The sarcophagi were sometimes made of a more costly material than stone; that of St. Cassianus, at Autun, for instance, was of alabaster. But these were only exceptional cases; and Maurice, Archbishop of Rouen, prohibited these funeral extravagances in 1231. It is curious, however, to note the representation of scenes in profane history upon Christian coffins. Sauval describes one that was discovered in the Church of St. Geneviève, Paris, in 1620, which contained a box full of gold and silver medals representing the boar-hunt of Meleager. Christian and pagan emblems are sometimes found side by side: upon the sarcophagus of St. Andoche was represented a wheel, a bird, vine-foliage and grapes, a hatchet, and, amidst all these ornaments, a cross. After the reign of Theodosius, there were in use throughout Gaul sarcophagi the emblems of which were exclusively borrowed from the Christian religion. As a general rule, the front surface is divided by arcades of raised architecture, and between each of them is represented a subject taken from the Old or the New Testament. Arles, in fact, appears to have been the centre of a special manufacture which executed this kind of work for all the south of France, until the middle of the sixteenth century. There were also manufactories of stone sarcophagi at St. Pierre l’Etrier, St. Emelion, and, more notably, at Quarrée-les-Tombes. During the reigns of the first _rois fainéants_, the successors of Clovis, the decoration of the sarcophagi was affected by the barbarian style of art. There were no longer any figures in relief--nothing but the monogram of Christ, XP, with a circular or oval border. At that period the sarcophagus took the exact shape of the coffin, being narrower at the feet than at the head. The lid was a large stone of the same character as the coffin, generally decorated with concentric circles or the scales of fish, in memory of Christ’s monogram, ΙΧΘΥΣ (ὶχθὺς, _fish_). Funeral sculptures did not flourish during the time of Charlemagne; the bodies of the kings were placed in ancient tombs, which were everywhere very plentiful. Thus, the sarcophagus in which the body of Charlemagne himself was placed represented the abduction of Proserpine. It is true that upon that of Louis the Pious was represented the Passage of the Red Sea, but this was manufactured at Arles. The churches in course of time became so full of tombs that the councils were obliged to prohibit interment in them, and this order, though only partially observed, effected a change in the mode of burial. People preferred to have the coffins placed in the ground, especially as they were better protected in this way from the robbers who violated the sanctity of the grave. Thus, from the ninth to the beginning of the tenth century, sarcophagi gradually fell into disuse.