The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEcclesiastical Curiosities

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEcclesiastical CuriositiesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Ecclesiastical CuriositiesEditor: William AndrewsRelease date: December 11, 2011 [eBook #38274]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Wilson*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ECCLESIASTICAL CURIOSITIES ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Ecclesiastical CuriositiesEditor: William AndrewsRelease date: December 11, 2011 [eBook #38274]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Wilson

Title: Ecclesiastical Curiosities

Editor: William Andrews

Editor: William Andrews

Release date: December 11, 2011 [eBook #38274]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Wilson

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ECCLESIASTICAL CURIOSITIES ***

[frontispiece]From a Photo by A. H. Pitcher, Gloucester.PORCH, GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL.

[title]Ecclesiastical .Curiosities . . .Edited byWilliam Andrews . . .

Edited byWilliam Andrews . . .

illuminated capital ALONDON:WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., 5, FARRINGDON AVENUE, E.C.1899.William Andrews & Co The Hull Press

illuminated capital A

LONDON:WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., 5, FARRINGDON AVENUE, E.C.1899.

William Andrews & Co The Hull Press

[pi]Preface.Thisvolume is on similar lines to some of my previously published works, and I trust it will be equally well received by the public and the press.William Andrews.The Hull Press,December 1st, 1898.[piii]Contents.PAGEThe Church Door.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.1Sacrificial Foundations.By England Howlett30The Building of the English Cathedrals.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.46Ye Chappell of Oure Ladye.By the Rev. J. H. Stamp76Some Famous Spires.By John T. Page101The Five of Spades and the Church of Ashton-under-Lyne.By John Eglington Bailey,F.S.A.113Bells and their Messages.By Edward Bradbury119Stories about Bells.By J. Potter Briscoe,F.R.H.S.133Concerning Font-Lore.By the Rev. P. Oakley Hill145Watching-Chambers in Churches.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.153Church Chests.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.161An Antiquarian Problem: The Leper Window.By William White,F.S.A.183Mazes.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.186Churchyard Superstitions.By the Rev. Theodore Johnson206Curious Announcements in the Church.By the Rev. R. Wilkins Rees216Big Bones Preserved in Churches.By the Rev. R. Wilkins Rees230Samuel Pepys at Church.244

Thisvolume is on similar lines to some of my previously published works, and I trust it will be equally well received by the public and the press.

William Andrews.

The Hull Press,December 1st, 1898.

The Church Door.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.

Sacrificial Foundations.By England Howlett

The Building of the English Cathedrals.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.

Ye Chappell of Oure Ladye.By the Rev. J. H. Stamp

Some Famous Spires.By John T. Page

The Five of Spades and the Church of Ashton-under-Lyne.By John Eglington Bailey,F.S.A.

Bells and their Messages.By Edward Bradbury

Stories about Bells.By J. Potter Briscoe,F.R.H.S.

Concerning Font-Lore.By the Rev. P. Oakley Hill

Watching-Chambers in Churches.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.

Church Chests.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.

An Antiquarian Problem: The Leper Window.By William White,F.S.A.

Mazes.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.

Churchyard Superstitions.By the Rev. Theodore Johnson

Curious Announcements in the Church.By the Rev. R. Wilkins Rees

Big Bones Preserved in Churches.By the Rev. R. Wilkins Rees

Samuel Pepys at Church.

