Chapter XI: Part 11

Even after such myths have been laid open to the very roots, there is a strong tendency not to drop them altogether. Thus Mr. H. Merivale is far too good an historian to admit the presence of Jews in Cornwall as far back as the destruction of Jerusalem.(82) He knows there is no evidence for it, and he would not repeat a mere fable, however plausible. Yet Marazion and the Jews’ houses evidently linger in his memory, and he throws out a hint that they may find an historical explanation in the fact that under the Plantagenet kings the Jews commonly farmed or wrought the mines. Is there any contemporary evidence even for this? I do not think so. Dr. Borlase, indeed, in his “Natural History of Cornwall” (p. 190), says, “In the time of King John, I find the product of tin in this county very inconsiderable, the right of working for tin being as yet wholly in the King, the property of tinners precarious and unsettled, and what tin was raised was engrossed and managed by the Jews, to the great regret of the barons and their vassals.” It is a pity that Dr. Borlase should not have given his authority, but there is little doubt that he simply quoted from Carew. Carew tells us how the Cornish gentlemen borrowed money from the merchants of London, giving them tin as security (p. 14); and though he does not call the merchants Jews, yet he speaks of them as usurers, and reproves their “cut throate and abominable dealing.” He continues afterwards, speaking of the same usurers (p. 16), “After such time as the Jewes by their extreme dealing had worne themselves, first out of the love of the English inhabitants, and afterwards out of the land itselfe, and so left the mines unwrought, it hapned, that certaine gentlemen, being lords of seven tithings in Blackmoore, whose grounds were best stored with this minerall, grewe desirous to renew this benefit,” etc. To judge from several indications, this is really the passage which Dr. Borlase had before him when writing of the Jews as engrossing and managing the tin that was raised, and in that case neither is Carew a contemporary witness, nor would it follow from what he says that one single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil, or that any Jews ever tasted the actual bitterness of working in the mines.

Having thus disposed of the Jews, we now turn to the Saracens in Cornwall. We shall not enter upon the curious and complicated history of that name. It is enough to refer to a short note in Gibbon,(83) in order to show that Saracen was a name known to Greeks and Romans, long before the rise of Islam, but never applied to the Jews by any writer of authority, not even by those who saw in the Saracens “the children of Sarah.”

What, then, it may be asked, is the origin of the expression _Attal Sarazin_ in Cornwall? _Attal_, or _Atal_, is said to be a Cornish word, the Welsh _Adhail_, and means refuse, waste.(84) As to _Sarazin_, it is most likely another Cornish word, which by a metamorphic process, has been slightly changed in order to yield some sense intelligible to Saxon speakers. We find in Cornish _tarad_, meaning a piercer, a borer; and, in another form, _tardar_ is distinctly used, together with axe and hammer, as the name of a mining implement. The Latin _taratrum_, Gr. τέρετρον, Fr. _tarière_, all come from the same source. If from _tarad_ we form a plural, we get _taradion_. In modern Cornish we find that _d_ sinks down to _s_, which would give us _taras_,(85) and plural _tarasion_. Next, the final _l_ of _atal_ may, like several final _l_’s in the closely allied language of Brittany, have infected the initial _t_ of _tarasion_, and changed it to _th_, which _th_, again, would, in modern Cornish, sink down to _s_.(86) Thus _atal tharasion_ might have been intended for the refuse of the borings, possibly the refuse of the mines; but pronounced in Saxon fashion, it might readily have been mistaken for the Atal or refuse of the Sarasion or Saracens.

POSTSCRIPT.

The essay on the presence of Jews in Cornwall has given rise to much controversy; and as I republish it here without any important alterations, I feel it incumbent to say a few words in answer to the objections that have been brought forward against it. No one, I think, can read my essay without perceiving that what I question is not the presence of single Jews in Cornwall, but the migration of large numbers of Jews into the extreme West of Britain, whether at the time of the Phœnicians, or at the period of the destruction of Jerusalem, or under the Flavian princes, or even at a later time. The Rev. Dr. Bannister in a paper on “the Jews in Cornwall,” published in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1867, does indeed represent me as having maintained “that one single Jew never set foot on Cornish soil!” But if my readers will refer to the passage thus quoted from my essay by Dr. Bannister, they will see that it was not meant in that sense. In the passage thus quoted with inverted commas,(87) I simply argued that from certain words used by Carew, on which great stress had been laid, it would not even follow “that one single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil,” which surely is very different from saying that I maintained that no single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil. It would indeed be the most extraordinary fact if Cornwall had never been visited by Jews. If it were so, Cornwall would stand alone, as far as such an immunity is concerned, among all the countries of Europe. But it is one thing for Jews to be scattered about in towns,(88) or even for one or two Jews to have actually worked in tin mines, and quite another to speak of towns receiving Hebrew names in Cornwall, and of deserted tin-mines being called the workings of the Jews. To explain such startling facts, if facts they be, a kind of Jewish exodus to Cornwall had to be admitted, and was admitted as long as such names as _Marazion_ and _Attal Sarazin_ were accepted in their traditional meaning. My own opinion was that these names had given rise to the assumed presence of Jews in Cornwall, and not that the presence of Jews in Cornwall had given rise to these names.

