Chapter IV: Part 4

The foregoing fragmentary sketch is not to be regarded as a conclusive proof of the existence of concurrent Cornish bishoprics so late as the eleventh century, but it is intended to call attention to some of the sources from which others may seek the necessary means of forming a judgment for themselves. That the monastery-bishoprics were hard to suppress will be evident to everyone who examines the evidence. That they survived in Cornwall for a much longer period than is generally supposed seems more than probable.

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Footnote 63:

Inventory of Bp. Grandisson.

Footnote 64:

_Exeter Episc. Registers, Stapeldon_, p. 97.

Footnote 65:

Feudal Aids 1303, 1306, 1346.

Footnote 66:

_Episc. Reg. Bronescombe_, App. p. 473.

Footnote 67:

St. Petrock’s hundred had, of course, no connection with Rielton or
Rillaton, subsequently known as the hundred of East. The confusion may
have arisen from the fact that the bailiwick of Pydar was at Rialton,
and that of East at Rillaton, formerly Rielton.

Footnote 68:

Patent Roll, 3 William and Mary.

Footnote 69:

See Monastery-Bishoprics, _supra_.

Footnote 70:

The Patent Roll of 7 Richard II (cf. also _Monasticon_, edited by
Oliver, p. 4) should be compared with the Patent Roll of 9 Richard II.
The former states that Cnut was the founder of the priory of St.
German, while the latter states that Leofric was the founder. Inasmuch
as the charter of Cnut required the land of Landrake to be given after
Burhwold’s death to St. German for the good of the souls of Cnut and
Burhwold (_Terram ... commendat ... Sancto Germano_) it follows that
both statements were (and were probably understood to be) legal
fictions. The earlier document, however, confirms, if confirmation
were needed, the evidence as to the reconstruction of the monastery by
Leofric as given in Domesday Book, though it is not necessarily
conclusive as to the substitution of regular for secular canons. Preb.
Hingeston Randolph (_Architec. Hist. of St. Germans_, p. 31) states
that “there is no reason to suppose that Leofric took any steps to
found a priory at St. Germans.” The statement is far too sweeping. On
the other hand, Mr. Haddan (_Councils_, etc., I, 704) relies upon the
_ipsissima verba_ of the Patent Roll for one of his main arguments for
a single Cornish see in the days of Cnut. By itself the evidence
supplied by an early patent roll relating to a transaction which took
place nearly four centuries previously is not conclusive, especially
when, as in this case, a legal title was needed in order to settle a
dispute, and to place a bishop in undisputed possession of an
advowson.

Footnote 71:

There is a temptation to identify Lanisley with the Lannaledensis of
the _Missa S. Germani_ (Haddan and Stubbs, _Councils_, etc., I, 696).
Alet, or Aleth, and Idles, in the parish of Kenwyn, are regarded as
synonymous, if not identical, in several ancient charters. On the same
principle Lanaleth would become Lanidles, a form sufficiently near
that of Lanisle to convey the idea of identity. But Mr. Haddan is
satisfied that Lanadleth is the British name of St. Germans, and the
confusion introduced by the above supposition would be practically
insurmountable.

Footnote 72:

Eglostudic (St. Tudy) and Polrode belonged to St. Petrock in the time
of the Confessor, and Tinten may have been claimed for Exeter by
virtue of the grant of 909.

Footnote 73:

At a much earlier date (670) St. Wilfrid claimed ecclesiastical
endowments of the British for the Saxon Church in the neighbourhood of
Ripon.

Footnote 74:

Loth, _Les Noms des Saints bretons_, p. 87.

Footnote 75:

Amaneth may be an English equivalent for Anmanach. Treveneage appears
at Trevanek in 1284, and as Trevanaek in 1361.

Footnote 76:

Loth, _Les Noms des Saints bretons_, pp. 52, 53.

Footnote 77:

_Hist. of English Law_, i, 33.

Footnote 78:

The references are to Kilter’s rising in 1549, and to the prolonged
defence of Little Dennis by Sir Richard Vyvyan in 1646.

Footnote 79:

The evidence is indirect. Trengwainton, to which the advowson was
appendant, was itself a sub-manor of Roseworthy in Gwinear. Landithy
is only a short distance from the church.

