(Fig. 47), the latter of which was sometimes actually called a guild-hall[414]. The church-house was essentially a parish room, built and maintained by the community, under the direction of the churchwardens. It was built in the architectural style of the period. Unlike the parsonage-house, it was not a place of residence for the clergy. Brand has shown that barns were also used—presumably the large tithe-barns, where these existed. There is reason to believe, however, that the church itself was sometimes the guest-house on these occasions. Certainly this was often the case with the “Ales” proper, to which we must now very briefly allude. The Church-ale, or

Whitsun-ale, was a kind of parochial festivity in which the churchwardens usually, though, as just noticed, not always, took the initiative. Subscriptions were invited, and, with the money obtained, large quantities of malt were bought. Contributions in kind, such as eggs and meat, were also accepted. The malt was brewed, and the liquor broached, either in the church-house,

or as Philip Stubbs (or Stubbes), the Puritan, asserts, in the sacred building itself[415]. The church-house was doubtless a familiar institution in Elizabethan England. Examples are on record where the leases of such houses expressly stipulate that they should be available for making “Quarter ales” or Church-ales. Such buildings contained all the spits, crocks, and utensils necessary for preparing the banquet[416]. In the tower of Frensham church, Surrey, there is preserved a large cauldron of beaten copper, locally known as “Mother Ludlam’s Kettle.” This vessel has doubtless played its part in many a parish feast.

Though the church-house, or, alternatively, the tithe-barn, was, after the Reformation, generally the scene of the revels, custom was not uniform, as frequent injunctions against the holding of drinking-parties and banquets within the church sufficiently testify. The transition from church to church-house was made, it would appear, in deference to Puritan opinion, but the populace was somewhat tenacious of the old habit. One great objection to the Church-ales lay in the rude and boisterous sports with which they were associated. However slight might be the murmur against quoits, bowls, or shooting at the butts, it is plain that the baiting of bulls, bears, or badgers, the loud, and possibly lewd folk-songs, the noisy dancing parties, would pass the bounds of decency and decorum, and cry out for suppression. The feast lasted a day or two, and occasionally longer. The profits of the merrymaking formed a kind of voluntary church-rate, and were devoted to church-restoration, or the purchase of service books and vessels. It has been pertinently suggested that some of the grotesque corbel heads, so frequently found in churches, may mark the restorations which were made out of the profits of Church-ales. Nothing but a village feast, it is supposed, could have furnished the sculptor with models to enable him to represent so well gluttony and drunkenness. The theory is rather harsh, but it may contain a measure of truth.

There were other Ales besides the one just described. The Bid-ale was a co-operative banquet, devised to aid some unfortunate or impoverished parishioner. The Clerk-ale was intended to provide, or to increase, the salary of the parish clerk. There were also Lamb-ales, Bride-ales, Scot-ales, and others. In fact, occasions seem actually to have been sought for holding these holy-ales, which were of a nature at once social and benevolent[417]. Needless to say, there were two sides to this, as to every question. Regrettable, even disgraceful, though the proceedings might oftentimes become, we are yet compelled to consider the original and normal conditions. The relief of the poor has been mentioned. Tyack states that, in the year 1651, so many as seventy-two parish priests of Somersetshire certified that not only were the congregations larger during a Church-ale—not a surprising fact—but that “the service of God was more solemnly performed[418].” If such opinions were held generally—and, so far as they were held at all by the clergy, they would be reciprocated by laymen—one cannot marvel at the action of the villagers of Clungunford, Shropshire, who in 1637 complained to Archbishop Laud about the discontinuance of the Easter feast. For centuries the poor and aged folk had been regaled with bread, cheese, and beer, after evensong on Easter Sunday. Fifty years previous to the presentation of the petition, in accordance with the wishes of the ruling Archbishop, the feast had been transferred from the church to the parsonage; but now it was abandoned altogether. Laud’s decision ran thus: “I shall not go about to break this custom so it be done in the parsonage house, in a neighbourly and decent way.” Similar cases might be brought forward to show that the tradition of feasting in church died hard[419].