If, therefore, it could be proved that some Jewish families had been settled in Cornwall in very early times, or that a few Jewish slaves had been employed as miners, my theory would not at all be affected. But I must say that the attempts at proving even so much have been far from successful. Surely the occurrence of Old Testament names among the people of Cornwall, such as Abraham, Joseph, or Solomon (there is a Solomon, Duke of Cornwall), does not prove that their bearers were Jews. Again, if we read in the time of Edward II. that “John Peverel held Hametethy of Roger le Jeu,” we may be quite certain that _le Jeu_ does not mean “the Jew,” and that in the time of Edward II. no John Peverel held land of a Jew. Again, if in the time of Edward III. we read of one “Abraham, the tinner, who employed 300 men in the stream-works of Brodhok,” it would require stronger proof than the mere name to make us believe that this Abraham was a Jew.

I had endeavored to show that there was no evidence as to the Earl of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III., having employed Jews in the Cornish mines, and had pointed out a passage from Rymer’s “Fœdera” where it is stated that the Earl spared them (_pepercit_). Dr. Bannister remarks: “Though we are told that he spared them, might not this be similar to Joseph’s brethren sparing him,—by committing their bodies as his slaves to work in the tin-mines?” It might be so, no doubt, but we do not know it. Again, Dr. Bannister remarks: “Jerome tells us that when Titus took Jerusalem, an incredible number of Jews were sold like horses, and dispersed over the face of the whole earth. The account given by Josephus is, that of those spared after indiscriminate slaughter, some were dispersed through the provinces for the use of the theatres, as gladiators; others were sent to the Egyptian mines, and others sold as slaves. If the Romans at this time worked the Cornish mines, why may not some have been sent here?” I can only answer, as before; they may have been, no doubt, but we do not know it.

I had myself searched very carefully for any documents that might prove the presence even of single Jews in Cornwall, previous to the time when they were banished the realm by Edward I. But my inquiries had not proved more successful than those of my predecessors. Pearce, in his “Laws and Customs of the Stanaries,” published in London, 1725, shares the common belief that the Jews worked in the Cornish mines. “The tinners,” he says (p. ii), “call the antient works by the name of the Working of the Jews, and it is most manifest, that there were Jews inhabiting here until 1291; and this they prove by the names yet enduring, viz. Attall Sarazin, in English, The Jews Feast.” But in spite of his strong belief in the presence of Jews in Cornwall, Pearce adds: “But whether they had liberty to work and search for tin, does not appear, because they had their dwellings chiefly in great Towns and Cities; and being great Usurers, were in that year banished out of England, to the number of 15,060, by the most noble Prince, Edward I.”

At last, however, with the kind assistance of Mr. Macray, I discovered a few real Jews in Cornwall in the third year of King John, 1202, namely, one _Simon de Dena_, one _Deudone, the son of Samuel_, and one _Aaron_. Some of their monetary transactions are recorded in the “Rotulus Cancellarii vel Antigraphum Magni Rotuli Pipæ de tertio anno Regni Regis Johannis” (printed under the direction of the Commissioners of the Public Records in 1863, p. 96), and we have here not only their names as evidence of their Jewish origin, but they are actually spoken of as “_prædictus Judens_.” Their transactions, however, are purely financial, and do not lead us to suppose that the Jews, in order to make tin, condescended, in the time of King John or at any other time, to the drudgery of working in tin-mines.

_July_, 1867.

XV. THE INSULATION OF ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT.(89)

St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall is so well known to most people, either from sight or from report, that a description of its peculiar features may be deemed almost superfluous; but in order to start fair, I shall quote a short account from the pen of an eminent geologist, Mr. Pengelly, to whom I shall have to refer frequently in the course of this paper.

“St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, he says, “is an island at very high water, and, with rare exceptions, a peninsula at very low water. The distance from Marazion Cliff, the nearest point of the mainland, to spring-tide high-water mark on its own strand, is about 1680 feet. The total isthmus consists of the outcrop of highly inclined Devonian slate and associated rocks, and in most cases is covered with a thin layer of gravel or sand. At spring-tides, in still weather, it is at high-water about twelve feet below, and at low-water six feet above, the sea level. In fine weather it is dry from four to five hours every tide; but occasionally, during very stormy weather and neap tides, it is impossible to cross from the mainland for two or three days together.”

“The Mount is an outlier of granite, measuring at its base about five furlongs in circumference, and rising to the height of one hundred and ninety-five feet above mean tide. At high-water it plunges abruptly into the sea, except on the north or landward side, where the granite comes into contact with slate. Here there is a small plain occupied by a village.... The country immediately behind or north of the town of Marazion consists of Devonian strata, traversed by traps and elvans, and attains a considerable elevation.”

At the meeting of the British Association in 1865, Mr. Pengelly, in a paper on “The Insulation of St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall,” maintained that the change which converted that Mount from a promontory into an island must have taken place, not only within the human period, but since Cornwall was occupied by a people speaking the Cornish language. As a proof of this somewhat startling assertion, he adduced the ancient British name of St. Michael’s Mount, signifying _the Hoar rock in the wood_. Nobody would think of applying such a name to the Mount in its present state; and as we know that during the last two thousand years the Mount has been, as it is now, an island at high, and a promontory at low tide, it would indeed seem to follow that its name must have been framed before the destruction of the ancient forest by which it was once surrounded, and before the separation of the Mount from the mainland.

Sir Henry James, in a “Note on the Block of Tin dredged in Falmouth Harbor,” asserts, it is true, that there are trees growing on the Mount in sufficient numbers to have justified the ancient descriptive name of “the Hoar rock in the wood;” but though there are traces of trees visible on the engravings published a hundred years ago, in Dr. Borlase’s “Antiquities of Cornwall,” these are most likely due to artistic embellishment only. At present no writer will discover in St. Michael’s Mount what could fairly be called either trees or a wood, even in Cornwall.

