After the ceremony, these vases were placed, while still alight, in the coffin. And this brings us to another Christian usage, which has been ascertained to have existed in France and England from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. During this period, a cross was placed upon the breast of the deceased person. This cross, in wood or in lead, sometimes in silver, was called an _absolution cross_ (Fig. 350), because the formula of absolution given to the dead man was generally engraved upon it--and even his name was stated in the formula. A fact related by Mabillon, in his “Annals of the Order of St. Benedict,” sufficiently proves the importance and universal extent of this custom. In 1142, after the death of Abelard, Eloisa, Abbess of the Paraclete, asked Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, for a formula of absolution to place upon the tomb of the illustrious theologian. This absolution was placed, as is related by a Benedictine writer, upon Abelard’s breast. The text is so interesting that it is worth quoting, though written in Latin. Peter the Venerable, alluding therein to the unwillingness of the monks of St. Marcel to give up the body of Abelard, says, “Ego Petrus, Cluniacensis abbas, qui Petrum Abaëlardum, in monachum Cluniacensem recepi, et corpus ejus furtim delatum Heloïsæ, abbatissæ et monialibus Paracliti concessi, auctoritate omnipotentis Dei et omnium sanctorum absolvo eum pro officio ab omnibus peccatis suis.” Ancient burying-places are sometimes discovered with bodies which have been bound in chains, or, at all events, are loaded with iron and brass fetters. Thus at Couvert, near Bayeux, a skeleton was discovered a few years back laid upon the face (_ad dentes_), upon a wooden cross, with a small chain round the neck. This is a peculiarity having its origin in certain rules of penance which were in force from the eighth to the tenth, and probably to the eleventh, century. The pagan rite prescribed that a piece of money should be placed in the urn or coffin; and many antiquaries have suggested that this must have been the _obolus_ for Charon. This custom was perpetuated by the Christians, for, throughout the Middle Ages, a coin was always placed on the bier; and this practice still prevails in Poitou, Alsace, and other places. The interments of the barbarians, even after their conversion to Christianity, are specially characteristic, because, no matter to what nation they belonged, they adhered to their own particular manner of burial. They were interred in their finest clothes, with their weapons, and, in some cases, with their war-horse. The women and children, whose burial-place is easily discoverable, wore jewels, necklaces, rings, fibulæ, girdles, buckles, &c., to which are still found adhering bits of tissue, the remains of some splendid costume.