1. The body was swathed in linen, sometimes with the insignia of office, or with ornaments of gold, or gems placed in the coffin or sarcophagus.—Euseb. Vit. Const. iv. 66; Ambros. Orat. in obit. Theodos; August. Conf. ix. 12, cited in Smith’s Dict. of Christ. Antiq., sub voce “Burial of the Dead.” The insignia of office, if the deceased had held any such position—gold and silver ornaments in the case of private persons—were often flung into the open grave, and the waste and ostentation to which this led had to be checked by an imperial edict.—Cod. Theodos. xi. tit. 7, 1, 14. Ibid. So common was the burial of weapons and ornaments in Early Christian times among the Franks, that enactments against the violation of graves in search of treasure form a special feature in the Salic Laws. Gregory of Tours tells of the robbery of the grave of the wife of Gonthram, who was buried in the Church of Metz, “cum auro multo rebusque preciosis;” and Montfaucon adds that from this we see that it was not the kings only, but the great of the land also, who were at that time buried with things of price.

2. There are records of occasional cases in which the converts rebelled and went back to their old customs in spite of the efforts of the clergy to restrain them. Thus we find in A.D. 1249, that in Livonia, where heathenism lingered longer than in almost any other part of Europe, there is a solemn deed of contract entered into between the converts and the brethren of the Holy Cross, by which the converts become bound, for themselves and their heirs, never again to burn their dead or to bury with them horses or slaves, or arms or vestments, or any other things of value, but to bury their dead in the cemeteries attached to the churches.—Dreger, Codex Diplomaticus Pomeraniæ. Again we find that the Esthonian converts rebelled in 1225, took back the wives they had given up, exhumed the dead they had buried in the Christian cemeteries, and burned them, after the fashion of the old Pagan times.—Gruber, Origines Livoniæ, cited by Wyllie in Archæologia, vol. xxxvii. p. 46.

3. Si quis corpus defuncti hominis secundum ritum paganorum flamma consumi fecerit, et ossa ejus ad cinerem redierit, capite punietur.—Capitulary, A.D. 785.

4. When the grave of King Olaf at Sore was opened, a long sword was found over the body from the head to the feet. In the coffin of King Erik Glipping, in the Church of Viborg, his sword lay at his side. Kornerup, Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1873, p. 251.

5. In the Capitularia Regum Francorum we are told that the custom which had grown obsolete among the common people was retained for the clergy:—Mos ille in vulgo obsoletus in funeribus episcoporum et presbyterum retinetur.

6. Durandus says, “Clerici vero, si sint ordinati, illis indumentis induti sint, quae requirunt ordines, quos habent; si vero non habent ordines sacros more laicorum sepeliantur. Verumtamen licet in aliis ordinibus propter paupertatem hoc saepius omittatur, in sacerdotibus tamen et Episcopis nullo modo praetermittendum est.”—De Div. Off. lib. 7. Kornerup, describing the practice in Denmark, says of the burials of the higher orders of the clergy in the Middle Ages—“On their heads they bore the mitre, on their shoulders the cloak of gold brocade, on the finger the Episcopal ring, and the crosier lay by the side of the corpse. Their feet were shod, and the chalice and paten were placed in their hands.” These particulars have been verified in many instances, among which it is only necessary to mention the graves of Bishop Absalon at Sore, and Bishop Suneson at Lund.—Kornerup, Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1873, p. 251.

7. In a tumulus opened near Picton Castle, there were found, along with the skeleton of a man, a sword, a breastplate, four horse-shoes, and a gold ring, on the bezel of which were engraved the arms of Sir Aaron ap Rhys, a knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The latest instance of this custom carried out in its integrity occurred at the interment of Frederick Casimir, a knight of the Teutonic Order, who was buried with his horse and his arms at Treves in February 1781.

8. A variety of the custom of burial clothed took the form of burial in a monkish habit. It was not uncommon in the twelfth century for laymen to be thus buried, under the notion that the sanctity of the dress preserved the body from molestation by demons. Thus Erik Ploupenning sets forth in a deed dated 1241, “Votum fecimus ut in habitu fratrum minorum mori deberemus et in ipso habitu apud fratres minores Roeskildenses sepiliri.”—Pontoppidan, Annales Eccl. Dan. 1669. The idea of sanctity connected with the monastic orders led people to seek for burial, not only in the consecrated ground about the monastery, but in the habit of the monks. The right was in early times purchased by the great men of Brittany by the gift of lands and other offerings, as we have seen to be the case in Ireland.—Stuart’s Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 63.