We leave the tempting subject of church-ales, and, still considering the motives which led to the provision of such ample space within the sacred walls, we must take a glimpse of church-plays. The connection between the church and the drama has been partially dealt with by numerous writers, and exhaustively by Mr E. K. Chambers, in his Mediaeval Stage. On the character of the church plays we cannot dwell at length, nor is this necessary, for the subject has interested most antiquaries, and descriptions are to be found in many treatises. A brief enumeration, however, is desirable. There was the Passion Play at Easter, when a solemn representation of the burial and Resurrection of the Saviour was enacted at the altar, or beneath a specially constructed “sepulchre.” There was the Nativity play at Christmas, when clergy, choristers, and other folk, represented the scenes connected with the manger-birth[420]. But the best known performances were the Miracle Plays. At first, these were acted within the church walls, but, at a later date, the players were driven into the church-yard. The popularity of these plays became so great that the church could not accommodate the audience, and this consideration, rather than clerical disfavour, probably turned the scale. Indeed, when the drama had passed out of the hands of the clergy and choir, and had become appropriated by trade guilds or strolling players, when, too—it must be said—the plays had become tinged with ribaldry and profanity, the authorities seemed to have regretted the expulsion. Within the church, a certain degree of oversight was always exercised; on the village green, the censorship was lax and intermittent. Occasionally, as Dr J. C. Cox asserts, the wandering troops were still allowed to use the churches[421]. An attempt was made to recover lost ground, and miracle plays were declared sinful if played on the roads or greens[422]. We must shortly return to this phase of the question, but meanwhile let us recapitulate Mr Chambers’s theory of the development of the religious drama.

Mr Chambers, after tracing the steady evolution of religious plays, concludes that the Church gradually came to make the appeal to the mimetic instinct in mankind by means of the introduction of dramatic elements into its liturgy[423]. From the fourth century, at least, the Mass was the central object of ritual, and it was from this service, little by little, that the dramatic dialogues and representations were derived and elaborated. Originally a mere symbol of a commemorative kind, the Mass became a repetition of the initial sacrifice, invested with a dramatic character[424]. Thus the ritual play proper was evolved, and out of this, in later times, sprang the familiar miracle play[425].

We may infer, then, that there was a valid reason why the religious plays should be performed in hallowed buildings. The question arises, whether this was the usual practice, or an exceptional liberty. No less an authority than Canon Jessopp, that tireless and conscientious elucidator of ancient documents, is of opinion that the use of churches for setting forth miracle plays was rare. He cites an instance where twenty-seven parishes contributed to the expenses of one of these spectacles. From this circumstance, he concludes that there must have been a “monster performance,” and that the onlookers could not well have been sheltered within the church[426]. Perhaps the case brought forward itself represents the exception, or, at any rate, belongs to the era when plays had been driven out into the churchyard. And it is extremely probable, I think, that some of the old tithe-barns (Figs. 43, 44, pp. 171-2 supra), when almost, or quite empty, would be very serviceable as theatres. Against the verdict of Canon Jessopp—a verdict which cannot be airily dismissed—we have to set undeniable facts. Mr Chambers affirms that for a long time the church proved sufficient for the accommodation of the folk who came to watch the plays. The performances spread, perhaps by degrees, from the choir to the nave. “The domus, loca, or sedes [were] set at intervals against the pillars while the people crowded to watch in the side aisles.” It was during the twelfth century that the players first sought ampler room outside the church[427]. The ousting of the performance was a gradual process. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the liturgical play was slow in severing its intimate connection with the church. From the churchyard it passed to the church gate, and thence to the market-place, or to some croft or field. While all these changes were being made, the village fair, as a popular institution, was becoming well established, and the outdoor play was heartily welcomed by the holiday-makers[428].

The evidence produced by Mr Chambers shows, therefore, that convenience, and not clerical censure, was the prime cause at work in removing the players from the churches. The demand for ejection was afterwards reinforced by the Reformers, but by that time the result was being otherwise brought about. It now becomes still more intelligible why plays on the green were, at one period, actually denounced. The natural home of the play was the church, and in the church it lingered. “Quite apart from the survival of ritual plays proper, the miracle play, even at the moment of its extinction, had not always and everywhere been excluded from the church itself[429].” Mr Chambers gives numerous examples, and avers that the last of all the village plays—he is evidently referring to annual institutions—that of Hascombe, Surrey, in 1539, “was at, but perhaps not in, the church[430].” A few years later, Bonner forbade the presentation of plays either in the church or churchyard[431]. This edict does not seem to have been fully obeyed, for Dr J. C. Cox declares that both in pre-Reformation and post-Reformation times the authorities occasionally suffered secular country dramas and rude historic scenes to be represented in the nave of the church[432]. Nor is this all; in the sixteenth century Bishop John Bale endeavoured to counteract the miracle plays by Protestant dramas, conceived in much the same style as the genuine works (A.D. 1538, etc.). The unintentional hardihood of some of Bale’s impersonations is said to have bordered on blasphemy. This is one view of the matter; allowance must be made for an important fact, noted by Mr A. W. Pollard, namely, that Bale wrote as an antiquary, not as a controversialist[433].

