or suspected) to be guilty, and in this sense it is an appellation extremely proper for a person who has been accused, and is about to put himself on his trial.]

1759, June and July.

LI. Stone Coffin discovered at Litchfield.

MR. URBAN,

Litchfield, Jan. 13.

ON the 10th of October last, as some workmen were removing the soil near the north door of the great cross isle of our cathedral church, at the depth of little more than three feet, they discovered a tombstone, of an uncommon size, being near fifteen inches thick, upon which is rudely engraved a Calvary cross, having a falchion on the dexter side, with its pummel erect. Upon displacing the stone, (though not exactly underneath it) a coffin, of a different kind of stone, with a lid cemented with mortar, was discoverable, and placed due east and west. Within the coffin were to be seen the remains of a human skeleton: the scull, the leg and thigh bones, and the vertebræ of the back were pretty entire, but the rest were mouldered into dust. The scull reclined towards the right shoulder,

the arms were a-cross; but every part was disunited.

As the basis of the cross (see the cut) is different from most I have seen, I should be glad to hear the sentiments of some of your correspondents upon that head, as well as to be informed, whether the falchion does not denote the ceased to have been a warrior.

Ás our dean and chapter have lately removed a building which obstructed a near approach to the north side of the cathedral, and foreshortened the prospect; and are now levelling the ground, and laying it out in a more commodious manner, I am in hopes that something more of this sort may be discovered. If this should happen to be the case, you may expect to hear again from, Sir,

Yours, &c.

RICHARD GREEN.

To Mr. Richard Green of Litchfield.

SIR, ALTHOUGH I can say but little, I fear, to your satisfaction, on the points you propose for discussion, to wit, the figure of the cross upon that ancient tombstone, &c. yet I am always very desirous of giving you every testimony of my regard, and shall accordingly select some matters, relative to the discovery lately made at Litchfield, which I hope may not prove entirely disagreeable, and of which therefore I beg your acceptance.

A question may be started, whether the tombstone, and the stone coffin, belong to one and the same person, since the coffin did not lie exactly under the stone; but I think we may acquiesce in the affirmative, as they are things perfectly consistent one with another, and that a small displacing of the tombstone might happen from various causes.

The person interred, whoever he was, was strongly immured, or rather oppressed with stone,

-Tenet hic immania Saxa,

but I doubt this circumstance will not enable us to discover who he was; and, indeed, the coffin brings with it so few data from the shades, that, in my opinion, nothing certain can be known, either as to the person, or the time of inter

ment.

It appears to me from the great number of stone coffins,* found in this kingdom, that formerly all persons of rank and dignity, of fortune and fashion, were buried in that manner.

The Sarcophagus, which is a Greek word, but adopted by the Latins, and signifies a coffin or a grave, has its name from a certain property which the stone is said to have had,

* At Chesterfield, and Dronfield, in Derbyshire; at Notgrove, in Glocestershire. See also Thornton's Antiq. of Nottinghamshire, p. 456. Camden's Britannia, p. 508, 588, 725. Dugdale's Monasticon, tom. ii. p. 124. Somner's appendix No. xxxviii. Weaver's funeral Mon. p. 262. Drake's Eboracum, p. 420, &c.

of consuming the dead body in a few days;* but without visiting the ancient Greeks and Romans, I shall shew, which is more to the purpose, that this was the custom amongst our Saxon ancestors; the number of the coffins found, is itself no inconsiderable proof of it; but there is a clear instance in Ven. Bede, who, speaking of Queen Ædylthryd, or St. Awdry, that died of the pestilence in the year 669, says, she was buried, by her express command, by or near the other persons of the monastery, whereof she was abbess, according to the order of her death, and in a wooden coffin, et æque, ut ipsa jusserat, non alibi quam in medio eorum, juxta ordinem quo transierat, ligneo in locello sepulta.'t This implies, that otherwise, a person of her high birth, and great dignity, would have been buried in a coffin of stone. This inference is undoubtedly just, for it follows after, in the same author, that her sister Sexburg, who succeeded her as abbess, after she had lain in her grave 16 years, caused her bones to be taken up, put into a new coffin, and translated to a place in the church. Jussitque quosdam fratres quærere LAPIDEM, de quo LOCELLVM in hoc facere possent: qui ascensa navi,-venerunt ad civitatulam quandam desolatam,-et mox invenerunt juxta muros civitatis LOCELLVM de MARMORE ALBO pulcherrime factum, operculo quoque similis LAPIDIS aptissime tectum,' &c.

Let this then suffice for the antiquity of these stone coffins in this island. As to more modern times, the use of them continued it seems as late as the reign of Henry III. for William Furnival, who flourished at that time, was buried in a stone coffin, as we find in Dr. Thornton's Nottinghamshire, p. 456, and Sir William Dugdale's Monasticon, Tom. ii. p. 926. The metrical epitaph being misreported by both those authors, I shall here recite it, with the proper corrections.