9. Bernard, grandson of Charlemagne, who died in 818, was found with shoes on his feet when his coffin was opened in 1638. William Lyndewode, Bishop of St. David’s, who died in 1446, was buried in St. Stephen’s. When his grave was recently disturbed during repairs, the body was found unclothed, but with shoes on the feet.—Archæologia, vol. xxxiv. p. 403. In the cathedral of Worcester a skeleton was found in 1861 having shoes or sandals on its feet, the soles of which were quite entire.—Gent. Mag., Oct. 1861. The Abbé Cochet mentions a large number of instances in France, proving the existence of the custom there from the twelfth century to the seventeenth. In an account of the funeral expenses of Roger Belot, who died in 1603, there is a charge of twelve sous six deniers for a pair of shoes to place on the feet of the defunct.—Revue Archæol., vol. xxv. (1873) p. 12.

10. The Christian liturgists account for this custom on other grounds than as a simulation of the effect of cremation, or a survival by symbol; but we should not expect them to recognise it as a survival of the Pagan custom. Durandus says:—“Carbones ponantur in testimonium quod terra ilia in communes usus, amplius redigi non potest; plus enim durat Carbo sub terra quam aliud.” Is not the “ashes to ashes” of the burial service a lingering echo of this ritual?

11. Vases of glass and of clay were buried with the early Christians in the catacombs. The glass vessels were drinking cups, the clay vessels are in all probability such as were in domestic use. Garrucci gives a list of 340 of these glass vessels, many of which have the Christian monogram, or scenes from Scripture, depicted on them. There are others, however, ornamented with scenes from domestic and civil life, and even with subjects from the Pagan mythology.

12. Mabillon also notices this custom:—"L’on trouvent assez souvent dans l’anciens tombeaux des Chretiens des petits vases de terre pleins de charbons."—Dissertation sur le culte des Saints inconnus, p. 25. “Aquam benedictam et prunas cum thure apponerent.”—Beleth, De Divinis Officiis, c. 161. “Deinde ponitur in spelunca in qua ponitur aqua benedicta et prunae cum thure. Aqua benedicta ne demones qui multum eam timent ad corpus accedant; solent namque desaevire in corpora mortuorum, ut quod nequiverunt in vita, saltem post mortem egant. Thus propter faetorem corporis removendum, seu ut defunctus creatori suo acceptabilem bonorum operum odorem intelligatur obtulisse, seu ad ostendendum quod defunctis prosit auxilium orationis.”—Durandus, De Off. Mortuorum, In Rationale Div. Off. lib. vii. c. 35. “Vascula cum aqua lustrali in sepulchris apponebantur.”—Aringhi, Roma Subterranea, vol. i. p. 94. “Statutum etiam fuit ut in sepulchris crux, et aqua lustralis seu benedicta apponeretur.”—Durantes, Ex Antiq. Ritual. Sacr. Libris. apud Aringhi, loc. cit.

