Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/248

 190 SOME NOTES ON THE TRADITION OF FLAYING, say, covered with the skins of the Danes." In early times the Thames had been freqnently the resort of the Danes, and the men of Kent were continnally harassed by their rapacious cruelty. In the year 999 they went up the Medway to Uochester, according to the Saxon Chronicle, and made a most fatal foray, overrunning nearly all West Kent. Rochester cathedral was rebuilt by Bishop Gundulph, towards the latter part of the eleventh century. He succeeded to the see in 1077. Hitherto I have been unable, after repeated enquiries at Rochester, to trace any other statement regarding this fourth example of such a singular tradition ; but the report of so minutely accurate an observer as Pepys must be regarded as of unquestionable authority. Lord Braybrooke subsequently observed that he had been informed by Mr. Neville that the north door of Iladstock was that upon which the skin was nailed, and suggested the enquiry, " Was this the case at Cop- ford as well as Worcester ? because that aspect was always unpopular for purposes of interment, the sun never shining on the graves so situate." Mr. Bay ley has since informed me that the skin was on " the south door, none on the north." Other examples, it has been reported to me, are to be found in the north-eastern parts of the country, in the neighbourhood, probably, of the coast, long infested by the cruel plunderers from the North, and I hope that these notices may prove the means of drawing forth further information on the subject. I have thought the facts which have come to my knowledge well deserving to be recorded in full detail, at the risk even of appearing tediously circumstantial. In a very few years it would be impracticable to substantiate these traditions by a chain of conclusive evidence, such as I have now been enabled to adduce. That so barbarous an exhibition of summary punishment should have been permitted in comparatively un- civilized times, in remote and defenceless villages, exposed by their vicinity to the coast to frequent inroads of the pirates of the Baltic, may appear less extraordinary, but it must be admitted that the exposure of the skin of a criminal within the walls of cathedral churches, or upon the doorS of their most frequented entrances, was a savage display of ven- geance, which it is very difficult to comprehend. At Worcester, moreover, this Avas done in no days of barbarism, or disre- gard of judicial enactments : the reign of Richard II. was marked by the rapid advance of civilization, the introduction