That the geographical change from a promontory into a real island did not take place during the last two thousand years, is proved by the description which Diodorus Siculus, a little before the Christian era, gives of St. Michael’s Mount. “The inhabitants of the promontory of Belerium,” he says (lib. v. c. 22), “were hospitable, and, on account of their intercourse with strangers, eminently civilized in their habits. These are the people who work the tin, which they melt into the form of astragali, and then carry it to an island in front of Britain, called _Ictis_. This island is left dry at low tide, and they then transport the tin in carts from the shore. Here the traders buy it from the natives, and carry it to Gaul, over which it travels on horseback in about thirty days to the mouths of the Rhone.” That the Island of Ictis, described by Diodorus, is St. Michael’s Mount, seems, to say the least, very probable, and was at last admitted even by the late Sir G. C. Lewis. In fact, the description which Diodorus gives answers so completely to what St. Michael’s Mount is at the present day, that few would deny that if the Mount ever was a “Hoar rock in the wood,” it must have been so before the time of which Diodorus speaks, that is, at least before the last two thousand years. The nine apparent reasons why St. Michael’s Mount cannot be the Ictis of Diodorus, and their refutation, may be seen in Mr. Pengelly’s paper “On the Insulation of St. Michael’s Mount,” p. 6, seq.

Mr. Pengelly proceeded to show that the geological change which converted the promontory into an island may be due to two causes. First, it may have taken place in consequence of the encroachment of the sea. This would demand a belief that at least 20,000 years ago Cornwall was inhabited by men who spoke Cornish. Secondly, this change may have taken place by a general subsidence of the land, and this is the opinion adopted by Mr. Pengelly. No exact date was assigned to this subsidence, but Mr. Pengelly finished by expressing his decided opinion that, subsequent to a period when Cornwall was inhabited by a race speaking a Celtic language, St. Michael’s Mount was “a hoar rock in the wood,” and has since become insulated by powerful geological changes.

In a more recent paper read at the Royal Institution (April 5, 1867), Mr. Pengelly has somewhat modified his opinion. Taking for granted that at some time or other St. Michael’s Mount was a peninsula and not yet an island, he calculates that it must have taken 16,800 years before the coast line could have receded from the Mount to the present cliffs. He arrived at this result by taking the retrocession of the cliffs at ten feet in a century, the distance between the Mount and the mainland being at present 1,680 feet.

If, however, the severance of the Mount from the mainland was the result, not of retrocession, but of the subsidence of the country,—a rival theory which Mr. Pengelly still admits as possible,—the former calculation would fail, and the only means of fixing the date of this severance would be supplied by the remains found in the forests that were carried down by that subsidence, and which are supposed to belong to the mammoth era. This mammoth era, we are told, is anterior to the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, and the kitchenmiddens of Denmark, for in neither of these have any remains of the mammoth been discovered. The mammoth, in fact, did not outlive the age of bronze, and before the end of that age, therefore, St. Michael’s Mount must be supposed to have become an island.

In all these discussions it is taken for granted that St. Michael’s Mount was at one time unquestionably a “hoar rock in the wood,” and that the land between the Mount and the mainland was once covered by a forest which extended along the whole of the seaboard. That there are submerged forests along that seaboard is attested by sufficient geological evidence; but I have not been able to discover any proof of the unbroken continuity of that shore-forest, still less of the presence of vegetable remains in the exact locality which is of interest to us, namely between the Mount and the mainland. It is true that Dr. Borlase discovered the remains of trunks of trees on the 10th of January, 1757; but he tells us that these forest trees were not found round the Mount, but midway betwixt the piers of St. Michael’s Mount and Penzance, that is to say, about one mile distant from the Mount; also, that one of them was a willow-tree with the bark on it, another a hazel-branch with the bark still fat and glossy. The place where these trees were found was three hundred yards below full-sea mark, where the water is twelve feet deep when the tide is in.

Carew, also, at an earlier date, speaks of roots of mighty trees found in the sand about the Mount, but without giving the exact place. Lelant (1533-40) knows of “Spere Heddes, Axis for Warre, and Swerdes of Copper wrapped up in lynist, scant perishid,” that had been found of late years near the Mount, in St. Hilary’s parish, in tin works; but he places the land that had been devoured of the sea between Penzance and Mousehole, _i.e._ more than two miles distant from the Mount.

The value of this kind of geological evidence must of course be determined by geologists. It is quite possible that the remains of trunks of trees may still be found on the very isthmus between the Mount and the mainland; but it is, to say the least, curious that, even in the absence of such stringent evidence, geologists should feel so confident that the Mount once stood on the mainland, and that exactly the same persuasion should have been shared by people long before the name of geology was known. There is a powerful spell in popular traditions, against which even men of science are not always proof, and is just possible that if the tradition of the “hoar rock in the wood” had not existed, no attempts would have been made to explain the causes that severed St. Michael’s Mount from the mainland. But even then the question remains, How was it that people quite guiltless of geology should have framed the popular name of the Mount, and the popular tradition of its former connection with the mainland? Leaving, therefore, for the present all geological evidence out of view, it will be an interesting inquiry to find out, if possible, how people that could not have been swayed by any geological theories, should have been led to believe in the gradual insulation of St. Michael’s Mount.