Lest anyone should demur to this narrative of the miracle

play, a glance at certain customs, either pagan or semi-pagan in their origin, may help to dispel all suspicion of unfairness. The old morris-dances (Fig. 48), which were associated with the church, were occasionally, as at Whitsuntide, performed within the nave. The wardens were not infrequently entrusted with the “properties” necessary for the performance of the dances. The earlier churchwardens’ accounts contain abundant references to the costumes of the dancers and mummers. The accounts of St Mary’s, Reading, contain entries of this kind so late as A.D. 1556-7[434]. We may perhaps find the immediate exemplars of some of these dances in the fandango of the Moors, especially if, as philologists tell us, the word “morris” is connected with the name of this race[435]. The ultimate origin of the custom, however, lies deeper, and goes back to the turn-over from heathenism. Some of the dances are as essentially British as any legacies which antiquity has bequeathed to us. One example, known as “Bean-setting,” is conjectured to be derived from a primitive ceremonial dance which was once performed in the springtime, when the crops were sown. In fact, dancing, and the revels with which it was accompanied, gave great trouble to the Early Fathers, who had much difficulty in safeguarding the precincts of the church from such intrusions[436]. So recently as the seventeenth century, a writer quoted by Mr Chambers could assert that, in his lifetime, he had seen clergy and singing boys dancing at Easter in the churches of Paris. Here, surely, was a vestige of paganism. And, although one cannot produce apposite parallels from Britain, there are astounding modern survivals of this kind reported from Continental churches, for example, at Seville, and at Echternach, in Luxembourg[437]. The Whit-Tuesday dancing procession at Echternach still takes place annually and attracts a huge crowd of pilgrims. The dancing is a kind of rhythmical leap, and is performed on the way from the Abbey church to the grave of St Willibrord, and then back again. Dancing in churches at Christmas—a different matter from dancing at Easter—was not unknown in England itself in the seventeenth century. John Aubrey says that, in his day, Yorkshire folk danced in the churches at Christmas-tide, singing or crying, “Yole, Yole, Yole[438]!” Philip Stubbes, in 1583, had denounced bitterly the “Devil’s dances” in church. Mention should not be omitted also of the horn dancers of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, whose reindeer antlers, dresses, and other properties are preserved in the parish church. There are records of horn-dancing from other places, but the Abbots Bromley performance, which is still continued annually, is most instructive, because it was carefully investigated by Dr J. C. Cox about a dozen years ago. Dr Cox then found persons living who could recollect the accompanying music being played in the church porch, while the dancers executed their steps in the churchyard. Moreover, this authority credits the tradition that, in former times, the dance, which was a preliminary to making the round of the parish, was performed in the church[439].

