The danger of premature interment

Among the papers of Dr. Parsons, in the Bodleian Library, is the following very extraordinary story. It is dated 1685.

In a piece of ground within two miles of Cirencester, in the county of Gloucester, commonly known by the name of Colton’s Field, as two labourers were digging a gravel pit at the foot of a hill, which they had now sunk four yards deep, they observed the ground on that side next the hill to be loose, and presently discovered an entrance into the belly of the hill, which appearing very strange to them, and rather the work of art than nature, one of them ventured a little way in, and by the light from the hole, discovered a large cavity; whereupon they got a lanthorn and candle to make a further search into it. By the advantage of this light, the first place they entered, appeared to have been a hall, which was large, and in it two tables with benches on each side, which they no sooner touched, to feel their substance, but they crumbled into dust. From thence they saw a passage into another room, which, by the furniture, had been a kitchen. Several utensils proper to it, as pots, kettles, &c. being of brass or iron, continued somewhat firm, but eaten through with rust and canker.

Beyond the hall, they went into a parlour furnished, according to the fashion of those times, with carpets richly wrought, and other furniture agreeable: these also fell to pieces upon their touching them. At one corner of the room, there appeared to have been a pair of stairs; but the earth had fallen in, and stopt the ascent. Going back into the hall, they observed another opening, which led them into a square room, ornamented with carved work in several parts, supposed to have been a place of worship and devotion, by images in the wall; and at the upper end of it, they found several urns, some of which had only ashes in them, others were filled with coins and medals, of gold, silver, and brass, with Latin inscriptions, and heads of several Roman Emperors.

As they went searching about this room, they spied a door, which had been strongly patched with iron, but the wood being rotten, with a little force it fell in pieces; and looking in, to their great astonishment, they saw the image of a man in full proportion, with a truncheon in his hand, and a light, in a glass like a lamp, burning before him. This very much affrightened them at first, imagining it to be a devil in that shape, or a guardian spirit set there to defend some hidden treasure; the hopes whereof so far encouraged them at last, that one of them ventured a step in, but upon his first descent, the image seemed to strike at him; at which they were both so terrified, that they durst proceed no further; but went back, and taking many of the medals and coins with them, out of the urns, at night acquainted a gentleman, who is a famous antiquary, with the discovery they had made, what they had seen, and the money they had found; shewing him several pieces; upon which he ordered them to keep the matter private; promising to go with them the next morning, which he accordingly did.

After he had viewed the other rooms with wonder and delight, they conducted him to the place where the image was, which he supposed might, by some great artist, be made to strike at certain times; therefore without any apprehension of danger, went in; and, as before, upon his first step, the image made an offer to strike; so at the second step, but with a greater force: at the third step, it struck a violent blow on the glass, where the light was, which broke it in pieces, and quite extinguished it (the light) that, had they not been furnished with a lanthorn and candle, their condition would have been desperate. The image appeared to have been the effigy of some Roman General, by those ensigns of martial honour which lay at his feet. On the left hand lay two heads embalmed. The flesh was shrivelled up, and looked like parchment scorched, of a dark complexion. They had long hair on the chin; one seemed to be red, and the other black.

Upon further search were found several other passages leading to other houses, or different rooms of the same house; but a hollow voice, like a deep sigh or groan, prevented any other discovery. Our adventurers hastily quitted those dark apartments, which they had no sooner done, than the hill sunk down, and buried all the rarities, except those medals and coins taken out the night before, which are now shewn for the satisfaction of the curious and ingenious, who in great numbers flock to see them, and purchase them at great rates, as most valuable relics of antiquity.

Kommanus tells us, that in Valentia, a city of Spain, there was found the body of Adonizam, the servant of King Solomon, together with his epitaph in Hebrew. It appeared, that he had laid buried above two thousand years, yet was he found uncorrupted: so excellent a way of embalming the dead were those skilled in, who lived in the Eastern Countries.

He also mentions the body of Cleopatra, which had remained undamaged for an hundred and twenty-five Olympiads, viz. five hundred years, as appears by the letter of Heraclius the Emperor to Sophocles the philosopher.

I remember not, continues Kommanus, to have read any thing like this amongst the Romans, unless of the body, as some say of Tulliolæ, the daughter of Cicero, which was found entire and uncorrupted (as some have computed) one thousand and five hundred years, the particulars of which are described as follows from Houghton’s collections, volume the 2nd, page 346.

