Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe by Sabine Baring-Gould (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

Mountains I had been exploring, "an innkeeper and his wife and son have just been arrested by the police on a charge of having, during the last twenty-five years, murdered no fewer than eleven persons. The victims were all travellers who had put up for a night at his house, and who had shown that they were in possession of ready cash. For a considerable time the suspicions of the police had been aroused by the sudden disappearance of various visitors staying at this inn. Among the latest cases was a cattle dealer who, after visiting the market, was returning home with the proceeds of the sale of a herd of cattle, and a young baron who had won a large sum in a public lottery. After putting up at the inn in question, these men, like others before them, were never heard of again. The very last case was that of the sudden disappearance of a lady, who was undoubtedly murdered and robbed by the arrested persons."

I did in fact find the inns in Bohemia, in certain places infested, but not with bandits and cut-throats.


CHAPTER XII


ROCK SEPULCHRES

A noteworthy distinction exists between the countless rock-tombs in Palestine and those equally countless in Egypt. In the former there has not been found a single inscription to record the name of the occupant, whereas among the latter not one was unnamed.

The reason probably was that the Jew had no expectation of existing in a state after death, and those of his family he put away in their holes in the rocks had ceased to be to him anything more than a recollection. All his hopes, his ambition, were limited to this life and to the glorification of his nation. The highest blessing he could personally reckon on was that his days might be long in the land which the Lord his God would give him.

The horizon of the Egyptian, on the other hand, was full of anticipation of a life of the spirit when parted from the body. "Instead of the acres of inscriptions which cover the tombs of Egypt," says Dean Stanley, "not a single letter has been found in any ancient sepulchre of Palestine."

When the Israelites escaped from the iron furnace of Egypt, they carried with them so intense an abhorrence of all that savoured of Misraim that they put away from them polytheism and repudiated idolatry; they swept away as well the doctrine of life after death, such as dominated the Egyptian mind, that they might focus all their desires on this present life.

"Let me bury my dead out of my sight," expressed the feeling of the Israelite before and after the Exodus.

The patriarchs had no conception of the resurrection of the body. The idea was unknown to them. Their faith did not even embrace a belief in the immortality of the soul. A passage in Job (xix. 25-27) has been adduced to prove the contrary, but it does so only because it is a mistranslation, and was manipulated by the translators according to their own preconceptions. Even the word rendered Redeemer has no such signification, it means "the Avenger of Blood." It was probably through contact with other nations that had a wider hope, that slowly and haltingly the conception of a prolonged existence after death made its way among the Jews.

Christianity invested the body with a sacredness undreamt of under the Old Covenant, and gave assurance, not of a continued existence after death alone, but of a resuscitation of the body. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

The Jews entertained a strong aversion towards incineration, because the latter was a pagan usage, and they gloried in their singularity. In Rome they had their catacombs hewn out of the rock, and the Christians followed their example.

A short time before the Christian era, Judea had been made tributary to Rome by the victories of Pompey, and many thousands of Jews were transferred to Rome, where a particular district was assigned to them on the right bank of the Tiber. We know how tenaciously Jews clung to their religion and to their traditional practices, and they sought to lay their departed members in rocky sepulchres, such as those of their distant country. And, in fact, outside the Porta Portese, the gate nearest to their quarter of the town, a Jewish catacomb exists, discovered in 1602, excavated in Monte Verde, that contains the tombs of the Hebrews. From this all emblems exclusively Christian are absent. There are representations of the Ark of the Covenant, of the seven- branched candlestick. The lamps also were impressed with the same symbols; and in a fragment of a Greek inscription is traced the word "Synagogue."

The catacombs of the Christians resembled those of the Jews in every other particular.

Three different kinds of stone compose the basis of the Roman Campagna; the _tufa litoide_, as hard and durable as granite, used extensively for building purposes; the _tufa granolare_, which is consistent enough to retain the form given to it by excavators, but it is useless as building material, and lastly the _Pozzuolana_, largely employed in the making of Roman cement. Neither the _arenaria_ or sand quarries, nor those for the building stone were ever employed for excavation to make catacombs, whereas the _granular tufa_ has been so largely excavated for this purpose that if the galleries were continued in one line, it has been reckoned that they would stretch the entire length of the Italian peninsula. They form a labyrinth of passages and cross-passages, and are moreover in several stages called _piani_. But they do not extend far from the Eternal City, not beyond the third milestone. The galleries have a breadth of from two to four feet, and their height is governed by the nature of the rock in which they are hewn. The walls on both sides are lined with graves dug out of the rock, in a horizontal position, one above the other, like bunks in a cabin. In each of these reposed one or more bodies. Here and there the sequence is broken by a cross-passage that leads to a small chamber, and in these chambers the sides, like those of the galleries, are perforated with graves. All these graves were originally closed by slabs of marble or tiles. This is about the only distinction between the graves of the rich and those of the poor, of the slave from his master. Those who desired to set some mark on the resting-place of a relative, to distinguish it from those around, either had the name engraved upon the slab, or rudely scratched with the sharp end of a trowel in the mortar by which the slab was secured, or else a bit of ornamented glass or a ring or coin was impressed in the mortar while it was still wet.

