CEMETERY
506
CEMETERY
whom they lived. Thus in Egypt the early Coptic
Christians converted their dead into mummies with
the use of asphalt and natron. Again, though cata-
combs existed far away from Rome in many places
where the soil favoured such excavations, e. g. in
Naples and Sicily, still, in certain tracts of country
otherwise suitable, e. g. in Umbria, the early Chris-
tians abstained from this method of interment, ap-
parently because it was not used by the pagan inhabi-
tants (see N. Miiller in Realencyklopadie f. prot.
Theol., X, 817).
Burial in Churches. — The fact that the tombs of the martyrs were probably the earliest altars (cf. Apoc, vi, 9), together with the eager desire to be buried near God's holy ones, gradually led up to the custom of permitting certain favoured individuals to be interred not only near but within the church. It may be said that the Roman emperors led the way. Constantine and Theodosius were buried under the portico of the church of the Apostles in Constantinople. At Rome, when the restrictions against burial within the city began to be set aside, the entrance of St. Peter's became the usual place of interment for the popes and other distinguished persons. It was no doubt in imitation of this practice that King Ethel- bert of Canterbury was persuaded by St. Augustine to dedicate a church to Sts. Peter and Paul outside the town, with the intent " that both his own body and the bodies of his episcopal successors and at the same time of the kings of Kent might be laid to rest there ". They were in point of fact buried in the vestibule. Probably a varying phase of the same tendency may be recognized in the practice of erecting little shelters or oratories, basilica, over certain favoured graves in the open. The Salic law prohibited outrages upon such basilicas under heavy penalties: "Si quis basili- cam super hominem mortuum cxspoliaverit 1200 de- narios culpabilis iudicetur", i. e. "If any one shall plunder a basilica erected over the dead he shall be fined 1200 denarii" (cf. Lindenschmidt, Handbuch d. deutsch. Alterthumskunde, I, 96). But interment within the church itself had been known from an early date in isolated cases. St. Ambrose allowed his brother Satyrus, although he was a layman, to be buried within the church beside the tomb of a martyr. As for himself, he wished to be buried under the altar of his own basilica. " Hunc ego locum (sc. sub altari) prsdestinaveram mihi. Dignum est enim ut ibi re- quiescat sacerdos ubi offerre consuevit ", i.e. "This place (beneath the altar) I had chosen for myself. For it is fitting that where the priest has been wont to sacrifice, there should he rest (Migne, P. L., XVI, 1023). In the earlier periods, however, when we hear of burial in churches we may as a rule presume that the cemetery basilicas are meant (cf. De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, III. 548 sq.), and for a long time the resistance made to the growing practice of burial in churches was very determined. Of the numerous conciliar decrees upon the subject that of Vaison in 442 may be taken as a specimen. " According to the tradition of our ancestors", it says, "measures must be taken that on no account should anyone be buried within the churches, but only in the yard or in the vestibule or in the annexes [exedris]. But within the church itself and near the altar the dead must on no account be buried." This decree with others of similar purport was afterwards in- corporated in the canon law. As may be learned from St. Gregory of Tours it was frequently dis- regarded in the' case of bishops and royal per- sonages, but on the other hand we have record of many other bishops, abbots, and other distinguished men'both in the sixth century ami later who were buried juxta urban, or in cam pis, or in communi cceme- teno. St. Area (q. v.i might be mentioned as an English example in point. None the less in the first half of the ninth century the serious abuses attendant
upon the neglect of this prohibition were constantly
complained of. The passage in the capitularies of
Theodulfus (c. 790) is particularly interesting because
it was afterwards translated into Anglo-Saxon (c.
1110) in the following form: —
"It was an old custom in these lands often to bury departed men within the church and to convert into cemeteries [lictunuin] the places that were hallowed to God's worship and blessed for offering to Him. Now it is our will that henceforth no man be buried within a church unless it be some man of the priest- hood [saccrdhadot] or at least a layman of such piety that it is known that he by his meritorious deed's earned when living such a place for his dead body to rest in. It is not our intention however that the bodies which have been previously buried in the church should be cast out but that the graves which are seen therein be either dug deeper into the eartli or else be levelled up and the church floor be evenly and decently laid so that no grave [na?i byrgen] be any longer apparent. But if in any place there be so many graves that it is impossible to effect this, then let the place be left as a cemetery [Thonne late man tha stoxve to lictune] and the altar be taken from thence and set in a clean [i. e. new] place and a church be there raised where people may offer to God reverently and decently " (Thorpe, Eccles. Institutes and Laws, 472). This decree plainly shows both that the law against burying within the churches had often been disre- garded in the past and also that any attempt to enforce it rigidly was looked upon as impracticable. No one could determine the precise degree of piety which merited a relaxation, and in most countries those whose dignity, wealth, or benefactions enabled them to press their claims with vigour had little diffi- culty in securing this coveted privilege for themselves or for their friends. The English liturgist, John Beleth, seems to admit that any patronus ecclesia, i. e. the patron of a living, could claim to be buried in the church as a right, and his words are adopted by Durandus, though possibly without a full appreciation of their meaning. Still, such lay interments within the sacred building and especially in the chancel always stood in contradiction to the canon law. and some show of resistance was generally made. In particular, it was insisted on that tombs should not project above the pavement or should at least be con- fined to the side chapels. The ecclesiastical legisla- tion of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries con- tinued to recognize the right of the clergy to be buried within the sacred building, but it need hardly be remarked that the intervention of state legislation in almost all modern countries has deprived these de- crees of much of their practical importance.
Medieval Cemeteries. — When the tribes of the North were first converted to Christianity an effort was generally made to restrain the converts from being buried in the barrows used by the pagans. This does not seem to have been the case to the same extent when the Gospel was preached to the Romanized Gauls. There, says Boulanger (Le mobilier fun6- raire gallo-romain et franc, 27), the pagan and the Christian Roman will often be seen resting side by side. "Glass with biblical subjects or pottery bearing Christian inscriptions may be found next door to a grave which contains the obol intended for Charon." In the Frank and Saxon interments there is not usually this confusion of pagan and Christian. At the same time, the national burial custom, which required the warrior to be buried with his arms and the girl with her ornaments and the implements of her daily occupation, was long observed even by Chris- tians. The temptation which this custom offered for
the rifling of graves was viewed with much disfavour by the Church, and under Charlemagne an ecclesi- astical council passed a decree which seems to have been effective in putting an end to this burial
