In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious Part 12

In the churchyard at this place was one handsome tombstone, shewn in the drawing, erected apparently in 1790. This was evidence of somewhat ancient art, and I looked about for the old gravestones which should have kept it company. Erect in its place there was not one, but in the remotest corner of the enclosure I came upon several stones lying flat, one upon another, the uppermost and only visible inscription bearing the recent date of 1870! Only twenty years or so "on sentry"

at the grave, and already relieved from duty! There was likewise a miscellaneous heap of old crosses, etc., of iron and wood, the writing on which had disappeared, and they might reasonably have been condemned as of no further service; but that gravestones in perfect preservation should have been thought to have served their full purpose in a little over twenty years, and be cast aside as no longer requisite, was a remarkable lesson in national character. All the graves were flat, and at the head of every recent one was a small iron slab bearing a number. Many of those which had crosses were hung with immortelles, composed generally of gla.s.s-beads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 97. NEUHAUSEN.]

In Neuhausen Graveyard, at the end of the row of graves, are seen two rings protruding from the ground. Lying near is an iron s.h.i.+eld with two similar rings surmounting it. It is readily supposed that the first-named rings are also attached to a s.h.i.+eld buried in the earth, and so it proves. In order that no s.p.a.ce may be lost between the graves, the s.h.i.+elds are used alternately to serve as the dividing wall, and are then drawn out, thus enabling the s.e.xton to pack the coffins close together.

The towns and cities abroad have their cemeteries beyond the outskirts, as is the practice here. Occasionally an old churchyard is to be met with, but never an old gravestone as we know it. Still there are instances in which ancient carvings of the same character have been saved by attachment to the church or churchyard wall. Several such are to be seen in German churchyards long since converted to purposes of recreation, and one at Heidelberg may be taken as an example.

FIG. 98.--AT HEIDELBERG

To "Barbara Fosterii," died 1745, aged 67.

Beneath is the text from the First Epistle of Peter, chapter i. verses 24 and 25.

"All flesh is as gra.s.s, and all the glory of man as the flower of gra.s.s. The gra.s.s withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever."

At Lucerne, tinder similar conditions, the striking figures of two skeletons, partly in military garb, keep guard over the tablet which records the virtues of a departed hero. He was probably a soldier, but the figure of a _lictor_ on the left with his _fasces_ of axe and rods seems to betoken some civil employment. In ancient times the _lictors_ walked in advance of the magistrates, and executed sentence when p.r.o.nounced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 99. LUCERNE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 98. HEIDELBERG.]

FIG. 99.--AT LUCERNE.

To "Iodoco Bernardo Hartman," died 1752, aged 67 years.

The two last-given ill.u.s.trations may possibly belong to the category of mural tablets rather than that of gravestones, being fixed apparently by original design, and not by afterthought, as in our "converted" burial-grounds, against the outer walls of the church.

There are, however, no other remains which I could discover bearing any resemblance to the old British headstone, and the evanescent character which seems to have attached for a certain period to the memorials of the dead among our neighbours abroad forbids the expectation that any such as those which have appeared in our earlier chapters are to be found in Europe outside the boundaries of our Empire. In more modern observances, especially in the centres of population, English and continental manners more nearly approximate; and in the many new cemeteries which are now to be found adjacent to the cities and large towns of Western Europe there are tombs and gravestones as many and as costly as are to be found in any round London. In Germany the present practice appears to be single interments, and one inscription only on the stone, and that studiously brief. Thus:

[Transcriber's note: inscriptions below enclosed in a border]

Eduard Schmidt Geb d. 8 Oct., 1886.

Gest d. 10 Jan., 1887.

This I copied in the cemetery at Schaffhausen. But at Hendon, a north-west suburb of London, has recently been placed against the church wall a still simpler memorial, a small slab of marble, inscribed:

Carl Richard Loose B. 21. 1. 52: D. 14. 10. 81.

For brevity _in excelsis_ the following, from the cemetery at Heidelberg, can hardly be eclipsed:

Michael Seiler 1805.--1887.

Sometimes the asterisk is used by the Germans to denote birth, and the dagger (or cross) for death, thus:

Hier Risht in Gott Natalie Brethke * 1850 1884

CHAPTER XIII.

VERY OLD GRAVESTONES.

