r later than that which
was due to the anti-Popery zealots of the Tudor dynasty. On the
introduction of the Commonwealth there arose such a crusade against
all forms and emblems of doctrinal import as to affect not only the
ornaments of the churches, but the gravestones in the churchyards,
many of which were removed and put to other uses or sold. The
Puritans, as is well known, went to the extremity of abolishing all
ceremony whatever at the Burial of the Dead.[6] The beautiful Service
in the Book of Common Prayer, now used more or less by all the
Reformed Christian denominations of England, was abolished by
Parliament in 1645--that and the Prayer Book together at one stroke.
In lieu of the Prayer Book a "Directory" was issued on the conduct of
public worship, in which it was said:

[Footnote 6: There does not appear to have been any form of prayer for
the dead prior to the issue of Gaskell's "Prymer" in 1400. The Service
now in use dates from 1611.]

"Concerning Burial of the Dead, all customs of praying, reading, and
singing, both in going to or from the grave, are said to have been
greatly abused. The simple direction is therefore given, that when
any person departeth this life, let the body upon the day of burial
be decently attended from the house to the place appointed for public
burial, and there immediately interred without any ceremony."

Penalties were at the same time imposed for using the Book of Common
Prayer in any place of worship or in any private family within the
kingdom--the fine being L5 for a first offence, L10 for a second, and
a year's imprisonment for the third.

The Puritans, however, are to be thanked for stopping the then common
practice of holding wakes and fairs in the churchyards--a practice
traceable no doubt to the celebration of Saints' Days in the churches,
and for that reason suppressed as remnants of Popery in 1627-31.

It need not be said that the Burial Service and the Prayer Book
came back with the Restoration, but the discontinuance of fairs in
churchyards seems to have been permanent. Many instances, however,
have occurred in later years of desecration by pasturing cattle in the
churchyards,[7] and offences of this nature have been so recent that
the practice cannot be said with confidence to have even now entirely
ceased. But we return to the gravestones.

[Footnote 7: At the Archbishop's Court at Colchester in 1540 it was
reported that at a certain church "the hogs root