13. The following are a few of the localities in which these vases have occurred most abundantly:—Braquemont, Martin Eglise, Bouteilles, where over 100 vases occurred, Roux Mesnil, Neuchatel, etc. It may be interesting to indicate the range in time of the custom, by a few instances, with well-defined dates. In the coffin of Urson, Abbot of Jumieges, who died in 1127, two pierced vases were found. At Leure, near Havre, among many interments with similar vases, there was one with an inscribed slab identifying it as that of Pierre Berenguier (1270–1290). In the stone coffin there were six of these pierced vases. The stone coffin of Simon de Goucans, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1325, contained three vases, two being placed at the shoulders and one at the feet, all pierced with holes and partly filled with charcoal. In the coffin of John Count Dunois, who died in 1468, seven vases occurred. In that of Francis Longueville, who died in 1491, twelve pierced vases with charcoal were ranged along the sides of the coffin. On the right side of the wooden coffin of the Abbé François d’Orignai, who died in 1483, two pierced vases were found. In the leaden coffin of Agnes of Savoy, Duchess of Dunois, who died in 1508, there were four vases of common red unglazed ware containing charcoal. The latest precise date is furnished by an interment in the graveyard of the Benedictine monastery at Mans. The coffin, on which the inscription was still legible, Charlotte Le Normant de Beaumont, Decede le 12 Avril 1688, contained a vase with charcoal. This curious and little known custom is fully illustrated in the Abbé Cochet’s works, La Normandie Souterraine, 2d edition, Paris 1855, and its sequel Sepultures Gauloises, Romaines, Franques et Normandes, Paris 1857. See also Bulletin Monumental, vol. xxii. pp. 329–364, 425–447; vol. xxv. pp. 103–132, 273–311; Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, vol. xxii. pp. 11, 12, 294–298, vol. xxiv. p. 5–8; Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 233, vol. xxxvii. p. 399, vol. xxxviii. p. 66, vol. xxxix. p. 117; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1855, pp. 206, 290; Revue de l’art Chretien, vol. ii. (1858), p. 420; De Caumont, Cours d’Antiquites Monumentales, vol. vi. p. 316; A. Murcier, La Sepulture Chretienne en France, p. 159–164.

14. This is a frequently-occurring characteristic of the vessels partially filled with charcoal found in graves of the Carlovingian period and down to the seventeenth century in France. They are usually pierced with holes irregularly placed. In some cases the holes have been made when the clay was soft. In others the vessels have been pierced by holes driven through their sides after they were fired, as if by a nail or other pointed instrument.

15. At Bernay, where 150 of these incense vases were found, the most common arrangement was four in one coffin, two at the head and two at the feet.

16. Two instances are cited by the Abbé Cochet. Claud d’Escarbotte left orders in his will that the young lads, orphans, who were to follow him to the grave should carry each a torch and a pot with incense. Jehan Thelinige described the custom more particularly, for he prescribes in his will that the small pots with the fire and the incense shall be thrown into the grave. In the district of Morvan, says M. Jules Chevrier, the peasants even in our own days continue the custom of using funeral vases. They throw upon the coffin, when it is lowered into the grave, a porringer or some such dish of earthenware which had been ordinarily used by the defunct; and in certain parts of La Bresse they still throw into the grave the holy water vessel which had stood at the feet of the defunct previous to the ceremony of inhumation.

17. Pennant figures an iron sword of this type in the second volume of his Tour in Scotland, plate xliv., but dismisses it with the remark that it is “part of an iron sword found in Islay.”

18. The pins of all the other specimens of this type of brooch that are preserved in the Museum have been of iron, and have consequently disappeared by oxidation. Without the Ballinaby brooches we should not have known the construction of the pin.

19. See the figure of the Tiree brooch, which is engraved with the upper shell removed from its place, and each shown separately (Fig. 31).

20. A portion of a similar chain occurred in the Croy find (Scotland in Early Christian Times, Second Series, p. 23); also in the Skaill hoard, to be subsequently described; in the hoard at Cuerdale; and in a small hoard found in the Isle of Inchkenneth.

21. For this reason the geographical distribution of these brooches marks the range of the Scandinavian conquests of the ninth and tenth centuries. In Iceland, in Russian Livonia, in Normandy, in England, in Ireland, and on our own shores in Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and Sutherland, and in the Hebrides, including even the remote St. Kilda, their presence attests the historical fact of the Viking settlements from Norway. But the area in which they are specially abundant, of course, is in Scandinavia itself. I find on comparing the different records that there are now upwards of five hundred of them known in Norway. When we add the number known in Sweden, which exceeds four hundred, and those of Denmark, which only amount to thirty-eight, we have a gross total of nearly a thousand, of which the larger portion are from Norway. No archæological period in any country is marked by such a distinctly peculiar and characteristic type.

22. In a letter to me acknowledging receipt of a copy of my “Notes of the Relics of the Viking Period of the Northmen in Scotland,” Professor Rygh, Curator of the Museum at Christiania, says:—“Among the oval brooches which you have figured, there is not one that might not have been found in Norway. The brooch from Pierowall is of a form exceedingly common with us, of which I know no fewer than one hundred and eight specimens. The commonest form of all in Norway is that of the brooches from Islay and Tiree, of which we have one hundred and eighteen examples. The brooches from the Longhills at Wick belong to a variety of the last form well known with us, and that from Castletown in Caithness has many analogous examples here in Norway, although they are not so common as the two previously mentioned types.”

23. When showing the relics from the Ballinaby graves to a lady, she remarked that in her home in Caithness she remembered seeing a similar article of glass, which she was told was formerly used for a similar purpose. Though now resident in Edinburgh, she believed the implement was still preserved, and at my request she made search for it, found it, and sent it to the Museum. It is an implement so similar in form to the ancient specimen, that there can be no question as to the identity of type. It is of black bottle glass, 3 inches in diameter, and 1¾ inch thick, and is here engraved (Fig. 28) to the same scale as the specimen from the Ballinaby grave (Fig. 26). That the discovery of this lump of glass in a Pagan grave should be the means of bringing to light the existence of similar implements in Scotland which had continued in use till within living memory, is a curious illustration of the rapidity with which the knowledge of special implements and special processes becomes extinct when the implement has been superseded by a new form and its use rendered obsolete by an improved process. The placing of this specimen (of the modern type) in the Museum has brought to light other three specimens of modern calendaring implements of glass. They are of larger size and furnished with handles, which are also of glass.

24. A similar grave was found in Mull, and the brooches are in the possession of Lord Northampton at Torloisk, but I have no further information regarding them.

25. The metal of which these brooches are made is not bronze but a very soft brass. Professor Rygh has given the details of the analyses of four, and the composition of the metal is as follows:—

26. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond. 1861–64, p. 230. The comb is there said to have been of boxwood, but it seems more likely that it was of bone.

27. One of these brooches is figured in the Vetusta Monumenta of the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. ii. pl. xx., and it is there said that “the fellow of it is in the British Museum.”

28. One of these is figured by Worsaae in the Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed for 1873.

29. Pope’s Translation of Torfaeus, Wick, 1866, p. 169.

30. The other was given to Mr. Worsaae on the occasion of his visit to Scotland, and I had no difficulty in recognising it in one of the cases of the Museum at Copenhagen.

31. It was the custom of the Northmen to bury their dead in mounds raised in their honour, but they also took advantage of mounds already raised, and of natural or artificial mounds which were convenient for the purpose. See also the remarks on the use of the mounds covering the ruins of Brochs as burial-places in the subsequent Lecture on Brochs.

32. This fine sword, now broken in many pieces, was presented to the Museum in 1874 by the representatives of the late Professor Thomas S. Traill, through the Rev. G. R. Omond, Free Church minister at Monzie, one of the oldest Fellows of the Society.

33. This trefoil-shaped brooch closely resembles one figured in the Memoires de la Société des Antiquaires du Nord, 1840-44.

34. Including those found in the Viking cemetery at Pierowall, in Westray, Orkney, the total number of these brooches found in Scotland is thirty-two. The total number of Celtic brooches that I was able to enumerate was fourteen. The difference is striking, and the fact that the foreign form occurs in larger numbers than the native form is so opposed to what is naturally expected, that the explanation becomes of some interest. It is simple, but significant. The largeness of the larger number is an archæological result of Paganism. The smallness of the smaller number is an archæological result of Christianity. The effect of Paganism was that those who had brooches were buried with them. The effect of Christianity was that brooches ceased to be buried with those who had them. The tendency of the one system was to take all the brooches ultimately into the soil with the remains of the generations that wore them; the tendency of the other system was to keep the brooches from going underground. Hence we see that the preponderance of these foreign relics in the soil of Scotland (which is almost destitute of native relics of the same age and purpose) is an archæological result which is directly dependent on the difference between Paganism and Christianity.

35. They are now deposited in the Museum, and have been fully described by Professor Norman Macpherson, LL.D., in an elaborate paper, read before the Society, on the Antiquities of Eigg.

36. The tumulus contained the remains, still distinctly recognisable, of a ship in which a warrior had been entombed along with his arms and two horses. The iron nails which fastened the planks together were still visible in their places. The vessel appeared to be a galley of no great size, carrying a single mast. Alongside of the body, which was unburnt, was found a sword, the blade of iron, and the splendid hilt of gilt bronze decorated with interlaced patterns of extreme beauty and elegance. Remains of the wooden sheath and its gilt mountings were also found. A helmet of iron was also found, having a crest or ridge of bronze, containing zinc as an ingredient—the only helmet of the Pagan period in Sweden hitherto known. There were also found a magnificent umbo or boss of a shield, in iron plated with bronze, and adorned with patterns of interlaced work, the handle of the shield, nineteen arrow-heads, the bits of two bridles, a pair of shears, all in iron; thirty-six table-men and three dice, in bone. Besides these there was an iron gridiron and a kettle of thin iron plates riveted together, with a swinging handle, as also bones of swine and geese, probably the remains of the funeral feast.—La Suede Prehistorique, par Oscar Montelius, Stockholm, Paris, and Leipzig, 1864, p. 114.

37. Figured in the previous series of Lectures—Scotland in Early Christian Times, p. 29, Fig. 22.

38. Sometimes the description of a burial mentions the digging of a grave instead of the raising of a mound. When Thorolf died, Egil took his body and prepared it according to the custom of the time, then they dug a grave and placed Thorolf in it with all his weapons and raiment, and Egil placed a gold bracelet on each of his arms, then they placed stones over him, and earth over all.

39. Suorri says that the custom of burning the body was over before the time when the historical sagas begin their chronicle of events. The fact that it is represented in the mythological sagas as the burial rite of the Æsir, in the Twilight of the Gods, shows that it was out of memory as a human custom in Iceland.

40. A translation of this narrative is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ix. p. 518.

41. Scotland in Early Christian Times (second series), pp. 226-232.

42. Described by Mr. Petrie in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. viii. p. 367.

43. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. ii. p. 50.

44. The unscientific method of opening a burial mound by driving a trench across it cannot be too strongly condemned. No such investigation can be regarded as scientific which leaves any part of the mound or of the site beneath it unexamined; and no one should touch a burial-mound who is not prepared both to investigate and record its phenomena in a scientific manner.

45. Mr. Petrie notices a similar instance in Orkney, the bottom being formed of a lozenge-shaped piece of stone, fitted into its place by a groove cut round its circumference.

46. These vessels are figured and described by Mr. G. E. Roberts in the Mem. Soc. Anthrop. Lond., vol. i. p. 296.

47. A few notices of these are appended to show the character of the burials:—At Hof, in the district of Hedenmarken, round the church are several grave-mounds. In some of these there were found, in 1842, four axe-heads, three spear-heads, fragments of two double-edged swords, a pair of stirrups, two bridle-bits, ten arrow-points, a fire-steel, fragments of a shield-boss, a ring, a kind of pincers, and other fragments, all of iron, along with two vessels of steatite, the one having an iron handle, and the other containing burnt bones and oxidised iron fragments.—Nicolaysen’s Norske Fornlevninger, p. 59. In a circular grave-mound at Gaarden, Ostre Alm, Hedenmark, there was found an urn or vessel of steatite with remains of its iron handle, a two-edged sword contorted and broken into three pieces, a bent spear-head of iron, an iron axe-head, two shield-bosses of iron, a bridle-bit, a pair of stirrups, a strap-buckle and two iron tags, a portion of a comb of bone, pretty long, and toothed only on one side, made of small pieces of bone held between two slips of bone riveted together, two hemispherical table-men of bone, and a small figure in bone of animal resembling a dog. In the urn lay ashes.—Foreningen for Norske Fortidsmindesmækers Bevaring, 1866, p. 88. At Nordby Sagbrug, Akershus, there were found in a small low grave-mound, the pieces of a bowl-shaped urn of steatite, 7 inches diameter, in which were ashes and burnt bones, and along with it a two-edged sword of iron, the blade 30¼ inches long, a spear-head, an axe-blade, and other iron relics.—Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev., 1867, p. 49. At Elset, in Solum parish, province of Bratsberg, there was found a bowl-shaped urn of steatite of the kind so commonly occurring in graves of the later Iron Age. It had an iron hank round the rim and an iron bow-handle, and was full of burnt bones.—Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev., 1868, p. 115.