[p1]Ecclesiastical Curiosities.The Church Door.By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.DOOR AT CROWLE CHURCH.Thatfirst impressions have no small influence in moulding the opinions of most people can scarcely be denied; and therefore in our estimate of the architectural value of a church the door is an element of some importance. A shabby and undignified entrance raises no expectations of a lofty and solemn interior; and that interior must be emphatically fine, if we are not to read into it some of the meanness of its portal. On the other hand, though the church be but plain[p2]and simple—so that it lack not a measure of the dignity which may well accompany simplicity—our thoughts will be raised and fitted to find in it something worthy of its high purpose, if we have been prepared by passing through a noble porch, and beneath a doorway that speaks itself the entrance to no ordinary dwelling.In primitive times the approach to a church must have been full of dignity, the worshippers being warned, by successive gates and doors, of the sacredness of the building which they were about to enter. Eusebius gives us a full account of a splendid church built at Tyre by Paulinus, from which we may gather the plan on which such buildings were erected in the primitive ages, when the means were forthcoming, and no opposition from the heathen world prevented.The whole church at Tyre and its precincts were enclosed within a wall, at the front of which was a stately porch, known as the “great porch,” or the “first entrance.” Passing through this the worshipper entered the courtyard, oratrium, round which ran a covered portico, or cloister, and in the centre of which was a fountain, or cistern, of water. Opposite the “great porch” was the door into the church itself; at Tyre[p3]there were (as in many of our cathedrals) three such doors, a large one in the centre, flanked by smaller ones at some distance along the wall. These opened into a vestibule, or ante-temple, from which admittance was gained into the nave of the church by yet another door or gate.Each of the spaces formed by these several barriers had its special use. Within theatriumall the worshippers washed their hands as a preparation, both literal and emblematic, for assisting in the sacred mysteries; here, too, penitents under censure for the most flagrant sins remained during the divine offices, and besought the prayers of their brethren as they passed on to those holier courts, from which for a time they were themselves excluded. Within this open courtyard, also, as in a modern churchyard, burials were sometimes permitted. The portico beyond the second entrance was the place for the “hearers,” that is for those who were not yet sufficiently instructed in the faith to be allowed to be present except at the reading of the Scriptures and the sermons (these were catechumens in their noviciate and the heathens and Jews), and also for those Christians who were degraded temporarily to the same position[p4]as a penance for some sin. Beyond this portico, the nave was still further divided for the separation of different orders of penitents; so that the faithful in possession of all their privileges had quite a number of doors or gates through which to pass before reaching that place, immediately outside the apse, or chancel, which it was their right to occupy.In order that the several classes of persons attending church might be kept strictly within those portions of the building which were assigned to them, a special order of door-keepers existed in the Church. The keys of the church were solemnly delivered to theseostiarii, and they were accounted to form the lowest in rank of the minor orders. The simple words of the commission, uttered by the bishop to theostiarius, were, “Behave thyself as one that must give an account to God of the things that are kept under these keys.” Such was the formula prescribed by the fourth Council of Carthage (398A.D.), and found in the Roman ritual of the eighth century. This order of clergy was almost confined to the west, however; we find traces of its existence at one time at Constantinople, but for the most part the deacons guarded the men’s[p7]entrance, and sub-deacons or deaconesses the women’s, in the east.[p5]WEST DOOR, HOLY TRINITY, COLCHESTER.In the earliest English churches the entrance was of a very simple nature; for the artistic skill of the people was small, and their ideals were unambitious. The buildings consisted of a nave without clerestory, and a chancel; the door being placed in the centre of the western wall. A curious example of such a door meets us at Holy Trinity, Colchester, although in this case it gives admittance not into the nave directly, but through the ancient tower. This tower, the oldest part of the church, has been constructed of the fragments of buildings older still; the Roman bricks of the ruined city of Camulodunum having been used to form it. In the western side is a narrow doorway, contained by two square shafts with very simple capitals, and having a triangular head with an equally simple moulding by way of drip-stone. The date is supposed to be between 800 and 1000A.D.A church perhaps yet older is that of S. Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon, which has a good claim to be the veritable structure reared by S. Aldhelm in the first years of the eighth century. Here there is a northern porch of unusual size in proportion to the rest of[p8]the building; the entrance to which is by means of an arched doorway, tall and narrow. The narrowness of some of these ancient doorways is remarkable. At Sowerford-Keynes is one, now built up, which, though nearly nine feet high, is but 1 foot 9 inches wide at the springing of the arch, widening towards the base to 2 feet 5½ inches. The jambs are of “short and long” work, and the abacus has a very simple zig-zag moulding. The arch itself is not built up, but carved out of one stone, which is cut square on the upper side and scooped into a parabolic curve on the lower. A double row of cable moulding decorates it. This, which has been called “one of the most characteristic specimens of Saxon architecture in England,” was the northern entrance to the church. Another instance of a western door of simple design is supplied by Crowle, or Croule, in north Lincolnshire. Here we meet with a rectangular doorway, the top of which is formed of one long stone, on which is some antique carving and a fragment of a runic inscription.1Above this is a tympanum filled with diamond-shaped stones of small size.[p9]With the rise of the so-called Norman style of architecture the doors of our churches took a handsomer form; and as the churches themselves were now formed on a larger and nobler plan, more than one entrance was often required. The usual door for the people was now commonly placed at the south side, except in churches connected (as were so many of our cathedrals) with monastic foundations. In this latter case the south side was generally occupied by the cloisters and other conventual buildings, and the people’s door was therefore placed upon the north side. At this period, too, the church-porch begins its development; for, although porches in a strict sense were at any rate not usual, the door-way deeply sunk in the massive wall and protected by three, four, or even more concentric arches, suggests the more fully developed shelter of the porch. Of doors of this kind any of our older abbey-churches will supply adequate, and often splendid, examples. The great north door of Durham Cathedral, and the smaller, but not less beautiful doors into the cloisters there, are fine instances. The west and north doors of the little cathedral of Llandaff supply examples in another class of building; and even small and[p10]obscure parish churches are sometimes dignified with the possession of an entrance full of the massive solemnity of this Norman work. The village church of Heysham, on Morecambe Bay, has a south door well worthy of mention in this connection; and the Lincolnshire church already cited, Crowle, has an interesting doorway of this kind.As art progressed in Christendom, and exhibited its growing force especially in the churches, the entrances thereto shared in the increasing splendour of the whole. The mouldings of the arches and the pillars, the elaboration of capitals and bases, all showed the evidence of devotion guided by taste and skill. And often something more than mere decoration was attempted; the opportunity was seized to add instruction, and figures of saints and angels, or complete scenes from scriptural or ecclesiastical story, filled the expanse of the tympanum or the niches of the columns. About the twelfth century, also, it became customary to divide the main entrance into two by means of a pillar, or a group of pillars; the two-leaved door being thus made symbolical of the two natures of Christ, of Whom, as Durandus tells us, it is itself[p11]the emblem, “according to that saying in the Gospel, ‘I am the Door!’”The Continent presents some splendid examples of these decorated porticoes. The cathedral of Strasburg, preserved as by a series of miracles in spite of every danger that can assail a building, fire, lightning, earthquake, and cannonade, has a very grand west entrance; its tall doors set within a number of receding arches, and the sharply-pointed gable which crowns them flanked and crested with tapering pinnacles. The French artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were unrivalled in the beauty and wealth of statuary with which they adorned their churches, and not least their doors. “The glory and the beauty” of the great porch at Amiens has been set forth fully by Ruskin, who has woven into one wonderful whole the meaning of the statues, which, like “a cloud of witnesses,” throng the western front. But Amiens is not alone; S. Denis, Paris, Sens, Angouléme, Poictiers,Autun, Chartres, Laon, Rheims, Vezelay, Auxerre, and other cathedrals are all magnificent in this respect. The principal entrance to Seville cathedral is flanked by columns upholding niches filled with figures of[p12]saints and angels, while the tympanum contains a carving of the entrance of the Saviour into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. In the island of Majorca, the south door-way of the cathedral of Palma is exceptionally beautiful. The statue of the Blessed Virgin crowns the centre column, and above is the Last Supper. A record of the architect of this splendid piece of work is preserved in an old account book of the cathedral: “On January 29th, 1394, Master Pedro Morey, sculptor, master artificer of the south door, which was begun by him, passed from this life. Anima ejus requiescat in pace. Amen.” The entrance in the west front is also a fine one, and is inscribed, “Non est factum tale opus in universis regnis.”WEST DOOR, HIGHAM FERRERS CHURCH.Although in England we cannot match the gorgeousness of detail exhibited by the flamboyant architecture of some of the examples above noticed, yet we too have instances of which we may well be proud. The western front of Peterborough cathedral, over the partial renovation of which there has recently been so much controversy between architects and antiquaries, has been pronounced to be “the grandest portico in Europe;” but this has reference to the whole[p13]façade rather than to the door-way in itself. If our subject allowed of our taking so wide a view, the splendid west fronts of Exeter, York, and others of our minsters, would demand a place of honour in the list. Gloucester cathedral has a dignified porch over the south door, in which are the figures of a number of saints. The west door[p14]of Rochester is also interesting; its decorated Norman arches are richly carved, and enclose a tympanum covered with characteristic sculpture. Of a different type is the graceful west door at Ely, whose pointed arches are upheld by delicately cut shafts, the tympanum over the twin doorways being pierced by a double trefoil within a vesica. The parish church of Higham Ferrers has double western doors, separated by a bold shaft, above which is a niche (now unoccupied) for a statue. The tympanum, anciently divided by this figure, has five medallions on each side filled with sculptured scenes from the New Testament, round which runs a scroll of conventional foliage. The neighbouring churches of Rushden and Raunds have also good double-leaved doors. To take one instance from the Northern Kingdom, S. Giles’s, Edinburgh, has a dignified west entrance. Many of the better examples of our modern churches have admirable porticoes, of which one example must suffice. All Saints’ Church, Cheltenham, has double doors within receding arches; the tympanum has the figure of Our Lord enthroned in glory surrounded by the saints, and the central shaft and the side pillars contain other statues.