remains of children. The very large quantity of bones, also, in two several instances, deserves special notice. In each case there was nearly enough to fill a half-bushel measure. Bateman gives it as his opinion that in the later period during which cremation prevailed the bodies were more completely burnt, and the residuary matters would consequently occupy far less space, and so be contained in an urn of much smaller dimensions. Admitting the validity of his conclusion, even the secondary interments in these Cleveland grave-hills must be of very great antiquity: an inference which is abundantly enforced by the most various considerations, and weakened by none. Again, Professor Worsaae starts the idea that commonly, if not generally, secondary interments may be regarded as those of persons whose means or distinction were scarcely such as to enable or warrant their surviving friends to rear a special tumulus for their interment. This is an idea which, in our Cleveland grave-hills, seems to meet not only with no confirmation, but in many cases with marked contradiction. The inserted urns and their contents are continually found to be larger, finer, and more indicative of the distinction in which the buried man was held while living, than the urns at the base of the hill. Besides which, whether these large collections of interments betoken the family or simply the tribal burying-place, on either supposition the Danish antiquary's suggestion is excluded. LARGE FIND OF GOLD COINS. A TREASURE Consisting of about three hundred gold coins was turned up a short time ago in ploughing a field at Saint-Symphorein-des-Bois (Saôneet-Loire). The pieces appear to belong to three different reigns. One effigy represents a warrior with the insignia of royalty, a crown surmounted with a cross on the head, a sword in the right hand, and a balance in the left; the costume resembles that of Joan of Arc. A second gives the figure of a mounted warrior holding a lance in his hand; and the third, simply the French escutcheon with fleur-de-lis. The reverses of the three are the same, consisting of a cross with two lilies and two diadems. These coins belong apparently to the reigns of Charles V., VI., and VII. "It would appear that a considerable interval elapsed, in which burial by inhumation was in vogue, before a return to combustion rendered cinerary urns requisite, and in the meantime some improvement in the ceramic art had taken place. We find the urns much smaller, from 5 to 9 in. high.... It will be evident that the bones must have been more perfectly burnt than before, to enable them to be enclosed in such small vessels."-Ten Years' Diggings, p. 281. GENT. MAG. 1864, VOL. I. 4 Q ON NORTON CHURCH, DURHAM, AND ITS EIGHT PREBENDARIES. BY JOHN HOGG, M.A., F.R.S., &c. THE date of this ancient church, in the County Palatine of Durham, is not known, but the earliest reference to a church at Norton which I can find is that recorded by Mr. Hutchinson in his History of Durham, vol. i. p. 62, where he mentions the "Abbot of Norton" in the time of Bishop Cutheard, somewhere between A.D. 900 and 915. Next, Bishop William de Carilepho, a Norman abbot, and so called from the abbey of St. Carilefe, about A.D. 1080, is stated to have founded, by Pope Gregory the Seventh's order, some prebends in the church at Norton. Leland (Coll., vol. i. p. 385) thus mentions them,-" Prebendæ de Northton institutæ à Gulielmo Episcopo, jussu Gregorii VII. Pontificis Romani, ne deesset honestus Clericis et Dunelmen. Eccl. expulsis victus." Again, in 1227 it is recorded that Norton Church was a collegiate one, for the support of eight prebendaries who had been removed or expelled from the cathedral at Durham. There is no mention of a vicar of Norton before the year 1234, when one Bartholomew is named. The college, with its eight prebendaries, remained up to the time of the dissolution of monasteries. According to the Norton Award of 1673, some lands at the northeast side of the churchyard were called the "Prebend Garths." Mr. Brewster (Hist. of Stockton, 2nd edit., p. 289) recites a deed dated Dec. 11, 16 James I., A.D. 1618, which mentions "Norton Hermitage;" and he adds that he is "not able to point out the site of that hermitage." I will, however, observe, as affording some clue to its position, that the part of the garden formerly leasehold, but now enfranchised, belonging to Norton Grammar School, and