same with interment or Burial.

Burying Alive was the punishment of a vessel who had violated her vow of virginity. The unhappy priestess was let down into a deep pit, with bread, water, milk, oil, a lamp burning, and a bed to lie on. But this was only for show; for the moment she was let down, they began to cast in the earth upon her till the pit was filled up. Some middle-age writers seem to make burying alive, (defecatio), the punishment of a woman thief. Lord Bacon gives instances of the reformation of persons who have been buried alive. The famous Duns Scotus is of the number; who, having been seized with a catalepsy, was thought dead, and laid to sleep among his fathers, but raised again by his servant in whose absence he had been buried. Bartholin gives an account of a woman, who, on recovering from an apoplexy, could not be convinced but that she was dead, and solicited so long and so earnestly to be buried, that they were forced to comply; and performed the ceremonies, at least in appearance. The famous emperor Charles V., after his abdication, took it into his head to have his burial celebrated in his lifetime, and affixed at it.

Burying-Place. The ancients buried out of cities and towns; an usage which we find equally among Jews, Greeks, and Romans. Among the last, burying within the walls was expressly prohibited by a law of the 12 tables. The usual places of interment were in the suburbs and fields, but especially by the waysides. We have instances, however, of persons buried in the city; but it was a favour allowed only to a few of singular merit in the commonwealth. Plutarch says, those who had triumphed were indulged in it. Be this as it will, Val. Publicola, and C. Fabricius, are said to have had tombs in the forum; and Cicero adds Tiberius to the number. Lycurgus allowed his Lacedemonians to bury their dead within the city and around their temples, that the youth, being inured to such spectacles, might be less terrified with the apprehension of death. Two reasons are alleged why the ancients buried out of cities: the first, an opinion, that the sight, touch, or even neighbourhood, of a corpse defiled a man, especially a priest; whence that rule in A. Gellius, that the flamen Didius might not on any account enter a place where there was a grave: the second to prevent the air from being corrupted by the stench of putrefied bodies, and the buildings from being endangered by the frequency of funeral fires.

Burying in churches was not allowed for the first 300 years after Christ; and the same was severely prohibited by the Christian emperors for many ages afterwards. The first step towards it appears to have been the practice of erecting churches over the graves of some martyrs in the country, and translating the relics of others into churches in the city; the next was, allowing kings and emperors to be buried in the atrium or church-porch. In the 6th century, the people began to be admitted into the church-yards; and some princes, founders, and bishops, into the church. From that time the matter seems to have been left to the discretion of the bishop.

Busbec (Auger Giffen, lord of), a person illustrious on account of his embassies, was born at Comines, in the year 1522; and educated at the most famous universities, at Louvain, at Paris, at Venice, at Bologna, and at Padua. He was engaged in several important employments and negotiations, and particularly was twice sent ambassador by the king of the Romans to the emperor Soliman. He collected inscriptions; bought manuscripts; searched after rare plants; inquired into the nature of animals; and, in his second journey to Constantinople, carried with him a painter, that he might be able to communicate to the curious, the figures, at least, of the plants and animals that were not well known in the west. He wrote a Discourse of the state of the Ottoman empire, and a Relation of his two journeys to Turkey, which are much esteemed. He died in 1592.