North Doors?
Hi,
Curious legend about north doors in (old) churches, as door for banishing ‘Devil’. Since so many parish churches contain this doorway – many bricked up today – does anyone know if the early Church was actually following a laid down ‘rubric’ for setting up a church with a ritual north door please?
Thanks,
Ric
Hi,
Curious legend about north doors in (old) churches, as door for banishing ‘Devil’. Since so many parish churches contain this doorway – many bricked up today – does anyone know if the early Church was actually following a laid down ‘rubric’ for setting up a church with a ritual north door please?
Thanks,
Ric
Re: North Doors?
I seem to remember coiming across a suggestion that the doors were used by pagans/new converts to enter the church.
Re: North Doors?
thanks Ian,
wonder also if the original church consecrations required a north door to expel unwanted spirits, especially if the church was built on previously pagan ground?
Ric
Re: North Doors?
hello
there is some interesting information on the following site:
http://norfolkcoast.co.uk/churches/churchterminology02.htm
just scroll down to North Doors.
Also the black dog of bungay-(famous story) left marks on the north door of either st mary’s in bungay or blythburgh church some miles away. Black dogs as you probably know are associated with the "devil", old religion, whatever, or even landscape "spirits"
Re: North Doors?
Thanks.
Seems to be a sporadic and widespread thing.
I am guessing that a lot of old ‘north door churches’ occupy previously pagan ground, old churches whose main door is in the south of the building that is.
Re: North Doors?
Remember, dead witches and heretics tended to be interred on the NORTH sides of British churchyards. For a fictional but historically accurate example see the Rev. M. R. James’ classic horror story "The Ash Tree."
And as for Christian churchyards being former pagan worship sites, hasn’t the very idea of Christian liturgies over the past 14 or 15 centuries been to turn such areas INTO consecrated Christian soil?
Re: North Doors?
[quote=OldTimeRadio]
Remember, dead witches and heretics tended to be interred on the NORTH sides of British churchyards. For a fictional but historically accurate example see the Rev. M. R. James’ classic horror story "The Ash Tree."[/quote]
Is that ash tree directly associated with a church though, i thought it stood by a mansion or something?
I have spent many years wandering around old churches; I have never been that aware of graves north of a church, unless they were the natural result of the church yard filling up everywhere else; witches: i read of a real witch in Wiltshire circa 1920, she was a Roman Catholic, i very much doubt if she was buried away from the rest of the congregation, she was spoken of with some (prehaps grudging) respect by a local parish priest – source of report.
[quote] And as for Christian churchyards being former pagan worship sites, hasn’t the very idea of Christian liturgies over the past 14 or 15 centuries been to turn such areas INTO consecrated Christian soil?
[/quote]
letter from Pope Gregory I to Bishop Mellitus, 601 CE:[quote]”…the shrines of idols amongst that people should be destroyed as little as possible, but that the idols themselves that are inside them should be destroyed. Let blessed water be made and sprinkled in these shrines, let altars be constructed and relics placed there: since if the shrines are well built it is necessary that they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God, so that as long as that people do not see their very shrines being destroyed they may put out error from their hearts and in knowledge and adoration of the true God they may gather at their accustomed places more readily.”[/quote]
I very much doubt these pagan shrines were formal buildings; I know of at least one church which stands on top of fallen (or more likely pushed over) megaliths, I imagine it was pagan locations which were consecrated then dominated by ecclesiastical edifices; but evidence is lacking, perhaps literally buried?
what complicates matters is that the North Door is regional and sporadic, there is no church canon on the subject and some churches never did have north doors anyway; some churches’ front doors are actually north doors!
but i am fairly conviced in my own mind that where a north door exists as a ‘North Door’, i.e. ritual portals, then these churches were erected on sites of particularly active paganism at the time of the Conversion.
my 3d worth …
didn’t realize M R James was a reverend – great story smith!