Although, for reasons already explained or surmised, the gravestones in our burial-grounds seldom exceed an age of 200 years, there has probably been no time and no race of men in which such memorials were unknown. Professor Dr. John Stuart, the Scottish antiquary,[15] opines that "the erection of stones to the memory of the dead has been common to all the world from the earliest times," and there are many instances recorded in the Old Testament, as when Rachel died and Jacob "set a pillar upon her grave" (Genesis, chapter x.x.xv. verse 20); and another authority, Mr. R. R. Brash,[16] in a similar strain, comments on the sentiment which appears to have been common to human nature in all ages, and among all conditions of mankind, namely a desire to leave after him something to perpetuate his memory, something more durable than his frail humanity. This propensity doubtless led him in his earliest and rudest state to set on end in the earth the rough and unhewn pillar stone which he found lying prostrate on the surface, and these h.o.a.r memorials exist in almost every country.

[Footnote 15: "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland" (two volumes), by John Stuart, LL.D., Secretary to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.]

[Footnote 16: "Ogam Inscribed Monuments," by R.R. Brash; edited by G.M.

Atkinson.]

A remarkable instance is afforded by Absalom, the son of David, who himself set up a stone to record his memory: "Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is called unto this day, Absalom's place" (2 Samuel, chapter xviii. verse 18).

Professor Stuart indeed declares that there is no custom in the history of human progress which serves so much to connect the remote past with the present period as the erection of pillar stones. We meet with it, he says, in the infancy of history, and it is even yet, in some shape or other, the means by which man hopes to hand down his memory to the future. The sculptured tombs of early nations often furnish the only key to their modes of life; and their memorial stones, if they may not in all cases be cla.s.sed with sepulchral records, must yet be considered as remains of the same early period when the rock was the only book in which an author could convey his thoughts, and when history was to be handed down by memorials which should always meet the eye and prompt the question, "What mean ye by these stones?"

To such remote antiquity, however, it is probably undesirable to follow our subject. It will no doubt be thought sufficient for this essay if we leave altogether out of view the researches which have been made in the older empires of the earth, and confine ourselves to the records of our own country. Of these, however, there are many, and they are full of interest. In date they probably occupy a period partly Pagan and partly Christian, and it has been conjectured that all or most of those discovered had their source in Ireland, with a possibility of an earlier importation into Ireland by Icelandic, Danish, or other peoples. Many of these stones have been found buried in the ruins of old churches, and most of them may be supposed to owe their preservation to some such protection. The drawings of one or two may be given as samples. Those here sketched (Figs. 100 and 101) are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and occupy with others a considerable s.p.a.ce, being well displayed to shew the inscriptions on both sides.[17] It is by the fact of both sides being written upon that we a.s.sign to them the character of gravestones, that is upright gravestones; but it is also well authenticated by historical records that the memorial of a Pagan chief in Ireland was a cairn with a pillar stone standing upon it, and there is little doubt that the Irish invaders carried the practice with them into Scotland.

It is indeed in Scotland that a large proportion of these stones have been discovered, and there are more than a hundred of them in the Edinburgh Museum. In the Museum at Dublin there is also a good collection, conveniently arranged; but the British Museum in London has less than half a dozen--only five--specimens. The number in each of the three museums fairly represents the relative abundance of such remains in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Marked on a chart the discoveries are thickly grouped in the North-Western parts of Scotland, in the South of Ireland, and on the South-Western promontory of Wales. In Cornwall and Devons.h.i.+re, along the coast line, there have been found a goodly few, and the others are dotted spa.r.s.ely over the whole kingdom--England, as just indicated, furnis.h.i.+ng only a modic.u.m.

[Footnote 17: The National Museum of Antiquities in Queen Street, Edinburgh, is unequalled by any other collection of British and Celtic remains. All these memorial stones are carefully catalogued, and have, moreover, the advantage of being described at length, with full ill.u.s.tration, in Professor Stuart's copious work (previously mentioned) on "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BRESSAY STONE FIG. 100.

LUNNASTING AND KILBAR STONES. FIG. 101.

OGAM AND RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS.]

The inscriptions upon such stones, when they are inscribed, are usually in Ogam or Runic characters. An example of the Ogam writing is shewn on the edges of the Bressay stone (Fig. 100), and also on the front side of the Lunnasting stone (Fig. 101a). The Ogam style was used by the ancient Irish and some other Celtic nations, and the "Ogams," or letters, consist princ.i.p.ally of lines, or groups of lines, deriving their signification from their position on a single stem, or chief line, over, under, or through which they are drawn, perpendicularly or obliquely. Curves rarely occur; but some are seen in the inscription on the Bressay stone, which has been thus interpreted by Dr. Graves, Bishop of Limerick: "Bentire, or the Son of the Druid, lies here." "The Cross of Nordred's daughter is here placed." This stone was found by a labourer about 1851, while digging in a piece of waste ground near the ruinous church of Culbinsgarth at Bressay, Shetland. The design is said to be thoroughly Irish, and the inscription a mixture of Irish and Icelandic. The stone measures 4 ft.

by 1 ft. 4-1/2 in. by 2 in. It is attributed to the ninth century.