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VII

CORNISH SAINTS

In the first chapter it has been attempted to show how the tyranny of resemblance and coincidence leads to false analogies and wrong inferences. Some further illustrations of this principle which have a direct bearing upon the main purpose of the present enquiry may be found instructive.

In this chapter we are not so much concerned with the Lives of the Cornish Saints, as they have come down to us, as with the question whether they had any actual existence as human beings at all. Of Ia, Uny, Dennis, Allen, Paul and Berrian it has been stated that “it is more than probable that there was no man in either case. Ia is the Island saint, Uny the Downs saint, Dennis the Hill saint, Paul or Pol the Pool saint,” Buryan or Berrian the saint of Berrie.

But why stop there? Domesday Book supplies us with Eglostudic, Sainguilant and Sainguinas. It is just as easy to imagine places bearing the names of Tudic, Guilant and Guinas as to imagine one bearing the name of Berrie, and quite as good etymology to derive them from Tutton a chair, Guilan a kingfisher and Guenan a blister.

Most will admit that a chair saint is suggestive of saintly pursuits—study and contemplation; many saints have been fishermen; some have suffered from pimples and perhaps have known how to cure them.

Again we have two more ancient parishes one of which occurs in Domesday Book, viz. Eglosros (Philleigh) and Egloshayle, the church on the heath and the church on the estuary, yet no one has ever ventured to describe or to speak of them as the churches of St. Rose and St. Hayle, and for the obvious reason that Cornish saints have not been manufactured in the way that has been suggested.

In choosing Ia, Uny, Dennis, Allen, Paul and Berrian to demonstrate his theory, the critic could hardly have made a more unfortunate selection. With one exception they are all to be found in Brittany.

Ia is said to have been an Irish missionary who came with her brothers Uny and Erth and some others to complete the conversion of the Cornish in the golden age of Celtic Christianity. For our present purpose it is not material to accept the legend, but it is useful to know that Ia is commemorated at St. Ives in Cornwall and in Finistère in Brittany, Erth at St. Erth in Cornwall and at Chittlehampton in Devon, Uny at Lelant and Redruth in Cornwall and at Plevin in Côtes du Nord. St. Dennis (or Denys), his church being situated in the centre of a hill-fort, is the only one whose name seems, at first sight, to lend colour to the new criticism. But to quote Professor Loth, writing on a totally different subject,[80] “it is quite impossible for Dinas by itself to be a man’s name. It is one of the most widely distributed place-names in Cornwall. Dinas in Cornish, as in Welsh, signifies a fortified town.” Assuming that a personage derived his name from the place Dinas we should have Dinan as in Cardinan. St. Dennis or Denys appears to have been the name given to a chapelry of St. Stephen (Etienne) but there is no reason to suppose that it was ancient when it first appears along with that of Caerhayes in the _Inquisitio Nonarum_ (1340) as _Capella Sci. Dionisii_. St. Denys, supposed, but mistakenly, to be identical with Dionysius the Areopagite, was from the seventh century onwards venerated throughout Europe, and it is not remarkable to find him the patron of a chapel in Cornwall in the fourteenth century.

That the name of the site of the chapel may have suggested to its founder a name for its patron saint is quite possible. As late as the seventeenth century the heralds chose St. John Baptist’s head for the arms of Penzance (holy head). There are, in truth, no better grounds for regarding St. Dennis as mythical than St. Stephen to whom his chapel was appendant.

St. Allen, as the presiding saint of the _hail_ or moor, reminds one of some rather irreverent lines by the greatest of Irish poets:

Our preacher prays he may in’erit
The hinspiration of the Spirit.
Oh! grant him also, ’oly Lord,
The haspiration of thy word.

St. Allen is found as St. Alun in the Episcopal Registers. The name occurs in the cartulary of Redon and in Coed-Alun near Carnarvon in Wales. St. Alan is among the disciples of Iltut and is the patron of Corlay (Côtes du Nord). In no instance is the name found with the aspirate, or hail without it.

Pol de Leon is a personage quite as historic as Napoleon. It must rest with the reader to say whether the church in Cornwall which bears his name got it from Gwavas Lake or from the well-known British saint, a disciple of Tutwal, who founded a Breton bishopric, who was a fellow-student of St. Sampson the patron of Golant and who is himself the patron of fifteen parishes, one of which curiously enough is in Cornouaille in Brittany.

