Byways in British Archaeology

by Walter Johnson

Parochial histories supply the facts necessary for the confirmation of the tradition. Brand cites the case of a burying-ground in Edinburgh, where the North was reserved for the unbaptized and suicides. The graveyard belonged to the Quakers, and thus is of especial interest[906]. Another record tells how, a century ago, the body of a murderer who had been executed at Lincoln was carried to Swine, over the Yorkshire boundary, and was there interred on the North side “as the proper place in which to bury a felon[907].” To the Irish peasantry, the North is the “wrong side,” and we have a contemporary account of a murder in the year 1786, which incidentally states that the malefactor was buried on the “wrong side” of Turlagh churchyard[908]. Miss Gordon-Cumming found that, among the Hebrideans, the belief was full of vitality. A young Englishman, who had committed suicide, was carried head foremost to a grave on the North side of Portree church, and was there buried, with his head towards the East, instead of towards the West. Even this qualified reception into consecrated ground sometimes meets with opposition, from fear that a suicide so buried will cause the herrings to desert the coast. The suspicious fishermen have been known to dig up a corpse from the kirkyard, secretly, by night, and to re-inter the accursed thing either on the shore, at low-water mark, or on the summit of a high mountain. Burials of this kind have taken place on the top of Aird Dhubh, and also on a mountain on the border of Inverness and Ross-shire, two years after the original sepulture[909].

Still bearing on this question, it has been suggested that a part of the churchyard, presumably the Northern, was formerly left unconsecrated for the burial of such persons as have been enumerated. Burn, in his History of Parish Registers, expressly states this as a fact, and gives, as an example, “the single woman’s churchyard,” in Southwark, where the dead bodies of the inmates of the licensed stews were buried[910]. This part of the graveyard was frequently known as the “back side[911].” The West of England tradition taught that this area was designedly left unconsecrated to serve as a playground for the village children. To speak more generally, the North was reserved for the village sports during the period when these were permitted in the churchyard. And, although there seems no clear proof that butts for the use of archers were set up in the churchyard itself, the ground immediately adjoining the North boundary was so used. Such a strip of land, of some length, known as “the Butts,” lies to the North of the churchyard at Beeston-next-Mileham, in Norfolk[912], and at Coleshill, in Warwick. The theory of non-consecration, though not for the purposes just named, receives some support from Durandus, who observes that to be buried on the North side is to be buried “out of sanctuary[913].” And through all the centuries which have rolled away since the date of this learned ecclesiastic, the country folk have shunned the North side, which lies “benighted in the midday sun.” There was always a dislike of lying alone in death. The accustomed path, leading to the South door, was trodden by the assembling worshippers[914]. Under the shadow of the graveyard cross or the sombre yew the country folk could stop to whisper a prayer. In far-away times, Gregory the Great had taught that it is more profitable to be buried in the churchyard than in the distant cemetery, because, in the former case, the survivors may frequently behold the sepulchres as they enter the sacred building, and may put forth their petitions. (Cf. p. 262 supra.)

The distant cemetery, mentioned by Gregory, seems oftentimes to have formed an incentive to church-building in its neighbourhood. It would appear that the earliest Christian graveyards, like the cemeteries of the heathen, were often unenclosed. Being hallowed spots, a preaching cross would be erected near the graves. The setting up of a cross, the “truly precious rood,” must precede the actual building of the church, according to the decree of the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 530). This act of consecration was the work of the bishop of the diocese. Durandus notices the claim of some churchmen that a space of thirty feet around the church ought to be set apart for burial, while others contended that the space actually enclosed by the circuit of the bishop was sufficient[915]. Though the cross may at first have been portable and adapted only for temporary use, yet a permanent symbol was frequently employed. The heathen Saxons are said to have had a rooted dread of entering an enclosed place of worship, lest they should be the victims of supposed magical rites[916]. An enclosed graveyard was also a decided innovation. So late as the reign of Canute, one class of building, the “feld-cirice” (= field-church), was unprovided with a graveyard. As time passed away, however, boundary hedges were planted, or walls were built around to form a burial-ground. The sacred garth, as well as the building, became a sanctuary, with its “benefit of adjuration,” and its right of appeal to trial by ordeal. The actual enclosure of spaces around the churches dates from about the year A.D. 750. (Cf. remarks on the early cemeteries in Chap. VI.) The practice must have been loosely observed, for we find, down to the year A.D. 1603, statutes and canons repeatedly enforcing the law[917].

