Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials (2 page)

A Brief History of Burial

FIG 1.1:
An imaginary churchyard with some of the memorials and features which can be found today after over a thousand years of burial. Such has been the displacement of soil over the centuries due to reburials building up on the same spot that many churches have a trench around them and retaining walls because the ground level has risen by up to a couple of metres!

I
vy-clad gravestones and crumbling tombs illuminated by moonlight through a gloomy ceiling of trees with only the hoot of an owl to break the eerie silence. This familiar image of the churchyard was first eulogised by poets in the 18th century, then became a vital component in the Gothic novels of the early 1800s before being crystallised in our minds by 20th-century horror films.
Yet this spooky incantation seems far removed from the neatly-trimmed landscaped sites we see today and, as you will discover, was quite different from that which preceded it. Before looking in detail at the memorials found within, it is worth explaining how churchyards have been transformed over the years, why cemeteries were founded and what features you can still find there.

The earliest forms of burial we can readily see in the landscape today are the various types of earthen mounds and stone chambers erected from the Neolithic Age up to as late as the Early Saxon period to house either a corpse or cremated remains. Archaeologists regularly uncover cemeteries which can date from the second half of the Bronze Age through the Roman period (where they were usually sited outside of town boundaries) and into the Dark Ages. One key feature they look for to help date the graves is their alignment – where they are laid out in no set direction it implies a pagan burial but where they are on a roughly east-west axis the deceased was probably a Christian. This can usually be tied in with when the Saxons in a region were converted by missionaries – the armies of Celtic priests and monks invading from the north and those of the Roman Church from the south during the late 6th and 7th centuries.

FIG 1.2: RUDSTON, YORKS:
The success of Christianity partly lay in the way the early Church adopted old pagan beliefs rather than destroying them. Many churchyards were established around existing religious sites, and some today retain a distinctive round or irregular plan which implies they were pre-Christian. Others contain ancient features like round barrows or standing stones, none more notable than this huge monolith at Rudston. Pagan symbols like this may have simply had a cross cut into them to drive out old spirits.

Although these missionaries founded churches in the newly-converted regions, very few buildings were erected, with most priests travelling out from a Minster to a designated site probably consecrated by a wooden and, later, a stone cross. The first specific mention of a churchyard is in the mid 8th century although it is likely that burials were already taking place at these revered sites, some perhaps attracted by the interment of a notable missionary or priest. By the 10th century the specific area of ‘God's Acre' was being marked out by small wooden crosses in the corners. With parish churches often being founded after this period it is likely that many churchyards pre-date the building upon which they appear to centre.

FIG 1.3:
Hogsback grave markers were of Norse inspiration and can still be found in churchyards in the North as in this example from Penrith, Cumbria. Although named after their curving form they are actually meant to represent a house with the scale-shaped tiles still visible on the upper half.

Most graves throughout the Middle Ages probably had no permanent markers although temporary wooden crosses may have been inserted. The clergy and nobles were more likely to have a stone memorial: a grave slab with a cross incised down its tapering length or a short stone with a disc-shaped head, which are two types that can still be found today. Burial inside for anyone but the clergy was frowned upon by the early Church and it was only from the late 13th century that it became common for the local nobility to be interred there. Their memorials usually took the form of an altar tomb, a raised chest decorated with tracery or coats of arms on later types, and an effigy of the deceased lying along the top. They would either be positioned in the chancel (the nearer to the altar the better), or in a chantry chapel, created from part of an aisle or a separate building in which mass was said for its wealthy founder. Other rich individuals who could not afford such a monument could still be buried under a stone slab or a brass, the detail retained in the latter a useful indication of period dress and individual aspiration.

FIG 1.4:
Tall stone Saxon preaching crosses carved with symbolic figures relating biblical stories and morals to an illiterate congregation can still be found in churchyards today, mainly in the Midlands and North. Smaller types like this example may have marked a notable grave although, like most, it has lost part of its shaft so appears shorter than it originally was.

FIG 1.5:
Grave-slabs are the most common Saxon and medieval burial markers found today, with their distinctive incised crosses, and many churches have one or two propped up against a wall inside. Early ones tend to be narrow with a tapered shape and a simple cross, ones from the 13th century have a more elaborate cross carved in relief while those from the 14th century tend to be on rectangular stones. Many of these grave-slabs were lost or used in later rebuilding and often discovered during restoration. The most incredible collection was the 300 found in Bakewell church, Derbys (above), some 70 of which have been mounted in the porch where they can still be viewed today.

FIG 1.6:
Stone coffins used for important burials, usually under the church floor, are another frequently found medieval relic. They were not, however, for permanent interment but were only used while the body decayed, the hole at the bottom allowing fluids to drain out and speed up the process. After this the bones were removed to a charnel house (either a chamber below the church, a room to the side of it or a separate building in the churchyard) after which the coffin could be used again.

The area around the medieval church would have looked completely different from our familiar image. There would have been few if any stone memorials, the only feature standing above the hummocks of graves on the sunny south side would have been the churchyard cross mounted on a stepped base, which marked the consecrated ground. The north side would usually be bare. This shaded part was believed to be the realm of the devil and evil spirits, and even later it was used particularly for the burial of strangers, suicides and unbaptised children. In many cases it was only in the 19th century, when population growth created so much pressure for burial space, that it was put into use.