[p15]There is occasionally found in a cathedral, or other large church, a porch of unusual depth, known as a Galilee. Here, during Lent, those assembled who were bidden to do public penance; the coming of Maundy Thursday being the signal for their admission once more into the church itself. Ely has a western Galilee entered by an arch, divided by a central pillar, and filled in the upper part with tracery. Lincoln has a Galilee, deep and dignified in plan, with a vaulted roof. Another English cathedral so provided is that of Chichester; and among parish churches the Galilee is found at Boxley, Llantwit, Chertsey, and S. Woolos.Of door-ways which, independently of considerations of date, size, or form, are noteworthy for their sculpture, there are many that ought to be mentioned. At Lincoln, for instance, we have a south door carved with a Doom, or Last Judgment, wherein we see the effigy of the Divine Judge surrounded by the dead rising from their opening graves. The north door at Ely, the whole of the surrounding stone-work of which is elaborately carved, is surmounted by the figure of the Lord enthroned within a vesica, while adoring angels kneel before Him. At[p16]Rougham, in Norfolk, the west door is surmounted by a crucifix, round which runs the emblematic vine. Founhope church, Hereford, has in the tympanum of the arch the Madonna and the Holy Child, a grotesque with birds and beasts surrounding the figures. At Elkstone, Gloucestershire, the south door-way, a specimen (like the one at Founhope) of Norman work, has some interesting sculptures. In the centre of the tympanum is Christ enthroned, with the apocalyptic symbols of the evangelists around Him; beyond these on the right hand of Christ is the Agnus Dei with the flag, an emblem of the Resurrection, while on the left is a wide open pair of jaws, known as a Hell-mouth: above all the Father’s Hand is seen in the attitude of benediction. Elstow church has sculptured figures above the north door; not within the containing arch, but within a separate arched space divided from the door-way by a string-course. Haltham church, in Lincolnshire, has some exceedingly curious designs on the tympanum of the south door; they are mostly cruciform figures within circles, and are arranged with strange irregularity. The north door of Lutterworth church has over it a fresco painting.NORTH DOOR, ELSTOW CHURCH.[p17]Several of the churches in Brussels have door-ways which, though otherwise not remarkable, are noteworthy from the beauty of the carving of the central post dividing the two leaves of the door. The church of Notre Dame de Bon-Secours has the effigy of its patron saint crowned and robed, bearing the Infant Saviour; below are the emblems of pilgrimage, wallets, gourds, and cockle-shells. The church of La Madeleine has a crucifix with a weeping Magdalene at its foot. The old church of S. Catharine has its patroness on the door-post, and the Chapelle Sainte-Anne similarly has S. Anne holding the Blessed Virgin by the hand. Foliage or scrolls in each case fill up the rest of the column, which is of wood, and in some instances has been painted.So far, the doorways have occupied our[p18]attention; something must, however, be said of the doors themselves. The usual form of the old church door is familiar enough to all of us; the massive time-stained oak, the heavy iron nails that stud it, and the long broad hinges that reach almost across its full breadth. There is dignity in the very simplicity of all this; but not seldom far more ornate examples may be found.The most elementary form of decoration consists in merely panelling the door, as is the case in numberless instances; occasionally the panels themselves are carved, as on the “Thoresby Door,” at Lynn, or the door of S. Mary’s, Bath; or tracery, as in a window, is introduced, as at Alford, Lincolnshire. These are but a few of the many instances which might be cited. Another striking form of decoration is produced by hammering out the long hinges into a design covering, more or less, the surface of the door. The west door at Higham Ferrers, already noticed, has on each of its leaves three hinges, which are formed into wide spreading scrolls. Sempringham Abbey has very fine beaten ironwork spread over almost the entire face of the door. A more curious example is afforded by Dartmouth church; where a conventional tree[p19]with spreading branches covers the door, and across this the hinges are laid in the form of two heraldic lions. The date is added in the middle of the work, 1631.DOOR AT LYNN CHURCH.In the decoration of the church door the mediæval blacksmith proves himself in a thousand instances, at home and abroad, to have been an artist. Free from the hurry of the present age, he could work according to that canon of Chaucer’s,“There is no workmanThat can both worken well and hastilie,This must be done at leisure, perfectlie.”[p20]With him it was not the hand only that wrought, nor even the hand and head; but the soul within him gave life to both. Of the contrast between old ways and new, few examples are more striking than the hinges of the door at S. Mary Key, Ipswich; where we have a simple but graceful scroll of ancient date, and a clumsy iron bar of to-day, lying side by side. For a beautiful design in beaten iron the doors of Worksop Priory may claim to have not many rivals.SOUTH PORCH, SEMPRINGHAM ABBEY.[p21]The most splendid doors in the world are probably the bronze doors of the Baptistery at Florence. Other bronze doors there are on the Continent, and all of them fine; Aix-la-Chapelle, Mayence, Augsburg, Hildesheim, Novgorod, all have doors of this kind; at Verona, too, in the church of San Zeno, are ancient examples, whereon are set forth in panels a number of subjects from Holy Scripture and from the life of the patron saint. All, however, fall into[p22]insignificance beside the “Gates of Paradise,” as the Florentines proudly call their doors.DOOR AT DARTMOUTH CHURCH.In 1400 the Gild of Cloth Merchants of Florence decided to make a thank-offering for the cessation of the plague; and the form which it took was a pair of bronze doors for the baptistery of the church of S. Giovanni, to correspond with some already there. These earlier ones are the work of Pisana and his son Nino, from designs by Giotto; the creation of the new ones was thrown open to competition. Many competitors appeared, of whom six were asked to submit specimens of designs for the panels; and, finally, when the choice lay between two only, the elder, Brunellesco, himself advised that the commission should be entrusted to Ghiberti, a youth then barely twenty years of age. The doors when completed contained twenty scenes from the Saviour’s life, together with figures of the four Latin Doctors and the four Evangelists, set in a frame of exquisite foliage. This splendid work was surpassed by a second pair of doors subsequently made for the same place. In this there are ten panels setting forth scenes from the Old Testament history; and the frame is adorned with niches and[p23]medallions in which are placed some fifty allegorical figures and portrait heads. It was of these last doors, which were only completed in Ghiberti’s mature age, that no less a judge than Michael Angelo said, “They might stand as the gates of Paradise itself.”Aix-en-Provence claims that her doors are as peerless as examples of the wood-carver’s art, as are the Florentine ones as types of the metal-worker’s. They have been preserved, it is said, from the sixth century, and are still wonderfully fresh and delicate. There are on each door six upper panels filled with figures of the twelve Sybils; and below one large panel, occupied, in one case, by effigies of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, and in the other by Ezekiel and Daniel. The carving is only occasionally exhibited, two masking doors having been cleverly contrived to protect and cover the real ones.Many of the doors of our cathedrals and great abbey churches have knockers, often of very striking designs. These as a rule indicate that the places in question claimed the right of sanctuary; and the knocker was to summon an attendant, or watcher, to admit the fugitive from justice at night, or at other times when the[p24]entrance was closed. A curious head holding a ring within its teeth forms the knocker at Durham cathedral; a lion’s head was not an uncommon form for this to take, as at Adel, York (All Saints), and Norwich (S. Gregory’s); a singularly ferocious lion’s head knocker may be seen at Mayence.[p24a]From a Photo by Albert E. Coe, Norwich.ERPINGHAMGATE, NORWICH.The deep porch which we so frequently see over the principal door of the church was formerly something more than an ornament, or even a protection; it was a recognized portion of the sacred building, and had its appointed place in the services of the Church. Baptism was frequently administered in the church porch, to symbolize that by that Sacrament the infant entered into Holy Church. There are still relics of the existence of fonts in some of our porches, as at East Dereham, Norfolk. When baptism was thus administered in the south porch, it was also customary, so it is alleged, to throw wide open the north door; that the devil, formally renounced in that rite, might by that way flee “to his own place.” The font now usually stands just within the door. In the pre-reformation usage of the Church the thanksgiving of a woman after child-birth was also made in, or[p25]before, the church porch; and concluded with the priest’s saying, “Enter into the temple of God, that thou mayest have eternal life, and live for ever and ever.” The first prayer-book of Edward VI. ordered the woman to kneel “nigh unto the quire door:” the next revision altered the words “to nigh unto the place where the table standeth;” and from Elizabeth’s days the rubric has simply said indefinitely “a convenient place.”The rubric at the commencement of the Order of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony according to the Sarum use began also in this way: “Let the man and woman be placed before the door of the church, or in the face of the church, before the presence of God, the Priest, and the People”; at the end of the actual marriage, and before the benedictory prayers which followit, the rubric says, “Here let them go into the church to the step of the altar.” Chaucer alludes to this usage when in his “Canterbury Tales” he says of the wife ofBath—“She was a worthy woman all her live,Husbands at the church dore had she five.”Edward I. was united to Margaret at the door of[p26]Canterbury Cathedral on September 9th, 1299, and other mediæval notices of the custom occur.The first prayer-book of Edward VI. introduced an alteration which has been maintained ever since; the new rubric reading that “The persons to be married shall come into the body of the Church,” just as it does in our modern prayer-books. In France the custom survived as late as the seventeenth century, at least in some instances, for the marriage of Charles I., who was represented by a proxy, and Henrietta Maria was performed at the door of Notre Dame in Paris. In Herrick’s “Hesperides” is a little poem entitled “The Entertainment, or,A Porch-verseat the marriage of Mr. Henry Northly and the most witty Mrs. Lettice Yard.” Itcommences:—“Welcome! but yet no entrance till we blesseFirst you, then you, then both for white success.”This was published in the midst of the great Civil War, and seems to show that the custom of marriage at the church porch was still sufficiently known, even if only by tradition, to make allusions to it “understanded of the people.”Burials sometimes took place in the church[p27]porch, in those days when interment within the building was much sought after.Ecclesiastical Courts were frequently held in church porches, as at the south door of Canterbury Cathedral; schools were occasionally established in them; and here the dower of the bride was formally presented to the bridegroom. This last-named use of the porch is illustrated by a deed of the time of Edward I., by which Robert Fitz Roger, a gentleman of Northamptonshire, bound himself to marry his son within a given time to Hawisia, daughter of Robert de Tybetot, and “to endow her at the church door” with property equal to a hundred pounds per annum. We still have evidence of the fact that the church door was of old considered the most prominent and public place in the parish in the continued use of it as the official place for posting legal notices of general interest, such as lists of voters, summonses for public meetings, and so forth.There are often in connection with ancient ecclesiastical foundations doors and gateways which are of great interest, though they can scarcely be called church doors. Of this class are the entrances to the chapter houses of[p28]cathedrals, many of which are very fine. At York, for example, the chapter-house, which proudly asserts in an inscription near the entrance that, “as the rose is among the flowers, so is it among buildings,” has a doorway not unworthy of the beautiful interior.The gateway which gave admittance to the sacred enclosure of the abbey—the garth or close round which were ranged the monastic buildings—is in many cases an imposing and elaborate piece of architecture. Bristol has an interesting Norman gateway, and that at Durham is massive and impressive, as are all the conventual remains there. Norwich is specially rich in this respect. The Erpingham Gate was the gift of Sir Thomas Erpingham, who died in 1420, and whom the King, in Shakespere’s play of “King Henry V.” (Act iv. sc. I), calls a “good old knight;” S. Ethelbert’s Gate was built at the cost of Bishop Alnwick, who ruled the see from 1426 to 1436.But to speak of these things is to wander from our present subject, and even that is too wide to be dealt with fully in a paper such as this. The legends and traditions of the church porch might occupy many a page, while we gossiped over the mystic rites of S. John’s Eve or of All Hallow[p29]E’en; or while we told how Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, barred his cathedral door with thorns in his anger against the King and his friends; or how the skins of marauding Danes have in more than one instance been nailed as leather coverings to the doors of English churches. Enough, however, has probably been said to show the wealth of interest which may often be found to hang about the old church porch, in which the village church may often be as rich as the great cathedral or the stately abbey.1. See a full account of this stone in “Bygone Lincolnshire,”—Vol. I, William Andrews & Co.

