Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/130

108 being probably identical with its kindred Greek term, a hamper or basket, which is also the meaning of , the Greek form of kist. It is not improbable that when first a loculus (small place) or box began to be used for the dead, those first employed might be literally what the Greek words describe, wicker or wattled work: for such as were laboriously excavated from a single trunk of a tree, like that lately found at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, must have been far too expensive for common use.

Fosbroke (Encyc. 770, 777.) states that Pausanias considers kistvaens as of Cyclopean origin, and that they occur in Greece, and even in Palestine, of four uprights and one top slab. Our own medieval stone coffins are of a kind essentially distinct from what has obtained the name of kistvaen. They are coffins made of stone and afterwards removed to the grave; and from the Archæological Journal, vol. i. page 190, it appears that interments in such stone coffins took place in Le Maine so late as the 17th century.

But to recur to the subject which these observations are designed to illustrate. It was well remarked, some years since, by an anonymous writer, in a periodical, that we know little of the usual modes of burial among our countrymen in days of old, for barrows, cairns, and cromlechs, must have been far too expensive to have been within the reach of any but the wealthy or noble. I have never seen this difficulty fairly met; but possibly, what I have now undertaken to communicate may have some bearing on the subject.

The church of Pytchley, like many more in this county, consists of architecture of almost every date and style, engrafted upon an early Norman building. One cylindrical pillar, having its height and circumference nearly equal, remains in the north side of the nave, with a very rudely, though elaborately carved capital, of the first part of the 12th century, and standing between two semicircular arches, to which the pointed Early English arches that complete the row are awkwardly jointed. As this pillar, which had evidently been often repaired, was in so mouldering a condition that it might probably have caused serious injury to the whole fabric, we strongly propped up the arches and capitals springing from it, and took it down even to its foundation, (two feet below the pavement,) and excavating until we reached the solid rock, we succeeded in rebuilding a new shaft,