The principal argument brought forward by non-geological writers in support of the former existence of a forest surrounding the Mount, is the Cornish name of St. Michael’s Mount, _Cara clowse in cowse_, which in Cornish is said to mean “the hoar rock in the wood.” In his paper read before the British Association at Manchester, Mr. Pengelly adduced that very name as irrefragable evidence that Cornish, _i.e._ a Celtic language, an Aryan language, was spoken in the extreme west of Europe about 20,000 years ago. In his more recent paper Mr. Pengelly has given up this position, and he considers it improbable that any philologer could now give a trustworthy translation of a language spoken 20,000 years ago. This may be or not; but before we build any hypothesis on that Cornish name, the first question which an historian has to answer is clearly this:—

_What authority is there for that name? Where does it occur for the first time? and does it really mean what it is supposed to mean?_

Now the first mention of the Cornish name, as far as I am aware, occurs in Richard Carew’s “Survey of Cornwall,” which was published in 1602. It is true that Camden’s “Britannia” appeared earlier, in 1586, and that Camden (p. 72), too, mentions “the Mons Michaelis, _Dinsol_ olim, ut in libro Landavensi habetur, incolis _Careg Cowse_,(90) _i.e._ rupis cana.” But it will be seen that he leaves out the most important part of the old name, nor can there be much doubt that Camden received his information about Cornwall direct from Carew, before Carew’s “Survey of Cornwall” was published.

After speaking of “the countrie of Lionesse which the sea hath ravined from Cornwall betweene the lands end and the Isles of Scilley,” Carew continues (p. 3), “Moreover, the ancient name of Saint Michael’s Mount was _Cara-clowse in Cowse_, in English, The hoare Rocke in the Wood; which now is at everie floud incompassed by the Sea, and yet at some low ebbes, rootes of mightie trees are discryed in the sands about it. The like overflowing hath happened in Plymmouth Haven, and divers other places.” Now while in this place Carew gives the name _Cara-clowse in Cowse_, it is very important to remark that on page 154, he speaks of it again as “_Cara Cowz in Clowze_, that is, the hoare rock in the wood.”

The original Cornish name, whether it was _Cara clowse in Cowse_, or _Cara Cowz in Clowze_, cannot be traced back beyond the end of the sixteenth century, for the Cornish Pilchard song in which the name likewise occurs is much more recent, at least in that form in which we possess it. The tradition, however, that St. Michael’s Mount stood in a forest, and even the Saxon designation, “the Hoar rock in the wood,” can be followed up to an earlier date.

At least one hundred and twenty-five years before Carew’s time, William of Worcester, though not mentioning the Cornish name, not only gives the Mount the name of “hoar rock of the wood,” but states distinctly that St. Michael’s Mount was formerly six miles distant from the sea, and surrounded by a dense forest: “PREDICTUS LOCUS OPACISSIMA PRIMO CLAUDEBATUR SYLVA, AB OCEANO MILIARIBUS DISTANS SEX.” As William of Worcester never mentions the Cornish name, it is not likely that his statement should merely be derived from the supposed meaning of _Cara Cowz in Clowze_, and it is but fair to admit that he may have drawn from a safer source of information. We must therefore inquire more closely into the credibility of this important witness. He is an important witness, for, if it were not for him, I believe we should never have heard of the insulation of St. Michael’s Mount at all. The passage in question occurs in William of Worcester’s Itinerary, the original MS. of which is preserved in Corpus Christi College at Cambridge. It was printed at Cambridge by James Nasmith, in the year 1778, from the original MS., but, as it would seem, without much care. William Botoner, or, as he is commonly called, William of Worcester, was born at Bristol in 1415, and educated at Oxford about 1434. He was a member of the _Aula Cervina_, which at that time belonged to Balliol College. His “Itinerarium” is dated 1478. It hardly deserves the grand title which it bears, “Itinerarium, sive liber memorabilium Will. W. in viagio de Bristol usque ad montem St. Michaelis.” It is not a book of travels in our sense of the word, and it was hardly destined for the public in the form in which we possess it. It is simply a notebook in which William entered anything that interested him during his journey; and it contains not only his own observations, but all sorts of extracts, copies, notices, thrown together without any connecting thread. He hardly tells us that he has arrived at St. Michael’s Mount before he begins to copy a notice which he found posted up in the church. This notice informed all comers that Pope Gregory had remitted a third of their penances to all who should visit this church and give to it benefactions and alms. It can be fully proved that this notice, which was intended to attract pilgrims and visitors, repeats _ipsissimis verbis_ the charter of Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, who exempted the church and convent from all episcopal jurisdiction. This was in the year 1088, when St. Michael’s Mount was handed over by Robert, Earl of Mortain, half-brother of William the Conqueror, to the Abbey of St. Michel in Normandy. This charter may be seen in Dr. Oliver’s “Monasticon Diocesis Exoniensis,” 1846. The passage copied by William of Worcester from a notice in the church of St. Michael’s Mount occurs at the end of the original charter: “_Et omnibus illis qui illam ecclesiam suis cum beneficiis elemosinis expetierint et visitaverint, tertiam partem penitentiarum condonamus._”

Though it is not quite correct to say that this condonation was granted by Pope Gregory, yet it is perfectly true that it was granted by the Bishop of Exeter at the command and exhortation of the Pope, “_Jussione et exhortatione domini reverentissimi Gregorii_.” The date also given by William, 1070, cannot be correct, for Gregory occupied the papal throne from 1073-86. It was Gregory VII., not Gregory VI., as printed by Dr. Oliver.

