XXIX. The Burning and Burial of the Dead

William Michael Wylie Esq.

doi:10.1017/S0261340900003143

XXIX. The Burning and Burial of the Dead

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012

William Michael Wylie Esq.

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Archæology, at the present day, is no longer the ill-appreciated amusement of the few. Its study is widely spread, while its importance is generally admitted, even by those whose inclination does not lead them to pursue it as a study.

No branch of archaeology appears to excite more general interest than sepulchral research in our own land, or in those foreign lands whose early inhabitants were, so to speak, kinsmen of our forefathers. This widely-diffused interest of our day happily differs altogether from the indiscriminate curiosity of a preceding age. And if science ventures to pass the sacred threshold of the tomb, it is solely because the early domestic history of our race is only to be found recorded in the tablets of the dead.

Type: Research Article
Information: Archaeologia , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , 1858 , pp. 455 - 478

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900003143 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1858

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^{page 456 note a} Campus autem ipse dudum refertus tam bustualibus favillis, quam cadaveribus.— Sidon. Apoll. epist. xii 1. 111.

^{page 457 note a} La Normandie Souterraine, pp. 34, 167.

^{page 457 note b} Sordidior atque deformior est cadavere rogali quod, facibus admotis, semi-combustum, moxque sidente strue torrium devolutum, reddere pyræ jam fastidiosus pollinctor exhorret.—Epist. xiii. lib. 3.

^{page 457 note c} “—infusaque raptim Excussit tumulis solidatas vita favillas.”

Carm. xvi. 1 67.

“Infastiditum fers ipse ad busta cadaver.”

Carm. xvi. 1.123.

^{page 457 note d} Verbrennen der Leichen, p. 27. Berlin, 1850.

^{page 457 note e} Epist. iii. 1. 111.

^{page 458 note a} Durandi Rationale Div. Off. l. vii. c. 35, sec. 39. Debet autem quis sic sepelire, ut capita ad ocoidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad orientem in quo quasi ipsa positione orat ; et innuit quod promptus est ut de occasu festinet ad ortum : de mundo ad seculum.

^{page 458 note b} Boniface, epist. lxxi.

^{page 459 note a} D. Mythologie, p. 30, ed. 1854.

^{page 459 note b} Durandi Eationale Div. Off. l, iv. c. 24, sec. 21.

^{page 459 note c} Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 808.

^{page 459 note d} Inventorium Sepulcrale, p. 39.

^{page 460 note a} Propertius, iv. 12.

^{page 460 note b} Cæsar, de BelL Gall. vi. 19. Pomp. Mela, iii. 2, 8.

^{page 460 note c} Archæologia, vol. XXXVII.

^{page 460 note d} Herodotus, iv. 61.

^{page 460 note e} Hue's Journey in Tartary, &c.

^{page 460 note f} Herodotus, iv. 62.

^{page 460 note g} Ib. iv. 68.

^{page 461 note a} Herodotus, v. 5, 8.

^{page 461 note b} ii. 2, 4.

^{page 461 note c} Bell. Goth. ii. 14.

^{page 461 note d} De Mor. Germ. 27.

^{page 461 note e} Wilbelmi's Reports of the Sinsheim Society, passim. W. Grimm, Über Deutsche Eunen.

^{page 462 note a} Another reminiscence exists in an old treatise on cremation—“im brand zen haidengrebern”—which bears the date of 1475, when the traditions of the old rites may not have been quite forgotten. It is cited in Mone's Urgeschichte des Badischen Landes.

^{page 462 note b} Mabillon's Acta Benedict.

^{page 462 note c} Über das Gerichtswesen der Germanen, p. 38.

^{page 462 note d} Burial and Cremation. Archæol. Journal, vol. xii.

^{page 463 note a} Cogunt earn propria manu per laqueum suspensam vitam finire, et super bustum illius incensse et concrematæ corruptorem ejus suspendunt. Boniface, epist. lxxii.