🙂
ps: North Doors?
got the north lore here / thanks 🙂
[quote]p.45, l.16-17: The traditional burial of witches and suicides on the unhallowed north side of the church is only one example of the association of that direction with evil and the Devil. Notice also that Mrs Mothersole was hanged outside the Northgate at Bury.[/quote]
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveAshtree.html
Re: ps: North Doors?
The point I was attempting to make in referencing the James tale is that after the (fictional) witch Mrs. Mothersole was executed, her corpse was interred on the North side of the local churchyard. But her bones seem to have gone walkabout after that, eventually turning up in the roots of the ash tree at the manor house.
Re: North Doors?
There is a Church in Dyfed at Ysbyty Cynfyn that may have been built in a stone circle. There are witches that were buried in churchyards, or maybe the tales of their witchy antics grew up after their deaths. Such as:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/lancashire/occult/meg-shelton-the-fylde-witch.html
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/staffordshire/occult/molly-leigh.html
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/kent/occult/hoo-st-werburgh-witch-buried.html
In th ecase of Molly Leigh above she was buried at a right angl eto th eother graves and Meg Shelton was buried vertically.
I am unsure whether anyone actually executed under the Witchcraft Acts were buried on consecrated ground at the time of their deaths…..I am not saying they were not……just that I really do not know. It may also be interesting to note unbaptised children could not be buried in a churchyard.
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/unbaptized-children.html
Re: ps: North Doors?
[quote=OldTimeRadio]
The point I was attempting to make in referencing the James tale is that after the (fictional) witch Mrs. Mothersole was executed, her corpse was interred on the North side of the local churchyard. But her bones seem to have gone walkabout after that, eventually turning up in the roots of the ash tree at the manor house.
[/quote]
I see. How odd then. Wonder what was in James’ mind – witches’ nefarious ‘familiars’ in the form of arachnidae and the eccentric tree climbing lady bounding away in the form of a hare? This is all dreadful nonsense of course, the truth to witchcraft shapeshifting is in the real ‘medicine’ men and women of the prehistoric period, kept alive in folk memory and I think stirred by the Church into hysteria … or maybe sedentary folk are just prone to hysterics anyway, to wit the UFO craze of the 1950’s and succeeding decades?
😉
Re: North Doors?
[quote=Ian Topham]There is a Church in Dyfed at Ysbyty Cynfyn that may have been built in a stone circle. There are witches that were buried in churchyards, or maybe the tales of their witchy antics grew up after their deaths. Such as:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/lancashire/occult/meg-shelton-the-fylde-witch.html
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/staffordshire/occult/molly-leigh.html
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/kent/occult/hoo-st-werburgh-witch-buried.html
In th ecase of Molly Leigh above she was buried at a right angl eto th eother graves and Meg Shelton was buried vertically.
I am unsure whether anyone actually executed under the Witchcraft Acts were buried on consecrated ground at the time of their deaths…..I am not saying they were not……just that I really do not know. It may also be interesting to note unbaptised children could not be buried in a churchyard.
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/unbaptized-children.html[/quote]
My goodness, were our ancestors really like this? Pity the socially alienated living alone in rural surroundings then 😮
It’s an interesting fact that the Welsh for church is ‘llan’ and it doesn’t mean church per se, it means something like ‘place’. I imagine many Welsh llan sites were originally possibly stone circles.
Thanks.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=OldTimeRadio]
Remember, dead witches and heretics tended to be interred on the NORTH sides of British churchyards. For a fictional but historically accurate example see the Rev. M. R. James’ classic horror story "The Ash Tree."
And as for Christian churchyards being former pagan worship sites, hasn’t the very idea of Christian liturgies over the past 14 or 15 centuries been to turn such areas INTO consecrated Christian soil?
[/quote]
funny you should mention M R James because I have just been reading the Mezzotint and I came across the following towards the end of the ghost story:
"and poor Gawdy was strung up in double-quick time; and I’ve been shown the place he was buried in, on the north side of the church — you know the way in that part of the world: anyone that’s been hanged or made away with themselves, they bury them that side."
He had placed his fictional story in Essex, but as you say oldtimeradio, James was often historically accurate.
Re: North Doors?
