Miscellanea. 



By Rev. C. Kerrv. 



Ma^sit)e interments. 



OR some particular crimes offenders were denied the 

 right of interment in consecrated ground — suicides 

 especially — all such having excommunicated them- 

 selves by their own wicked act, and by the ecclesias- 

 tical laws such persons were not permitted to have the rites of 

 Christian burial performed over them. {See the present rubric 

 before the Burial office.) In cases of this kind the bodies of the 

 unfortunate persons were usually interred at or near the intersec- 

 tion of two roads, or at a " three lane ends," probably as setting 

 forth the symbolical cross and the Blessed Trinity, and so in some 

 degree considered sacred. There are, without doubt, numbers of 

 these interments in the county, a few of which only are here 

 recorded. It would be desirable if a more perfect list could be 

 compiled. 



The oldest book of churchwardens' accounts belonging to 

 Morton, now in a very tattered condition, has a few interesting 

 entries touching this subject. The first occurs in 1635: — " Ite 

 given to two men for to watch the churchyard one night because 

 it was supposed they would have brought Thomas Wright to have 

 been buried there, is. od." 



Again, in 1637. " Ite given for watchinge the Churchyard the 

 loth of May when Parsons wife of Morwood had like to have 

 been buried there, is. 8d." 