Immediately after this memorandum in William’s diary we meet with certain notes on the apparitions of St. Michael. He does not say from what source he takes his information on the subject, but we may suppose that he either repeated what he heard from the monks in conversation, or that he copied from some MS. in their library. In either case it is startling to read that there was an apparition of the Archangel St. Michael in Mount _Tumba_, formerly called _the Horerock in the wodd_. St. Michael seems indeed to have paid frequent visits to his worshippers, if we may trust the “Chronicon apparitionum et gestorum S. Michaelis Archangeli,” published by Mich. Naveus, in 1632. Yet his visits were not made at random, and even Naveus finds it difficult to substantiate any apparition of St. Michael so far north as Cornwall, except by invectives against the _impudenta et ignorantia_ of Protestant heretics who dared to doubt such occurrences.

But this short sentence of William contains one word which is of great importance for our purposes. He says that “the Hore-rock in the wodd” was formerly called _Tumba_. Is there any evidence of this?

The name _Tumba_, as far as we know, belonged originally to Mont St. Michel in Normandy. There a famous and far better authenticated apparition of St. Michael is related to have taken place in the year 708, which led to the building of a church and monastery by Autbert, Bishop of Avranches. The church was built in close imitation of the Church of St. Michael in Mount Garganus in Apulia, which had been founded as early as 493.(91) If, therefore, William of Worcester relates an apparition of St. Michael in Cornwall at about the same date, in 710, it is clear that Mont St. Michel in Normandy has here been confounded by him with St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. In order to explain this strange confusion, and the consequences which it entailed, it will be necessary to bear in mind the peculiar relations which existed between the two ecclesiastical establishments, perched the one on the island rock of St. Michel in Normandy, the other on St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. In physical structure there is a curious resemblance between the two mounts. Both are granite islands, and both so near the coast that at low water a dry passage is open to them from the mainland. The Mount on the Norman coast is larger and more distant from the coast than St. Michael’s Mount, yet for all that their general likeness is very striking. Now Mont St. Michel was called _Tumba_ at least as far back as the tenth century. Mabillon, in his “Annales Benedictini” (vol. ii. p. 18), quotes from an ancient author the following explanation of the name. “Now this place, to use the words of an ancient author, is called _Tumba_ by the inhabitants, because, emerging as it were from the sands like a hill, it rises up by the space of two hundred cubits, everywhere surrounded by the ocean; it is six miles distant from the shore, between the mouths of the rivers Segia and Senuna, six miles distant from Avranches, looking westward, and dividing Avranches from Brittany. Here the sea by its recess allows twice a passage to the pious people who proceed to the threshold of St. Michael the Archangel.” “Hic igitur locus, ut verbis antiqui autoris utar, _Tumba_ vocitatur ab incolis, ideo quod in morem tumuli, quasi ab arenis emergens, ad altum SPATIO DUCENTORUM CUBITORUM porrigitur, OCEANO UNDIQUE CINCTUS, SEX MILLIBUS AB ÆSTU OCEANI, inter ostia situs, ubi immergunt se mari flumina Segia (Sée) et Senuna (Selure), ab Abrincatensi urbe (Avranches) sex distans millibus; oceanum prospectans, Abrincatensem pagum dirimit a Britannia. Illic mare suo recessu devotis populis desideratum bis præbet iter petentibus limina beati Michaelis archangeli.”

This fixes _Tumba_ as the name of Mont St. Michel before the tenth century, for the ancient author from whom Mabillon quotes wrote before the middle of the tenth century, and before Duke Richard had replaced the priests of St. Michel by Benedictine monks. _Tumba_ remained, in fact, the recognized name of the Norman Mount, and has survived to the present day. The church and monastery there were called “_in monte Tumba_,” or “_ad duas Tumbas_,” there being in reality two islands, the principal one called _Tumba_, the smaller _Tumbella_ or _Tumbellana_. This name of _Tumbellana_ was afterwards changed into _tumba Helenæ_, giving rise to various legends about Elaine, one of the heroines of the Arthurian cycle; nay, the name was cited by learned antiquarians as a proof of the ancient worship of Belus in these northern latitudes.

The history of Mont St. Michel in Normandy is well authenticated, particularly during the period which is of importance to us. Mabillon, quoting from the chronicler who wrote before the middle of the tenth century, relates how Autbert, the Bishop of Avranches, had a vision, and after having been thrice admonished by St. Michael, proceeded to build on the summit of the Mount a church under the patronage of the Archangel. This was in 708, or possibly a few years earlier, if Pagius is right in fixing the dedication of the temple in 707.(92) Mabillon points out that this chronicler says nothing as yet of the miracles related by later writers, particularly of the famous hole in the Bishop’s skull, which it was believed St. Michael had made when on exhorting him the third time to build his church, he gently touched him with his archangelic finger. In doing this the finger went through the skull, and left a hole. The perforated skull did not interfere with the Bishop’s health, and it was shown after his death as a valuable relic. The new church was dedicated by Autbert himself, and the day of the dedication (xvii. Kalend. Novemb.) was celebrated, not only in France, but also in England, as is shown by a decree of the Synod held at Oxford in 1222. The further history of the church and monastery of St. Michel may be read with all its minute details in Mabillon, or in the “Neustria Pia” (p. 371), or in the “Gallia Christiana” (vol. ix. p. 517 E, 870 A). What is of interest to us is that soon after the Conquest, when the ecclesiastical property of England had fallen into the hands of her Norman conquerors, Robert, Earl of Mortain and Cornwall, the half-brother of William the Conqueror, endowed the Norman with the Cornish Mount. A priory of Benedictine monks had existed on the Cornish Mount for some time, and had been richly endowed in 1044 by Edward the Confessor. Nay, if we may trust the charter of Edward the Confessor, it would seem that, even at that time, the Cornish Mount and its priory had been granted by him to the Norman Abbey, for the charter is witnessed by Norman bishops, and its original is preserved in the Abbey of Mont St. Michel. In that case William the Conqueror or his half-brother Robert would only have restored the Cornish priory to its rightful owners, the monks of Mont St. Michel, who had well deserved the gratitude of the Conqueror by supplying him after the Conquest with six ships and a number of monks, destined to assist in the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline in England. After that time the Cornish priory shared the fate of other so-called alien priories or cells. The prior was bound to visit in person or by proxy the mother-house every year, and to pay sixteen marks of silver as an acknowledgment of dependence. Whenever a war broke out between England and France, the foreign priories were seized, though some, and among them the priory of St. Michael’s Mount obtained in time a distinct corporate character, and during the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. were exempted from seizure during war.

