Of the same opinion were Dr. Edward Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle; Sir Matthew Hale, who used to say that churches were for the living and to churchyards for the dead[[2]]; Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, who "did not hold God's house a meet repository for the greatest saint;" and William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, who made a canon in his synod to the following effect:
"IX. Ut corpora defunctorum deinceps in Ecclesiis non humentur, sed nec intra quintum pedem a pariete extrorsum."
Sir Thomas Latymer, of Braibroke in Northamptonshire, by his will directed thus:
I, Thomas Latymer of Braybroke, a fals knyghte to God, &c., my wrecchyd body to be buried where that ever I die in the next chirche yerde, God vouchsafe, and naut in the chirche, but in the utterist corner, as he that is unworthy to lyn therein, save the merci of God."
Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of St. Asaph, was buried in a churchyard, although, from his having generously repaired and endowed his cathedral, he might be considered to have a claim of interment within its walls; and Baldwin, the great civilian, severely censures this indecent liberty, and questions whether he shall call it a superstition or an impudent ambition. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who made vaults under the chancel, and even under the altar, when he rebuilt the choir of Canterbury, about 1075.[[3]]
"The Irish long retained an attachment to their ancient customs and pagan superstitions; and the custom of burying in consecrated ground was not universal in Ireland in the twelfth century on the arrival of the English, as we find it enjoined in the Council of Cashel, held in 1172, mentioned by Cambrensis. A short time since some small earthen tumuli were opened on the Curragh of Kildare, under which skeletons were found standing upright on their feet, and in their hands, or near them, spears with iron heads. The custom of placing their dead erect was general among all the northern nations, and is still retained in Lapland and some parts of Norway; and the natives of North America bury their dead sitting in holes in the ground, and cover them with a mound of earth."—Transactions of the R. Irish Academy, vol. iii.
A Query I proposed (Vol. ii., p. 187.) in reference to the Trogloditæ never having been answered, I shall, perhaps, be allowed to use this opportunity myself to furnish an apposite and explanatory quotation, viz.—
"Troglodytæ mortui cervicem pedibus alligabant et raptim cum risu et jocis efferebant, nullaque loci habita cura mandabant terræ; ac ad caput cornu caprinum affigebant."—Cœlii Rhodigini, Lectiones Antiquæ, p. 792.
I shall conclude with the rationale of the erect posture, as illustrated by Staveley in his History of Churches in England: