108 ON BRITISH KISTVAENS.being probably identical with its kindred Greek term ko^lvo<;,

a hamper or basket, which is also the meaning of Kiarr], the Greek form of Hst. It is not improbable that when first a IochIks (small place) or box began to be used for the dead, those first employed might be literally what the Greek words describe, wicker or wattled work : for such as were laboriously excavated from a single trunli of a tree, like that lately found at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, must have been far too ex- pensive for common use.

Fosbroke (Encyc. 770, 777.) states that Pausanias considers kistvaens as of Cyclopean origin, and that they occur in Greece, and even in Palestine, of four uprights and one top slab. Our own medieval stone coffins are of a kind essen- tially distinct from what has obtained the name of kistvaen. They are coji/is made of stone and afterwards removed to the grave; and from the Archasological Journal, vol. i. page 190, it appears that interments in such stone coffins took place in Le Maine so late as the 17th century.

But to recur to the subject which these observations are designed to illustrate. It Avas well remarked, some years since, by an anonymous AT:'iter, in a periodical, that we know little of the usual modes of burial among our countrymen in days of old, for barrows, cairns, and cromlechs, must have been far too expensive to have been within the reach of any but the wealthy or noble. I have never seen this difficulty fairly met ; but possibly, v»^hat I have now undertaken to communicate may have some bearing on the subject.

The church of Pytchley, like many more in this county, consists of architectiue of almost every date and style, en- grafted upon an early Norman building. One cylindrical pillar, having its height and circumference nearly equal, re- mains in the north side of the nave, with a very rudely, though elaborately carved capital, of the first part of the 12th century, and standing between two semicircular arches, to which the pointed Early English arches that complete the row are aw^kwardly jointed. As this pillar, which had evi- dently been often repaired, was in so mouldering a condition that it might probably have caused serious injury to the whole fabric, we strongly propped up the arches and capitals springing from it, and took it down even to its founda- tion, (two feet below the pavement,) and excavating until we reached the solid rock, we succeeded in rebuilding a new shaft.