ON BRITISH KISTVAENS. llo

tian customs, by laying the body on its right side, yet witli the feet to the cast ? Such a date would chronologically correspond with all the other notes which have occiu-red in the examination. There was no doubling-up of the body ; no Druidical remains. Could they be anterior to Roman dates? There are no traces of urns or of cremation — were they of pagan Romanized times ? The position is prima-facie Christian ; the scull prima-facic Celtic : the historical and local evidences seem to prove that they were earlier than the Saxon population, and it is impos- sible that they can be subsequent to the Norman conquest. Can these kistvaens belong to aught but to the Christians of Romanized Britain before the Saxon invasion ? If this were an ancient Christian cemetery, it indicates the existence of a Christian church at Pytchley^, before, and during the Saxon invasion; as I strongly suspect was also the case atCol- lingtree, Brixworth, Earl's Barton, Cranslcy, Lamport, and many other Northamptonshire villages. We are thus carried back to an obscm'e but most important period in the history of the Church of England, and one which we often overlook ; the time when the relics of the national Chm'cli, humbled and shattered as it had been by pagan foes, still refused to submit to any other than its own ancient hierarchy, and held earnest and fruitless controversies with Augustine and his immediate successors ; one of which, an important interview with the Scottish Dagan, must, if some northern historians may be relied upon, have occurred in the inunediate vicinity of Nortlianq^ton.

• • Many, if not all, ancient cemeteries church therefore did not then occupy its

were merely cemeteries, and not around ))resent site. churches, as in later times ; Pytchley