Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/350

 256 ON THE SEPULCHEAL SLABS EXISTING IN THE crosses represented a Imsband and wife. And tliis is still further borne out by the symbols attached to each cross. At Newbigghig on the Sea in Northumberland there is a ridged slab five feet long by twenty inches broad at the head, and tapering to twelve inches at the foot. The left hand cross is slightly crocheted in the stem, but is otherwise of poor de- sign, and has no symbols attached to it. The right hand cross is of still meaner design, and has associated with it the symbol of the shears. The fine slab at East Shaftoe, figured first in the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of Newcastle, is another of these double grave-stones. Here we find the shears accompanying the left hand cross, and the sword and shield, with three crosses moline, associated with the plainer cross on the right hand. I do not see what other explanation can be given of these emblems, than that they denote a knight and his lady. In the chancel of Aycliff'e church in the county of Durham, there lies a large slab of blue limestone, bearing on the right hand a cross, with the sword, and a hammer and pincers, and on the left a cross, with shears and the key. The husband here had probably been an armourer and smith, and the ham- mer and pincers are the symbols of his trade. The theory that the key also is an emblem of the female sex is con- firmed I think by this stone. Lastly, I have in my collection a rubbing from a stone re- cently in a church in the neighbourhood of Darlington, but now in private hands. Upon this mutilated grave-stone are two finely worked crosses, the right exhibiting the sword, the left the shears and two keys, or at least a portion of two keys, while between these is a smaller and a plainer cross, near to which is a shield now defaced. All these four slabs seem to me to speak strongly for the truth of the supposition I have advanced, that the shears are the appropriate emblem of the female, and that the key in all probability is a symbol of the same import. Few of the grave-stones of Northumberland or Durham exhibit any inscriptions or letters. I have found but. two relating to females, and on both of these the shears are in- scribed. One is a narrow slab at Horton church, near Blyth, in Northumberland. Here we find the words ©rate pro ^ni'ma gCnnc Uaiiiolul, tic shears being placed in the mi(hl!e of the sentence.