Having considered the use of the nave for purposes of trade and amusement, we must now notice what really seems to have been an unusual occurrence—the confinement of animals within the church. The custom was uncommon, because it never seems to have been actually sanctioned. And little wonder; decency alone demanded some limitation of such ignoble uses. In permitting the building to be employed for secular purposes, there was always a danger of licence, yet it must be said that notorious laxity seems to have usually brought a reprimand. But the practice alluded to, like a troublesome weed, refused to be extirpated. Von Hefele relates that, at the Quinsext, or Trullan Synod, held in the Imperial Palace at Constantinople in A.D. 692, the following decree was passed: “No cattle may be driven into the church, except in the greatest need, if a stranger has no shelter and his animals would otherwise perish[440].” One wonders whether a certain Essex vicar, who, in A.D. 1550, was reported for allowing sheep to be folded in the church, had ever heard of this decree. At all events, he pleaded that his action was taken “for grete and extreme necessitie sake, and not in anie contempt.” He was able to prove that there had been a heavy and unexpected fall of snow, and that the animals were placed in the church to save their lives. After the storm had abated, the sheep had been removed, and the church cleaned. The offender did not altogether escape punishment, even after this plea, for he was ordered to do penance and to distribute alms to the poor of the parish[441]. The vicar might have found a still wider loophole provided by an injunction belonging to the reign of the English king Edgar. This injunction not only specifically forbids eating, drinking, and indecorous behaviour within the church, but bans the entrance of dogs, or of more pigs than could be kept under control. The position is most remarkable, though, indeed, the expression used seems equivocal, “Neque intra ecclesiae sepem canis aliquis veniat, neque porcorum plures quam quis regere possit[442].” If we assume that all churchyards were actually enclosed at this period, and if we allow the wider interpretation of “ecclesiae sepem,” as meaning the whole enclosure of church and churchyard, the decree still appears inferentially to permit a considerable latitude of custom. That, in periods of general looseness of discipline, animals were allowed to graze in the churchyard, is well known to most readers. In the same year that the Essex clergyman was summoned for folding sheep in the church, complaint was made, concerning a churchyard in the Archdeaconry of Colchester, that “hogges do wrote up graves, and besse (= cattle) lie in the porch”; while a parish priest was “sworn to penance” for putting his horse in the churchyard[443]. But the practice could not be stopped. Essex had an unenviable reputation in this respect, for Peter Kalm, in 1748, notes that in this county and in the part of Kent around Gravesend and Rochester, grazing the churchyard was customary. Horses, pigs, and donkeys, but especially horses, were pastured among the graves. The churchyard was also kept as a meadow for hay. Let the acts be reprobated to the uttermost, they could not be entirely brought to an end. During a tithe dispute between a Derbyshire prior and the parochial clergy, lambs and wool were placed in a church, and a free fight ensued[444]. This was before the Reformation, but if we turn to such a work as Mackarness’s edition of Prideaux’s Churchwarden’s Guide (1895), we find a curious hesitancy in pronouncing definitely on a somewhat kindred matter. Should the parson “merely turn a horse or a few sheep into the churchyard to pasture therein,” the churchwardens may not feel called upon to interfere. But if he lets loose animals which turn up the soil, and profane the graves, or if, again, he converts the church-porch into a stable for his horse, he may rightly be censured[445]. The mounting-blocks already mentioned (p. 157 supra) show that these maxims must, in former times, have been indifferently followed in some parishes.

Throughout the Middle Ages, there was prevalent another custom which is repugnant to modern ideas. This was the keeping of doves in or near churches. Most frequently, it is true, a separate structure seems to have been built to accommodate the birds, as at Garway, Herefordshire. The Garway dovecot, a fourteenth century building, would house 600 birds. Sometimes, as we have seen at Gumfreston (p. 115 supra), a portion of the tower was utilized as a pigeon loft, while again, as at Elkstone, Gloucestershire, a chamber was built over the chancel[446]. Incidentally, we may notice that the privilege of building a columbarium, or culver-house, as it was called, was confined to the lord of the manor, the rector, the heads of monastic houses, and freeholders. The existence of a culver-house is usually deemed a sign of Norman influence. The dovecot of Berwick, Sussex, shown in the illustration (Fig. 49), is doubtless several centuries old. A few Sussex culver-houses probably go back to the twelfth or thirteenth century, but such examples are generally in ruins. The Berwick dovecot can be traced back at least to the year 1622, when it was rented from the parson for five pounds a year.

Most persons are familiar with the old box pew, in which the territorial family used to sit during service. Frequently these apartments—for they really deserved this name—contained a fireplace. Pre-Reformation fireplaces are rare in churches, but in the Norbury chapel, or chantry, at Stoke D’Abernon, Surrey, there is a specimen dating c. A.D. 1490. During the worst days of the large private pews, which were often partially screened from the body of the church, a special compartment

was sometimes provided for the dogs of the local squire. Examples of these recesses could be seen at Aveley, Essex, and Northorpe, Lincolnshire, not much more than a century back[447]. At Northorpe, the dogs’ pew was just within the chancel arch. Nevertheless, not everyone, was permitted to take his dog to church. The dog-whipper was a recognized officer in many churches, and it is common to find, in church accounts, entries relating to the payment of this functionary[448]. In some cases the office was endowed, and the salary, though small, was fixed. His pew was sometimes marked with the words “The dog-whipper.” The dogs kept out of the building were doubtless those belonging to farmers and shepherds. Custom was not uniform, but, as a rule, the minister does not seem to have raised any objection to quiet animals. Some of the contrivances employed by the dog-whipper, or “dog-noper” (noper, knauper = striker), are peculiar. Generally, the weapon was a thick stick, to which was attached a stout lash or thong, but in some churches instruments known as dog-tongs (Fig. 41, p. 169 supra) were used. These weapons were especially necessary when shepherd dogs flew at each other’s throats. Such fights often led to local disputes, and the incumbent then felt bound to interfere.

