God's Acre: Norfolk

Showing posts with label Norfolk. Show all posts

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Living animals as sacrifice

Ecclesiastical Curiosities
Edited William Andrews (1899) Project Gutenburg
© Godric Godricson

In our own time the burial of a bottle with coins under a foundation stone is the faded memory of the immuring of a human victim. So hard does custom and superstition die that even in the prosaic nineteenth century days we cannot claim to be altogether free from the bonds and fetters with which our ancestors were bound.

Grimm, in his German Mythology, tells us: “It was often considered necessary to build living animals, even human beings, into the foundations on which any edifice was reared, as an oblation to the earth to induce her to bear the superincumbent weight it was proposed to lay upon her. By this horrible practice it was supposed that the stability of the structure was assured as well as other advantages gained.” Of course the animal is merely the more modern substitute for the human being, just in the same manner as at the present day the bottle and coins are the substitute for the living animal. In Germany, after the burial of a living being under a foundation was given up, it became customary to place an empty coffin under the foundations of a house, and this custom lingered on in remote country districts until comparatively recent times.

Saint Mary The Virgin - Great Snoring

Saint Mary The Virgin - Great Snoring [Link]
© Godric Godricson

This is a wonderful Church that has been ruined by those lovable rascals that run the Anglican Diocese of Norwich. They collectively seem to believe that if a Church is scraped within an inch of its spiritual life and attacked with neglect that the place becomes more Anglican. The 'Catholicity' of this Church has been removed and exported elsewhere and the spirit of God that we seek within such walls is absent. Yes, I'm sure that the fabric of this aircraft hanger is easy to maintain and the absence of candles and devotional material is easy to defend when the Bishop's man arrives although it is weak as a defence. The building is magnificent and it should be allowed to be the house of God for this community if they collectively want a house of God.

The graveyard has been scraped to remove many of the earlier monuments and the impression has been given of a municpal park. A park is not required in this part of Norfolk because its green and lush without the need for recreation space and I can imagine that parish Authorities would blench at the idea of ball games in this particular park. The mowing space must be great here as the stele headstones have all gone and I don't just mean put to the edge as at Sporle. Instead, the memorials have just gone and a sort of green desert is in situ.

BTW there is hardly a right angle in the place and this is one of the many charms of the building

Saint Mary The Virgin - Great Snoring [Link]
© Godric Godricson

Monday 8 October 2012

Ancient legend and sacrifice

Ecclesiastical Curiosities
Edited William Andrews (1899) Project Gutenburg
© Godric Godricson

It is said that when Romulus was about to found the city of Rome he dug a deep pit and cast into it the “first fruits of everything that is reckoned good by use, or necessary by nature,” and before the pit was closed up by a great stone, Faustulus and Quinctilius were killed and laid under it. The legend of Romulus slaying his twin brother Remus because he jumped the walls of the city to show how poor they were, probably arises out of a confusion of the two legends and has become associated with the idea of a sacrificial foundation. To the present day there is a general Italian belief that whenever any great misfortune is going to overtake the city of Rome the giant shadow of Remus may be seen walking over the highest buildings in the city, even to the dome of St. Peter’s.

Saturday 6 October 2012

Folklore about Church foundations

Ecclesiastical Curiosities
Edited William Andrews (1899) Project Gutenburg
Kalkara - © Godric Godricson

Afzelius, in his collection of Swedish folk tales, says: “Heathen superstition did not fail to show itself in the construction of Christian churches. In laying the foundations the people retained something of their former religion, and sacrificed to their old deities, whom they could not forget, some animal, which they buried alive, either under the foundation, or within the wall. A tradition has also been preserved that under the altar of the first Christian churches a lamb was usually buried, which imparted security and duration to the edifice. This was an emblem of the true church lamb—the Saviour, who is the corner stone of His church.

When anyone enters a church at a time when there is no service, he may chance to see a little lamb spring across the choir and vanish. This is the church-lamb. When it appears to a person in the churchyard, particularly to the grave-digger, it is said to forbode the death of a child that shall be next laid in the earth.”

Thursday 4 October 2012

Sacrifical Foundations

Ecclesiastical Curiosities
Edited William Andrews (1899) Project Gutenburg
© Godric Godricson

In early ages a sacrifice of some sort or other was offered on the foundation of nearly every building. In heathen times a sacrifice was offered to the god under whose protection the building was placed; in Christian times, while many old pagan customs lingered on, the sacrifice was continued, but was given another meaning. The foundation of a castle, a church, or a house was frequently laid in blood; indeed it was said, and commonly believed, that no edifice would stand firmly for long unless the foundation was laid in blood. It was a practice frequently to place some animal under the corner stone—a dog, a wolf, a goat, sometimes even the body of a malefactor who had been executed.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Darrington Church and foundations

Ecclesiastical Curiosities
Edited William Andrews (1899) Project Gutenburg
© Godric Godricson

A foundation sacrifice is suggested by the following curious discovery, reported in the Yorkshire Herald of May 31st, 1895: “It was recently ascertained that the tower of Darrington Church, about four miles from Pontefract, had suffered some damage during the winter gales. The foundations were carefully examined, when it was found that under the west side of the tower, only about a foot from the surface, the body of a man had been placed in a sort of bed in the solid rock, and the west wall was actually resting upon his skull. The gentle vibration of the tower had opened the skull and caused in it a crack of about two-and-a-half inches long. The grave must have been prepared and the wall placed with deliberate intention upon the head of the person buried, and this was done with such care that all remained as placed for at least 600 years.”

