruinous when I saw it in 1888, is an instance which comes to mind. The tiny church of Woldingham (Fig. 68), which is situated near the escarpment of the North Downs, lay in the open fields, and the ground was apparently unenclosed down to the year 1852. The building, which measured only 30 feet by 17 feet, was rudely constructed of flints and “firestone” (from the Upper Greensand), but has since been restored more than once. The old structure was “desolate [and] dilapidated” so far back as the time of Evelyn[921]. The illustration shows the restored church of a century ago. To-day the building is approached by a short road. The visitor will notice how small a strip of ground was left on the North side when the boundaries were marked out. Seeking examples elsewhere, we observe that, in the marshland of East Lincolnshire, churches must have been built before the district was effectively drained, and therefore, before the existing boundary ditches or dykes were cut[922].

Fig. 68. The restored church of Woldingham, Surrey, as it appeared in 1809. (Manning and Bray.) The view seems to be taken from the North side. Behind the church, on the South side, is a large yew, much decayed, and partially hollow. To the right, just out of the drawing, is a huge ash, which to-day measures 20 feet in circumference at a height of 3 feet from the ground. The churchyard was probably unenclosed until a comparatively late date.

The prejudice against burial on the North side can be traced beyond the advent of Christianity. It is one of those “clinging faiths and fears” which beset the early folk of these islands. As a result of the examination of several hundred British barrows, Canon Greenwell found that, in secondary burials, bodies were rarely deposited on the North side of the mound, the most favoured positions being towards the South and East[923]. Mr J. R. Mortimer, after quoting Canon Greenwell’s observations, confirms them by the testimony of the mounds of Yorkshire. Canon Atkinson’s experiences yielded similar results. During the course of many years, he opened some eighty “houes” or grave-mounds in his own district of Danby-in-Cleveland, and found one interment only in which the body “lay a little, and but a little, North of the magnetic East-and-West line[924]” (i.e. the median line). The evidence derived from megalithic monuments and prehistoric dwellings and settlements tends the same way. The chilly North was shunned; the brilliant East and the gracious South were courted. These ancient preferences were emphasized in the building of temples and Christian places of worship. Egregious among these old-world superstitions stands the hatred of the North. All the inherited antipathies of primeval folk were long retained by their civilized successors, and hence the Northern portion of the graveyard was allotted to those who were deemed spiritually undeveloped or spiritually lost.

Another fact which tends to prove the continuity of the superstition is that, during the Romano-British period, the bodies of persons who had committed suicide were not allowed to be burnt. The prohibition was afterwards extended to those who had died in their infancy[925].

Surveying the general question of suicide, one or two intermediate stages of folk-custom may be noted. In the early days of English history, suicides and murderers were buried at crossroads. It has been argued that this procedure was not altogether intended to heap indignity on the corpse, but that the intersecting roads were emblematic of the Cross, for which reason such spots were therefore deemed self-consecrated[926]. That this idea was prevalent two or three hundred years ago, one would not care to deny; nevertheless it was a late accretion. Else, why was a stake driven through the body of the person so interred? Dishonour to the dead may not, indeed, have been the primary motive which impelled the survivors to behave in this manner, although a desire to prevent the ghost walking was doubtless a strong constituent[927]. The living would naturally object to the burial of a criminal or murderer near an inhabited house[928]; the ghost, angry at being disembodied, according to the elementary notions of our forefathers, might walk abroad, and wreak vengeance or disaster on whomsoever it would. This fear was common among priscan folk, and is widespread even at the present day. Professor Frazer has shown how the natives of Uganda bury still-born babes, and children born feet foremost, at cross-roads. Women, passing by, throw dust or grass on the mound to prevent the spirit entering themselves and being reborn. The bodies of suicides are also burned at cross-roads.

Westermarck has collected and collated many analogous practices and beliefs from such far-sundered countries as India and Servia, Japan and Morocco[929]. If, following this high authority, we are disposed to agree that the crossways were believed to disperse such energy as might be ascribed to the deceased person[930], that this mode of interment diverted diseases, and warded off all evil influences from the living, we shall the more readily perceive why the superstition retained its vitality in later times. When the Cross became the symbol of the new religion, the old belief about suicides was reinforced so far as the idea of protection was concerned, though the superstition might be weakened in respect of any supposed indignity to the dead. Even here, however, there is room for further investigation, and writers like Mr Andrew Lang have questioned whether the supposed efficacy of the Cross is a sufficient explanation[931]. The idea of abandonment, as it appears to the present writer, must have been an essential portion of the ceremony, and this was the natural consequence of the theory that the soul of the suicide was self-doomed to perish.

A middle stage of the belief is illustrated by the Scottish practice of burying self-murderers outside the churchyard, but close by the wall. (Cf. p. 352 supra.) This plan was afterwards modified to the extent of allowing the body to come technically within the yard, but to be placed actually beneath the wall, so that no one might walk over the grave[932]. In England, we find constant reference to the burial of suicides in the open fields. The custom of driving a stake through the bodies of persons found felo de se has been noticed. This brutal treatment, excusable in folk who, in the dawn of the world, had a real horror of ghosts and vampires, was only abolished by law in the year 1823[933]. Yet, as if to prove the unequal working of the human mind, and to exemplify the truism that like customs have not everywhere the same lease of life, we find remarkable exceptions to the rule. While the barbarous belief concerning suicide still held its sway, church discipline was, on the whole, gradually relaxing, and ordinary burials were permitted to take place within the sacred building. Then came the exception which we have examined. A certain part of the burial-ground was devoted to burials of murderers and suicides. In at least two cases, as attested by parish registers, the bodies of murderers were admitted into the church, though still on the North side of the fabric (A.D. 1616 and 1620)[934].

The fact is, that one can scarcely mention a single custom or tradition which has not been disregarded exceptionally at certain periods, though the main current has flowed on almost as strongly as ever. No doubt each particular infraction was the result of powerful local influences. For, even to this hour, as has been clearly shown, the body of the suicide or the manslayer may be interred in the churchyard, and yet remain, according to the superstition, “out of sanctuary.”