Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/226

126 DESCRIPTION OF AN ANCIENT TUMULAR CEMETERY. inclined to place the date of the cemetery at Lamel-hill between the first introduction of Christianity in the second or third century under the Romans, and the establishment of ecclesiastical cemeteries in the middle or latter part of the eighth century. If the correctness of this inference be allowed, we may now inquire whether this cemetery is to be ascribed to the early Christians of the Roman-British, or to those of the Saxon, period ; — whether to the inhabitants of Eburacum or to those of Eoforwic. Many of those antiquarians who have investigated the tumuli and cemeteries of the Romanised Britons and Anglo- Saxons, have, with great probability, concluded that the old methods of interment, more or less modified, were con- tinued for some time after the introduction of Christianity. The habits of a people are only entirely changed with the gradual lapse of time. Thus, in the eighth century, many years after the nominal conversion of the continental Saxons, we find Charlemagne publishing an edict, in which he orders their dead to be taken to the cemeteries of the church and not to the tumuli of the Pagans.^ Douglas, who investi- gated the Saxon tumuh of Kent with great accuracy, observes, " that many of the relics in the small tumuli might incline an antiquary to consider them with an eye to Pagan cere- monies, particularly when vessels have been found in them ; but as many Christian rites were founded on those of the Gentiles, and in the early ages of Christianity seem to be blended with each other, it is difficult sometimes to say whether the people inhumed were Christian or Pagan."^ I would suggest that we have an example, to some extent, of this blendino; of Christian and Pao-an methods of burial in the cemetery at Lamel-hill. The probably tumular character of the burial-place and its position on the highest ground of the district, savour, perhaps, rather of heathen than of Christian views. The discovery, too, of a sepulchral urn, tends still more to this conclusion. The burial-places of the Romans and Romanised Britons are, we well know, to be looked for in the neighbourhood, and by the side, of the roads leading from their cities and stations ; and hence it has been sometimes too hastily con- 3 "Jubemus ut corpora Christianorum ^ Nenia Britannica, 1793. As regards Saxonum ad csomitoria ecdesiai deferantur the tumuli referred to by Douglas, it wiU, et non ad tumulos Paganorum." Char- I believe, be now generally allowed, that lemagne also forbade the practice of burn- these are really of Pagan origin, ing the dead amongst his Saxon subjects.