Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/66

54 There can be little doubt that many of these stones had been placed over graves in the church-yard. We now most frequently find them only in the pavement in the interior of our older churches: those in the open ground having perished, through exposure. But the large number here found, could not all have been intended to be laid in the pavement of the church. Six slabs, similar to these, may be seen lying in the church-yard of Chelmorton, about seven miles distant, with every appearance of being in their original place. Others also have been dug up in the church-yard at Darley. May not those which were found in the foundations of the tower and north transept, have covered graves which might be disturbed when that part of the church was built; and may not those of later date have belonged to graves previously existing on the site of the Newark? And may they not in both cases have been used in the construction of the edifice, not so much for the sake of the material, as from a wish to preserve whatever might have been connected with religious uses: just as we know, that relics of other kinds have been often secreted, by being built up in the walls of churches? At Darley, portions of seven crosses of this kind may be seen built into the wall over the east window of the chancel, and other parts of the church. And no doubt many other instances of similar preservation of ancient tomb-stones may be found in the retired village churches in Derbyshire, as well as in other parts of the country. Several examples indeed of interesting fragments thus built into the walls of churches have been already noticed at different times in the Archæological Journal, and other publications.

These ancient grave-stones are interesting to us on several accounts: they seem to furnish decisive evidence that such memorials of the dead were in more general use at an early period, in some parts of the country at least, than is commonly supposed. We most frequently find them in the present day only in the interior of churches, and we are apt, on that account, to infer that they were used almost exclusively to mark the burial-place of those who belonged to the higher ranks in the community; the knight, the ecclesiastic, the staple-merchant, or those who for some special reason may have been thought entitled to burial within the consecrated building. But the very large number found in this church, in a remote and thinly inhabited part of the country, as moun-