Me memorans psalle, simili curris quia calle,
De Fournivalle pro Willelmo, rogo, psalle.

But, in some cases, the custom continued as long as Henry VIII.'s time, as appears from Brown Willis's Cathedrals, Vol. ii. p. 59.

But how comes this coffin, you will ask, to be without the church, and on the north side of it? It is true hat, according to our present usage, few people are buried in our ordinary

Pliny N. H. Lib. xxxvi. e, xvii.

+ Bede iv. c.xix,

parochial church yards, on the north side of the church. But in cities and towns, you are sensible, it is otherwise, and I suppose I need not give instances to you. As to the other particular, the coffin's lying without the fabric, I imagine it never was within it; for when Roger Clinton, bishop of Litchfield, about the year 1148, erected your present neat and elegant cathedral, he certainly did not contract, but rather enlarged the dimensions of the old foundation.Until the time of Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, whose pontificate began A.D. 740, and ended in 748, the custom of burying within the precincts of towns and cities did not prevail here. But it was not till towards the Norman conquest, that persons, how great soever, were buried in churches, unless it happened that they were removed thither on account of their extraordinary sanctity, and in order to be reputed and worshipped as saints. Thus St. Awdry above, was translated into the church by her sister; and 'Bede tells us of your Litchfield prelate, St. Chad, 'Sepultus est primo quidem juxta ecclesiam sanctæ Mariæ; sed postmodum constructa ibidem ecclesia beatissimi apostolorum principis Petri, in eandem sunt ejus ossa translata,†' and this is very agreeable to that canon of King Edgar, 'docemus etiam ut in ecclesia nemo sepeliatur, nisi sciatur quod in vita deo bene placuerit, ut inde judicetur, quod sit tali sepultura dignus.‡

The steps by which we came to bury in churches so generally, as now we do, a custom which almost every body complains of, and nobody cares to rectify, appear to me to be these. Persons of an extraordinary reputed sanctity were first placed there, as in the cases of St. Awdry, and St. Chad. Founders, and patrons, and other great names, began then to creep as near as they could to the fabric, and so were laid in the porch§; (and it is observable, that the stone coffin we are speaking of, was found lying very near the north door of the great cross) or in the entry of the cloysters, or in the cloyster itself before the chapter house door, or in the chapter house, or in the sacristy. Sometimes the bodies were reposited in the wall, first on the outside, a very notable instance of which as I remember,

* Matth. Parker's Antiq. p. 91. and Staveley's Hist. of Churches, p. 26. Bede, lib. iv. c. 3.

Wilkins's Concil. p. 227.

Staveley's Hist. of Churches, p. 261. 262. 263. Somn. Antiq, Cant. p. 117.
Dugd. Monasticon, i. p. 126. 127.

you have at your church at Litchfield, and then in the inside of the wall. In process of time, they began to erect isles, and to bury and establish chantries in them; after which they made free with the body of the church; and lastly, but I think chiefly since the Reformation, except in the cases of sanctity abovementioned, they had recourse to the chancel.

It appears from this short state of affairs, that the bones found in the stone coffin in question, must be those of some person of considerable note, that flourished some time after the year 748, but probably not till some short time after the Norman conquest, as I judge, from the form of the arch, on which the cross is erected, which is mitred, after the manner of the Normans. As to the figure of the cross, nothing precise can be determined from thence; for to say nothing of the heralds, who have varied the forms of crosses immensely, one sees them in shapes, infinitely various, upon tombstones.

We will say then, upon the footing of probability, that this person might be interred about 1170, but as to who he was, we are entirely at a loss.

On the lid or cover of the coffin, in your draught, there is the representation of a falchion, or some such instrument. Now Bede tells us, that one Ouini, a lay-brother, resided with the other Monks at St. Chad's monastery at Stowe, and was the person that heard the miraculous celestial music that presaged the death of that prelate; that Ouini was an illiterate man, not qualified for the study of the scriptures, though he was a person of note and great worth: and when he retired to a monastery, upon his leaving the world, he came 'simplici tantum habitu indutus, et securim atque asciam in manu ferens,' to Læstigaeu, 'non enim ad otium, ut quidam, sed ad laborem se monasterium intrare significabat.' From Læstigaeu he came to Stowe, where I presume he died. Certainly, the instrument expressed upon the cover of the coffin, would be proper enough to denote this person, but he cannot be the party that was interred here, because in all probability he did not long overlive the year 672, which was the time of St. Chad's death, and at that time, our ancestors did not bury in towns, so that the times and circumstances do not at all accord.

Amongst the Romans, the Ascia was very frequently put upon urns and altars, and the figure, of it is very various; this circumstance of the Ascia placed upon monuments of

* Somner's Antiq. of Canterb. p. 127. Drake's Eborac. p. 421.