By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack,B.A.

DOOR AT CROWLE CHURCH.

Thatfirst impressions have no small influence in moulding the opinions of most people can scarcely be denied; and therefore in our estimate of the architectural value of a church the door is an element of some importance. A shabby and undignified entrance raises no expectations of a lofty and solemn interior; and that interior must be emphatically fine, if we are not to read into it some of the meanness of its portal. On the other hand, though the church be but plain[p2]and simple—so that it lack not a measure of the dignity which may well accompany simplicity—our thoughts will be raised and fitted to find in it something worthy of its high purpose, if we have been prepared by passing through a noble porch, and beneath a doorway that speaks itself the entrance to no ordinary dwelling.

In primitive times the approach to a church must have been full of dignity, the worshippers being warned, by successive gates and doors, of the sacredness of the building which they were about to enter. Eusebius gives us a full account of a splendid church built at Tyre by Paulinus, from which we may gather the plan on which such buildings were erected in the primitive ages, when the means were forthcoming, and no opposition from the heathen world prevented.

The whole church at Tyre and its precincts were enclosed within a wall, at the front of which was a stately porch, known as the “great porch,” or the “first entrance.” Passing through this the worshipper entered the courtyard, oratrium, round which ran a covered portico, or cloister, and in the centre of which was a fountain, or cistern, of water. Opposite the “great porch” was the door into the church itself; at Tyre[p3]there were (as in many of our cathedrals) three such doors, a large one in the centre, flanked by smaller ones at some distance along the wall. These opened into a vestibule, or ante-temple, from which admittance was gained into the nave of the church by yet another door or gate.

Each of the spaces formed by these several barriers had its special use. Within theatriumall the worshippers washed their hands as a preparation, both literal and emblematic, for assisting in the sacred mysteries; here, too, penitents under censure for the most flagrant sins remained during the divine offices, and besought the prayers of their brethren as they passed on to those holier courts, from which for a time they were themselves excluded. Within this open courtyard, also, as in a modern churchyard, burials were sometimes permitted. The portico beyond the second entrance was the place for the “hearers,” that is for those who were not yet sufficiently instructed in the faith to be allowed to be present except at the reading of the Scriptures and the sermons (these were catechumens in their noviciate and the heathens and Jews), and also for those Christians who were degraded temporarily to the same position[p4]as a penance for some sin. Beyond this portico, the nave was still further divided for the separation of different orders of penitents; so that the faithful in possession of all their privileges had quite a number of doors or gates through which to pass before reaching that place, immediately outside the apse, or chancel, which it was their right to occupy.

In order that the several classes of persons attending church might be kept strictly within those portions of the building which were assigned to them, a special order of door-keepers existed in the Church. The keys of the church were solemnly delivered to theseostiarii, and they were accounted to form the lowest in rank of the minor orders. The simple words of the commission, uttered by the bishop to theostiarius, were, “Behave thyself as one that must give an account to God of the things that are kept under these keys.” Such was the formula prescribed by the fourth Council of Carthage (398A.D.), and found in the Roman ritual of the eighth century. This order of clergy was almost confined to the west, however; we find traces of its existence at one time at Constantinople, but for the most part the deacons guarded the men’s[p7]entrance, and sub-deacons or deaconesses the women’s, in the east.

[p5]WEST DOOR, HOLY TRINITY, COLCHESTER.

In the earliest English churches the entrance was of a very simple nature; for the artistic skill of the people was small, and their ideals were unambitious. The buildings consisted of a nave without clerestory, and a chancel; the door being placed in the centre of the western wall. A curious example of such a door meets us at Holy Trinity, Colchester, although in this case it gives admittance not into the nave directly, but through the ancient tower. This tower, the oldest part of the church, has been constructed of the fragments of buildings older still; the Roman bricks of the ruined city of Camulodunum having been used to form it. In the western side is a narrow doorway, contained by two square shafts with very simple capitals, and having a triangular head with an equally simple moulding by way of drip-stone. The date is supposed to be between 800 and 1000A.D.A church perhaps yet older is that of S. Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon, which has a good claim to be the veritable structure reared by S. Aldhelm in the first years of the eighth century. Here there is a northern porch of unusual size in proportion to the rest of[p8]the building; the entrance to which is by means of an arched doorway, tall and narrow. The narrowness of some of these ancient doorways is remarkable. At Sowerford-Keynes is one, now built up, which, though nearly nine feet high, is but 1 foot 9 inches wide at the springing of the arch, widening towards the base to 2 feet 5½ inches. The jambs are of “short and long” work, and the abacus has a very simple zig-zag moulding. The arch itself is not built up, but carved out of one stone, which is cut square on the upper side and scooped into a parabolic curve on the lower. A double row of cable moulding decorates it. This, which has been called “one of the most characteristic specimens of Saxon architecture in England,” was the northern entrance to the church. Another instance of a western door of simple design is supplied by Crowle, or Croule, in north Lincolnshire. Here we meet with a rectangular doorway, the top of which is formed of one long stone, on which is some antique carving and a fragment of a runic inscription.1Above this is a tympanum filled with diamond-shaped stones of small size.

[p9]With the rise of the so-called Norman style of architecture the doors of our churches took a handsomer form; and as the churches themselves were now formed on a larger and nobler plan, more than one entrance was often required. The usual door for the people was now commonly placed at the south side, except in churches connected (as were so many of our cathedrals) with monastic foundations. In this latter case the south side was generally occupied by the cloisters and other conventual buildings, and the people’s door was therefore placed upon the north side. At this period, too, the church-porch begins its development; for, although porches in a strict sense were at any rate not usual, the door-way deeply sunk in the massive wall and protected by three, four, or even more concentric arches, suggests the more fully developed shelter of the porch. Of doors of this kind any of our older abbey-churches will supply adequate, and often splendid, examples. The great north door of Durham Cathedral, and the smaller, but not less beautiful doors into the cloisters there, are fine instances. The west and north doors of the little cathedral of Llandaff supply examples in another class of building; and even small and[p10]obscure parish churches are sometimes dignified with the possession of an entrance full of the massive solemnity of this Norman work. The village church of Heysham, on Morecambe Bay, has a south door well worthy of mention in this connection; and the Lincolnshire church already cited, Crowle, has an interesting doorway of this kind.

As art progressed in Christendom, and exhibited its growing force especially in the churches, the entrances thereto shared in the increasing splendour of the whole. The mouldings of the arches and the pillars, the elaboration of capitals and bases, all showed the evidence of devotion guided by taste and skill. And often something more than mere decoration was attempted; the opportunity was seized to add instruction, and figures of saints and angels, or complete scenes from scriptural or ecclesiastical story, filled the expanse of the tympanum or the niches of the columns. About the twelfth century, also, it became customary to divide the main entrance into two by means of a pillar, or a group of pillars; the two-leaved door being thus made symbolical of the two natures of Christ, of Whom, as Durandus tells us, it is itself[p11]the emblem, “according to that saying in the Gospel, ‘I am the Door!’”

The Continent presents some splendid examples of these decorated porticoes. The cathedral of Strasburg, preserved as by a series of miracles in spite of every danger that can assail a building, fire, lightning, earthquake, and cannonade, has a very grand west entrance; its tall doors set within a number of receding arches, and the sharply-pointed gable which crowns them flanked and crested with tapering pinnacles. The French artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were unrivalled in the beauty and wealth of statuary with which they adorned their churches, and not least their doors. “The glory and the beauty” of the great porch at Amiens has been set forth fully by Ruskin, who has woven into one wonderful whole the meaning of the statues, which, like “a cloud of witnesses,” throng the western front. But Amiens is not alone; S. Denis, Paris, Sens, Angouléme, Poictiers,Autun, Chartres, Laon, Rheims, Vezelay, Auxerre, and other cathedrals are all magnificent in this respect. The principal entrance to Seville cathedral is flanked by columns upholding niches filled with figures of[p12]saints and angels, while the tympanum contains a carving of the entrance of the Saviour into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. In the island of Majorca, the south door-way of the cathedral of Palma is exceptionally beautiful. The statue of the Blessed Virgin crowns the centre column, and above is the Last Supper. A record of the architect of this splendid piece of work is preserved in an old account book of the cathedral: “On January 29th, 1394, Master Pedro Morey, sculptor, master artificer of the south door, which was begun by him, passed from this life. Anima ejus requiescat in pace. Amen.” The entrance in the west front is also a fine one, and is inscribed, “Non est factum tale opus in universis regnis.”

WEST DOOR, HIGHAM FERRERS CHURCH.

