Whereas the old heroes, in Homer, dreaded nothing more than water or drowning; probably upon the old opinion of the fiery substance of the soul, only extinguishable by that element; and therefore the poet emphatically implieth the total destruction in this kind of death, which happened to Ajax Oileus.* The old Balearians† had a peculiar mode, for they used great urns and much wood, but no fire in their burials, while they bruised the flesh and bones of the dead, crowded them into urns, and laid heaps of wood upon them. And the Chinese‡ without cremation or urnal interment of their bodies, make use of trees and much burning, while they plant a pine-tree by their grave, and burn great numbers of printed draughts of slaves and horses over it, civilly content with their companies in effigy, which barbarous nations exact unto reality. Christians abhorred this way of obsequies, and though they sticked not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives, detested that mode after death; affecting rather a depositure than absumption, and properly submitting unto the sentence of God, to return not unto ashes but unto dust again, conformable unto the practice of the patriarchs, the interment of our Saviour, of Peter, Paul, and the ancient martyrs. And so far at last declining promiscuous interment with Pagans, that some have suffered ecclesiastical censures,§ for making no scruple thereof. The Musselman believers will never admit this fiery resolution. For they hold a present trial from their black and white angels in the grave; which they must have made so hollow, that they may rise upon their knees. The Jewish nation, though they entertained the old way of inhumation, yet sometimes admitted this practice. For the men of Jabesh burnt the body of Saul; and by no prohibited practice, to avoid contagion or pollution, in time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their friends. And when they burnt not their dead bodies, yet sometimes used great burnings near and about them, deducible from the expressions concerning Jehoram, Zedechias, and the sumptuous + Diodorus Siculus. § Martialis the Bishop. Cyprian. * Which Magius reads Earóλwλε. pyre of Asa. And were so little averse from Pagan burning, that the Jews lamenting the death of Cæsar their friend, and revenger on Pompey, frequented the place where his body was burnt for many nights together. And as they raised noble monuments and mausoleums for their own nation, so they were not scrupulous in erecting some for others, according to the practice of Daniel, who left that lasting sepulchral pile in Ecbatana, for the Median and Persian kings.‡ But even in times of subjection and hottest use, they conformed not unto the Roman practice of burning; whereby the prophecy was secured concerning the body of Christ, that it should not see corruption, or a bone should not be broken; which we believe was also providentially prevented, from the soldier's spear and nails that passed by the little bones both in his hands and feet; not of ordinary contrivance, that it should not corrupt on the cross, according to the laws of Roman crucifixion, or an hair of his head perish, though observable in Jewish customs, to cut the hairs of malefactors. Nor in their long cohabitation with Egyptians, crept into a custom of their exact embalming, wherein deeply slashing the muscles, and taking out the brains and entrails, they had broken the subject of so entire a resurrection, nor fully answered the types of Enoch, Elijah, or Jonah, which yet to prevent or restore, was of equal facility unto that rising power, able to break the fasciations and bands of death, to get clear out of the cerecloth, and an hundred pounds of ointment, and out of the sepulchre before the stone was rolled from it. But though they embraced not this practice of burning, yet entertained they many ceremonies agreeable unto Greek and Roman obsequies. And he that observeth their funeral feasts, their lamentations at the grave, their music, and weeping mourners; how they closed the eyes of their friends, how they washed, anointed, and kissed the dead; may easily *Sueton. in vita Jul. Cæs. + As that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by Simon, 1 Macc. xiii. + Κατασκεύασμα θαυμασίως πεποιημένον, whereof a Jewish priest had always the custody, unto Josephus his days.—Jos. Antiq. lib. x. conclude these were not mere Pagan civilities. But whether that mournful burthen, and treble calling out after Absalom,* had any reference unto the last conclamation, and triple valediction, used by other nations, we hold but a wavering conjecture. Civilians make sepulture but of the law of nations, others do naturally found it and discover it also in animals. They that are so thick-skinned as still to credit the story of the Phoenix, may say something for animal burning. More serious conjectures find some examples of sepulture in elephants, cranes, the sepulchral cells of pismires, and practice of bees, which civil society carrieth out their dead, and hath exequies, if not interments. CHAPTER II. THE solemnities, ceremonies, rites of their cremation or interment, so solemnly delivered by authors, we shall not disparage our reader to repeat. Only the last and lasting part in their urns, collected bones and ashes, we cannot wholly omit or decline that subject, which occasion lately presented, in some discovered among us. In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor far from one another. Not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described: some containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their combustion; besides the extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of opal.† Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compass, were digged up coals and incinerated substances, which begat conjecture that this was the ustrina or place of * 2 Sam. xviii. 33. +In one sent me by my worthy friend, Dr. Thomas Witherly of Walsingham. burning their bodies, or some sacrificing place unto the manes, which was properly below the surface of the ground, as the era and altars unto the gods and heroes above it. That these were the urns of Romans from the common custom and place where they were found, is no obscure conjecture, not far from a Roman garrison, and but five miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient record under the name of Branodunum. And where the adjoining town, containing seven parishes, in no very different sound, but Saxon termination, still retains the name of Burnham, which being an early station, it is not improbable the neighbour parts were filled with habitations, either of Romans themselves, or Britons Romanized, which observed the Roman customs. Nor is it improbable, that the Romans early possessed this country. For though we meet not with such strict particulars of these parts before the new institution of Constantine and military charge of the count of the Saxon shore, and that about the Saxon invasions, the Dalmatian horsemen were in the garrison of Brancaster; yet in the time of Claudius, Vespasian, and Severus, we find no less than three legions dispersed through the province of Britain. And as high as the reign of Claudius a great overthrow was given unto the Iceni, by the Roman lieutenant Ostorius. Not long after, the country was so molested, that, in hope of a better state, Prasutagus bequeathed his kingdom unto Nero and his daughters; and Boadicea, his queen, fought the last decisive battle with Paulinus. After which time, and conquest of Agricola, the lieutenant of Vespasian, probable it is, they wholly possessed this country; ordering it into garrisons or habitations best suitable with their securities. And so some Roman habitations not improbable in these parts, as high as the time of Vespasian, where the Saxons after seated, in whose thin-filled maps we yet find the name of Walsingham. Now if the Iceni were but Gammadims, Anconians, or men that lived in an angle, wedge, or elbow of Britain, according to the original etymology, this country will challenge the emphatical appellation, as most properly making the elbow or iken of Icenia.3 3 Now if the, &c.] That is to say, ifˆiken (as well ayкwv) signified That Britain was notably populous is undeniable, from that expression of Cæsar.* That the Romans themselves were early in no small numbers (seventy thousand, with their associates), slain by Boadicea, affords a sure account. And though many Roman habitations are now unknown, yet some, by old works, rampiers, coins, and urns, do testify their possessions. Some urns have been found at Castor, some also about Southcreak, and, not many years past, no less than ten in a field at Buxton, † not near any recorded garrison. Nor is it strange to find Roman coins of copper and silver among us; of Vespasian, Trajan, Adrian, Commodus, Antoninus, Severus, &c.; but the greater number of Dioclesian, Constantine, Constans, Valens, with many of Victorinus Posthumius, Tetricus, and the thirty tyrants in the reign of Gallienus; and some as high as Adrianus have been found about Thetford, or Sitomagus, mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus, as the way from Venta or Castor unto London. But the most frequent discovery is made at the two Castors by Norwich and Yarmouth,§ at Burghcastle, and Brancaster.|| Hominum infinita multitudo est, creberrimaque; ædificia ferè Gallicis consimilia.-Cæs. de Bello Gal. 1. v. † In the ground of my worthy friend Robert Jegon, Esq.; wherein some things contained were preserved by the most worthy Sir William Paston, Bart. From Castor to Thetford the Romans accounted thirty-two miles, and from thence observed not our common road to London, but passed by Combretonium ad Ansam, Canonium, Cæsaromagus, &c. by Bretenham, Coggeshall, Chelmsford, Brentwood, &c. § Most at Castor by Yarmouth, found in a place called East-bloudyburgh Furlong, belonging to Mr. Thomas Wood, a person of civility, industry, and knowledge in this way, who hath made observation of remarkable things about him, and from whom we have received divers silver and copper coins. || Belonging to that noble gentleman, and true example of worth, Sir Ralph Hare, Bart., my honoured friend. an elbow—and thus, the Icenians were but “men that lived in an angle or elbow," then would the inhabitants of Norfolk have the best claim to the appellation, that county being most emphatically the elbow of Icenia. But, unfortunately, iken does not signify an elbow; and it appears that the Iceni derived their name from the river Ouse, on whose banks they resided, anciently called Iken, Yken, or Ycin. Whence, also, Ikenild-street, Ikenthorpe, Ikenworth. |