Funeral cake or biscuit appears to be general in all parts. In Whitby, a round, flat, and rather sweet, sort of cake biscuit is baked expressly for use at funerals, and made to order by more than one baker in the town; it is white, slightly sprinkled with sugar, and of a fine even texture within. In Lincolnshire sponge finger biscuits are used. In Cumberland a custom prevailed of giving to each person who attended the funeral a small piece of rich cake, carefully wrapped up in white paper and sealed. This used to be carried round immediately before the "lifting of the corpse." Each visitor selected one of the sealed packets and carried it home unopened.
Funeral Bidders are most probably derived from the Romans, who used to send a public crier about inviting people to the solemnization of a funeral. In the northern countries each village had its regular "Bidder," who when "bidding" to the funeral generally knocked on the door with a key. In towns the crier frequently did the "bidding," having first called the attention of the people by his bell.
In the life of St. Willebald[9] we are told "that it was an ancient custom of the Saxon nation on the estates of some of their nobles and great men, to erect, not a church, but the sign of the Holy Cross, dedicated to God, beautifully and honourably adorned, and exalted on high for the common use of daily prayer." It is the exception rather than the rule, for Domesday Book to mention a church in connection with a village, and it is possible that our Kirkbys, and place names having Kirk as a prefix, acquired that addition when the church was built in the churchyard ready for it--a churchyard already consecrated and hallowed by years of divine service and sacred memories.
What better place than this, in the whole township, could be found for the hearing of disputes and the settling of cases; here, where the bishop sat with the sheriff, where the clerics were lawyers, where oaths could be taken on everything that was holy, and round which all a man's sacred associations clustered. The churchyard was a court of justice; but in later times, the ecclesiastical authorities discouraged the holding of secular pleas in churches and churchyards. In 1287 a synod held at Exeter, said "Let not secular pleas be held in churchyards," but as late as 1472, a presentment from the parish of "Helemsay et Staunforthbrig" (Helmsley and Stamfordbrig) shews "that all the parishioners there hold pleas and other temporal meetings in the church and churchyard."[10]