Be interesting to see how many ‘witches’ were actually buried on the north side of churches? Remembering also that the entire church yard is consecrated ground, all points of the compass. I’m pretty sure people who didn’t square with the social fabric were executed at liminal points within the landscape, such as at parish boundaries and other out-of-the-way locations, such as the Wansdyke in Wiltshire; equally:-
‘In late and post-medieval Ireland, unbaptised children were rarely buried in consecrated ground. Strangers, suicides, unrepentant murderers were also treated differently in death, interred in separate cemeteries
which were liminal, clandestine places associated with landscape boundaries’
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18686459/The-origins-of-the-Irish-Cillin-the-segregation-of-infant-burials-within-an-early-medieval-enclosure-at-Carrowkeel-Co-Galway
Re: North Doors?
interesting, but as you say the whole of the churchyard is consecrated so why the north.
off the top of my head the North direction is associated in geomantic Feng Shui with the element of water. i think we will have to dig a bit deeper on this one
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]interesting, but as you say the whole of the churchyard is consecrated so why the north.
off the top of my head the North direction is associated in geomantic Feng Shui with the element of water. i think we will have to dig a bit deeper on this one[/quote]
oh yes, agree absolutely – the whole business fascinates me! 🙂
think the biggest single problem which will be encountered here is regional variety: as i have already discovered in an ultra light reading of the subject, some churches (to return to the original subject header) have bricked up north doors, others have non-functional north doors; some churches have no north door at all and never did have one; and to cap it all, some churches (Scotland) have a north door as the main church entrance!!
the only method to the madness that i can theorise is that churches which were built on locations with stubborn pagan associations were fitted with north doors through which to demonstrably banish lingering heathenry out from, which would also be a public demonstartion of the Church’s dominion over matters of the spirit. Where paganism was not an issue no north doors were necessary. After the passage of several 100 years most remaining north doors were bricked up as reminder of the ‘silly superstitions’ which gave rise to them, the ritual reason for them having been forgotten.
why the north? well the northern aspect of the sky is its sunless aspect, where the sun never shines, and Christianity having strong links with the Roman version of Mithraism [sun worship] probably got the sunless north a bad name. So anything considered malign gets banished to the north. This association eventually attached itself to the north quadrant of many churches, but not all; a lingering folk memory of the ceremonial banishment north through ritual portals in the early centuries of the Common Era.
how we doing?
…………………………………………………..
and on the topic of mysterious doorways:
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/jamesX06.htm
😉
Re: North Doors?
I’m impressed with the theory – which the following web sites bear out, in that, sometimes the North door was retained but otherwise they were not.
see
http://www.lastinghamchurch.org.uk/folklore_.htm
http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/mirror/wilmington.htm
from which I take the following quote:which you have probably come across:
Wilmington’s church is also 12th century, though built slightly later, and was constructed on a small hill above the sunken road which passes through Wilmington, giving the impression it was built on an old pagan site. The church is accessed today through the 14th century porch and north door rather than the south, an exception for an area where most north doors in churches were blocked up, though this is probably due to the fact that the south door was purely for use by the priory. The 13th century north chapel, now a vestry, contains a beautiful stained glass window known as the “Bee and Butterfly Window” which depicts an image of St. Peter surrounded by several different insects. The Long Man is seen by some as a guardian of a gateway, which makes the church dedication, to St. Mary and St. Peter quite interesting as St. Peter is the guardian of the gates of heaven.”
I wonder are the insects a possible source of research?
Re: North Doors?
Oh I should, further to my recent post about the idea in Feng Shui that the North direction is associated with the element of Water, that I was thinking about the standard folklore tradition that a witch could be halted, or was in fear of running water. So would that be another thread in the business of burying suicides/alleged witches or otherwise marginalised people in this sector?
Re: North Doors?
Thanks.
[quote=indiagold]I wonder are the insects a possible source of research?[/quote]
Well yes indeed, but not for me, not my cuppa. Both the churches you cite seem to have Marian associations? Those ‘masons’ marks’ by the main door of the first church may be apotropaic, if they could be studied?
This liturgical theory concerning north doors is moot though – if it were thus there ought to be some documented proof for the liturgical rite, whatever it was; I see the north door thing as more colloquial and regional, and hence the broad variance of north door arrangements up and down mainland Britain?
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]Oh I should, further to my recent post about the idea in Feng Shui that the North direction is associated with the element of Water, that I was thinking about the standard folklore tradition that a witch could be halted, or was in fear of running water. So would that be another thread in the business of burying suicides/alleged witches or otherwise marginalised people in this sector?[/quote]
Possibly. Folklore is real but it is also a magnet for dross. I have no idea where the fear of running water comes in. I don’t think witches old or contemporary would have the slightest fear of running water, apart from the fairly common and understandible fear of drowning. So we look for the grain of sense in nonsense. Formerly rivers were often natural boundaries and so the liminal aspect of rivers may have been confounded with the nature of rivers, which is usually to flow. Rivers were frequently deified during the Iron Age in Britain and the sacred nature of some rivers persisted into the Middle Ages:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe/d/double-edged_sword.aspx
The page tactifully avoids the fact that this sword forms part of a tradition of riverine depostions in the Witham watercourse which stretches back into prehistory.
Re: North Doors?
So why were heretics and witches buried in churchyards at all? You’d think they would have been interred down at the crossroads or the backside of some remote garbage-midden..
Re: North Doors?
I agree
Outcasts were left outside the parish boundaries.
But it still doesn’t solve the problem of the Northerly direction.
And what did the other parish think?
I have looked at the above website, but I don’t understand the relevance.
Yes I know our ancestors threw valuable objects into streams and rivers, They must be trying to stop something, and/or to make something happen.
I have always found it odd, that our ancestors threw away such valuable stuff. For goodness sake, they needed these things, for warfare.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]I agree
Outcasts were left outside the parish boundaries.
But it still doesn’t solve the problem of the Northerly direction.
And what did the other parish think?[/quote]
The actual parish boundary itself would have been used so there would have been no encroachment on the neighbouring parish. Boundaries are liminal locations.
North possibly considered unlucky because the sun never shines from there, as I said, Christianity derives an enormous amount of symbolism from sun worship
http://www.the-goldenrule.name/Dionysus_JuliiHelios/Dionysus_JuliiHelios_–_MORE.htm
[quote]I have looked at the above website, but I don’t understand the relevance.
Yes I know our ancestors threw valuable objects into streams and rivers, They must be trying to stop something, and/or to make something happen.
I have always found it odd, that our ancestors threw away such valuable stuff. For goodness sake, they needed these things, for warfare.[/quote]
Water was seen as a portal to the other side, rivers, bogs, lakes, wells, and so forth. So you often deposited a gift to the gods through water.
Most of the surviving Celtic river names suggest that rivers were seen as gods, frequently goddesses.
Re: North Doors?
yes gifts to the gods/goddesses
In Liverpool there is still a folk memory of the Lady of the Dingle, obviously the goddess of the Mersey. Dingly dell was a pretty place in Toxteth Park and a delightful stream ran through it into the Mersey.
However, those of you who may remember the TV programme “The Liver Birds” will recall the folk song that accompanied it- I used to sing it as a child, but many people in Liverpool don’t really understand its significance or it’s source. I quote:
“On the Hill there stands a Lady, who she is I do not know.
All she wants is gold and silver: All she wants is a fine young man.” That last reference is a bit chilling-human sacrifice?
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]yes gifts to the gods/goddesses
In Liverpool there is still a folk memory of the Lady of the Dingle, obviously the goddess of the Mersey. Dingly dell was a pretty place in Toxteth Park and a delightful stream ran through it into the Mersey.
However, those of you who may remember the TV programme “The Liver Birds” will recall the folk song that accompanied it- I used to sing it as a child, but many people in Liverpool don’t really understand its significance or it’s source. I quote:
“On the Hill there stands a Lady, who she is I do not know.
