CEMETERY AT FRILFORD. 593 



remote from the great centres of life. The fact, however, that 

 money to the amount of no less than three hundred pieces of Roman 

 coinage was placed in the tomh of Childeric is more conclusive 

 than any mere speculation from the analogies furnished by ancient 

 or modern times. A kindly instinct induced persons, who probably 

 enough had never heard of Charon, to bury with their deceased 

 friend or relative that which they knew him or her to have valued 

 most, and the presence of coin in a grave may convey thus to us a 

 satire upon the departed, which it was never intended to hint at. 

 The Abbe Cochet seems to me ^ to lay too much stress upon ' la 

 coAtume Chretienne de rendre a la terre les hommes nus comme ils 

 y sont entres.' For this principle would have prevented the burial 

 with ornaments 2, of which, however, we are told in the ' Capi- 

 tularia Regum Francorum,' ii. 852 (cf. also p. 701), ' Mos ille in 

 vulgo obsoletus in funeribus episcoporum et presbyterorum re- 

 tinetur.' 



In many of these semi-oriented graves nails with woody fibre 

 still adhering to them were found, and from their presence, as also 

 from that of a piece of cofRn-hooping (see also Dr. Thurnam, 

 'Catalogue, Osteological Series, Royal College of Surgeons,' ii. 881, 

 5712) in one of these graves, we may argue with considerable prob- 

 ability for the employment of coffins in some, at least, of these 

 interments. The custom of throwing shards, and flints, and pebbles 

 into the grave is common both to Romano-British and to Anglo- 

 Saxon interments in England. That it was pagan and even of 

 very early origin seems probable, and that it persisted into Christian 

 periods is pretty certain. Shakespeare's well-known lines ^ (Hamlet, 

 V. i) show, however, that its pagan origin had somehow or other 

 so strongly impressed itself upon the public mind that it was no 



' * Normandie Souterraine,' p. 194. See also Keysler, * Antiq. Select.* p. 174. 



^ See also the account of the plundering of the gorgeously-arrayed corpse of Pope 

 Adrian I. in Mabillon, 'Museum Italicum,' i. 41 ; Gretzet, *De Funere Christiano,' 

 i. 28; Chrysostom, Horn. 84; Guichard, 'Fundrailles,' 1581,?. 581, where the Council 

 of Auxerre is said to have condemned * toutes ces bobances/ 



' Douglas, in his ' Nenia,' appears to be the first person who drew attention to the 

 lines of Shakespeare, referred to, see p. 10, and also p. 34. For other references to 

 the custom, see Keller, 1. c. p. 65 ; Wylie, 'Fairford Graves,' p. 25 ; Akerman, ' Pagan 

 Saxondom,' Introd. p. xvii ; Weinhold, ' Sitzungsberichte Kais. Akad, Wiss. Wien. 

 Hist. Phil. Klasse,' 1858, bd. 29, hft. i. p. 166 ; Fried. Simony, * Die Alterthiimer vom^ 

 Halstatter Salzberg, Sitzungsberichte Kais. Akad. Wiss. Wien. Phil. Hist. Klasse," 

 185 1, p. 7 ; Keysler, 1. c. p. 106 ; Rev. G. R. Hall, 'Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumber- 

 land and Durham/ i. 2, 1866, p. 167. 