Under these circumstances we can well understand how in the minds of the monks, who spent their lives partly in the mother-house, partly in its dependencies, there was no very clear perception of any difference between the founders, benefactors, and patrons of these twin establishments. A monk brought up at Mont St. Michel would repeat as an old man the legends he had heard about St. Michel and Bishop Autbert, even though he was ending his days in the priory of the Cornish Mount. Relics and books would likewise travel from one place to the other, and a charter originally belonging to the one might afterwards form part of the archives of another house.

After these preliminary remarks, let us look again at the memoranda which William of Worcester made at St. Michael’s Mount, and it will appear that what we anticipated has actually happened, and that a book originally belonging to Mont St. Michel in Normandy, and containing the early history of that monastery, was transferred (either in the original or in a copy) to Cornwall, and there used by William of Worcester in the belief that it contained the early history of the Cornish Mount and the Cornish priory.

The Memorandum of William of Worcester runs thus: “Apparicio Sancti Michaelis in monte Tumba, antea vocata le Hore-rok in the wodd; et fuerunt tam boscus quarn prata et terra arabilis inter dictum montem et insulas Syllye, et fuerunt 140 ecclesias parochiales inter istum montem et Sylly submersse.

“Prima apparicio Sancti Michaelis in monte Gorgon in regno Apuliae fuit anno Christi 391. Secunda apparicio fuit circa annum domini 710 in Tumba in Cornubia juxta mare.

“Tertia apparicio Romæ fuit; tempore Gregorii papæ legitur accidisse: nam tempore magnæ pestilenciæ, etc.

“Quarta apparicio fuit in ierarchiis nostrorum angelorum.

“Spacium loci mentis Sancti Michaelis est DUCENTORUM CUBITORUM UNDIQUE OCEANO CINCTUM, et religiosi monachi dicti loci. Abrincensis antistes Aubertus nomine, ut in honore Sancti Michaelis construeret ... predictus LOCUS OPACISSIMA PRIMO CLAUDEBATUR SYLVA, AB OCEANO MILIARIBUS DISTANS SEX, aptissimam prasbens latebram ferarum, in quo loco olim comperimus MONACHOS domino servientes.”

The text is somewhat corrupt and fragmentary, but may be translated as follows:—

“The apparition of St. Michael in the Mount Tumba, formerly called the Hore-rock in the wodd; and there were a forest and meadows and arable land between the said mount and the Syllye Isles, and there were 140 parochial churches swallowed by the sea between that mount and Sylly.

“The first apparition of St. Michael in Mount Gorgon in the Kingdom of Apulia was in the year 391. The second apparition was about the year 710, in Tumba in Cornwall by the sea.

“The third apparition is said to have happened at Rome in the time of Pope Gregory: for at the time of the great pestilence, etc.

“The fourth apparition was in the hierarchies of our angels.

“The space of St. Michael’s Mount is 200 cubits; it is everywhere surrounded by the sea, and there are religious monks of that place. The head of Abrinca, Aubertus by name, that he might erect a church(93) in honor of St. Michael. The aforesaid place was at first enclosed by a very dense forest, six miles distant from the ocean, furnishing a good retreat for wild animals. In which place we heard that formerly monks serving the Lord,” etc.

The only way to explain this jumble is to suppose that William of Worcester made these entries in his diary while walking up and down in the Church of St. Michael’s Mount, and listening to one of the monks, reading to him from a MS. which had been brought from Normandy, and referred in reality to the early history of the Norman, but not of the Cornish Mount. The first line, “Apparicio Sancti Michaelis in monte Tumba,” was probably the title or the heading of the MS. Then William himself added, “antea vocata le Hore-rok in the wodd,” a name which he evidently heard on the spot, and which no doubt conveyed to him the impression that the rock had formerly stood in the midst of a wood. For instead of continuing his account of the apparitions of St. Michael, he quotes a tradition in support of the former existence of a forest surrounding the Mount. Only, strange to say, instead of producing the evidence which he produced afterwards in confirmation of St. Michael’s Mount having been surrounded by a dense forest, he here gives the tradition about Lionesse, the sunken land between the Land’s End and the Scylly Isles. This is evidently a mistake, for no other writer ever supposed the sunken land of Lionesse to have reached as far as St. Michael’s Mount.

Then follows the entry about the four apparitions of St. Michael. Here we must read “_in monte Gargano_” instead of “_in monte Gorgon_.” Opinions vary as to the exact date of the apparition in Mount Garganus in the South of Italy, but 391 is certainly far too early, and has to be changed into 491 or 493. In the second apparition, all is right, if we leave out “in Cornubia juxta mare,” which was added either by William or by the monk who was showing him the book. It refers to the well-known apparition of St. Michael at Avranches. The third and fourth apparitions are of no consequence to us.