Although in England we cannot match the gorgeousness of detail exhibited by the flamboyant architecture of some of the examples above noticed, yet we too have instances of which we may well be proud. The western front of Peterborough cathedral, over the partial renovation of which there has recently been so much controversy between architects and antiquaries, has been pronounced to be “the grandest portico in Europe;” but this has reference to the whole[p13]façade rather than to the door-way in itself. If our subject allowed of our taking so wide a view, the splendid west fronts of Exeter, York, and others of our minsters, would demand a place of honour in the list. Gloucester cathedral has a dignified porch over the south door, in which are the figures of a number of saints. The west door[p14]of Rochester is also interesting; its decorated Norman arches are richly carved, and enclose a tympanum covered with characteristic sculpture. Of a different type is the graceful west door at Ely, whose pointed arches are upheld by delicately cut shafts, the tympanum over the twin doorways being pierced by a double trefoil within a vesica. The parish church of Higham Ferrers has double western doors, separated by a bold shaft, above which is a niche (now unoccupied) for a statue. The tympanum, anciently divided by this figure, has five medallions on each side filled with sculptured scenes from the New Testament, round which runs a scroll of conventional foliage. The neighbouring churches of Rushden and Raunds have also good double-leaved doors. To take one instance from the Northern Kingdom, S. Giles’s, Edinburgh, has a dignified west entrance. Many of the better examples of our modern churches have admirable porticoes, of which one example must suffice. All Saints’ Church, Cheltenham, has double doors within receding arches; the tympanum has the figure of Our Lord enthroned in glory surrounded by the saints, and the central shaft and the side pillars contain other statues.

[p15]There is occasionally found in a cathedral, or other large church, a porch of unusual depth, known as a Galilee. Here, during Lent, those assembled who were bidden to do public penance; the coming of Maundy Thursday being the signal for their admission once more into the church itself. Ely has a western Galilee entered by an arch, divided by a central pillar, and filled in the upper part with tracery. Lincoln has a Galilee, deep and dignified in plan, with a vaulted roof. Another English cathedral so provided is that of Chichester; and among parish churches the Galilee is found at Boxley, Llantwit, Chertsey, and S. Woolos.

Of door-ways which, independently of considerations of date, size, or form, are noteworthy for their sculpture, there are many that ought to be mentioned. At Lincoln, for instance, we have a south door carved with a Doom, or Last Judgment, wherein we see the effigy of the Divine Judge surrounded by the dead rising from their opening graves. The north door at Ely, the whole of the surrounding stone-work of which is elaborately carved, is surmounted by the figure of the Lord enthroned within a vesica, while adoring angels kneel before Him. At[p16]Rougham, in Norfolk, the west door is surmounted by a crucifix, round which runs the emblematic vine. Founhope church, Hereford, has in the tympanum of the arch the Madonna and the Holy Child, a grotesque with birds and beasts surrounding the figures. At Elkstone, Gloucestershire, the south door-way, a specimen (like the one at Founhope) of Norman work, has some interesting sculptures. In the centre of the tympanum is Christ enthroned, with the apocalyptic symbols of the evangelists around Him; beyond these on the right hand of Christ is the Agnus Dei with the flag, an emblem of the Resurrection, while on the left is a wide open pair of jaws, known as a Hell-mouth: above all the Father’s Hand is seen in the attitude of benediction. Elstow church has sculptured figures above the north door; not within the containing arch, but within a separate arched space divided from the door-way by a string-course. Haltham church, in Lincolnshire, has some exceedingly curious designs on the tympanum of the south door; they are mostly cruciform figures within circles, and are arranged with strange irregularity. The north door of Lutterworth church has over it a fresco painting.

NORTH DOOR, ELSTOW CHURCH.

[p17]Several of the churches in Brussels have door-ways which, though otherwise not remarkable, are noteworthy from the beauty of the carving of the central post dividing the two leaves of the door. The church of Notre Dame de Bon-Secours has the effigy of its patron saint crowned and robed, bearing the Infant Saviour; below are the emblems of pilgrimage, wallets, gourds, and cockle-shells. The church of La Madeleine has a crucifix with a weeping Magdalene at its foot. The old church of S. Catharine has its patroness on the door-post, and the Chapelle Sainte-Anne similarly has S. Anne holding the Blessed Virgin by the hand. Foliage or scrolls in each case fill up the rest of the column, which is of wood, and in some instances has been painted.

So far, the doorways have occupied our[p18]attention; something must, however, be said of the doors themselves. The usual form of the old church door is familiar enough to all of us; the massive time-stained oak, the heavy iron nails that stud it, and the long broad hinges that reach almost across its full breadth. There is dignity in the very simplicity of all this; but not seldom far more ornate examples may be found.

The most elementary form of decoration consists in merely panelling the door, as is the case in numberless instances; occasionally the panels themselves are carved, as on the “Thoresby Door,” at Lynn, or the door of S. Mary’s, Bath; or tracery, as in a window, is introduced, as at Alford, Lincolnshire. These are but a few of the many instances which might be cited. Another striking form of decoration is produced by hammering out the long hinges into a design covering, more or less, the surface of the door. The west door at Higham Ferrers, already noticed, has on each of its leaves three hinges, which are formed into wide spreading scrolls. Sempringham Abbey has very fine beaten ironwork spread over almost the entire face of the door. A more curious example is afforded by Dartmouth church; where a conventional tree[p19]with spreading branches covers the door, and across this the hinges are laid in the form of two heraldic lions. The date is added in the middle of the work, 1631.

DOOR AT LYNN CHURCH.

In the decoration of the church door the mediæval blacksmith proves himself in a thousand instances, at home and abroad, to have been an artist. Free from the hurry of the present age, he could work according to that canon of Chaucer’s,

“There is no workmanThat can both worken well and hastilie,This must be done at leisure, perfectlie.”

“There is no workmanThat can both worken well and hastilie,This must be done at leisure, perfectlie.”

“There is no workman

That can both worken well and hastilie,

This must be done at leisure, perfectlie.”

[p20]With him it was not the hand only that wrought, nor even the hand and head; but the soul within him gave life to both. Of the contrast between old ways and new, few examples are more striking than the hinges of the door at S. Mary Key, Ipswich; where we have a simple but graceful scroll of ancient date, and a clumsy iron bar of to-day, lying side by side. For a beautiful design in beaten iron the doors of Worksop Priory may claim to have not many rivals.

SOUTH PORCH, SEMPRINGHAM ABBEY.

[p21]The most splendid doors in the world are probably the bronze doors of the Baptistery at Florence. Other bronze doors there are on the Continent, and all of them fine; Aix-la-Chapelle, Mayence, Augsburg, Hildesheim, Novgorod, all have doors of this kind; at Verona, too, in the church of San Zeno, are ancient examples, whereon are set forth in panels a number of subjects from Holy Scripture and from the life of the patron saint. All, however, fall into[p22]insignificance beside the “Gates of Paradise,” as the Florentines proudly call their doors.

DOOR AT DARTMOUTH CHURCH.

In 1400 the Gild of Cloth Merchants of Florence decided to make a thank-offering for the cessation of the plague; and the form which it took was a pair of bronze doors for the baptistery of the church of S. Giovanni, to correspond with some already there. These earlier ones are the work of Pisana and his son Nino, from designs by Giotto; the creation of the new ones was thrown open to competition. Many competitors appeared, of whom six were asked to submit specimens of designs for the panels; and, finally, when the choice lay between two only, the elder, Brunellesco, himself advised that the commission should be entrusted to Ghiberti, a youth then barely twenty years of age. The doors when completed contained twenty scenes from the Saviour’s life, together with figures of the four Latin Doctors and the four Evangelists, set in a frame of exquisite foliage. This splendid work was surpassed by a second pair of doors subsequently made for the same place. In this there are ten panels setting forth scenes from the Old Testament history; and the frame is adorned with niches and[p23]medallions in which are placed some fifty allegorical figures and portrait heads. It was of these last doors, which were only completed in Ghiberti’s mature age, that no less a judge than Michael Angelo said, “They might stand as the gates of Paradise itself.”

Aix-en-Provence claims that her doors are as peerless as examples of the wood-carver’s art, as are the Florentine ones as types of the metal-worker’s. They have been preserved, it is said, from the sixth century, and are still wonderfully fresh and delicate. There are on each door six upper panels filled with figures of the twelve Sybils; and below one large panel, occupied, in one case, by effigies of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, and in the other by Ezekiel and Daniel. The carving is only occasionally exhibited, two masking doors having been cleverly contrived to protect and cover the real ones.

Many of the doors of our cathedrals and great abbey churches have knockers, often of very striking designs. These as a rule indicate that the places in question claimed the right of sanctuary; and the knocker was to summon an attendant, or watcher, to admit the fugitive from justice at night, or at other times when the[p24]entrance was closed. A curious head holding a ring within its teeth forms the knocker at Durham cathedral; a lion’s head was not an uncommon form for this to take, as at Adel, York (All Saints), and Norwich (S. Gregory’s); a singularly ferocious lion’s head knocker may be seen at Mayence.

[p24a]From a Photo by Albert E. Coe, Norwich.ERPINGHAMGATE, NORWICH.

