a piece of ground adjoining to a church, set apart for interment or burial of the dead.

—In the church of Rome they are blessed or consecrated with great solemnity. If a churchyard, which has been thus consecrated, shall afterwards be polluted by any indecent action, or profaned by the burial of an infidel, an heretic, an excommunicated or unbaptized person, it must be reconciled; and the ceremony of the reconciliation is performed with the same solemnity as that of the blessing or consecration.

(Thomas), a poet who flourished in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., queen Mary and queen Elizabeth, was born at Shrewsbury; and inherited a fortune, which he soon exhausted in a fruitless attendance on the court, by which he only gained the favour of being retained a domestic in the family of lord Surrey; when, by his lordship's encouragement, he commenced poet. Upon his patron's death, he took himself to arms; was in many engagements; was frequently wounded, and was twice made prisoner. He published 12 pieces, which he afterwards printed together in one volume, under the title of Churchyard's Chaps; and also the tragedy of Thomas Moubray duke of Norfolk. He died in 1570.