68 PAPERS, ETC. 
The leaden cofin appears also to have been altered to fit 
the stone chest. The leaden coffins which have been found 
with escalops and other ornaments, have been discovered 
only in the neighbourhood of London, York, and Colchester. 
(See Weever’s Funeral Monuments, p. 30; also Arch@o- 
logia, vol. xvii, p. 333, vol. xxxi, p. 308). 
This sarcophagus, which, from the style of the sculp- 
ture, may be assigned to the fourth century, is formed 
of the material called Barnack Rag. The character of the 
sculpture, however, may recall that of an earlier period, as 
shewn on the tomb of Cecilia Metella, near Rome. A 
curious narrative of Bede, contained in the fourth book of 
the Ecclesiastical History, c. xix, confirms the opinion of a 
secondary interment. It appears from this that stone 
coffins, discovered on the sites of Roman cities, were taken 
for the purposes of christian burial in after times. On the 
site of Camboritum, the Roman Cambridge, stone coflins 
have been discovered of a large size, similar to those found 
in Bath and the neighbourhood, without any lids corres- 
ponding, but over them small stones, with devices on them, 
which fix the date of the interment to the time subsequent 
tothe Norman Conquest. (See Arch@ologia,xvii,221.) The 
Saxon historian, Bede,relates that the corpse of /Rdilthryda, 
Abbess of Coldingham, had been interred in a wooden 
coffin, by her desire, on her death, a.nD. 679. Her sister 
and successor, Sexburga, desiring to place her remains in a 
new receptacle, and to remove them into the church, sent 
forth some of the brethren to seek stone of which such a 
cofin might be formed. Having taken ship, and in yain 
sought for any of suffieient size in the marshy region of 
Ely, they came to the ruined eity of Granta-ceaster, and 
presently found a suitable coffin near its walls. Regardıng 
this as a providential interposition, they retraced their 
