ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT FRILFORD. 



655 



vessel cannot be considered as a cinerary vessel ^. Cocliet^ in his 

 'Arch. Ceramiqne,' p. 13, explains what he calls the mystery of the 

 custom by the often-quoted passage as to holy water from ' Duran- 

 dus,' vii. ^^, ^y. I think this passage of little weight 2, considering 

 that Durandus lived in the thirteenth century. I incline to con- 

 sider these vases, another example of which, from Haslingfield, is 

 herewith figured, and which sometimes have been, as at Selzen, 

 found to contain combs, shears, beads, fibulae, flint and steel, and 

 bronze rings, in fact everything that an ordinary cremation urn 

 does contain except the bones, to be rudimentary representations 

 of such cremation urns. Solemn occasions are tenacious of their 

 symbols, and will hold to them or keep hold of them in miniature 

 when they can no longer maintain them in full proportions. The 



Fragment of Saxon urn, Frilford. 

 Scale I linear. 



Saxon urn, Haslingfield. 

 Scale i linear. 



wide range over which this diminutive representation of the larger 

 Germanic urn has been found is another argument in favour of my 



^ For the greater fineness of workmanship in these smaller vessels, see Kemble, 

 ' Horae Ferales,' p. 225 ; Roach Smith, ' Collect. Antiq.' iv. 161-196. 



^ It was thus as given by Cochet 1. c. : ' Corpus ponitur in spelunca in qua . . . 

 ponitur aqua benedicta . . . Aqua benedicta ne daemones qui multum eam timent ad 

 corpus accedant : solent namque desaevire in corpora mortuorum, ut quod nequiverunt 

 in vita saltern post mortem agant,' Cochet's own wol-ds are : ' Tons les cimetibres 

 M^rovingiens et meme Carlovingiens que nous retrouvons . . . montrent toujours aux 

 pieds du mqrt un vase vide dont les hommes d'aujourdhui nous demandent le sens et 

 le mystfere. Nous croyons I'avoir trouve dans la pi^td naive et grossi^re, peut-etre 

 meme mat^rielle et superstitieuse, de nos pbres. Nous supposons done, non sans 

 fondement, qu'ils auront mis dans ce vase une eau sacree pr^servatrice des obsessions 

 et des possessions demoniaques si frdquentes chez les vivants et dont les morts ne leur 

 paraissaient ni exempts ni affranchis.' 