In the papacy of Paul the Third, in the Appian way, where abundance of the chief Heathens of old were laid, a sepulchre was opened; where was found the entire body of a fair virgin swimming in a wonderful juice which kept it from putrefaction so well, that the face seemed no way damnified, but lively and handsome. Her hairs were yellow, tied up artificially, and kept together with a golden circle or ring. Under her feet burnt lamps, which vanished at the opening of the Sepulchre. By some inscriptions it seems she had lain 1500 years. Who she was is not known, although many thought her to be Tulliolæ, the daughter of Cicero.

Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which (together with an image of Christ) was found at Edessa, in the reign of Justinian the Emperor. It was set over a certain gate there, and privily enclosed, as appeared by the date of it, soon after Christ was crucified: it was found burning (as it had done for five hundred years before) by the soldiers of Cosroes, king of Persia, by whom also the oil was taken out and cast into the fire; which occasioned such a plague, as brought death upon almost all the forces of Cosroes.

At the demolition of our monasteries here in England, there was found in the supposed monument of Constantius Chlorus (father to the great Constantine,) a burning lamp which was thought to have continued burning there ever since his burial, which is about three hundred years after Christ. The ancient Romans used in that manner to preserve lights in their Sepulchres a long time, by the oil of gold, resolved by art into a liquid substance.

Baptista porta, in his treatise on Natural Magic, relates, that about the year 1550, in the island Nesis in Naples, a marble sepulchre, of a certain Roman was discovered, upon the opening of which, a phial was found containing a burning lamp. This lamp became extinct on breaking the phial, and exposing the light to the open air. It appeared that this lamp had been concealed before the advent of Christ. Those who saw the lamp reported, that it emitted a most splendid flame.

The most celebrated lamp of Pallas, the son of Evander, who was killed by Turnis, as Virgil relates in the tenth book of his Æneid, was discovered not far from Rome, in the year 1401, by a countryman, who digging deeper than usual, observed a stone sepulchre, containing the body of a man of extraordinary size, which was as entire as if recently interred, and which had a large wound in the breast. Above the head of the deceased, there was found a lamp burning with perpetual fire, which neither wind nor water, nor any other superinduced liquor could extinguish: but the lamp being bored at the bottom, and broke by the importunate enemies of this wonderful light, the flame immediately vanished. That this was the body of Pallas, is evident from the inscription on the tomb, which was as follows:

A very remarkable lamp was discovered about the year 1500, near Atestes, a town belonging to Padua, in Italy, by a rustic, who digging deeper than usual, found an earthen urn, containing another urn, in which last, was a lamp placed between two cylindrical vessels, one of gold, and the other of silver, and each of which was full of a very pure liquor, by whose virtue it is probable, the lamp had continued to shine for upwards of 1500 years, and, unless it had been exposed to the air, might have continued its wonderful light for a still greater period of time. This curious lamp was the workmanship of one Maximus Olybius, who most probably effected this wonder, by a profound skill in the chymical art. On the greater urn, some verses were inscribed in Latin, which may be translated as follows:

1.

2.

3.

On the lesser urn were the following verses.

Saint Austin mentions a lamp that was found in a temple, dedicated to Venus, which was always exposed to the open weather, and could never be consumed or extinguished. And Ludovicus Vives, his commentator, mentions another lamp which was found a little before his time, that had continued burning for one thousand and fifty years.

It is supposed, that the perpetuity of these lamps, was owing to the consummate tenacity of the unctuous matter with which the flame was united, being so proportioned to the strength of the fire, that, like the radical moisture and natural heat in animals, neither of them could conquer or destroy the other. Licetus, who is of this opinion, observes, that in order to preserve this equality of proportion, the ancients hid these lamps in caverns, or close monuments: and hence it has happened, that on opening these tombs, the admission of fresh air to the lamps has produced so great an inequality between the flame and the oil, that they have been presently extinguished.

Mr. Addison in his Spectator, relates the following story of the lamp of Rosicrucius.

“A certain person having occasion to dig somewhat deep in the ground, where the philosopher Rosicrucius lay interred, met with a small door, having a wall on each side of it. His curiosity, and the hopes of finding some hidden treasure, soon prompted him to force open the door. He was immediately surprised by a sudden blaze of light, and discovered a very fair vault: at the upper end of it was a statue of a man in armour, sitting by a table, and leaning on his left arm. He held a truncheon in his right hand, and had a lamp burning before him. The man had no sooner set one foot within the vault, than the statue erected itself from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright, and upon the fellow’s advancing another step, lifted up the truncheon in his right hand. The man still ventured a third step, when the statue with a furious blow broke the lamp into a thousand pieces, and left his guest in a sudden darkness.”