As we read on, we come next to William’s own measurements, fixing the extent of St. Michael’s Mount at two hundred cubits. After that we are met by a passage which, though it hardly construes, can be understood in one sense only, namely, as giving an account of the Abbey of St. Michel in Normandy. I suppose it is not too bold if I recognize in _Aubertus Autbertus_, and in _Abrincensis antistes_, the _Abrincatensis episcopus_ or _antistes_, the Bishop of Avranches.

Now it is well known that the Mont St. Michel in Normandy was believed to have been originally surrounded by forests and meadows. Du Moustier in the “Neustria Pia” relates (p. 371), “Hæc rupes antiquitus Mons erat cinctus sylvis et saltibus,” “This rock was of old a mount surrounded by forests and meadows.” But this is not all. In the old chronicle of Mont St. Michel, quoted by Mabillon, which was written before the middle of the tenth century, the same account is given; and if we compare that account with the words used by William of Worcester, we can no longer doubt that the old chronicle, or, it may be, a copy of it, had been brought from France to England, and that what was intended for a description of the Norman abbey and its neighborhood was taken, intentionally or unintentionally, as a description of the Cornish Mount. These are the words of the Norman chronicler, as quoted by Mabillon, compared with the passage in William of Worcester:—

_Mont St. Michel._ _St. Michael’s Mount._ “Addit idem auctor hunc “Predictus LOCUS locum OPACISSIMA OLIM OPACISSIMA OLIM SILVA CLAUSUM fuisse, et CLAUDEBATUR Sylva ab MONACHOS IBIDEM oceano miliaribus distans INHABITASSE duasque ad sex, aptissimam præbens suum usque tempus latebram ferarum, in quo exstitisse ecclesias quas loco olim comperimus illi scilicet monachi MONACHOS DOMINO incolebant.” SERVIENTES”.

“The same author adds that this place was formerly inclosed by a very dense forest, and that monks dwelt there, and that two churches existed there up to his own time, which those monks inhabited.”

The words CLAUSUM OPACISSIMA SILVA are decisive. The phrase AB OCEANO MILIARIBUS DISTANS SEX, too, is taken from an earlier passage of the same author, quoted above, which passage may likewise have supplied the identical phrases OCEANO UNDIQUE CINCTUS, and the SPATIUM DUCENTORUM CUBITORUM, which are hardly applicable to St. Michael’s Mount. The “two churches _still_ existing in Mont St. Michel,” had to be left out, for there was no trace of them in St. Michael’s Mount. But the monks who lived in them were retained, and to give a little more life, the wild beasts were added. Even the expression of _antistes_ instead of _episcopus_ occurs in the original, where we read, “Hæc loci facies erat ante sancti Michaelis apparitionem hoc anno factam religiosissimo Autberto Abrincatensi episcopo, admonentis se velle ut sibi in ejus montis vertice ecclesia sub ipsius patrocinio erigeretur. Hærenti ANTISTITI tertio idem intimatum,” etc.

Thus vanishes the testimony of William of Worcester, so often quoted by Cornish antiquarians, as to the dense forest by which St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall was once surrounded, and all the evidence that remains to substantiate the former presence of trees on and around the Cornish Mount is reduced to the name “the Hoar rock in the wood,” given by William, and the Cornish names of _Cara clowse in Cowse_ or _Cara Cowz in Clowze_, given by Carew. How much or how little dependence can be placed on old Cornish names of places and their supposed meaning has been shown before in the case of Marazion. Carew certainly did not understand Cornish, nor did the people with whom he had intercourse; and there is no doubt that he wrote down the Cornish names as best he could, and without any attempt at deciphering their meaning. He was told that “Cara clowse in Cowse” meant the “Hoar rock in the Wood,” and he had no reason to doubt it. Even a very small knowledge of Cornish would have enabled Carew or anybody else at his time to find out that _cowz_ might be meant for the Cornish word for wood, and that _careg_ was rock. _Clowse_ too might easily be taken in the sense of gray, as gray in Cornish was _glos_. Then why should we hesitate to accept _Cara clowse in cowse_ as the ancient Cornish name of the Mount, and why object to Mr. Pengelly’s argument that it must have been given at a time when the Mount was surrounded by a very dense forest, and that _a fortiori_ at that distant period Cornish must have been the spoken language of Cornwall?

The first objection is that the old word for “wood” in Cornish was _cuit_ with a final _t_, and that the change of a final _t_ into _z_ is a phonetic corruption which takes place only in the later stage of the Cornish language. The ancient Cornish _cuit_, “wood,” occurs in Welsh as _coed_, in Armorican as _koat_ and _koad_, and is supposed to exist in Cornish names of places, such as _Penquite_, _Kilquite_, etc. _Cowz_, therefore, could not have occurred in a Cornish name supposed to have been formed at least 2,000 if not 20,000 years ago.

This thrust might, no doubt, be parried by saying that the name of the Mount would naturally change with the general changes of the Cornish language. Yet this is not always the case with proper names, as may be seen by the names just quoted, _Penquite_ and _Kilquite_. At all events, we begin to see how uncertain is the ground on which we stand.