The stone 101a is a slab of brownish sandstone, 44 in. by 13 in. by 11/2 in., from Lunnasting, also in Shetland. It was found five feet below the surface in 1876, and, having probably lain there for centuries, was in excellent preservation. The authorities, however, are unable to make a satisfactory translation. The cross or dagger is also of doubtful explanation; and Mr. Gilbert Goudie thinks it is a mere mason's mark. It is, however, admitted on all hands that the stone is of Christian origin, and probably of the period just subsequent to the termination of the Roman rule in Britain. It has been suggested that most of these ancient gravestones were carved and set up by the Irish missionary monks not earlier than A.D. 580. The Ogam inscription on the Lumasting stone has been made by one expert to read:

EATTUICHEATTS MAHEADTTANNN HCCFFSTFF NCDTONS.

A strange and inexplicable aggregation of consonants.

The stone represented below, 101 _b_, bears an inscription in Runic characters. Runic is a term applied to any mysterious writing; but there were three leading cla.s.ses of "runes"--Scandinavian, German, and Anglo-Saxon--all agreeing in certain features, and all ascribed by some authorities to the Phoenicians. The stone 101 _b_ was found in 1865, at Kilbar, Barra, a remote island of the outer Hebrides, off the north-west coast of Scotland. It measures 6 ft. 5-1/2 in. in height, and its greatest width is 15-1/2 inches. Mr. Carmichael has conjectured that it was probably brought from Iona about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and erected in Barra at the head of a grave made by a son of McNeil for himself. But it is believed to have been in any case a Norse memorial in the first instance, though certainly Christian, for it reads:

"Ur and Thur Gared set up the stones of Riskar.[18] May Christ guard his soul."

[Footnote 18: Riskar, or Raskar, is a surname of the Norwegians, who were early settled in the Western Islands and adopted the Christian faith.--"Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England," by Dr. George Stephens, F.S.A.]

The Barra stone has on the reverse side a large cross, carved in plaited bands. Dr. Petrie has pointed out that the cross is not necessarily indicative of belief, the ancient Danes and other peoples having used various signs--the cross frequently--to mark their boundaries, their cattle, and their graves.[19] There is little doubt, however, that in most of these British and Irish memorials, although the stones may originally have been Pagan, the cross is typical of Christianity. We are told that it was not unusual for St. Patrick to dedicate Pagan monuments to the honour of the true G.o.d. On one occasion, it is related, on the authority of an ancient life of the Saint, that, on coming to the Plain of Magh Solga, near Elphin, he found three pillar stones which had been raised there by the Pagans, either as memorials of events or for the celebration of Pagan rites, on one of which he inscribed the name of Jesus, on another Soter, and on the third Salvator, along probably with the cross, such as is seen on nearly every Christian monument in Ireland. In the same way on two of five upright pillars in the parish of Maroun, Isle of Man, are crosses deeply incised. This spot is traditionally a.s.sociated with St.

Patrick as the place where he preached, and the stones appear to be remains of a Druidical circle.

[Footnote 19: "Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language." Collected by George Petrie, and edited by Miss M. Stokes.]

This practice is quite consistent with the principles upon which the Christian conversion was established by the early missionaries. Thus, Gregory, in a letter from Rome, in 601, directed that the idolatrous temples in England should not be destroyed, but turned into Christian churches, in order that the people might be induced to resort to their customary places of wors.h.i.+p; and they were even allowed to kill cattle as sacrifices to G.o.d, as had been their practice in their previous idolatry. Hence also arose the system of establis.h.i.+ng new churches on the sites previously held as consecrated by heathen wors.h.i.+p.

Of the five old gravestones in the British Museum, four are from Ireland and one from Fardell in Devons.h.i.+re. The Fardell stone was found about the year 1850, acting as a footbridge across a small brook at Fardell, near Ivybridge, Devons.h.i.+re--a district once inhabited by a Celtic tribe. It is of coa.r.s.e granite, 6 ft. 3 in. high, 2 ft. 9 in.