adjoining to the Durham road, is called the "Hermitage Garth." What the original structure of Norton Church may have been is also unknown. But the plan of the existing one is that of a cathedral, namely, a square central tower, with a nave, two side aisles, and a transept under the tower. The north side of the transept, known as the "Blakiston Porch," is filled with many monuments. The south ■ I may observe that the ground-plan of this church, before 1823, was much the same as that of St. Asaph's Cathedral, but on a smaller scale. The exterior of that cathedral, with its square central tower, also bears a resemblance to Norton Church. side was shorter, as is well exhibited in the engraving of the church, given in vol. iii. p. 110 of Hutchinson, which was drawn eighty years ago. This is termed in the parish register of the date of Jan. 3, 1635, the "Pettie Porch," most probably from petit, or petty. The inside presents no beauty of architecture; there are, however, two good Norman or round arches with many mouldings, which with two others, plain and very inferior, support the old tower in the centre. The six pointed arches which divide the nave and aisles are fair, and in good preservation; they have also mouldings, and are supported by four strong and round pillars; the broad capitals of the two on the south retain some little ornament. Of the latter, the eastern one bears a simple lozenge pattern, whilst that on the west is sculptured with parts of two shank-bones, and so exhibits a sort of memento mori. The east window, with an elliptic or flat top, is very good, and has three lights; and on each side of it a long thin round pilaster, jointed in the middle, shews that some Gothic decoration had there once existed. The piscina, or place for holy water in the age of popery, is ornamented, and for some time it was used instead of a font, which had been removed. The present Vicar, however, a few years since kindly supplied the want of a font, by giving a handsome carved one made of Caen stone. The chancel, contrary to what might be expected in so cathedral-like a church, presents no particular architectural remains. On the outside of the church the square tower is much spoilt by being dashed with lime and gravel, although it still exhibits the marks of the earlier high-pitched roof. The church is dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin. Forty years ago it was greatly enlarged, but without regard to beauty or symmetry. The north and south walls of the aisles were brought out to meet the ends of the transept (the southern one being lengthened), and two heavy galleries were erected. Two large Gothic windows formed in each new wall of the aisles give one-half of their light to the galleries, and the other half to the aisles and nave, whilst a still larger and heavier Gothic window was placed at the west end. The choir, or chancel, in the fifteenth century was not only repaired, but it would likewise seem to have been rebuilt. The Cardinal Bishop of Durham, Langley, ordered its repairs in 1410, and in 1496, when William Apleby was the vicar, Bishop Fox sequestered the prebends, or incomes, of the canonici prebendarii, in order that they should go to defray the expences of reconstructing the chancel, its roof, and windows. (See Hutchinson, vol. iii. p. 111.) As these incomes were small, it is probable that no architectural decoration or carving in the stalls or sides of the chancel was effected, at least no vestiges of such now exist. Each of the prebends has been valued at different periods at £6, £4, and £5 a-year; it was derived from a portion of the corn-tithes in Norton parish. Hutchinson, Surtees, and Brewster, in their respective Histories, have only preserved the names of seven of the Norton prebendaries, which are these, Lancelot Thwaites, Anthony Salvin, Nicholas Thornhill, John Tunstall, Nicholas Lentall, Rowland Swinburn, Jerome Bernard. Hutchinson says in his last note, vol. iii. p. 109, "Willis notes but seven." See Hist. of Abbeys, vol. ii. p. 74. These occurred in the year 1553, after the monastic establishments had been dissolved; they received pensions of £5 a-piece. Having occasion some years ago to search many ancient documents for evidence respecting the tithes of the parish, I was able to obtain the names of seventeen more of the prebendaries of Norton, and as they have not, as far as I am aware, been published, I here subjoin