^{page 463 note b} Cap. vii. Si quis corpus defuncti hominis secundum ritum paganorum flammâ consumi fecerit, et ossa ejus ad cinerem redierit capite punietur.

Cap. xxii. Jubemus ut corpora Christianorum Saxanorum ad cœmiteria ecclesise deferantur, et non ad tumulos paganorum.

^{page 463 note c} Burial and Cremation.

^{page 463 note d} Dreger's Cod. Diplotn. Pomeraniæ, No. 191, p. 286–294.

^{page 464 note a} Einhard. Vit. Car. M. c. vii. cultui dæmonum dediti, religioni contrarii.

^{page 464 note b} In Trithermii Oper. Fran. 1601.

^{page 464 note c} La Normandie Souterraine, p. 320.

^{page 464 note d} Ib.

^{page 465 note a} La Normandie Souterraine, p. 409.

^{page 465 note b} Si quis hominem ingenuum, seu in sylva seu in quolibet loco, occiderit, et ad celandum igne combtisserit, &c. Si quis antrussionem, vel fœminam taliter interfecerit, ant celaverit, aut igne cremaverit, &c.

^{page 466 note a} Verbrennen der Leichen, p. 36.

^{page 466 note b} In Ynglingasaga, cap. xxvii.; also Saxo.

^{page 466 note c} Fragment, 117. Κίοι τοὺς ἀποθαντας κατακαύσαντες, καὶ ὀστολογήσαντες, ἐν ὄλμῳ τὰ ὀστᾶ καταπτίσσουσιν, εῖτα ἐνθέντες εἰς πλοῖον, καὶ κόσκινον λαβόντες ἀναπλέουσιν εἰς πέλαγος, καίπρὸς τὸν ἄνεμον εξοδιάζουσιν, ἄχρις ἀν πάντα ἐκϕυσηθῆ καὶ ἀϕανῆ γένηται.

^{page 466 note d} Nordmanni cadavera suorum flammis esurentes noctu diffugiunt, et ad classem dirigunt gressum,— Chronicle of Regino, in Pertz's Monumenta, vol. i. p. 591.

^{page 466 note e} Deutsche Myth. p. 790.

^{page 467 note a} Sed Estones propter tantam suorum cladem ad persequendum Letthos venire non præsumebant; sed tristia funera, a Letthis sibi invecta, multis diebus colligentes, et igne cremantes essequias cum lamentationibus, et potationibus, multis, more suo celebrabant.—Gruber, Origines Livoniæ, p. 58.

^{page 467 note b} Et receperunt uxores suas tempore Christianitatis suæ demissas, et corpora mortuorum suorum in coemeteriis sepulta de sepulchris effoderunt et more paganorum pristino cremaverunt.—Id. p. 155.

^{page 467 note c} Mortuos suos cremantes fecerunt planctum suum super eos.—Id. p. 68.

^{page 467 note da} Corpora mortuorum cum pretiosissima supellectile, qua vivi maxime utebantur, cum equis, amis, et duobus veneratoriis canibus, falconeque cremabant.—Guagnini de Orig. Lithuanorum, in Pistorii script, rer. Polon.

^{page 467 note e} Glanvil writes of the Livonians in 1350, “Mortuorum cadavera tumulo non tradebant, sed populus, facto rogo maximo, usque ad cineres comburebat.”

^{page 467 note f} Epist. lxii.

^{page 468 note g} Böhmens heidnische Opfenplätze, Gräber, und Alterthümer ; by Dr. M. Kalina von Jäthenstein. Prag. 1836. Grundzüge der Böhmischen Alterthumskunde ; by J. E. Wocel. Prag. 1845. Wilhelmi's Sinsheim Society's Reports, 1848.

^{page 468 note a} Published in a German translation by Frähn, at St. Petersburg, in 1823.

^{page 468 note b} “The Brahmins, together with an old hag that held her under the arm, thrust her on, and made her sit down upon the wood ; and, lest she should run away, they tied her legs and hands, and so they burned her alive.”—Brennier.