Upon the report of this adventure, the country people soon came with lights to the sepulchre, and discovered that the statue, which was made of Brass, was nothing more than a piece of clock work; that the floor of the vault was all loose, and underlaid with several springs, which, upon any man’s entering, naturally produced that which had happened.

Rosicrucius, say his disciples, made use of this method, to shew the world that he had reinvented the ever-burning lamps of the Ancients, tho’ he was resolved no one should reap any advantage from the discovery.[2]

In the tenth year of Henry II. at the digging of a new foundation in the church of St. Mary-Hill, in London, there was found and taken up the body of Alice Hackney, she had been buried in that church a hundred and seventy-five years before, yet was she there found whole of skin, and the joints of her arms pliable; her corpse was kept above ground four days without any inconvenience, exposed to the view of as many as would behold it, and then re-committed to the earth.

Baker’s Chronicle.

In the reign of King James, at Astley in Warwickshire, upon the fall of the church, there was taken up the corpse of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, who was there buried the 10th of October, 1530, in the twenty second year of King Henry VIII, and although it had been lain seventy eight years, in this bed of corruption, yet his eyes, hair, flesh, nails, and joints, remained as if he had been but newly buried.

In the year 1554, there was found in Rome a coffin of marble, eight feet long, and in it a robe, embroidered with Goldsmith’s work, which yielded six and thirty pounds weight of gold; besides forty rings, a cluster of emeralds, a little mouse, made of another precious stone, and amongst all these precious magnificences, two leg bones of a dead corpse, known by the inscription of the tomb to be the bones of the Empress Mary, daughter of Stilicoe, and wife of the Emperor Honorius.

Robert Braybrook, born at a village in Northamptonshire, was consecrated Bishop of London, January, 5th, 1381. He was after that Chancellor of England for six months. He died, anno. 1404, and was buried under a marble stone, in the chapel of St. Mary, in the Cathedral of St. Paul’s, London. Yet was the body of this Bishop lately taken up, and found firm, as to skin, hair, joints, nails, &c. For upon that fierce and fatal fire in London, September, 2nd, 1666, which burnt so much of St. Paul’s church, when part of the floor fell into St. Faith’s, this dead person was shaken out of his dormitory, where he had lain no less than two hundred and sixty two years. His body was exposed to the view of all sorts of people for divers days; and some thousands did behold and poise it in their arms, till by special order it was re-interred.

Fuller’s Worthies.

In the Reign of King Henry II. anno. 1089, the bones of King Arthur, and his wife Guenevor were found in the vale of Avalon, under an hollow oak, fifteen feet under ground, the hair of the said Guenevor being then whole and fresh, of a yellow colour; but as soon as it was touched, it fell to powder, as Fabian relateth: this was more than six hundred years after his death. His shin bone, set by the leg of a tall man, reached above his knee the breadth of three fingers.

Baker’s Chronicle.

The body of Albertus Magnus was taken out of his sepulchre, to be re-interred in the midst of the chancel in a new tomb for that purpose, it was two hundred years from the time wherein he had been first buried; yet was he found entire without any kind of deformation, unless it was this (says a celebrated historian) that his jaw seemed to be somewhat fallen.

Mr. Brydone in his travels, speaking of a Sicilian Convent, says, the famous convent of Capuchins, about a mile without the city of Palermo, contains nothing very remarkable but the burial place, which is indeed a great curiosity. This is a vast subterraneous apartment, divided into large commodious galleries, the walls on each side of which are hollowed out into a variety of niches, as if intended for a great collection of statues. These niches, instead of statues, are filled with dead bodies set upright upon their legs, and fixed by the back to the inside of the niche. Their number is about three hundred. They are all dressed in the clothes they usually wore, and form a most respectful and venerable assembly. The skin and muscles, by a certain preparation, become as dry and hard as a piece of stock fish: and although many of them have been here upwards of two hundred and fifty years, yet none are reduced to skeletons. The muscles indeed, in some, appear to be a good deal more shrunk in some than in others; probably because these persons had been more extenuated at the time of their death. Here the people of Palermo pay daily visits to their deceased friends, and recall with pleasure and regret, the scenes of their past life. Here they familiarize themselves with their future state, and choose the company they would wish to keep in the other world. It is a common thing to make choice of their niche, and to try if the body fits it, that no alterations may be necessary after they are dead; and sometimes by way of a voluntary penance, they accustom themselves to stand for hours in these niches. The bodies of the princes and first nobility, are lodged in handsome chests, or trunks; some of them richly adorned. These are not in the shape of coffins, but all of one width, and about a foot and a half or two feet deep. The keys are kept by the nearest relations of the family, who sometimes come and drop a tear over their departed friends. Some of the Capuchins sleep in these galleries every night, and pretend to have many wonderful visions and revelations; but the truth is, that very few people believe them.