There are records which are more distasteful even than those which tell of taking dogs to church. When we read of card-playing and cock-fighting in church, we are really compelled to regard these as acts of wanton impiety which marked a period of deadness in religion. The records are certainly sporadic. Again, there is good reason to believe the tradition, met with at Chislehurst and elsewhere, that parishioners left the house of prayer and walked across the green to the cockpit. At Hayes, in Middlesex, it is said that the uncouth and brutal custom of throwing at cocks in the churchyard was kept up so late as A.D. 1754[449].

It has been a difficult feat to disentangle the secular use of the nave from that of the churchyard. The reason is simple: the play of social and administrative forces was rarely quite balanced and continuously uniform for any considerable length of time. Alternately, the church and the graveyard were utilized for parochial purposes, as ecclesiastical power and public opinion rose and fell. In addition, before the final severance was made, there was a period when assemblies were allowed to be held in the churchyard, on sufferance only. We have seen that, when fairs and markets were impending, the clergy sometimes permitted the church to be used as a warehouse or exchange. Contemporaneously with, as well as subsequently to, this use of the church, we find the traders being pushed into the churchyard, and thence to the village green, or a pasture field.

The village fair was commonly held on the day which was dedicated to the patron saint of the church. This coincidence often proves helpful to the investigator, for when the original dedication of a church has been lost, it may perhaps be recovered by noticing the date of the fair, which gives the anniversary of the saint[450]. (The saint’s day and the dedication festival are not now always coincident, but the divergence may not be a primitive feature.) The agreement of dates doubtless takes us back to the days when Christianity had not yet become supreme, and when the leaders took advantage of any casual support, such as would be obtained by holding the patronal festival on a day devoted to the affairs of popular assemblies or the pleasures of a general holiday. Naturally, there long remained a close connection between the feast and the church fabric which was the centre of much of the activity of the community. When fairs, in the strict sense, began to be held, the old date of the feast would still be retained. For many a century, too, no serious attempt was made to deprive the merry-makers of the right to meet within the sacred enclosure. Farmers came to buy or sell stock, labourers stood for hire, merchants arrived from distant towns to trade in wool or grain, pedlars spread their wares on the tombstones in the churchyard, while the populace gave itself over to pastime and refreshment.

Intermittently, murmurs were heard respecting these doings. Thus, in a presentment (A.D. 1416) from St Michael-le-Belfry, in the city of York, complaint is made of the tumult and clamour caused by the traders. On Sundays and holidays there was “a common market of vendibles in the churchyard.” All kinds of goods were exposed for sale (diversa res et bona ac cirpi [= rushes] vendicioni ibidem exponuntur); while horses stood over the dead and defiled the graves[451]. Especially when a cathedral or church possessed some famous shrine or relic, as at Canterbury, Walsingham, and Glastonbury, pilgrims and traders met on common ground. For a long time it was customary, at St Audrey’s fair, to erect booths in Ely Cathedral, for the sale of laces made of thin silk[452]. Pilgrims from afar would naturally require refreshment at the end of their journey, and the victuallers of the cities were always ready to meet the demand. But, unfortunately, to the legitimate buying and selling of food and drink, was appended the boisterousness of minstrels, actors, and jugglers[453].

Perhaps the most important legislation against churchyard commerce is contained in the Statute of Winchester, A.D. 1285 (13 Edw. I., c. 6), which forbade the holding of fairs and markets in churchyards[454]. The act, however, proved ineffectual, for, in A.D. 1368, Archbishop Simon Langham found it necessary to issue a mandate against Sunday markets in the Isle of Sheppey, where the traders approached so near the church as to interrupt the celebration of Mass. Later infractions have already been noticed (p. 174 supra), so that the story may be cut short by citing such cases of survival as those of All Saints, Northampton, and Laughton-en-le-Morthen, Yorkshire, where, until modern times, fairs were held in the churchyards[455]. The churchyard at Laughton was of enormous size, and in this respect, at least, was well adapted for its purpose.