The majority of the clergy in the early part of the Middle Ages doubtless would be very strongly imbued with all the superstitions of the people. The mediæval priest, half believing in many of the old pagan customs, would allow them to continue, and it is both curious and interesting to notice how heathenism has for so long a period lingered on, mixed up with Christian ideas.

Monday 1 October 2012

A parish in Norfolk

Ecclesiastical Curiosities
Edited William Andrews (1899) Project Gutenburg
© Godric Godricson

Some seventeen years ago, shortly after taking charge of a parish in Norfolk, I was called upon to select a suitable spot for the burial of a poor man, who had been killed by an accident. After several places had been suggested by me to the sexton, who claimed for them either a family right, or some similar objection; I noticed for the first time, that there were no graves upon the north side of the church, and I, in my innocence, suggested that there would be plenty of space there; whereupon my companion’s face at once assumed the most serious expression, and I immediately saw that fear had taken hold of his mind, as he answered with a somewhat shaky voice, “No, Sir! No, that cannot be!” My curiosity was immediately aroused, and I sought for an explanation, which I found not from my good and loyal friend, who would not trust himself to answer further than “No, Sir! No, that cannot be!” The sexton’s manner puzzled me greatly, for the man was an upright, straightforward, open-hearted, servant of the Church—but I at once saw that it would be fruitless to push the matter further with him, so after marking out a suitable resting place for the poor unfortunate man, who not being a parishoner of long standing, had no family burial place awaiting him, I made my way home to think over the whole occurrence.The cause for non-burial on the north side of the Church was indeed a mystery, yet that my parishoners had some valid reason for not being laid to rest there, was apparent; so I set about the task of unravelling the superstition, if so it may be called.

My library shelves seemed to be the most natural place of research, but here after consultation with several volumes of Archæology, Ecclesiology, and Folk Lore, I could find nothing bearing upon the subject, beyond that in certain instances relating to Churchyard Parishes on the sea-coast, the north side by reason of its exposure to wind and storm, and being the sunless quarter of the burying ground, was less used than other parts; but here the reason given was in consideration of the living mourners at the time of the interment, and not the body sleeping in its last resting place of earth.

After some considerable correspondence with friends likely to be interested in such a matter, I was rewarded with information that, in some instances, the northern portion of the churchyard was left unconsecrated, and only thus occasionally used for the burial of suicides, vagrants, highwaymen (after the four cross road graves had been discontinued), or for nondescripts and unbaptised persons, for whom no religious service was considered necessary. Even this I did not accept as a solution of my problem. That there was something more than local feeling underlying this superstition, I was certain, but how to get to the root of the subject perplexed me.

Thursday 20 September 2012

Beauty in the vernacular

The tombs of the rich are often to be admired and marvelled at and then walked past as we consign their memory to oblivion and that is arguably as it should be. The joy of English parish Churches is that there is much that is ordinary and in the vernacular. England doesn’t have much in the cemetery that is showy and brash. That would never do! Instead, England has the sandstone stele monument or the Celtic/Cornish granite headstone that marks the seasons in moss and decay whilst very slowly mouldering into the soil. On the Continent it is very different and monuments seem to have surpassed the life of the individual they commemorate. The monument is grater than the man.

Just as the Sexton in “Dealings with the Dead” written in 1856 is clear that there is an aristocracy of the dead, it also clear that the English have maintained a fine and traditional indifference towards monuments and remained, instead, happy to have either a low monument or no monument at all. The grass and the wildlife seem enough for us as we are layered into the ground to await our fate. There are clearly some grand monuments and the one at Saint Remigius at Hethersett is a great favourite of mine as it stands by the edge of the field as if about to escape into the landscape. There are great monuments in Churches and we all recognise the marble plaques about to crush us in their monumentality if they were ever to fall from their walls. They say much and also nothing about the person they commemorate and in reality the large plaques aren’t very English.

Englishness is about recognising wealth, power and privilege and then doing absolutely nothing about it. Englishness is about understanding social prestige and admiring that prestige before going to supermarket and buying beer for the hot summer we all hope for. It is that we are really quite casual about titles and honours and we are also quite aware that the exteriors doesn’t always match the interior. The grand lady wrapped in furs may be starving from a lack of breakfast and the great lord may have threadbare socks. Not everything is as it seems. The great monument may be built of shoddy materials and the lettering on the stone may be mispelt through ignorance or haste. The English understand these possibilities and naturally sneer at aristocracy whether that aristocracy is in blood, monuments or the grave. It’s all so much flim flam at the end of the day.

The tombs of the rich are admired and marvelled at that much is true although the English do not worship long at any one altar and we do not marvel over much at any one tomb. We do not over monumentalise the folly of human lives and we do not deify the living. It is hard to worship at a tomb when the occupant of the tomb was as mortal as us and had the same foibles and follies. So, let people have their aristocracy in the grave and have their 30 seconds of adulation as we walk past before we walk away and forget them until the next visit and the next sunrise.