CEMETERY AT FRILFORD. 591 



with any salt of iron or other mineral so as to have been preserved 

 by such impregnation from the decay which would otherwise have 

 befallen it, we are justified in considering it exceedingly prob- 

 able that it was put into the grave in the condition either of yet 

 burning embers, or of charcoal. The test mentioned by the Abbe 

 Cochet, ' Normandie Souterraine,' p. 198 ed. i. (p. 2!Z9 ed. ii.), for 

 differentiating charcoal from decayed wood, viz. that the latter 

 gives a sherry colour on boiling with potash, is a little unsatis- 

 factory, inasmuch as the purest charcoal would give a similar 

 reaction after being surcharged and sopped through and through 

 for ages with water, more or less laden, ex hypothesis with im- 

 purities. Without losing sight of the possibility that blackened 

 woody matter may be the remnants of a coflSn, it is well to con- 

 sider the different explanations which may be given of the presence 

 of true charcoal in an interment. Four such have been given, two 

 of which refer the practice to the operation of Christian beliefs; 

 the third refers it to the working of feelings which are neither 

 distinctly Christian nor yet distinctly heathen ; whilst the fourth 

 explanation is applicable to heathen interments only. The two first 

 explanations may be expressed in two separate utterances of Du- 

 randus, the first being the often quoted one, vii. c. 3.5, as to the 

 placing of embers and incense, prunae cum thure, in the grave ; and 

 the second, a few lines further on, speaking of a Christian practice 

 of placing charcoal in the grave to serve there as an imperishable 

 protest against using the soil of the grave thereafter for secular 

 purposes, 4n testimonium quod terra ilia in communes usus amplius 

 redigi non potest; plus enim durat carbo sub terra quam aliud.' 

 The third of the four explanations refers the presence of charcoal in 

 the graves to the holding of feasts by their side in replacement of 

 the pagan sacrifices of former times. The fourth explanation refers 

 us to the overt and recognised performance, or to the stealthy con- 

 tinuance of the eminently heathen practice of burning the body or 

 of lighting a fire in the grave to prepare it for the reception of the 

 corpse. Any one or all of the three first explanations are admissible 

 in the case of the Romano-Britons ; the fourth may very probably 

 apply to the interments of the half-converted or apostatising Anglo- 

 Saxons, to whose history we shall return ^. 



* For the discovery of carbonaceous matter in graves, see Cochet, 'Normandie 

 Souterraine,' ed. i. pp. 198, 255, 256, 304; Kemble, *Horae Ferales,' pp. 98, 104; 



