Part 6 (1/2)
+ Martialis the Bishop.
practice. For the men of Jabesh burnt the body of Saul; and by no prohibited practice, to avoid contagion or pollution, in time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their friends.* And when they burnt not their dead bodies, yet sometimes used great burnings near and about them, deducible from the expressions concerning Jehoram, Zedechias, and the sumptuous pyre of Asa.
And were so little averse from Pagan burning, that the Jews lamenting the death of Caesar their friend, and revenger on Pompey, frequented the place where his body was burnt for many nights together. And as they raised n.o.ble monuments and mausoleums for their own nation,+ so they were not scrupulous in erecting some for others, according to the practice of Daniel, who left that lasting sepulchral pile in Ecbatana, for the Median and Persian kings.#
But even in times of subjection and hottest use, they conformed not unto the Roman practice of burning; whereby the prophecy was secured concerning the body of Christ, that it should not see corruption, or a bone should not be broken; which we believe was also pro- videntially prevented, from the soldier's spear and nails that pa.s.sed by the little bones both in his hands and feet; not of ordinary contrivance, that it should not corrupt on the cross, according to the laws of Roman crucifixion, or an hair of his head perish, though observ- able in Jewish customs, to cut the hair of male- factors.
* Amos vi. 10.
+ As in that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by Simon.--1xiii.
# [Greek omitted], whereof a Jewish priest had always custody until Josephus' days.--, lib. x.
Nor in their long cohabitation with Egyptians, crept into a custom of their exact embalming, wherein deeply slas.h.i.+ng the muscles, and taking out the brains and en- trails, they had broken the subject of so entire a resur- rection, nor fully answered the types of Enoch, Elijah, or Jonah, which yet to prevent or restore, was of equal facility unto that rising power able to break the fascia- tions and bands of death, to get clear out of the cerecloth, and an hundred pounds of ointment, and out of the sepulchre before the stone was rolled from it.
But though they embraced not this practice of burn- ing, yet entertained they many ceremonies agreeable unto Greek and Roman obsequies. And he that ob- serveth their funeral feasts, their lamentations at the grave, their music, and weeping mourners; how they closed the eyes of their friends, how they washed, anointed, and kissed the dead; may easily conclude these were not mere Pagan civilities. But whether that mournful burthen, and treble calling out after Absalom, had any reference unto the last conclamation, and triple valediction, used by other nations, we hold but a wavering conjecture.
Civilians make sepulture but of the law of nations, others do naturally found it and discover it also in animals. They that are so thick-skinned as still to credit the story of the Phoenix, may say something for animal burning. More serious conjectures find some examples of sepulture in elephants, cranes, the sepul- chral cells of pismires, and practice of bees,--which civil society carrieth out their dead, and hath exequies, if not interments.
CHAPTER II.
THE solemnities, ceremonies, rites of their cremation or interment, so solemnly delivered by authors, we shall not disparage our reader to repeat. Only the last and lasting part in their urns, collected bones and ashes, we cannot wholly omit or decline that subject, which occasion lately presented, in some discovered among us.
In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor far from one another.--Not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described; some containing two pounds of bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their com- bustion; besides the extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles of small bra.s.s instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of opal.
Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compa.s.s, were digged up coals and incinerated sub- stances, which begat conjecture that this was theor place of burning their bodies, or some sacrificing place unto the , which was properly below the surface of the ground, as theand altars unto the G.o.ds and heroes above it.
That these were the urns of Romans from the common custom and place where they were found, is no obscure conjecture, not far from a Roman garrison, and but five miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient record under the name of Branodunum. And where the adjoining town, containing seven parishes, in no very different sound, but Saxon termination, still retains the name of Burnham, which being an early station, it is not im- probable the neighbour parts were filled with habitations, either of Romans themselves, or Britons Romanized, which observed the Roman customs.
Nor is it improbable, that the Romans early possessed this country. For though we meet not with such strict particulars of these parts before the new inst.i.tution of Constantine and military charge of the count of the Saxon sh.o.r.e, and that about the Saxon invasions, the Dalmatian hors.e.m.e.n were in the garrison of Brancaster; yet in the time of Claudius, Vespasian, and Severus, we find no less than three legions dispersed through the province of Britain. And as high as the reign of Claudius a great overthrow was given unto the Iceni, by the Roman lieutenant Ostorius. Not long after, the country was so molested, that, in hope of a better state, Prastaagus bequeathed his kingdom unto Nero and his daughters; and Boadicea, his queen, fought the last decisive battle with Paulinus. After which time, and conquest of Agricola, the lieutenant of Vespasian, pro- bable it is, they wholly possessed this country; ordering it into garrisons or habitations best suitable with their securities. And so some Roman habitations not im- probable in these parts, as high as the time of Vespasian, where the Saxons after seated, in whose thin-filled maps we yet find the name of Walsingham. Now if the Iceni were but Gammadims, Anconians, or men that lived in an angle, wedge, or elbow of Britain, according to the original etymology, this country will challenge the emphatical appellation, as most properly making the elbow orof Icenia.
