“Islip, abbot of Westminster, erected the first press of
    book-printing that ever was in England, about the year 1471.”

Now, it appears that the various authors of repute, who have given the point their consideration, as the editor of Dugdale’s Monasticon (Sir Henry Ellis), and Mr. Cunningham in his Handbook, affirm that it is John Esteney who became abbot in 1474 or 1475, and not Thomas Milling, who was abbot in 1471, whose name should be substituted for that of Islip.  In that case, Stowe committed two errors instead of one; he was wrong in his date as well as his name.  It is to this point that I directed my remarks, which are printed in Vol. ii., p. 142.  We have hitherto no evidence that Caxton {234} printed at Westminster before the year 1477, six years later than mentioned by Stow.

JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS.

* * * * *

THE USE OF COFFINS.

The Query of H.E. (Vol. i., p. 321.) seems to infer that the use of coffins may be only a modern custom.  In book xxiii., chapters i. and ii., of Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, H.E. will find ample proof of the very early use of coffins.  During the first three centuries of the Church, one great distinction betwixt Heathens and Christians was, that the former burned their dead, and placed the bones and ashes in urns; whilst the latter always buried the corpse, either in a coffin or, embalmed, in a catacomb; so that it might be restored at the last day from its original dust.  There have frequently been dug out of the barrows which contain Roman urns, ancient British stone coffins.  Bede mentions that the Saxons buried their dead in wood.  Coffins both of lead and iron were constructed at a very early period.  When the royal vaults at St. Denis were desecrated, during the first French revolution, coffins were exposed that had lain there for ages.

Notwithstanding all this, it appears to be the case that, both in the Norman and English periods, the common people of this country were often wrapped in a sere-cloth after death, and so placed, coffinless, in the earth.  The illuminations in the old missals represent this.  And it is not impossible that the extract from the “Table of Dutyes,” on which H.E. founds his inquiry, may refer to a lingering continuance of this rude custom.  Indeed, a statute passed in 1678, ordering that all dead bodies shall be interred in woollen and no other material, is so worded as to give the idea that there might be interments without coffins.  The statute forbids that any person be put in, wrapt, or wound up, or buried in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud, unless made of sheep’s wool only; or in any coffin lined or faced with any material but sheep’s wool; as if the person might be buried either in a garment, or in a coffin, so long as the former was made of, or the latter lined with, wool.

I think the “buryall without a coffin,” quoted by H.E., must have referred to the interment of the poorest class.  Their friends, being unable to provide a coffin, conformed to an old rude custom, which had not entirely ceased.