I have suggested that the coincidence of fair day and saint’s day is a vestige of a very early compromise, when the dedication festival was substituted for heathen ceremonial. The idea may be pursued in two other directions. First, we might observe how many fairs, or feasts, are held at seasons which are known to correspond to pagan festivals, for example, Whitsuntide and midsummer. It would then be seen to what extent the dedication periods were in harmony with those of festivals, either as regards actual coincidence of dates, or preliminary warnings.

Sir Norman Lockyer and the Rev. J. Griffith have called attention to the large number of fairs which are held on the festival, or quarter days, of the “May Year.” These writers consider that such fairs are the representatives of meetings summoned when fires were lighted and Gorsedds or Gorseddau (see p. 98 supra) were erected. The fairs and the churches together “mark for us the loci of the original circle-worship, and the fact that we are dealing with the May Year and not the solstice shows that we have to do with a very high antiquity.” Our fairs, according to this view, represent “thousands of British Gorsedds, the pedigrees of which are as unimpeachable as that of the Welsh institution[456].” To the present writer, this theory seems to go much beyond the recorded facts, but time and further inquiry may tell.

The second mode of research is to ascertain with what frequency the village fairs are, or were, kept near ancient monuments or earthworks. Thus, from time immemorial a sheep fair has been held within the oval camp on the top of Woodbury Hill, near Bere Regis, in Dorset[457]. Mr Thomas Hardy has seized upon this fact, and has deftly worked it into the opening chapter of Far from the Madding Crowd. Another earthwork used in this way is that known as Yarnborough, or Yarnbury Castle, in the parish of Hanging Langford, Wiltshire[458]. As these words are being written, one may see bills on the walls in London announcing that special trains are to be run on the day of the fair.

Further corroboration might be given, if it were desirable. Sometimes it is a “blue stone,” or a stone pillar, where the concourse of traders gathered. At North Thoresby, in Lincolnshire, the fair was held near a “blue stone” in a meadow near the church called Boundcroft—a significant name.

Intimately connected with the question of fairs held near old earthworks, are the sports which were associated with such places. And, in fact, the fairs and the games are two phases of one subject, while both features, in turn, will illustrate the inability of the early founders of the Church to eliminate pagan customs.

Hence, though for the moment we may appear to wander from our theme, we shall soon see that the matter is not extraneous. When we learn, for instance, that Wiltshire villagers were wont to climb Cley Hill to play a game with balls and sticks within the British earthwork at the summit, and when we hear that this took place on Palm Sunday, we express only mild surprise[459]. When, however, we read of a similar procession of men and maidens, again occurring on Palm Sunday, to the prehistoric camp on the top of St Martin’s Hill (or Martinsell), a steep-sided promontory of the chalk range near Marlborough[460], the subject becomes interesting. In discussing the churchyard yew in a later chapter we shall have occasion to recall the Martinsell anniversary (p. 381 infra); in the meantime we cast around for other illustrations. A like ceremony was carried out on Palm Sunday by the villagers of Avebury, Wiltshire, who mounted the famous Silbury Hill, there to eat fig cakes and drink sugar and water. The water was procured from the spring below, known as the Swallow Head. Seeing that Palm Sunday bears elsewhere the nickname of “Fig Sunday,” and that figs were often eaten at this festival, ecclesiastical writers have supposed that the custom is connected with the Gospel story of the cursing of the barren fig tree. (Figs were not always the fruit eaten; in Wessex and the West of England “fig” also means a raisin.) To the folk-lorist, however, this item will be regarded as adventitious—as an accretion which is due to ideas impressed from without. Were the habit of making these pilgrimages to early earthworks confined to one or two localities, or to one particular festival, this superficial explanation might pass unchallenged. But when we encounter instance after instance, reported from many counties, and connected with various anniversaries, then, though the ceremony be often touched with curious little tinges of local colour, we are compelled to go beyond the accidents, and to seek a common underlying principle. This, indeed, does not seem discoverable by any purely historical process. We are driven back to unconscious folk-memory and immemorial tradition—which rarely endeavour to supply a fully efficient cause—to the dim period when, though the practice of raising earthworks was not obsolete, a considerable amount of superstition, and even of ceremonial observance, was already connected with those old monuments. The period referred to roughly covers the first five or six centuries of our era. Behind this transitional stage of superstition lies the prehistoric period, with its own rites and ceremonies, and its own anniversary observances.