In the philosophical transactions, we find the following account of a body found in a vault, in the church of Staverton, in Devonshire, by Mr. Tripe, Surgeon at Ashburton, in a letter to Doctor Huxham, dated June, 28th, 1750. There having been a great diversity of reports, says the writer, relating to a body lately discovered in a vault in Staverton church, I have taken the liberty of communicating to you the following particulars. As it does not appear by the register of the burials, that any person has been deposited in this vault since October, 5th, 1669, it is certain that the body has lain there upwards of four score years; yet, when the vault was opened, about four months ago, it was found as perfect in all its parts, as if but just interred. The whole body was plump and full, the skin white, soft, smooth, and elastic; the hair strong, and the limbs nearly as flexible as when living.

A winding sheet, which was as firm as if just applied, enclosed it from head to foot, and two coarse cloths dipped in a blackish substance, like pitch, infolding the winding sheet. The body, thus protected, was placed in an oaken coffin, on which, as it was always covered with water, was found a large stone, and a log of wood, probably to keep it at the bottom.

Various have been the conjectures as to the cause of its preservation; and it has been reported, though probably without foundation, that the person was a Roman Catholic; there have been some of that religion, who not having philosophy enough to account for it from natural causes, have attributed it to a supernatural one, and canonized him: and, in consequence of this, have taken away several pieces of the winding sheet and pitch clothes, preserving them as relics with the greatest veneration.

In my opinion, says Mr. Tripe, the pitch clothes and water overthrow the miracle, and bring it within the power of natural agents; from the former by defending the body from the external air; and the latter by preserving the tenacity of the pitch.

In the year 1448, in the ruins of an old wall of the beautiful church at Dunfermling in Scotland, there was found the body of a young man, in a coffin of lead, wrapped up in silk: it preserved the natural colour, and was not in the least manner corrupted; though it was believed to be the body of the son of King Malcolm the Third, by the Lady Margaret.

In the year 1764, the following interesting account appeared in an Italian paper.

Alexander Guavnerius, speaking of the old and great city of Kiovia, near De Borysthenes, “There are,” saith he, “certain subterraneous caverns extended to a great length and breadth within ground: here are divers ancient sepulchres, and the bodies of certain illustrious Russians; these, though they have lain there time out of mind, yet do they appear entire. There are the bodies of two princes in their own country habits, as they used to walk when alive, and these are so fresh and whole, as if they had but newly lain there. They lie in a cave unburied, and by the Russian Monks are shewn to strangers.”

Some years since, at the repairs of the church of St. Cœcilia, beyond the river Tiber, there was found the body of a certain Cardinal, an Englishman, who had been buried there three hundred years before; yet was it every way entire, not the least part of it perished, as they report, who both saw and handled it.

At the time Constantine reigned with Irene his mother, there was found in an ancient sepulchre in Constantinople, a body with a plate of gold upon the breast of it, and thereon thus engraven.—In Christum credoqui ex Mariâ Virgine nescetor: O Sol, imperantibus Constantino & Irene interrem me videbus: that is, I believe in that Christ who shall be born of Mary a Virgin: O Sun thou shall see me again, when Constantine and Irene shall come to reign.—When this inscription had been publicly read, the body was restored to the same place where it had been formerly buried.

The sepulchre of the great Cyrus, king of Persia, was violated in the days of Alexander the Great, in such a manner, that his bones were displaced and thrown out, and the urn of gold that was fixed in his coffin, when it could not be wholly pulled away, was broken off by parcels. When Alexander was informed hereof, he caused the Magi, who were intrusted with the care and keeping thereof, to be exposed unto tortures, to make them confess the authors of so great a violation and robbery: but they denied with great constancy that they had any hand in it, or that they knew by whom it was done. Plutarch says, that it was one Polymachus, a noble Pellean, that was guilty of so great a crime. It is said, that the epitaph of this mighty monarch was to this purpose.

O mortal that comest hither (for come I know thou wilt) know that I am Cyrus the son of Cambyses, who settled the Persian Empire, and ruled over Asia, and therefore envy me not this little heap of earth, where-with my body is covered.

Not long since, at Bononiæ, in the church of St. Dominick, there was found the body of Alexander Tartagnus, a Lawyer at Imola, which was perfectly entire, and no way decayed, although it had lain there from his decease above one hundred and fifty years.

Pausanius makes mention of a soldier, whose body was found with wounds fresh, and apparent upon it, although it had been buried sixty two Olympiads, that is no less than two hundred and forty eight years.