ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



side, as for instance in Cambridgeshire ; and there is little to show 

 whether inhumation was for a time abolished in favour of cremation, or 

 whether the two rites were practised by contemporaries of different 

 tribal affinities in settlements distinct but not far removed from one 

 another. It should be remembered in this connexion that among the 

 Romans or Romanized provincials of Britain, cremation of the dead 

 seems to have passed out of fashion about the middle of the third 

 century of our era, more than half a century before the state recognition 

 of Christianity under Constantine ; so that it would be unwise to regard 

 the Teutonic cinerary urns of Nottinghamshire as the successors of the 

 Roman mortuary-ware that attained a high standard of quality. Com- 

 parison with continental discoveries justifies the attribution of these rude 

 hand-made urns to immigrants who came from the country bordering 

 the lower Elbe, or were at least akin to the tribes who settled in what 

 are to-day Schleswig-Holstein and Hanover. 



There is in this county some slight indication that burials of the 

 unburnt body, that must still on account of their grave furniture be 

 referred to the pagan period, preserve the Roman tradition. They may 

 be those of the population that was left to its own 

 resources by the withdrawal of the Roman troops 

 and officials about the year 410 ; and, leaving the 

 cinerary urns for separate treatment, we may at 

 once proceed to an examination of a burial-ground 

 that was evidently in use during the fifth century. 



A cemetery at Holme Pierrepont, three 

 miles east of Nottingham, was accidentally dis- 

 covered by labourers in 1842; but though various 

 articles are described and illustrated in the original 



account, 1 nothing is Said as to the interments. URN FROM HOLME PIERRKPONT. 



It may, however, be concluded from the con- 

 dition of the relics found 2 ft. below the surface, that the burials were 

 not by way of cremation, and the skeletons had, perhaps, gone to decay, 

 though one urn is mentioned that may have contained calcined bones. 

 As remnants of the Roman civilization, may be mentioned part of a thin 

 yellow glass bowl, about six inches in diameter, with a raised inscription 

 of which the word Semper alone remains above a bird. Another drawing 

 represents a brooch in the form of a spotted animal that has a decidedly 

 Roman appearance. Though details were wanting, it was said that all 

 varieties of weapons and ornaments usually found in Saxon cemeteries 

 were here discovered in profusion. Two more urns are mentioned, and 

 one is illustrated ; but as they are described as smaller than the first, 

 there is nothing to show that they were cinerary, though they were 

 classed as such in 1858.* A quern about one foot in diameter, with part 

 of the iron spindle remaining, on which revolved an upper stone of bee- 

 hive form, may be compared with similar discoveries in graves at Winster, 

 Hartington, and Taddington in Derbyshire, and at Reading, Berkshire. 



1 Journ. Brit. Arch. Asiac. iii, 297 ; see also Coll. Antij. ii, 228. ' W. M. Wylie, Arch, xxxvii, 471. 



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