All she wants is gold and silver: All she wants is a fine young man.” That last reference is a bit chilling-human sacrifice?[/quote]
Thanks for this but oh golly-gosh it opens a whole new can of worms which means probably a separate thread?
Anything west Britain which is not actually modern Wales has my curiousity bristling since the Brythonic influence lingered here much longer than in the east, consider the place names Cumbria and Cymru for example. The name Liverpool itself seems to have an English origin
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Liverpool
First question I might ask is *which* hill please?
Re: North Doors?
Regarding the burial of executed witches in consecrated soil, isn’t a witch who has confessed her sins before her/his execution, and then executed, been forgiven of her/his sins both spiritually and temporarily, and thus possess the same right to burial in holy earth as any other Christian?
Re: North Doors?
[quote=OldTimeRadio] Regarding the burial of executed witches in consecrated soil, isn’t a witch who has confessed her sins before her/his execution, and then executed, been forgiven of her/his sins both spiritually and temporarily, and thus possess the same right to burial in holy earth as any other Christian?[/quote]
There are a some points here: were the vast amount of witches, actual witches in the first place? I rather suspect many were confused elderly people who were scape-goated by rural communities?
If the unfortunate victims were forgiven why execute them at all?
The fact that graves are sited north of a church reminds us that the whole churchyard is consecrated ground and I think the apparent connection between north doors and north churchyard burials will not hold. The north door ritual – if it ever existed, and if it did it was regional and sporadic – may be a superstition more to do with the sky than with the earth, since the north is the direction from which the sun never shines.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=megalith6]If the unfortunate victims were forgiven why execute them at all?[/quote]
Forgiving sins is a religious affair. But executions are CIVIL matters.
Re: North Doors?
now that’s an interesting one as the high point overlooking the Mersey at the Dingle doesn’t actually have a name,but looking at the A-Z it will be the point around High Park street.
what I could do is look at James Stonehouses Streets of Liverpool and see if there is any reference to the locality and also the history of Toxteth Park a royal hunting ground.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=OldTimeRadio][quote=megalith6]If the unfortunate victims were forgiven why execute them at all?[/quote]
Forgiving sins is a religious affair. But executions are CIVIL matters.
[/quote]
With one hand absolution and with the other execution – thank goodness we are living in the new millennium.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]
now that’s an interesting one as the high point overlooking the Mersey at the Dingle doesn’t actually have a name,but looking at the A-Z it will be the point around High Park street.
what I could do is look at James Stonehouses Streets of Liverpool and see if there is any reference to the locality and also the history of Toxteth Park a royal hunting ground.
[/quote]
The place-names Mersey and Liverpool are fairly opaque, they tell us very little in terms of folklore.
Are you sure this is the only local high point please? You have a Mossley Hill nearby a St Michael’s Hamlet (several churches) in this area.
Am wondering if the lady associated with gold and silver is possibly a folk memory of a local solar deity, the high point would have been a sacred hill top. Later cultures often claimed these elevated sites under the name of St Michael, as at St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall.
Re: North Doors?
Well done,
you have done your homework. To answer your question about the highest point in Liverpool- it is now Woolton Hill(in the Suburbs)-you can see for miles and it is not for nothing that the roads around there reflect this eg. Beaconsfield Road.
The other thing about St Michael in the Hamlet-that is the Dingle It is a victorian church. Nevertheless there are possibilities in the naming of it.
However, this is digressing, we have to go back to the centre of Liverpool, when it was a little fishing village huddled around a small but convenient natural harbour where you as a sailor could take refuge from the ferocity of the Irish Sea. Because Liverpool developed so rapidly from circa 1600-1850ish there was much property development and as a result very little archaeological remains were noted. In short, any names do not relate to prehistory or even Roman times. But all is not lost, as on the heights overlooking Liverpool city centre, we have (one of the great ridges) called Low Hill. Entymology suggests that the word “low” usually means a burial place for the ancestors?
Re: North Doors?
