“He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone[894].”
Where flat slabs occur in the churchyard, they are frequently a century earlier than the upright stones. Specimens of these early “ledger stones” may be seen in the church porches at High Halden, Kent (1583), and Wellington, Somerset (1589). There seems to be little doubt that this form of monument is much older as a class than the vertical, lettered stone. The ledger stone is a familiar object on the floors of churches, as a Mediaeval relic, and it is, no doubt, this kind of monument which is referred to as having been sometimes ejected from the sacred building[895]. There is strong reason for believing that rude, uninscribed wooden crosses preceded the upright headstones.
Working by the light of these facts, the searcher will discover that there is ample proof of the unpopularity of the North graveyard for three centuries past. And it would appear that there is good ground for the supposition that the unpopularity was as great, or even greater, during the long period which elapsed before stone monuments came into general use. These conclusions are based on the cumulative evidence of individual instances, but some remarkable exceptions to the rule demand due consideration.
Frequently, where one finds the oldest headstones on the North side, a probable reason can be advanced. Thus, in Norfolk, a county where the superstition is common, the three contiguous parishes of Garvestone, Reymerstone, and Thuxton, have the majority of burials on the North side. The explanation may be that the main entrance to the church, in each case, is by the North porch. Expressed otherwise, the North yard is the portion most traversed by the villagers on their way to the services[896]. Burlingham St Andrew has the North side of the yard well filled, while, so late as 1899, there were no burials on the South side. This is the more extraordinary, since the parishioners used the Southern porch as an entrance, and the local territorial family, the Northern[897]. We might conjecture, though there are no data at hand, that this was a case like that of Selborne, described by White, in which some highly-placed person or persons set a bold example, and helped to destroy the tradition. At Martin Hussingtree, near Worcester, all the burials, down to the year 1853, were on the North side, but it is noteworthy that the only entrance to the church was from that quarter[898]. Similarly, at Oystermouth, Glamorganshire, the graves were thickly clustered to the North of the church. A few only lay at the East and West; and not one on the South, but here, again, the sole access to the building was from the North[899]. Numerous other instances have come under the writer’s own notice, tending to show that the objection to Northern burial is partly neutralized by the position of the church door, especially in those cases where only one door exists. Should there be two or three entrances to the church, the one most employed seems to be connected with the burial customs—the Western entrance to a smaller degree than the other. Needless to say, it is not the position of the doorway which primarily provoked the belief, though it may have modified the practice. As a matter of actual statistics, it will be found that, where there are two or three ways of approach, the South door is the one most used.
Is it a coincidence that the South is the prevailing quarter for the churchyard yew and the ancient cross, and that this sunny side has other superstitions attached to it? Mr Harry Hems asserts, with truth, that churches and churchyards generally lie to the North of the roads which give access to them (cf. [p. 335] supra), and he seems to imply that some cases of preference may be explained by the position of the roads which lead to the fabric[900]. But surely, this is mistaking the effect for the cause. The problem is: why should the churches have been built on the North side of the road? Had they been erected on the opposite (South) side, worshippers would have been admitted from the reverse point of the compass (the North). Some early pagan belief influenced the choice of position; casual or arbitrary circumstances, including, occasionally, the disposition of roads and pathways, may have held the belief in check. The road, assuming that it existed before the church, could scarcely have influenced the position of the latter, in the absence of superstition. While we admit that Mr Hems’s rule is fairly safe, it must not be forgotten that, where churches are built to the South of the road, the pathway often winds round the Western tower to give admission by a South door—an important aim with the builder.
Candour now compels us to notice a few records, which, in view of the particulars already given, seem inexplicable. The church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch is said to be built so near the South wall, as to indicate that the North side was clearly intended for burial[901]. Streatley, in Berkshire, is one example out of a fair-sized list, exhibiting a large North yard with very old stones. The ancient church of Swanscombe, Kent, had, on the whole, its oldest monuments towards the North, but the South doorway had been blocked by masonry. In most instances of this kind there is doubtless some circumstance, or series of circumstances, which would explain the departure from custom. Let us pause a moment to consider the exact importance of these exceptions.
The headstones, it will be remembered, carry us back only a few centuries. But, so far as these memorials reach, they tell overwhelmingly in favour of the superstition. Twenty years ago, this evidence was much more patent to the eye. A very general exception, however, must be made of the town churchyards, in which the old tombstones are often found evenly distributed over the available space. Several reasons may be adduced for this non-observance of the usual practice. The town church, as a rule, stands centrally in its graveyard; it is commonly approached by several alleys and paths, leading from a thoroughfare or market-place; it is frequently cruciform in plan, with North and South doors, and this design, wherever met with, seems to have had some effect in counteracting the fears of the ignorant. Above all these reasons, must be set the fact that populous districts would soonest lose touch with the superstition, so that, even before the era of headstones, the belief retained but a comparatively feeble foothold among the inhabitants of towns. The argument from monuments fails in cases such as these. We must seek the tradition in the rural districts, and turn back to a time when it was more firmly held. We shall then see that the present exceptions, numerous as they are, cannot invalidate the general practice. They represent what Professor L. C. Miall, writing on a vexed question in botany, calls “negative exceptions.” I venture to repeat his witty illustration: “A wooden leg is used to enable a man to walk when he has lost his natural leg. If you saw a one-legged man walking with a pair of crutches, and no wooden leg at all, would that shake your belief in the motive for using wooden legs[902]?” The “negative exceptions” which we have been studying may, indeed, testify to a weakening of tradition, or occasionally, to its apparent local non-existence, but they do not abolish it, or change its purport one whit. How it chances that, of two adjacent parishes, the present-day evidence shows the belief at work in the first, but seemingly unknown, or in abeyance, in the second, is a matter upon which we can only speculate. The puzzle reminds one of the difficulty which meets the palaeontologist when he strives to explain why one line of animal descent stops, and remains fixed, while another continues to develop; why creatures which seem to be completely adapted to their surroundings become extinct; why one species or genus is taken, and another left.
We now go behind the testimony of the tombstones, and meet some apparent contradictions. When the turf on the Northern side of a churchyard is broken up, for the first time, as the sexton thinks—since there are neither mounds nor tombstones to serve as “frail memorials,” bones are sometimes discovered. At Bottesford, Lincolnshire, though the North yard had been wholly unused until our day, yet when graves were actually dug, traces of former burials were revealed[903]. The churchyard of Swinhope, in the same county, yielded stronger proofs. Seven or eight very old interments, closely grouped, were found; in one case there was a coffin formed of loose slabs of chalk[904]. The late Canon A. R. Pennington, of Utterby, again in the same county, told the writer of his surprise when bones were thrown out of the first grave made towards the North of his church. It is a fair inference that no mounds had been raised over the earlier interments. Further instances could be added, but these will suffice. The details concerning the Swinhope interments are peculiar, especially the finding of the chalk coffin. These particular burials may point to the building of the church on a pre-Christian site. The other examples, however, have a different interpretation; namely, that the Northern portion of the churchyard was formerly reserved for the bodies of murderers, suicides, excommunicated persons, and still-born or unbaptized children[905]. That the custom is not yet obsolete is attested by the case already described on p. 341 supra, which is one of many.
This ecclesiastical rule has found its expression in literature. A modern poet, Professor A. E. Housman, has deftly wrought the tradition and the practice into his sad story, A Shropshire Lad:
“To South the headstones cluster,
The sunny mounds lie thick;
The dead are more in muster
At Hughley than the quick.
North, for the soon-told number,
Chill graves the sexton delves,
And steeple-shadowed slumber
The slayers of themselves.”