ASINORUM SEPULTURA

In former times it was the practice, upon the demise of those who died under sentence of excommunication, not merely to refuse interment to their bodies in consecrated ground, but to decline giving them any species of interment at all. The corpse was placed upon the surface of the earth, and there surrounded and covered over with stones. It was *blocked up*, "imblocatus," and this mode of disposing of dead bodies was designated "*Asinorum Sepultura.*" Ducange gives more than one instance, viz., "Sepultura asini sepeliantur"—"ejusque corpus exanime asinorum accipiat sepulturam." Wherefore was t…