That Britain was notably populous is undeniable, from that expression of Caesar.* That the Romans themselves were early in no small numbers--seventy thousand, with their a.s.sociates, slain, by Boadicea, affords a sure account. And though not many Roman habitations are now known, yet some, by old works, rampiers, coins, and urns, do testify their possessions. Some urns have been found at Castor, some also about Southcreak, and, not many years past, no less than ten in a field at Buston, not near any recorded garrison. Nor is it strange to find Roman coins of copper and silver among us; of Vespasian, Trajan, Adrian, Commodus, Anto- ninus, Severus, &c.; but the greater number of Dio- clesian, Constantine, Constans, Valens, with many of Victorinus Posthumius, Tetricus, and the thirty tyrants in the reign of Gallienus; and some as high as Adria.n.u.s have been found about Thetford, or Sitomagus, mentioned in theof Antoninus, as the way from Venta or Castor unto London. But the most frequent discovery is made at the two Castors by Norwich and Yarmouth at Burghcastle, and Brancaster.
Besides the Norman, Saxon, and Danish pieces of Cuthred, Canutus, William, Matilda, and others, some British coins of gold have been dispersedly found, and no small number of silver pieces near Norwich, with a rude head upon the obverse, and an ill-formed horse on the reverse, with inscriptionswhether implying Iceni, Durotriges, Tascia, or Trin.o.bantes, we leave to higher conjecture. Vulgar chronology will have Norwich Castle as old as Julius Caesar; but his distance from these parts, and its Gothick form of structure, abridgeth such antiquity. The British coins afford conjecture of early habitation in these parts,
* ”Hominum infinita mult.i.tudo est creberrimaque; aedi-
ficia fere Gallicis consimilia.”--, lib. v.
though the city of Norwich arose from the ruins of Venta; and though, perhaps, not without some habi- tation before, was enlarged, builded, and nominated by the Saxons. In what bulk or populosity it stood in the old East-Angle monarchy tradition and history are silent. Considerable it was in the Danish eruptions, when Sueno burnt Thetford and Norwich, and Ulfketel, the governor thereof, was able to make some resistance, and after endeavoured to burn the Danish navy.
How the Romans left so many coins in countries of their conquests seems of hard resolution; except we consider how they buried them under ground when, upon barbarous invasions, they were fain to desert their habitations in most part of their empire, and the strict- ness of their laws forbidding to transfer them to any other uses: wherein the Spartans were singular, who, to make their copper money useless, contempered it with vinegar. That the Britons left any, some wonder, since their money was iron and iron rings before Caesar; and those of after-stamp by permission, and but small in bulk and bigness. That so few of the Saxons remain, because, overcome by succeeding conquerors upon the place, their coins, by degrees, pa.s.sed into other stamps and the marks of after-ages.
Than the time of these urns deposited, or precise antiquity of these relicks, nothing of more uncertainty; for since the lieutenant of Claudius seems to have made the first progress into these parts, since Boadicea was overthrown by the forces of Nero, and Agricola put a full end to these conquests, it is not probable the country was fully garrisoned or planted before; and, therefore, however these urns might be of later date, not likely of higher antiquity.
And the succeeding emperors desisted not from their conquests in these and other parts, as testified by history and medal-inscription yet extant: the province of Britain, in so divided a distance from Rome, beholding the faces of many imperial persons, and in large account; no fewer than Caesar, Claudius, Britannicus, Vespasian, t.i.tus, Adrian, Severus, Commodus, Geta, and Cara- calla.
A great obscurity herein, because no medal or em- peror's coin enclosed, which might denote the date of their interments; observable in many urns, and found in those of Spitalfields, by London, which contained the coins of Claudius, Vespasian, Commodus, Antoninus, attended with lacrymatories, lamps, bottles of liquor, and other appurtenances of affectionate superst.i.tion, which in these rural interments were wanting.
Some uncertainty there is from the period or term of burning, or the cessation of that practice. Macrobius affirmeth it was disused in his days; but most agree, though without authentic record, that it ceased with the Antonini,--most safely to be understood after the reign of those emperors which a.s.sumed the name of Antoninus, extending unto Heliogabalus. Not strictly after Marcus; for about fifty years later, we find the magnificent burn- ing and consecration of Servus; and, if we so fix this period or cessation, these urns will challenge above thirteen hundred years.
But whether this practice was only then left by em- perors and great persons, or generally about Rome, and not in other provinces, we hold no authentic account; for after Tertullian, in the days of Minucius, it was obviously objected upon Christians, that they con- demned the practice of burning.* And we find a pa.s.s-
* ”