If we take the facts, scanty and uncertain as they are, we may admit that, at the time of William of Worcester, the Mount had most likely a Latin, a Cornish, and a Saxon appellation. It is curious that William should say nothing of a Cornish name, but only quote the Saxon one. However, this Saxon name, “the Hoar rock in the Wood” sounds decidedly like a translation, and is far too long and cumbrous for a current name. _Michelstow_ is mentioned by others as the Saxon name of the Mount (Naveus, p. 233). The Latin name given to the Mount, but only after it had become a dependency of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, was, as we saw from William of Worcester’s diary, _Mons Tumba_ or _Mons Tumba in Cornubia_, and after his time the name of _St. Michael in Tumbâ_ or in _Monte Tumbâ_ is certainly used promiscuously for the Cornish and Norman mounts.(94) Now _tumba_, after meaning hillock, became the recognized name for tomb, and the mediæval Latin _tumba_, too, was always understood in that sense. If, therefore, the name “Mons in tumba” had to be rendered in Cornish for the benefit of the Cornish-speaking monks of the Benedictine priory, _tumba_ would actually be taken in the sense of tomb. One form of the Cornish name, as preserved by Carew, is _Cara cowz in clowze_; and this, if interpreted without any preconceived opinion, would mean in Cornish “the old rock of the tomb.” _Cara_ stands for _carak_, a rock. _Cowz_ is meant for _coz_, the modern Cornish and Armorican form corresponding to the ancient Cornish _coth_, old.(95) _Clowze_ is a modern and somewhat corrupt form in Cornish, corresponding to the Welsh _clawdh_, a tomb. _Cladh-va_, in Cornish, means a burying-place; and _cluddu_, to bury, has been preserved as a Cornish verb, corresponding to the Welsh _cladhu_. In Gaelic, too, _cladh_ is a tomb or burying-place; and in Armorican, which generally follows the same phonetic changes as the Cornish, we actually find _kleuz_ and _klôz_ for tomb or inclosure. (See Le Gonidec, “Dict. Breton-Français,” s. v.) The _en_ might either be the Cornish preposition _yn_, or it may have been intended for the article in the genitive, _an_. The old rock in the tomb, _i.e._ _in tumbâ_, or the old rock of the tomb, Cornish _carag goz an cloz_, would be intelligible and natural renderings of the Latin _Mons in tumba_.

But though this would fully account for the origin of the Cornish name as preserved by Carew, it would still leave the Saxon appellation the “Hore rock in the wodd” unexplained. How could William of Worcester have got hold of this name? Let us remember that William does not mention any Cornish name of the Mount, and that nothing is ever said at his time of the “Hore rock in the wodd” being a translation of an old Cornish name. All we know is that the monks of the Mount used that name, and it is hardly likely that so long and cumbrous a name should ever have been used much by the people in the neighborhood. How the monks of St. Michael’s Mount came to call their place the “Hore rock in the wodd” at the time of William of Worcester, and probably long before his time, is, however, not difficult to explain, after we have seen how they transferred the traditions which originally referred to Mont St. Michel to their own monastery. Having told the story of the “_sylva opacissima_” by which their mount was formerly surrounded to many visitors, as they told it to William of Worcester, the name of the “Hore rock in the wodd” might easily spring up among them, and be kept up within the walls of their priory. Nor is there any evidence that in this peculiar form the name ever spread beyond their walls. But it is possible that here, too, language may have played some tricks. The number of people who used these names and kept them alive can never have been large, and hence they were exposed much more to accidents arising from ignorance and individual caprice than names of villages or towns which are in the keeping of hundreds and thousands of people. The monks of St. Michael’s Mount may in time have forgotten the exact purport of “Cara cowz in clowze,” “the old rock of the tomb,” really the “Mons in tumba;” and their minds being full of the old forest by which they believed _their_ island, like Mont St. Michel, to have been formerly surrounded, what wonder if _cara cowz in clowze_ glided away into _cara clowse in cowze_, and thus came to confirm the old tradition of the forest. For _cowz_ would at once be taken as the modern Cornish word for wood, corresponding to the old Cornish _cuit_, while _clowse_ might, with a little effort, be identified with the Cornish _glos_, gray, the Armorican _glâz_. Carew, it should be observed, sanctions both forms, the original one, _cara cowz in clowze_, “the old rock of the tomb,” and the other _cara clowse in cowze_, meaning possibly “the gray rock in the wood.” The sound of the two is so like that, particularly to the people not very familiar with the language, the substitution of one for the other would come very naturally; and as a reason could more easily be given for the latter than for the former name, we need not be surprised if in the few passages where the name occurs _after Carew’s_ time, the secondary name, apparently confirming the monkish legend of the dense forest that once surrounded St. Michael’s Mount, should have been selected in preference to the former, which, but to a scholar and an antiquarian, sounded vague and meaningless.

If my object had been to establish any new historical fact, or to support any novel theory, I should not have indulged so freely in what to a certain extent may be called mere conjecture. But my object was only to point out the uncertainty of the evidence which Mr. Pengelly has adduced in support of a theory which would completely revolutionize our received views as to the early history of language and the migrations of the Aryan race. At first sight the argument used by Mr. Pengelly seems unanswerable. Here is St. Michael’s Mount, which, according to geological evidence, may formerly have been part of the mainland. Here is an old Cornish name for St. Michael’s Mount, which means “the gray rock in the wood.” Such a name, it might well be argued, could not have been given to the island after it had ceased to be a gray rock in the wood; therefore it must have been given previous to the date which geological chronology fixes for the insulation of St. Michael’s Mount. That date varies from 16,000 to 20,000 years ago. And as the name is Cornish, it follows that Cornish-speaking people must have lived in Cornwall at that early geological period.

Nothing, as I said, could sound more plausible; but before we yield to the argument, we must surely ask, Is there no other way of explaining the names _Cara cowz in clowze_ and _Cara clowse in cowze_? And here we find—