The martyrs in many cases were accorded a more elaborate grave. They were laid in a sarcophagus in an _arcossolium_, and on the covering slab the Holy Mysteries were celebrated on the anniversary of their martyrdom. But sometimes a wealthy family had its own chamber, _cubiculum_, reserved for its members.

The puticoli, of which mention has already been made as ash and refuse pits, were of a totally different description. They were funnel-shaped shafts sunk in the rocks, the narrow orifice being on the level of the ground. Into this were precipitated the carcases of slaves and of the poor. Indeed, they are still in use at Naples, when a cart with a lantern may be followed till it reaches the place of interment, where a hole gapes. The corpse that is enveloped in a shroud only, is shot down into the hole, without its winding sheet, that is reserved for further use.

But to return to the catacombs. There are not only over thirteen in the neighbourhood of Rome, but they are found also at Otricoli, Soriano, Spoleto, Vindena, Chiusi, Lucca, Castellamare, Prata by Avellino, Aquila, Puzzuoli, Baiae, Nola, Canesa, Tropea, Manfredonia, Venisa--this last perhaps Jewish. There are five sets of them at Naples. Others in Malta. In Spain at Ancona, Siviglia, and Elvira. In France is the hypogee opening out of the early church of S. Victor at Marseilles. In Germany is one at Treves. In Hungary at Fuenfkirchen. One in the Greek island of Melos, at Alexandria also, and at Cyrene. One at Salamis in Cyprus. The catacombs of Syracuse are like those of Rome, of vast extent. They have lofty vaults very superior to the narrow gangways of the cemeteries of Rome. A broad gallery runs athwart the whole labyrinth, and from this branch out innumerable passages. One large circular hall is lighted from above. Along the sides are niches that served as sepulchres. Paintings as at Rome decorate the walls and vaults, all of an early Christian character, representing men and women in the attitude of prayer, the peacock, and the sacred monogram.

Numerous inscriptions from the tombs are collected in the museum of Syracuse.

The catacombs of Paris are not of ancient date as catacombs. They were originally, like those of Syracuse, quarries for the construction of the _calcaire grossier_ for building the city, down to the seventeenth century. They extend under the communes of Vauregard, Montrouge, and Gentilly on the left bank of the Seine, and it is said that a tenth part of Paris is thus undermined. In 1774, and again in 1777, accidents occurred through the giving way of the crowns of the caverns, bringing down with them the houses built above. In the Boulevard Neuf a building near the Barriere d'Enfer suddenly sank into a hole 80 feet deep, and this drew public attention to the danger.

Until the end of the reign of Louis XVI the principal burying-ground of Paris had been the Cemetery of the Innocents. Originally situated beyond the walls of the town, it had in due course been so surrounded by the growing metropolis as to render it impossible to continue its use as a cemetery, and in 1784 the practice of burying therein was discontinued, the accumulated bones of Parisians were removed thence with great precaution, on account of the insalubrity of the operation, and they were deposited in the old quarries, and the catacombs were solemnly consecrated for their reception by the Archbishop of Paris on 7th April 1787. A public market-place was then established on the site of the former cemetery.

To protect the town from settling down into this necropolis, vast sums were expended in substructures, so as to remove all danger of future collapse.

Gradually many other cemeteries that had been encroached upon, or surrounded, were required to yield up their dead, so that it was estimated that the catacomb contained the remains of three million persons. The bodies of some victims of the Revolution were placed here as well.

For many years the bones remained as they were thrown down on their removal, in heaps, but after 1812 they were gradually arranged in a fantastic manner, and turned into an exhibition for the curious. Sixty- three staircases lead from the different parts of the town into the catacombs, and are used by workmen and agents appointed to take care of the necropolis. Twice in the year tours of inspection are made by the surveyors, but visitors are no longer allowed access to the catacomb. There have occurred cases of men having been lost in the intricate labyrinth.

The crypts in which were laid the bodies of saints gave occasion to kings, princes, and great men employing like mausoleums.

The poor and mean might lie in the