Let us now notice one or two cases of hill customs not connected with Palm Sunday. I am informed by Mr W. J. Lucas that it was the custom, forty years ago, for youths and maidens to ascend Chilswell Hill, near Oxford, every Good Friday, to indulge in rude sports and noisy merry-making. So coarse was the play that it was not considered proper for respectable folk to take part in the proceedings. Now one cannot, in any reasonable way, seek the origin of these games in the solemn rites connected with the Christian anniversary. Rather must we look to some ancient spring festival, such as that connected with the Saxon goddess Eostre. It would appear as if the Church in the early period could not, and in the later times would not, altogether abolish the custom. A similar Good Friday procession was formerly made to St Martha’s Hill, near Guildford, the church of which was described on p. 131 supra. The loud music and the riotous dancing in which the crowd took part were so indecorous that few were found to lament the discontinuance of the custom[461]. There are some curious earth-rings situated to the South of the church, half-hidden by heather, and I have elsewhere suggested that these represent part of a maze[462], within which the sports were once held. If this be correct, there is an indication of a half-hearted attempt on the part of the Church to modify the games, and turn them to a penitential purpose. Some writers have thought that the morris-dancers made use of such circles for their performances. Here, too, we may have a link which binds these outdoor customs to the practice of dancing in church.

We now see that the apparent digression respecting fairs was not altogether irrelevant. There is a thread running through the whole story. First, we have the practice of making earthworks, which continued in the Early Iron Age, almost to the dawn of documentary history. Within the ramparts, assemblies, whether peaceful or warlike, would often be held, and would be accompanied with some amount of barbaric ritual. Next, we have the period when the true purpose of the camps was becoming forgotten. Myths arose, and though it was considered fitting to hold councils within the old fortifications, for a while all was done with fear and trembling. The earthworks were peopled with giants, fairies, and evil spirits. Time passed, and fairs came into vogue. The dread of giants and “little folk” diminished, and the buyers and sellers would often be conveniently accommodated in, or around, the earthworks. The Early Fathers could not stop the gatherings, or abolish the heathen practice of charms and witchcraft, or quell the tumult of the feast-makers. The difficulties could only be circumvented. When the Christians erected a church on the site once occupied by a pagan temple, they performed a dance to their God as the heathen had previously done to theirs[463]. Occasionally, the Christian teachers built a church near an earthwork. More frequently, they retained the pagan feast-day, but diverted the ceremonies to the honour of the patron saint. The moots were allowed to gather within the church. The healing well and the primitive dance were indulgently accepted. Attracting all functions unto herself, the Church finally allowed the fairs to be held within hallowed ground. It was only when the Mediaeval period was reached that a reconsideration of policy was seriously proposed.

The subject of fairs and markets has claimed so much attention that churchyard sports must be treated rather summarily. So early as A.D. 1225 a provincial synod in Scotland forbade wrestling matches and other sports in churchyards; and the Synod of Exeter, A.D. 1287, similarly prohibited combats, dances, and stage plays. But these isolated ordinances were repeatedly ignored. “Improper and prohibited sports,” such as wrestling, football, and handball, involved the transgressors in a penalty of twopence for each offence, at Salton, Yorkshire (A.D. 1472)[464]. The rule was infringed, for, nearly half a century later (A.D. 1519), the disobedient had to be threatened with excommunication[465]. So matters went on until the Reformation, and, indeed, down to a much more recent date. Writing in A.D. 1804, Malkin avers that, at feasts and revels, dancing and games at tennis and fives were “universal in [the churchyards of] Radnorshire, and very common in other parts of the Principality[466].” It should be noted, however, that these amusements were commonly permitted only on the North side of the burial-ground, where there were rarely any graves. (Cf. Chap. VIII.) At Stoke St Milborough, Shropshire (p. 95 supra), the games were not discontinued until the year 1820[467].

Though this recital of events may cause a shock to devout persons, the severity of the criticism will be relaxed when the conditions are duly appreciated. Once grasp the fact that social convenience reigned almost supreme, and the master key is found. Permeating the whole of the old social customs, though doubtless, to some extent, existing entirely apart from them, there were influences essentially religious and symbolical. On actual examination, however, it is often impossible to make a severance between the practical and the ideal. Take, for example, the widespread custom of preserving natural or semi-natural curiosities, such as fossils and aerolites, in churches. Was this practice based merely on superstition, or on the satisfaction of public curiosity? We are all conversant with the legends which are attached to some of our commoner fossils, and to “thunderbolts” of various kinds[468]. When the Breton peasant, finding a “pierre de tonnerre,” or “pierre de foudre”—really a Neolithic celt or axe of stone—builds it into his chimney to ward off lightning (cf. p. 80 supra), he is influenced partly by superstitious fear and partly by credulity. His very superstition is turned to useful account. Similarly, the meteoric stones, such as that which Ambrose Parey (Ambroise Paré) found suspended by an iron chain in the church of Sugolia, on the borders of Hungary, was probably believed to protect the building from the effect of thunderstorms[469]. Grimm tells us of a donner-stral (= “a flash of lightning”; thence, evidently, “a thunder-stone,” i.e. either an aerolite or a stone celt) which was hung up in Enisheim church, in Alsace-Lorraine. In this connection, it would be well to read the valuable paper written by Professor O. Montelius, entitled “The Sun-God’s Axe and Thor’s Hammer.” He shows that the superstitious respect paid to the stone celt appears in many countries in the most diverse guises[470]. When stone-axes were unearthed by the plough in Norway, they were regarded as gifts from the gods. It is interesting to turn to the Scriptural account of “the image which fell down from Jupiter[471],” and which was said to represent Diana. Some authorities have considered that the “image” was in reality an aerolite, but Professor W. M. Ramsay contends that it was a rude idol. This writer is of opinion that both the Authorized and the Revised Versions are wrong in giving the translation “Jupiter”; the original refers to an object falling “from a clear sky.” The tradition of images falling from the heavens was common. The image of Cybele, at Pessinus, about which a story of this kind was told, is believed to have been a “shapeless stone[472].” The reader may feel inclined to ask why, by a similar argument, the image of Diana was not likewise a shapeless stone, especially as ignorant folk everywhere are prone to assert that various objects, such as fossil belemnites and lumps of iron pyrites, have dropped out of the firmament. But is there any authenticated instance where an actual image, rather than a natural stone, has been identified as connected with this superstition?

The more noticeable fossil remains attracted attention at an early date. The Emperor Augustus decorated his villa at Capri with large fossil bones—“Giants’ bones.” The church was long considered the natural repository for other curious relics. The tusks of fossil animals were commonly placed in Continental churches during the Mediaeval period. Although there existed a collection of fossils in the museum of the Vatican, and although these had been described—inefficiently, it is true—by Michele Mercati, towards the end of the seventeenth century, yet such relics still found a home in the church. Mercati’s manuscript, with its mixture of truth and error, was not, indeed, published by Lancisi until the years A.D. 1717-19, but neither this, nor similar works, made much impression upon the unlettered crowd. Stories soon gathered around the treasured bones or fossils. At the church of Pennant Melangel, in Montgomeryshire, the rib of a mammoth became metamorphosed into a “Giant’s rib,” as well as into a bone of St Monacella[473]. In the Foljambe Chapel of Chesterfield parish church, the jaw-bone of a whale has become a rib of the Dun Cow of Warwick[474] (cf. p. 485 infra). A bone is preserved in the church of St Mary’s Redcliffe, Bristol, which, report says, belonged to a cow that once supplied the whole city with milk. Other folk, ruthless destroyers of myths, declare, with more reason, that the bone is that of a whale, and was brought from Newfoundland by Cabot. There are many other bones which claim to belong to this celebrated Dun Cow. Instances of church curiosities of this kind could be greatly extended; space can be found only for one, which happens to be of great interest.

In the church chest of Canewdon, near Rochford, Essex, there is preserved an immense and somewhat unattractive relic which, in all probability, is a portion of a vertebra of a whale (Fig. 50). How the bone came to be deposited in the church, and where it was found, are mysteries. The most plausible surmise is that it was dredged up by fishermen off the coast. Strange to say, the relic, which is known to the villagers as “Canute’s knee-bone,” is the second which the church has possessed. The predecessor of the present bone long since