and Flora "With mournefull verse, "With sweet fragrant flowers, Teares thereon in vaine she powres." (Ibid., ii, 345-6.) A similar woodcut accompanies "The Young Mans Complaint," in the Bagford Ballads (Ball. Soc., ii, 938). It is far from improbable it was originally intended to illustrate a man's funeral. During the service in the church the general practice was for the garland to rest on the coffin. Thus we learn from The Virgin's Pattern-an account of the funeral or Susanna Perwich in Hackney Church in the year 1661that "the herse being set down with the garland upon it," a funeral sermon was preached, and then, "the rich coffin anointed with sweet odours," was let down into the grave (Hist. of Hackney, by W. Robinson [1842], 218). The customary practice was for it to be carried before the coffin to the place of interment, and after the conclusion of the ceremony to be taken back to the church. One writer affirms it was hung over the grave (Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., i, 57), but this is exceedingly doubtful. From various records we learn that the place in the church where it was fixed varied a good deal. At Acton Burnell it was "finally hung over her seat in church to 'keep her memory green (Shropshire Folk-Lore, 312.) "Near to the place usually occupied by the departed one" (Folk-Lore of East Yorkshire, 8). Before its restoration (?) circ. 1820, "two or three time-worn chaplets of flowers hung withered and dusty on the screen at Bottesford Church (Antiquary, Nov., 1895, 332; cf. The Denham Tracts (FolkLore Soc.), ii [1895], 33). At Astley Abbot's, the "Lover's Garland," already noted, was suspended to the sounding-board of the pulpit, but was subsequently removed to the north aisle, the latter position being the place of suspension of the Ashford examples. A curious modification was adopted in some churches in Shropshire thus, at Minsterley, "projecting from the upper part of the interior north and south walls of this church are several short iron rods with heart-shaped escutcheons at their ends, four of which are respectively inscribed E. W., 1736,' M. M., 1736,' 'F. J., 1734, M. J., 1751.' To these iron brackets the garlands or crowns were originally attached, but seven of them now depend against the gallery walls" (Journal of the B. A. A., xxxi, 193). At Abbot's Ann the garland is hung over the entrance into the church for a Sunday, and is afterwards attached to the wall-plate in the interior, where a small escutcheon records the name of the deceased, with the date of her death (Inf. of Rev. J. B. Fenwick). “Little wooden tablets or shields are attached to the 'Lover's Garland' itself at Astley Abbot's, containing the initials, with date of death.” The garlands were not always approved of by the ecclesiastical authorities. As early as 1662, we find the Bishop of Ely enquiring at his Visitation: "Are any mean toyes and childish gewgaws, such as the fonder sort of people prepare at some burials, suffered to be fastened up in your church at anyone's pleasure? or any garlands and other ordinary funeral ensigns to hang where they hinder the prospect, or until they grow foul and dusty, withered and rotten? (Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., i, 57). "In some districts the garlands were only allowed to remain suspended in the church for a twelvemonth after the burial" (Chambers's Book of Days, art. " Funeral Garlands"). The cessation of the practice of suspending them in any part of the church began, apparently, at the commencement of the eighteenth century; such was the case in the neighbourhood of London-so remarks Mr. Walcott (Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., i, 12). When it was disallowed, the garland was often deposited on the coffin in the grave-thus a writer in Gent.'s Mag., 1747, 265, states. 66 About forty years ago these garlands grew much out of repute, and were thought by many as very unbecoming decorations for so sacred a place as the church; and at the reparation or new-beautifying several churches, where I have been concern'd, I was oblig'd, by order of the minister and churchwardens, to take the garlands down, and the inhabitants strictly forbid to hang up any more for the future. Yet, notwithstanding, several people, unwilling to forsake their ancient and delightful custom, continued still the making of them, and they were carried at the funerals, as before, to the grave, and put therein, upon the coffin, over the face of the dead; this I have seen done in many places." Wood, the historian of Eyam, relates an instance that occurred in the church there, of a garland with flowers being "thrown into the grave;" the prohibition against hanging them in the church having apparently commenced ten years before, when "several faded garlands were taken down and destroyed" (Reliquary, i, 7). To this prohibition may be probably due the following occurrence, reported in the Argus for August 5th, 1790: "Sunday being St. James's Day, the votaries of St. James's churchyard attended in considerable crowds at the shrines of their departed friends, and paid the usual tributary honours of paper gloves and garlands of flowers on their graves" (Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., i, 57). As a rule, garlands were borne before the funerals of unmarried women whose characters were above reproach; but at Ministerly, according to Miss Burne, "tradition says that they are the memorials of betrothed maidens, who died constant to their affianced lovers." "Lay a garland on my hearse Of the dismal yew; Maidens, willow branches bear, Say, I died true!" Shropshire Folk-Lore, 312. Writing in 1631, J. Weever reports" when as a widow died having had but one husband, they carried her to her graue with a crowne of chastitie upon her head" (Funeral Monuments, 12). The Rev. J. B. Fenwick, the Rector of Abbott's Ann Church, mentions "there are garlands still hanging" in that church" to lads or men." This is the only example known to the writer, and appears to corroborate the statement of Anna Seward already quoted. Judging from the reports of the garlands still preserved in the churches of Derbyshire and of Shropshire, they must have been very common in those counties. Again, at Abbott's Ann, Hants., a correspondent of Notes and Queries states: "I counted nearly forty of these coronals. suspended from the roof" of the church (4th Ser., xii, 406). But the largest number yet found recorded is thus stated in Hare's Sussex (119): "When a virgin died in this parish (Alfriston), a wreath of white flowers used to be laid upon her coffin, and afterwards hung up in the church. A few years since, as many as seventy virgins' garlands' hung in Alfriston Church at once." In their remarks upon this church, neither M. A. Lower nor Hussey allude to them. It is possible they may have been single wreaths, and not garlands like those of Ashford or Matlock. The custom prevailed extensively in the Midland and Northern counties of England, and sparingly in the Eastern and South-eastern counties, as in the vicinity of London; but in those of the South-west, to wit, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, it was apparently unknown. No example or tradition of it has yet been found in the latter. Had it been practised in Devonshire, we should naturally have expected some allusion to it in the Britannia's Pastorals of William Browne (1591-1643); or in the Hesperides of Robert Herrick (1591-1679), whose marked fondness for flowers would have naturally induced him to notice the custom in such pieces as his "Upon a Maid that Died the Day she was Married," had he been aware of it in his own district. It is true that the Devon poet, Gay (1688-1732), thus alludes to it in the fifth pastoral of his "Shepherd's Week": "To show their love, the neighbours far and near, "To her sweet mem'ry flow'ry garlands strung, But this must not be accepted as applying to Devonshire Gay's knowledge being based on what he knew of the custom in those parts where he spent the greater part of his life. The majority of garlands that have been preserved date from the last, or early part of the present, century. The earliest and only one at present known as belonging to the seventeenth century is that of Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk, which is dated 1685; the next oldest being that in Astley Abbot's Church, 1707. That so few are now to be found in churches is due to several causes. Too frequently, as at Clee and Eyam, the restoration of the fabric was attended with their destruction. Again, at Abbot's Ann Church "one or two have fallen from decay within the last twenty years (Inf. of Rev. J. B. Fenwick); and this was probably the natural end of many, owing to the perishable character of the materials employed in their construction. Their preservation in Ashford and Matlock Churches has been wholly due to the care and attention they have received from their respective incumbents. There is only one parish in England where the custom is still kept up that of Abbot's Ann, near Andover, the last occasion of a garland being suspended in the church being so recent as February 17th, 1896. As the oldest one yet remaining there is dated 1750, a period of full 150 years is covered by them. A brief explanation of the objects of the custom is necessary before closing these remarks. |
