cemeteries (Chambers 1971:72). Whether this is relevant to being buried
with stones is impossible to tell without more evidence.
Tile may also have a significance. At St Nicholas Shambles, Roman
tile or stones were placed on the body of three burials, as also happened
in a single grave of St Bride’s, London. The use of tile, rather than stone,
may, or may not, be significant. Unused ceramic roofing tiles were also
found lining two graves of St Andrew’s, York, in the cloister alley, and also
at Clementhorpe Priory, York (Stroud and Kemp 1993:153). If the tile
is a symbol (rather than just a straight alternative to stone) then it is
possible that it marks some enhanced Christian devotion because
Durandus, in a symbolic explanation of a church, described the tiles on
the roof as the ‘soldiers of Christ’ (Scott and Bland 1929: 32).
The stone and tile placed in the grave are only made into Christian
symbols by guesswork, but there are many objects which can easily and
more explicably be classed as Christian gravegoods, such as crosses,
pilgrim garb, papal bulls, chalice, paten, ‘wands’, mitres, croziers and
ecclesiastical vestments. A mortuary cross within the grave is a relatively
common feature and at least fifteen lead crosses were found at the
Greyfriars cemetery in London (Platt 1978: plate 86). A cross could be a
very simple pair of crossed twigs. Under the elm board coffin of Henry
IV was a ‘very rude small cross, formed by merely tying two twigs
together, thus +. They fell to pieces on being moved’ (JHS 1872: 298).
More substantial mortuary crosses made of wood were found at
Sandwell Priory, both in the ‘Latin’ and ‘Greek’ styles (Hodder 1991:
114). The presence of mortuary crosses in graves may also illuminate the
case of the Glastonbury cross. In the ‘grave [of Arthur] was a cross of
lead, placed under a stone, and not above it, but fixed on the under side’
(Rahtz 1993:43). This cross is usually considered to be a twelfth-century
forgery, but it is interesting that it was actually in the grave, for it might
be that it represented a particularly elaborate, indeed royal, mortuary
cross. Simpler crosses of lead have also been found in the ‘Latin’ and, less
commonly, ‘Greek’ types, a Greek example coming from Bury St
Edmunds (Goodall and Christie 1980:260). Mortuary crosses could also
be made from wax: ‘Than is there another cross [after the wooden grave-
marker] of a wax candle laid on his breast, in token that he died in
burning charity to God and man’ (Erbe 1905:294). As far as is known,
no such candle has been found archaeologically.
At the other end of the scale from the simple lead crosses were the
fully clothed burials. The most impressive outside the Christian hierarchy
(if kings can be taken to be God’s secular representative on earth) are the
pilgrim burials. One particularly impressive pilgrim burial was discovered
164 DEATH AND BURIAL IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND