ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT FRILFORD. 657 



Memoir on Frilford, Article XXXIV. It is worth while noticing 

 that this Anglo-Saxon woman was 5 ft. 5 in. in height, an instance 

 of what is said to be usual, but what I have found to be by no 

 means invariable, viz., an equality, or an approach to equality, in 

 the stature of the German women and men^; next, that her skull 

 was found five inches above her sternum, three stones having been 

 placed underneath it; and, lastly, that the knees were at a higher 

 level by several inches than either the ankles or the hips, besides 

 being, as the statement of the body having been in the contracted 

 position implies, out of the line of the long axis of the skeleton. 

 These points are not ordinarily found in Christian burials. The 

 arms were, however, crossed, and the hands folded inwards, as was 

 often done in such interments; with which, again, on the other 

 hand, this Anglo-Saxon burial appears to have contrasted in the 

 body's being turned somewhat on to the left side, a point which, 

 from the crushed condition of the skeleton, lying only about % feet 

 from the surface of the ground, it was difficult to make out. 



The question now arises. Were such non-oriented, contracted, 

 shallowly interred, but relic-provided, bodies, the bodies of heathen 

 or of Christianised Saxons ? Mr. Kemble's dictum, ' Horae Ferales,' 

 p. 98, to the effect, that, 'if there is any equivocation in the matter, 

 it lies the other way; a few half-converted Christians may for 

 a while have clung to the rite of burning, but no Pagan Saxon was 

 buried without it,' is well known ; but I am of opinion that this is 

 one of the few mistakes which Mr. Kemble made. This one mis- 

 take of Mr. Kemble led him logically to a conclusion to be found 

 at p. 230 of the same valuable work, the * Horae Ferales,' in a 

 remark printed from the MSS. left behind him. Speaking of the 

 rarity of Saxon urns in Scottish Museums, one from Buchan, to be 

 seen in the Museum of the Antiquarian Society, being specified as 

 the only one he knew of, Mr. Kemble remarks, ' If they (Anglo- 

 Saxon urns) should turn out to be very rare there (in Scotland not 

 merely in Scottish museums), it would be evidence that no very 

 important settlement was made there by the Saxons before their 

 conversion to Christianity; a result which history seems to bear 

 out. It was, in fact, Christianity which united the Saxons suf- 

 ficiently to make them capable of acting en masse against their 



* For figure of a skeleton with skull similarly raised, see 'Grabfeld von Hallstatt,' 

 tab. ill. fig. 4. 



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