Note 1 — LECTURE I. (17th October 1881.) CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN BURIAL—VIKING BURIALS.

The body was swathed in linen, sometimes with the insignia of office, or with ornaments of gold, or gems placed in the coffin or sarcophagus.—Euseb. Vit. Const. iv. 66; Ambros. Orat. in obit. Theodos; August. Conf. ix. 12, cited in Smith’s Dict. of Christ. Antiq., sub voce “Burial of the Dead.” The insignia of office, if the deceased had held any such position—gold and silver ornaments in the case of private persons—were often flung into the open grave, and the waste and ostentation to which this led had to be checked by an imperial edict.—Cod. Theodos. xi. tit. 7, 1, 14. Ibid. So common was the burial of weapons and ornaments in Early Christian times among the Franks, that enactments against the violation of graves in search of treasure form a special feature in the Salic Laws. Gregory of Tours tells of the robbery of the grave of the wife of Gonthram, who was buried in the Church of Metz, “cum auro multo rebusque preciosis;” and Montfaucon adds that from this we see that it was not the kings only, but the great of the land also, who were at that time buried with things of price.