And, furthermore, the only name we have left from antiquity for Toxteth Park is schoctades or thereabouts-it’s in the Domesday book. And Esamunde (smithdown). All various spellings of course. I know it looks like I am going off topic, but in the end the Chinese believed, that where you laid your ancestors, was vital for the health and wealth of the community,and for some reason, the North was important to them. And so as is often the case, we have come full circle-who is the Lady of the Dingle? She is the ancestor, who watches over the Mersey and its community, and she was buried on one of the hills overlooking her people.
Well, as I speak, the huge cargo ships are still coming in-safely into port I might add. So the property developers built over the tumuli.Never mind.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold] … on the heights overlooking Liverpool city centre, we have (one of the great ridges) called Low Hill. Entymology suggests that the word “low” usually means a burial place for the ancestors?[/quote]
“Low” possibly Anglo-Saxon meaning tumulus:’hlaewe’
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]And, furthermore, the only name we have left from antiquity for Toxteth Park is schoctades or thereabouts-it’s in the Domesday book. And Esamunde (smithdown). All various spellings of course. I know it looks like I am going off topic, but in the end the Chinese believed, that where you laid your ancestors, was vital for the health and wealth of the community,and for some reason, the North was important to them. And so as is often the case, we have come full circle-who is the Lady of the Dingle? She is the ancestor, who watches over the Mersey and its community, and she was buried on one of the hills overlooking her people.
Well, as I speak, the huge cargo ships are still coming in-safely into port I might add. So the property developers built over the tumuli.Never mind.[/quote]
There’s a problem here. Low Hill is 3.5km / 2 miles away from Toxteth.
Re: North Doors?
‘Lady of the Dingle’: what is your reference for the gold and silver please?
Toxteth is possibly ‘the stockaded place’ so folk memory could theoretically stretch back a very long way in terms of this area … the local “highest point, [is] at the corner of Smithdown Lane and Lodge Lane”
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41287
Re: North Doors?
Yes I know; but they were not buried in the community. That is the point. They end up on the boundaries-liminal areas Ditches, crossroads,hedgerows you name it. The community burial ground, it isn’t. They are cast out of the community in death as in life. I can only assume, that by burying them in such places, it in some way,deprived them of their alleged powers.(for the worse presumably).
Otherwise, they would have been buried with the revered ancestors.
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]Yes I know; but they were not buried in the community. That is the point. They end up on the boundaries-liminal areas Ditches, crossroads,hedgerows you name it. The community burial ground, it isn’t. They are cast out of the community in death as in life. I can only assume, that by burying them in such places, it in some way,deprived them of their alleged powers.(for the worse presumably).
Otherwise, they would have been buried with the revered ancestors.[/quote]
Ok. Firstly we need to identify the term liminal with respect to landscapes: it means on the edge of society or the edge of the area of land with which that community identified: it is a spiritual ‘nomansland’ in effect. This might indeed be a ditch but not necessarily so. Water is also liminal in that it frequently forms banks, shores and is a substance into which objects appear to disappear.
Secondly, what is your reference for the gold and silver association regarding the Lady of the Dingle please?
Many thanks.
Re: North Doors?
I don’t know about the gold and silver, but it sounds like a folk memory of people throwing stuff into a stream/river to placate the ancestors.
Like I said, it seems that She is the Goddess of the river-a guardian, if you like.
Interestingly, the Dingle is haunted by a woman in white.
It is/or was,a magical place
Re: North Doors?
[quote=indiagold]I don’t know about the gold and silver, but it sounds like a folk memory of people throwing stuff into a stream/river to placate the ancestors.
Like I said, it seems that She is the Goddess of the river-a guardian, if you like.
Interestingly, the Dingle is haunted by a woman in white.
It is/or was,a magical place[/quote]
This all sounds perfectly fine but please – for the sake of folklore – quote or indicate *sources*, books, articles, casual conversation and/or so forth. You began this subthread by telling me this lady was associated with a high place, possibly a hill top, I have only ever found references to her in the Dingle. In English a ‘dingle’ is a dell, like a miniature valley, that’s the very opposite of a hill top
http://www.yourdictionary.com/dingle
Thanks.