CHAPTER VII.

EARLIER GRAVESTONES.


Although memorials of the dead in one shape or another have apparently
existed in all eras of ethnological history, it would seem that the
upright gravestone of our burial-grounds has had a comparatively brief
existence of but a few hundred years. This, however, is merely an
inference based on present evidences, and it may be erroneous. But
they cannot have existed in the precincts of the early Christian
churches of this country, because the churches had no churchyards for
several centuries. The Romans introduced into Britain their Law of the
Ten Tables, by which it was ordained that "all burnings or burials"
should be "beyond the city,"[3] and the system continued to prevail
long after the Roman evacuation. It was not until A.D. 742 that
Cuthbert, eleventh Archbishop of Canterbury, brought from Rome the
newer custom of burying around the churches, and was granted a Papal
dispensation for the practice. The churchyards even then were not
enclosed, but it was usual to mark their sacred character by
erecting stone crosses, many of which, or their remains, are still in
existence. Yet it was a long time before churchyard interments became
general, the inhabitants clinging to the Pagan habit of indiscriminate
burial in their accustomed places. We hear nothing of headstones in
the early days of Christianity, but there are occasionally found in
certain localities inscribed stones which bear the appearance of rude