Let us examine a little further this co-operation of the mourners, as testified by actual survival. As already stated, the rubric directs that the earth shall be cast upon the body “by some standing by,” while the priest repeats the collect or “Commendation.” In practice, the sexton usually throws in the earth, although I feel certain that I have more than once seen the officiating clergyman perform this office. The rubric, as we know it, was formulated in the year 1552. Prior to that date, the soil was cast upon the corpse by the priest[803]. We may take it that this was the more common practice in Mediaeval times. The ceremony was also rendered symbolical in some districts by strewing the earth in the form of a cross[804]. Again, as in the Ritual of Brixen, the priest scattered the earth three times with a shovel[805]. In the Greek rite, too, the lot fell to the priest[806]. Among the Jews, each relative of the dead person threw earth on the coffin[807], and there are records of a like observance in Christian communities[808]. The daily newspapers occasionally report instances of the practice in our own day. Taking these isolated examples, and comparing them with the custom, once common in rural England, of five or six persons assisting the sexton to fill up the grave[809], we can outline a simple hypothesis. The early Christians probably followed their heathen contemporaries in allowing the interment to be a common labour. Afterwards, the throwing in of handfuls of earth--and perhaps of ashes also (cf. p. 290 _supra_, concerning charcoal)--was a rite in which many took part, the antiphonal service being chanted during the act. In the later Mediaeval period the priest seems largely to have usurped the office. The Reformation allotted the function once more to the mourners in general, at least nominally, and on rare occasions the right is still exercised. The original meaning is forgotten, and symbolism is evoked to explain the practice. And just as some writers are content to see, in the ashes, merely a symbol of penitence and humiliation, as illustrated in the old Ash Wednesday observances, so other authorities, with what appears to be a short view, deem the earth simply typical of man’s reputed origin and mortality: _Hodie mihi, cras tibi_. It seems more in accord with facts to recognize the bit of soil thrown into the grave as a vestigial proof of the continuity of habit, weakened to some degree because the ceremony, instead of being generally shared by the mourners, is performed vicariously by the sexton.