them. The name of the eighth prebendary in 1553 was "Phelipps," but his Christian name is not stated. This I found in a grant from the Crown of the rectory and corn-tithes to Morrice and Phelips in the tenth year of James I., A.D. 1612. The original grant is preserved in the Rolls Chapel in London. The prebendaries named in the "New Taxation," A.D. 1317, are,— Thomas de Asplinden, Robert de Lanesham, Roger Savage, Manfred Barges, Roger de Rothewell, Gerard Odenard, Edmund de London, Robert de Nevile; each being valued at £4 per annum. The names of the prebendaries contained in the "Ancient Taxation" (Pope Nicholas's), A.D. 1291, are,—Richard Ruel, Geoffrey de Schyreburn, Andrew de Staneley, Roger Savage, Roger de Rouwell, Ds John de Brabant, Lewis de Belmont, Henry de L'isle. Each was valued at £6 a-year. Norton, March 14, 1864. SARCOPHAGUS WITH BILINGUAL INSCRIPTION. -The Abbé Bargès, Professor of Hebrew at the Sorbonne, has addressed a note to the Patrie relative to a Hebrew sarcophagus brought from Jerusalem by M. de Sauley, and recently deposited in the Assyrian Museum at the Louvre. This monument bears a bilingual inscription of two lines only. The first line, in the estranghelo or old Syriac character, is SIDO MALKETHO; the second, in Chaldaic characters, is SIDOH MALKETHAH, and both equally signify 'Queen,' or 'Princess Sidon.' The Abbé states that Jewish history mentions no princess of that name, and the inscription therefore gives no clue to the date of the sarcophagus, but from the form of the characters and the style of the sculpture it is evident that it can hardly belong to a period earlier than the Christian era, and was most probably executed in the reign of Claudius or of Nero. colnshire, of which Lindum was the capital city," is unfounded, as appears by the definition of its boundary before quoted from Bede and other authors. Bishop Gibson in the Britannia, when speaking of the neighbourhood of Gainsborough, says, "In this part of the county stood formerly the city of Sidnacester, once the seat of the bishops of those parts, who were called Bishops of Lindisfarri ;" and then he adds, "There is another place that may probably enough be thought of, namely, the hills above Lea and Gainsborough, where have been taken up many pieces of Roman urns, and many coins of those emperors. The Castle-hills," continues the Bishop, "eastward from Gainsborough Church, are surrounded with entrenchments, containing (as is said) more than one hundred acres." In the reign of King Stephen the hills above Gainsborough were called 66 Wetheberg," from the circumstance, I presume, of their forming a part of the ridge of high ground upon which the Danish camps are situated. In Bishop Gibson's time they appear to have been called the Castle-hills, though no castle was ever erected upon them. It is more than probable that Wertha, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, in some of his marauding excursions occupied some of these encampments. They are of various sizes and forms, oblong like the Romans, who had many encampments in the neighbourhood of Gainsborough, and orbicular like the Scandinavian. This will account for the finding of Roman urns, coins, &c., upon this tract of territory. Historians relate that Swene the Danish tyrant was slain in one of these encampments by an unknown hand, on the night of the Purification of St. Mary, A.D. 1013. There are no vestiges of any foundations of any kind of building on these hills, which the Bishop calls Castle-hills; they probably took the name from their contiguity to the castle which King Stephen gave to William de Romara, Lord of Bolingbroke, A.D. 1141'. The castle was situated at the foot of these hills, on the right bank of the Trent. The place is now called the Old Hall. There is no place in the vicinity of Gainsborough that can with any show of probability be called the site of Sidnacester. The writer who says that "Sidnacester was in Lincolnshire, near the Humber," means Barrow-on-the-Humber. This place was anciently called ad Barve, or ' at the wood,' where Wulphere, King of Mercia, gave Chad, Bishop of Mercia, "land of fifty families to build a monastery." "In this place," says Bede, "are marks of the regular life instituted Mon. Angl. vi. p. 824. d Vide T. Sprotti Chronica, p. 99. * Chron. Angl. Petroburg., sub anno; also Lansd. MSS., 207, E. 534; also Ex Chron. Ely, p. 248. Mon. Ang., vol. i. p. 824. |