Note 8 — LECTURE I. (17th October 1881.) CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN BURIAL—VIKING BURIALS.

A variety of the custom of burial clothed took the form of burial in a monkish habit. It was not uncommon in the twelfth century for laymen to be thus buried, under the notion that the sanctity of the dress preserved the body from molestation by demons. Thus Erik Ploupenning sets forth in a deed dated 1241, “Votum fecimus ut in habitu fratrum minorum mori deberemus et in ipso habitu apud fratres minores Roeskildenses sepiliri.”—Pontoppidan, Annales Eccl. Dan. 1669. The idea of sanctity connected with the monastic orders led people to seek for burial, not only in the consecrated ground about the monastery, but in the habit of the monks. The right was in early times purchased by the great men of Brittany by the gift of lands and other offerings, as we have seen to be the case in Ireland.—Stuart’s Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 63.