Chance excavations sometimes attest the early laxity of custom. Outside the churchyard wall of Kirby Grindalythe, in the East Riding, stretching towards the West, are many ancient interments. This fact seems to indicate, either that the Norman church originally stood in an unfenced portion of the hillside, a part of the cemetery being excluded when the wall was built, or that the open wold had been used for burials, Christian or pagan, before the church was erected[918]. Gilbert White was of opinion that the churchyard of Selborne was once larger, and had extended to what was, in his day, the vicarage garden[919]. Maplescombe church, the ruins of which were referred to on p. 38, seems to have never been properly fenced in from the fields. The retired churchyard of Branxton, in Northumberland, which lies within a bowshot of Flodden Field, has at least two features which are illustrative of our subject. The present churchwarden, Mr John Rankin, the representative of a family which has long held that office, informs me that the graveyard was formerly unfenced, save on the South side, where a thorn hedge separated it from the road. On this side, also, there is a narrow strip of land which contains no graves, and which, Mr Rankin asserts, has, through an oversight, never been consecrated. (Cf. p. 343 supra.) The churchyard at Norton, near Evesham, was unenclosed, except on the Eastern side, down to the year 1844. It stood in a grass field which formed part of the church glebe, thus illustrating Wordsworth’s lines, descriptive of an Oxfordshire parsonage:

“Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,
Is marked by no distinguishable line[920].”

The sonnet from which these lines are taken seems to show clearly that the poet was writing of a churchyard which was open on one side. Again, one often discovers churches of ancient foundation standing apart in the fields, and having a fence composed of wooden rails or iron hurdles of such modern date that one is forced to believe that the area has only been shut in for a few generations. The church of Little Washbourne, Gloucestershire, already ruinous when I saw it in 1888, is an instance which comes to mind. The tiny church of Woldingham ([Fig. 68]), which is situated near the escarpment of the North Downs, lay in the open fields, and the ground was apparently unenclosed down to the year 1852. The building, which measured only 30 feet by 17 feet, was rudely constructed of flints and “firestone” (from the Upper Greensand), but has since been restored more than once. The old structure was “desolate [and] dilapidated” so far back as the time of Evelyn[921]. The illustration shows the restored church of a century ago. To-day the building is approached by a short road. The visitor will notice how small a strip of ground was left on the North side when the boundaries were marked out. Seeking examples elsewhere, we observe that, in the marshland of East Lincolnshire, churches must have been built before the district was effectively drained, and therefore, before the existing boundary ditches or dykes were cut[922].

Fig. 68. The restored church of Woldingham, Surrey, as it appeared in 1809. (Manning and Bray.) The view seems to be taken from the North side. Behind the church, on the South side, is a large yew, much decayed, and partially hollow. To the right, just out of the drawing, is a huge ash, which to-day measures 20 feet in circumference at a height of 3 feet from the ground. The churchyard was probably unenclosed until a comparatively late date.

The prejudice against burial on the North side can be traced beyond the advent of Christianity. It is one of those “clinging faiths and fears” which beset the early folk of these islands. As a result of the examination of several hundred British barrows, Canon Greenwell found that, in secondary burials, bodies were rarely deposited on the North side of the mound, the most favoured positions being towards the South and East[923]. Mr J. R. Mortimer, after quoting Canon Greenwell’s observations, confirms them by the testimony of the mounds of Yorkshire. Canon Atkinson’s experiences yielded similar results. During the course of many years, he opened some eighty “houes” or grave-mounds in his own district of Danby-in-Cleveland, and found one interment only in which the body “lay a little, and but a little, North of the magnetic East-and-West line[924]” (i.e. the median line). The evidence derived from megalithic monuments and prehistoric dwellings and settlements tends the same way. The chilly North was shunned; the brilliant East and the gracious South were courted. These ancient preferences were emphasized in the building of temples and Christian places of worship. Egregious among these old-world superstitions stands the hatred of the North. All the inherited antipathies of primeval folk were long retained by their civilized successors, and hence the Northern portion of the graveyard was allotted to those who were deemed spiritually undeveloped or spiritually lost.