The deep porch which we so frequently see over the principal door of the church was formerly something more than an ornament, or even a protection; it was a recognized portion of the sacred building, and had its appointed place in the services of the Church. Baptism was frequently administered in the church porch, to symbolize that by that Sacrament the infant entered into Holy Church. There are still relics of the existence of fonts in some of our porches, as at East Dereham, Norfolk. When baptism was thus administered in the south porch, it was also customary, so it is alleged, to throw wide open the north door; that the devil, formally renounced in that rite, might by that way flee “to his own place.” The font now usually stands just within the door. In the pre-reformation usage of the Church the thanksgiving of a woman after child-birth was also made in, or[p25]before, the church porch; and concluded with the priest’s saying, “Enter into the temple of God, that thou mayest have eternal life, and live for ever and ever.” The first prayer-book of Edward VI. ordered the woman to kneel “nigh unto the quire door:” the next revision altered the words “to nigh unto the place where the table standeth;” and from Elizabeth’s days the rubric has simply said indefinitely “a convenient place.”

The rubric at the commencement of the Order of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony according to the Sarum use began also in this way: “Let the man and woman be placed before the door of the church, or in the face of the church, before the presence of God, the Priest, and the People”; at the end of the actual marriage, and before the benedictory prayers which followit, the rubric says, “Here let them go into the church to the step of the altar.” Chaucer alludes to this usage when in his “Canterbury Tales” he says of the wife ofBath—

“She was a worthy woman all her live,Husbands at the church dore had she five.”

“She was a worthy woman all her live,Husbands at the church dore had she five.”

“She was a worthy woman all her live,

Husbands at the church dore had she five.”

Edward I. was united to Margaret at the door of[p26]Canterbury Cathedral on September 9th, 1299, and other mediæval notices of the custom occur.

The first prayer-book of Edward VI. introduced an alteration which has been maintained ever since; the new rubric reading that “The persons to be married shall come into the body of the Church,” just as it does in our modern prayer-books. In France the custom survived as late as the seventeenth century, at least in some instances, for the marriage of Charles I., who was represented by a proxy, and Henrietta Maria was performed at the door of Notre Dame in Paris. In Herrick’s “Hesperides” is a little poem entitled “The Entertainment, or,A Porch-verseat the marriage of Mr. Henry Northly and the most witty Mrs. Lettice Yard.” Itcommences:—

“Welcome! but yet no entrance till we blesseFirst you, then you, then both for white success.”

“Welcome! but yet no entrance till we blesseFirst you, then you, then both for white success.”

“Welcome! but yet no entrance till we blesse

First you, then you, then both for white success.”

This was published in the midst of the great Civil War, and seems to show that the custom of marriage at the church porch was still sufficiently known, even if only by tradition, to make allusions to it “understanded of the people.”

Burials sometimes took place in the church[p27]porch, in those days when interment within the building was much sought after.

Ecclesiastical Courts were frequently held in church porches, as at the south door of Canterbury Cathedral; schools were occasionally established in them; and here the dower of the bride was formally presented to the bridegroom. This last-named use of the porch is illustrated by a deed of the time of Edward I., by which Robert Fitz Roger, a gentleman of Northamptonshire, bound himself to marry his son within a given time to Hawisia, daughter of Robert de Tybetot, and “to endow her at the church door” with property equal to a hundred pounds per annum. We still have evidence of the fact that the church door was of old considered the most prominent and public place in the parish in the continued use of it as the official place for posting legal notices of general interest, such as lists of voters, summonses for public meetings, and so forth.

There are often in connection with ancient ecclesiastical foundations doors and gateways which are of great interest, though they can scarcely be called church doors. Of this class are the entrances to the chapter houses of[p28]cathedrals, many of which are very fine. At York, for example, the chapter-house, which proudly asserts in an inscription near the entrance that, “as the rose is among the flowers, so is it among buildings,” has a doorway not unworthy of the beautiful interior.

The gateway which gave admittance to the sacred enclosure of the abbey—the garth or close round which were ranged the monastic buildings—is in many cases an imposing and elaborate piece of architecture. Bristol has an interesting Norman gateway, and that at Durham is massive and impressive, as are all the conventual remains there. Norwich is specially rich in this respect. The Erpingham Gate was the gift of Sir Thomas Erpingham, who died in 1420, and whom the King, in Shakespere’s play of “King Henry V.” (Act iv. sc. I), calls a “good old knight;” S. Ethelbert’s Gate was built at the cost of Bishop Alnwick, who ruled the see from 1426 to 1436.

But to speak of these things is to wander from our present subject, and even that is too wide to be dealt with fully in a paper such as this. The legends and traditions of the church porch might occupy many a page, while we gossiped over the mystic rites of S. John’s Eve or of All Hallow[p29]E’en; or while we told how Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, barred his cathedral door with thorns in his anger against the King and his friends; or how the skins of marauding Danes have in more than one instance been nailed as leather coverings to the doors of English churches. Enough, however, has probably been said to show the wealth of interest which may often be found to hang about the old church porch, in which the village church may often be as rich as the great cathedral or the stately abbey.