^{page 468 note c} Lindenschmit's Todtenlager, bei Selzen.

^{page 468 note d} Collectanea Antiqua, vol. ii. p. 219.

^{page 470 note a} Hydriotaphia, chap. ii.

^{page 470 note b} Collectanea Antiqua, vol. i. p. 41. Pagan Saxondom, p. 35.

^{page 471 note a} Livländische Reimchronik, herausgeben von F. Pfeiffer. Stuttgart, 1844.

^{page 471 note b} Collectanea Ant. vol. ii. p. 228. Journal of Arch. Association, vol. iii.

^{page 471 note c} Journal of Arch. Assoc. vol. iii. Collect. Ant. vol. ii.

^{page 471 note d} Archæologia, vol. XXXIII.

^{page 472 note a} Archæological Inst. Journal, vol. xiv.

^{page 472 note b} Archæologia, vol. XXXVII.

^{page 472 note c} Vol. XXXVI. p. 270.

^{page 473 note a} Collect. Antiq. vol. ii. p. 165. West Suffolk Inst. Journal.

^{page 473 note b} Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. ii. p. 109.

^{page 473 note c} Archæologia, vol. XXXVI. plates xxii. xxiii.

^{page 475 note a} A valuable instance of this occurs in a charter of the year 976. (Cod. Dipl. 595.) “ðonon forð on ða mearce ó Beonotleage gemære : sw´ on ðone hæðenan byrgels : ðonan west on ða mearce ðǽr Ælfst´n lið on hæðenan byrgels.” Ælfstan clearly was some Saxon of note, and most probably a Christian, whose remains were thus interred after the ancient custom, not in the “cemeteria ecclesiæ,” but “ad tumulos paganorum.”

^{page 476 note a} Collectanea Antiq. i. p. 98.

^{page 476 note b} Kemble's Burial and Cremation, in Archæological Journal, vol. xii.

^{page 476 note c} Proceedings of the Bury and West Suffolk Archæological Institute, vol. i, p. 27.

^{page 476 note d} Plate xxiv. p. 47.

^{page 476 note e} Vol. ii. p. 164.

^{page 476 note f} Wilhelmi's Sinsheim Reports, 1846.

^{page 476 note g} La Normandie Souterraine, p. 142.

^{page 477 note a} “The names to which I now have to refer you are these :—

1st. Those compounded with A'd, the funeral pile, strues rogi, the actual burning-place of the dead :

A'desh´m, now Adisham, in Kent. Cod. Dip. 983.

Ædes wyrd, in Worcestershire. Ib. 1,062.

2nd. Those compounded with Bǽl, which is nearly equivalent in meaning to A'd :

Bæles beorgh, in Gloucestershire. Cod. Dip. 90.

Bæle. Cod. Dip. 765.

3rd. Those compounded with Bryne, the combustion, burning; or brand, which is nearly equivalent to it:

Brandes beorgh. Cod. Dip. 1,335.

Brynes cumb. Ib. 457.

Brynes hám. Ib. 675.

Brynes hyl. Ib. 1,094.

Brynes sól. Ib. 1149.

Brynes stede. Ib. 204.

Brynenja tún. Ib. 1152.

4th. Those compounded with Fin, which, like A'd, denotes the pile itself, strues rogi: Finbeorgh. Cod. Dip. 468.

Finestün. Ib. 520.”

From Kemble's “Notices of Heathen Interments in the Codex Diplomaticus” in Arch. Journal, vol. xiv. p. 135.

See also on this subject of nomenclature, Grimm, “Über das Verbrennen der Leichen,” p. 41.

^{page 477 note b} Nenia Britannica.

^{page 477 note c} Collectanea Antiqua, vols. i. ii.

^{page 477 note d} Archæological Index. Pagan Saxondom.

^{page 478 note a} Kemble, Burial and Cremation.

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