1. See a full account of this stone in “Bygone Lincolnshire,”—Vol. I, William Andrews & Co.

1. See a full account of this stone in “Bygone Lincolnshire,”—Vol. I, William Andrews & Co.

[p30]Sacrificial Foundations.By England Howlett.Inearly 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.Heinrich Heinesays:—“In the middle ages the opinion prevailed that when any building was to be erected something living must be killed, in the blood of which the foundation had to be laid, by which process the building would be[p31]secured from falling; and in ballads and traditions the remembrance is still preserved how children and animals were slaughtered for the purpose of strengthening large buildings with their blood.”“ .  .  .  I repent:There is no sure foundation set on blood,No certain life achiev’d by other’s death.”King John, Act iv., Sc. 2.Shakespeare.To many of our churches tradition associates some animal and it generally goes by the name of the Kirk-grim. These Kirk-grims are of course the ghostly apparitions of the beasts that were buried under the foundation-stones of the churches, and they are supposed to haunt the churchyards and church lanes. A spectre dog which went by the name of “Bargest” was said to haunt the churchyard at Northorpe, in Lincolnshire, up to the first half of the present century. The black dog that haunts Peel Castle, and the bloodhound of Launceston Castle, are the spectres of the animals buried under their walls. The apparitions of children in certain old mansions are the faded recollections of the sacrifices offered when these houses were first[p32]erected, not perhaps the present buildings, but the original halls or castles prior to the conquest, and into the foundations of which children were often built. The Cauld Lad of Hilton Castle in the valley of the Wear is well known. He is said to wail at night:“Wae’s me, wae’s me,The acorn’s not yetFallen from the treeThat’s to grow the wood,That’s to make the cradle,That’s to rock the bairn,That’s to grow to a man,That’s to lay me.”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,[p33]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.”The traditions of Copenhagen are, that when the ramparts were being raised the earth always sank, so that it was impossible to get it to stand firm. They therefore took a little innocent girl, placed her on a chair by a table, and gave her playthings and sweetmeats. While she thus sat enjoying herself, twelve masons built an arch over her, which when completed they covered over with earth, to the sound of music with drums and trumpets. By this process they are, it is said, rendered immovable.2It is an old saying that there is a skeleton in every house, a saying which at one time was practically a fact. Every house in deed and in truth had its skeleton, and moreover every house was designed not only to have its skeleton, but its ghost also. The idea of providing every[p34]building with its ghost as a spiritual guard was not of course the primary idea; it developed later out of the original pagan belief of a sacrifice associated with the beginning of every work of importance. Partly with the notion of offering a propitiatory sacrifice to mother earth, and partly also with the idea of securing for ever a portion of soil by some sacrificial act, the old pagan laid the foundation of his house in blood.The art of building in early ages was not well understood, and the true principles of architecture and construction were but little appreciated. If the walls of a building showed any signs of settlement the reason was supposed to be that the earth had not been sufficiently propitiated, and that as a consequence she refused to carry the burden imposed upon her.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,[p35]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.Sacrifice was not by any means confined to the foundations of buildings only. A man starting on a journey or on any new and important work would first offer a sacrifice. A ship was never launched without a sacrifice, and the christening of a vessel in these days with a bottle of wine is undoubtedly a relic of the time when the neck of a human being was broken and the prow of the vessel suffused with blood as a sacrificial offering.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.[p36]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.With the spread of Christianity the belief in human sacrifice died out. In 1885, Holsworthy Parish Church was restored; during the work of restoration it was necessary to take down the south-west angle of the wall, and in this wall was found, embedded in the mortar and stone, a skeleton. The wall of this part of the church[p37]had settled, and from the account given by the masons it would seem there was no trace of a tomb, but on the contrary every indication that the victim had actually been buried alive—a mass of mortar covered the mouth, and the stones around the body seemed to have been hastily built. Some few years ago the Bridge Gate of the Bremen city walls was taken down, and the skeleton of a child was found embedded in the foundations.3The practice of our masons of putting the blood of oxen into mortar was no doubt in the first instance associated with the idea of a sacrifice; however this may be, the blood had no doubt a real effect in hardening the mortar, just the same as treacle, which has been known to be used in our days. The use of cement when any extra strength is needed has put aside the use of either blood or treacle in the mixing of mortar.It is a curious instance of the wide spread of the belief in blood as a cement for ancient buildings that Alá-ud-din Khilji, the King of Delhi,A.D.1296–1315, when enlarging and strengthening the walls of old Delhi, is reported to have mingled in the mortar the bones and[p38]blood of thousands of goat-bearded Moghuls, whom he slaughtered for the purpose. A modern instance is furnished by advices which were brought from Accra, dated December 8th, 1881, that the King of Ashantee had murdered 200 girls, for the purpose of using their blood to mix with the mortar employed in the building of a new palace.A foundation sacrifice is suggested by the following curious discovery, reported in theYorkshire Heraldof 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.”[p39]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.It is said that St. Odhran expressed his willingness to be the first to be buried in Iona, and, indeed, offered himself to be buried alive for sacrifice. Local tradition long afterwards added the still more ghastly circumstance that once, when the tomb was opened, he was found still alive, and uttered such fearful words that the grave had to be closed immediately.Even at the present day there is a prejudice more or less deeply rooted against a first burial in a new churchyard or cemetery. This prejudice is doubtless due to the fact that in early ages the first to be buried was a victim. Later on in the middle ages the idea seems to have been that the first to be buried became the perquisite of the devil, who thus seems in the minds of the people to have taken the place of the pagan deity. Not in England alone, but all over Northern Europe,[p40]there is a strong prejudice against being the first to enter a new building, or to cross a newly-built bridge. At the least it is considered unlucky, and the more superstitious believe it will entail death. All this is the outcome of the once general sacrificial foundation, and the lingering shadow of a ghastly practice.Grimm, in his “Teutonic Mythology,” tells us that when the new bridge at Halle, finished in 1843, was building, the common people got an idea that a child was wanted to wall up in the foundations. In the outer wall of Reichenfels Castle a child was actually built in alive; a projecting stone marks the spot, and it is believed that if this stone were pulled out the wall would at once fall down.Bones, both human and of animals, have been found under hearthstones of houses. When we consider that the hearth is the centre, as it were, and most sacred spot of a house, and that the chimney above it is the highest portion built, and the most difficult to complete, it seems easy to understand why the victim was buried under the hearthstone or jamb of the chimney.There is an interesting custom prevailing in Roumania to the present day which is clearly a[p41]remnant of the old idea of a sacrificial foundation. When masons are engaged building a house they try to catch the shadow of a stranger passing by and wall it in, and throw in stones and mortar whilst his shadow rests on the walls. If no one passes by to throw a shadow the masons go in search of a woman or child who does not belong to the place, and, unperceived by the person, apply a reed to the shadow and this reed is then immured. In Holland frequently there has been found in foundations curious looking objects something like ninepins, but which in reality are simply rude imitations of babies in their swaddling bands—the image representing the child being the modern substitute for an actual sacrifice. Carved figures of Christ crucified have been found in the foundations of churches. Some few years ago, when the north wall of Chulmleigh Church in North Devon was taken down there was found a carved figure of Christ crucified to a vine.4A story is told that the walls of Scutari contain the body of a victim. In this case it is a woman who is said to have been built in, but an opening was left through which her infant might be[p42]passed in to be suckled by her as long as any life remained in the poor creature, and after her death the hole was closed.The legend of Cologne Cathedral is well known. The architect sold himself to the devil for the plan, and gave up his life when the building was in progress; that is to say, the man voluntarily gave up his life to be buried under the tower to ensure the stability of the enormous superstructure, which he believed could not be held up in any other way.It is well known that the extinguished torch is the symbol of departed life, and to the present day the superstitious mind always connects the soul with flame. It was at one time a common practice to bury a candle in a coffin, the explanation being that the dead man needed it to give him light on his way to Heaven. It is extremely doubtful, however, whether this was the original idea, for most probably the candle in the first instance really represented an extinguished life, and was thus a substitute for a human sacrifice which, in the pagan times, accompanied every burial. The candle, in fact, took the place of a life, human or animal, and in many instances candles have been found[p43]immured in the walls and foundations of churches and houses.Eggs have often been found built into foundations. The egg had, of course life in it—but undeveloped life, so that by its use the old belief in the efficacy of a living sacrifice was fully maintained without any shock to the feelings of people in days when they were beginning to revolt against the practices of the early ages.Sir Walter Scott speaks of the tradition that the foundation stones of Pictish raths were bathed in human blood. In the ballad of the “Cout of Keeldar” it is said:“And here beside the mountain floodA massy castle frowned;Since first the Pictish race, in blood,The haunted pile did found.”From Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology” we learn that in Denmark, in former days, before any human being was buried in a churchyard, a living horse was first interred. This horse is supposed to re-appear, and is known by the name of the “Hel-horse.” It has only three legs, and if anyone meets it it forebodes death. Hence is derived the saying when anyone has survived a dangerous illness: “He gave death a[p44]peck of oats” (as an offering or bribe). Hel is identical with death, and in times of pestilence is supposed to ride about on a three-legged horse and strangle people.The belief still lingers in Germany that good weather may be secured by building a live cock into a wall, and it is thought that cattle may be prevented from straying by burying a living blind dog under the threshold of a stable. Amongst the French peasantry a new farmhouse is not entered upon until a cock has been killed and its blood sprinkled in the rooms.5It is probable that sacrificial foundations had their origin in the idea of a propitiary offering to the Goddess Earth. However this may be, it is certain that for centuries, through times of heathenism, and well into even advanced Christianity, the people so thoroughly associated the foundation of buildings with a sacrifice that in some form or other it has lingered on to the present century. Now in our own day the laying the foundation of any important building is always attended with a ceremony—the form remains, the sacrifice is no longer offered. For ecclesiastical buildings, or those having some[p45]charitable object, a religious ceremony is provided, while for those purely secular the event is marked by rejoicings. We cannot bring ourselves to pass over without notice the foundation laying of our great buildings, and who shall venture to say that superstition is altogether dead, and that we are free from the lingering remains of what was once the pagan belief?2. “Thorpe’s Northern Mythology,” vol. II., p. 244.3. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.4. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.5. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.

By England Howlett.

Inearly 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.

Heinrich Heinesays:—“In the middle ages the opinion prevailed that when any building was to be erected something living must be killed, in the blood of which the foundation had to be laid, by which process the building would be[p31]secured from falling; and in ballads and traditions the remembrance is still preserved how children and animals were slaughtered for the purpose of strengthening large buildings with their blood.”

“ .  .  .  I repent:There is no sure foundation set on blood,No certain life achiev’d by other’s death.”King John, Act iv., Sc. 2.Shakespeare.

“ .  .  .  I repent:There is no sure foundation set on blood,No certain life achiev’d by other’s death.”

“ .  .  .  I repent:

There is no sure foundation set on blood,

No certain life achiev’d by other’s death.”

King John, Act iv., Sc. 2.Shakespeare.

To many of our churches tradition associates some animal and it generally goes by the name of the Kirk-grim. These Kirk-grims are of course the ghostly apparitions of the beasts that were buried under the foundation-stones of the churches, and they are supposed to haunt the churchyards and church lanes. A spectre dog which went by the name of “Bargest” was said to haunt the churchyard at Northorpe, in Lincolnshire, up to the first half of the present century. The black dog that haunts Peel Castle, and the bloodhound of Launceston Castle, are the spectres of the animals buried under their walls. The apparitions of children in certain old mansions are the faded recollections of the sacrifices offered when these houses were first[p32]erected, not perhaps the present buildings, but the original halls or castles prior to the conquest, and into the foundations of which children were often built. The Cauld Lad of Hilton Castle in the valley of the Wear is well known. He is said to wail at night:

“Wae’s me, wae’s me,The acorn’s not yetFallen from the treeThat’s to grow the wood,That’s to make the cradle,That’s to rock the bairn,That’s to grow to a man,That’s to lay me.”

“Wae’s me, wae’s me,The acorn’s not yetFallen from the treeThat’s to grow the wood,That’s to make the cradle,That’s to rock the bairn,That’s to grow to a man,That’s to lay me.”

“Wae’s me, wae’s me,

The acorn’s not yet

Fallen from the tree

That’s to grow the wood,

That’s to make the cradle,

That’s to rock the bairn,

That’s to grow to a man,

That’s to lay me.”

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,[p33]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.”

The traditions of Copenhagen are, that when the ramparts were being raised the earth always sank, so that it was impossible to get it to stand firm. They therefore took a little innocent girl, placed her on a chair by a table, and gave her playthings and sweetmeats. While she thus sat enjoying herself, twelve masons built an arch over her, which when completed they covered over with earth, to the sound of music with drums and trumpets. By this process they are, it is said, rendered immovable.2

It is an old saying that there is a skeleton in every house, a saying which at one time was practically a fact. Every house in deed and in truth had its skeleton, and moreover every house was designed not only to have its skeleton, but its ghost also. The idea of providing every[p34]building with its ghost as a spiritual guard was not of course the primary idea; it developed later out of the original pagan belief of a sacrifice associated with the beginning of every work of importance. Partly with the notion of offering a propitiatory sacrifice to mother earth, and partly also with the idea of securing for ever a portion of soil by some sacrificial act, the old pagan laid the foundation of his house in blood.

The art of building in early ages was not well understood, and the true principles of architecture and construction were but little appreciated. If the walls of a building showed any signs of settlement the reason was supposed to be that the earth had not been sufficiently propitiated, and that as a consequence she refused to carry the burden imposed upon her.

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,[p35]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.

Sacrifice was not by any means confined to the foundations of buildings only. A man starting on a journey or on any new and important work would first offer a sacrifice. A ship was never launched without a sacrifice, and the christening of a vessel in these days with a bottle of wine is undoubtedly a relic of the time when the neck of a human being was broken and the prow of the vessel suffused with blood as a sacrificial offering.

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.

[p36]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.

With the spread of Christianity the belief in human sacrifice died out. In 1885, Holsworthy Parish Church was restored; during the work of restoration it was necessary to take down the south-west angle of the wall, and in this wall was found, embedded in the mortar and stone, a skeleton. The wall of this part of the church[p37]had settled, and from the account given by the masons it would seem there was no trace of a tomb, but on the contrary every indication that the victim had actually been buried alive—a mass of mortar covered the mouth, and the stones around the body seemed to have been hastily built. Some few years ago the Bridge Gate of the Bremen city walls was taken down, and the skeleton of a child was found embedded in the foundations.3

The practice of our masons of putting the blood of oxen into mortar was no doubt in the first instance associated with the idea of a sacrifice; however this may be, the blood had no doubt a real effect in hardening the mortar, just the same as treacle, which has been known to be used in our days. The use of cement when any extra strength is needed has put aside the use of either blood or treacle in the mixing of mortar.

It is a curious instance of the wide spread of the belief in blood as a cement for ancient buildings that Alá-ud-din Khilji, the King of Delhi,A.D.1296–1315, when enlarging and strengthening the walls of old Delhi, is reported to have mingled in the mortar the bones and[p38]blood of thousands of goat-bearded Moghuls, whom he slaughtered for the purpose. A modern instance is furnished by advices which were brought from Accra, dated December 8th, 1881, that the King of Ashantee had murdered 200 girls, for the purpose of using their blood to mix with the mortar employed in the building of a new palace.

A foundation sacrifice is suggested by the following curious discovery, reported in theYorkshire Heraldof 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.”

[p39]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.

It is said that St. Odhran expressed his willingness to be the first to be buried in Iona, and, indeed, offered himself to be buried alive for sacrifice. Local tradition long afterwards added the still more ghastly circumstance that once, when the tomb was opened, he was found still alive, and uttered such fearful words that the grave had to be closed immediately.

Even at the present day there is a prejudice more or less deeply rooted against a first burial in a new churchyard or cemetery. This prejudice is doubtless due to the fact that in early ages the first to be buried was a victim. Later on in the middle ages the idea seems to have been that the first to be buried became the perquisite of the devil, who thus seems in the minds of the people to have taken the place of the pagan deity. Not in England alone, but all over Northern Europe,[p40]there is a strong prejudice against being the first to enter a new building, or to cross a newly-built bridge. At the least it is considered unlucky, and the more superstitious believe it will entail death. All this is the outcome of the once general sacrificial foundation, and the lingering shadow of a ghastly practice.

Grimm, in his “Teutonic Mythology,” tells us that when the new bridge at Halle, finished in 1843, was building, the common people got an idea that a child was wanted to wall up in the foundations. In the outer wall of Reichenfels Castle a child was actually built in alive; a projecting stone marks the spot, and it is believed that if this stone were pulled out the wall would at once fall down.

Bones, both human and of animals, have been found under hearthstones of houses. When we consider that the hearth is the centre, as it were, and most sacred spot of a house, and that the chimney above it is the highest portion built, and the most difficult to complete, it seems easy to understand why the victim was buried under the hearthstone or jamb of the chimney.

There is an interesting custom prevailing in Roumania to the present day which is clearly a[p41]remnant of the old idea of a sacrificial foundation. When masons are engaged building a house they try to catch the shadow of a stranger passing by and wall it in, and throw in stones and mortar whilst his shadow rests on the walls. If no one passes by to throw a shadow the masons go in search of a woman or child who does not belong to the place, and, unperceived by the person, apply a reed to the shadow and this reed is then immured. In Holland frequently there has been found in foundations curious looking objects something like ninepins, but which in reality are simply rude imitations of babies in their swaddling bands—the image representing the child being the modern substitute for an actual sacrifice. Carved figures of Christ crucified have been found in the foundations of churches. Some few years ago, when the north wall of Chulmleigh Church in North Devon was taken down there was found a carved figure of Christ crucified to a vine.4

A story is told that the walls of Scutari contain the body of a victim. In this case it is a woman who is said to have been built in, but an opening was left through which her infant might be[p42]passed in to be suckled by her as long as any life remained in the poor creature, and after her death the hole was closed.

The legend of Cologne Cathedral is well known. The architect sold himself to the devil for the plan, and gave up his life when the building was in progress; that is to say, the man voluntarily gave up his life to be buried under the tower to ensure the stability of the enormous superstructure, which he believed could not be held up in any other way.

It is well known that the extinguished torch is the symbol of departed life, and to the present day the superstitious mind always connects the soul with flame. It was at one time a common practice to bury a candle in a coffin, the explanation being that the dead man needed it to give him light on his way to Heaven. It is extremely doubtful, however, whether this was the original idea, for most probably the candle in the first instance really represented an extinguished life, and was thus a substitute for a human sacrifice which, in the pagan times, accompanied every burial. The candle, in fact, took the place of a life, human or animal, and in many instances candles have been found[p43]immured in the walls and foundations of churches and houses.

Eggs have often been found built into foundations. The egg had, of course life in it—but undeveloped life, so that by its use the old belief in the efficacy of a living sacrifice was fully maintained without any shock to the feelings of people in days when they were beginning to revolt against the practices of the early ages.

Sir Walter Scott speaks of the tradition that the foundation stones of Pictish raths were bathed in human blood. In the ballad of the “Cout of Keeldar” it is said:

“And here beside the mountain floodA massy castle frowned;Since first the Pictish race, in blood,The haunted pile did found.”

“And here beside the mountain floodA massy castle frowned;Since first the Pictish race, in blood,The haunted pile did found.”

“And here beside the mountain flood

A massy castle frowned;

Since first the Pictish race, in blood,

The haunted pile did found.”

From Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology” we learn that in Denmark, in former days, before any human being was buried in a churchyard, a living horse was first interred. This horse is supposed to re-appear, and is known by the name of the “Hel-horse.” It has only three legs, and if anyone meets it it forebodes death. Hence is derived the saying when anyone has survived a dangerous illness: “He gave death a[p44]peck of oats” (as an offering or bribe). Hel is identical with death, and in times of pestilence is supposed to ride about on a three-legged horse and strangle people.

The belief still lingers in Germany that good weather may be secured by building a live cock into a wall, and it is thought that cattle may be prevented from straying by burying a living blind dog under the threshold of a stable. Amongst the French peasantry a new farmhouse is not entered upon until a cock has been killed and its blood sprinkled in the rooms.5

It is probable that sacrificial foundations had their origin in the idea of a propitiary offering to the Goddess Earth. However this may be, it is certain that for centuries, through times of heathenism, and well into even advanced Christianity, the people so thoroughly associated the foundation of buildings with a sacrifice that in some form or other it has lingered on to the present century. Now in our own day the laying the foundation of any important building is always attended with a ceremony—the form remains, the sacrifice is no longer offered. For ecclesiastical buildings, or those having some[p45]charitable object, a religious ceremony is provided, while for those purely secular the event is marked by rejoicings. We cannot bring ourselves to pass over without notice the foundation laying of our great buildings, and who shall venture to say that superstition is altogether dead, and that we are free from the lingering remains of what was once the pagan belief?

2. “Thorpe’s Northern Mythology,” vol. II., p. 244.3. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.4. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.5. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.

2. “Thorpe’s Northern Mythology,” vol. II., p. 244.

3. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.

4. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.

5. “Strange Survivals,” Baring Gould.

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