Eglosberria remains and this, we are told, is compounded of Eglos and a Cornish place-word presumed to be Berrie. The fact that no such place is now to be found in the parish of St. Buryan does not, of course, prove that in the far remote past there may not have been one. Nor does it concern us much to know that in the parish berries of sorts are abundant, holly berries, elder berries, blackberries and gooseberries; still less to consider whether the last-named berry is indigenous or acclimatised. This is not a treatise on Botany.

Had our critic consulted his reference, Domesday Book, he would have read in the Exchequer redaction, “The Canons of St. Berriona hold Eglosberrie”; in the Exeter book—the original document—under the heading Inquisitio Geldi (1085), “St. Berriana holds a hide of land”; and under the heading Land of St. Berriona the Virgin, “the Canons of St. Berriona hold a manor which is called Eglosberria, which the same Virgin held in the time of King Edward freely” (i.e. free from the payment of dues). The first point to notice is that in every case the name of the saint is trisyllabic, Berrian or Berrion. Berria, the second half of the name of the manor, is probably only a contraction for Berriana made by the earlier scribe and copied by the later. This explanation is placed almost beyond dispute by earlier and later documents concerning the manor and the church. Again it is well known that the letters _b_ and _v_ are, in certain Cornish words, interchangeable as, for example, in Trebean and Trevean. Professor Loth had pointed out to the present writer that Berrian (Buryan) and Verrian (Veryan) were identical, but it was two years before a striking confirmation of his statement was disclosed. A charter dated 1450 was recently handed to me to decipher relating to this very manor of Eglosberrie.

In it the lands were described as those of Eglosveryan. The Domesday record is not only in perfect agreement with, but confirms, the charter of Athelstan, which, in spite of some adverse criticism, probably arising from the fact that it has been copied and attested more than once, is acknowledged to be a trustworthy document, and as such was always regarded whenever the rights and privileges of the royal chapel of St. Buryan were called in question. Veryan and Buryan being identical, it follows that, on the assumption that they are derived from Berrie, a place-name, that place will be found in both parishes. It is found in neither. It is purely mythical.

It may be asked, why devote so much space to a matter of secondary importance? The reason is that here we have to meet an attempt to bring the Celtic saints within the province of comparative mythology, an attempt to show that they were eponymous in somewhat the same sense as Romulus, Cypris, Pallas Athene and Ceres (as representing Siculus) were the genii and afterwards the presiding deities over Rome, Cyprus, Athens and Sicily. It is useless to deny the assertion that “the Church history of Cornwall before the Norman Conquest is chiefly a matter of legendary lore” and that “the cult of the sun was that of Cornwall not a thousand years ago” unless we have something to say in support of our denial.

Let us therefore carry the argument a little further—let us suppose that the topological origin of the saints is the true one; let us suppose that there is indisputable evidence, gathered in Cornwall, in its favour; in other words, that the Cornish saints are local divinities; how will it fare with them when their votaries have crossed the seas? Will the Island which gives its name to St. Ives, will the Downs of Lelant, the Hail (deprived of its aspirate), the Dinas of Mid-Cornwall and Gwavas Lake win Armorican devotion? Or conversely, assuming the saints to have been of Armorican manufacture, will they appeal to the devotional instincts of the Cornish? Or must we assume that there was a sacred island at Plouyé, a sacred downs at Plevin, a sacred pool at Léon and a sacred Berrie at Berrien and Lan-verrien in Finistère? It is as difficult to imagine an affirmative answer being returned to any of these questions as St. Thomas Aquinas found it to believe that a religious could tell a lie, and therefore, according to his biographer, more difficult to believe than that an ox could fly. The Celtic saints were not eponymous, but men of like passions with us, who lived their lives, told their story, impressed their contemporaries and were gathered to their fathers, men honoured in their generation and the glory of their times.

This leads to a brief notice of their biographies. The subject is not free from difficulty. It requires a rearrangement of thoughts, a re-focussing of ideas. The Lives of the Saints do not conform to ordinary standards or respond to ordinary appeals.

They are not plain, unvarnished accounts of simple earnest men written by their contemporaries, but, in their present form, they are for the most part highly coloured stories addressed not to the intellect but to the imagination. They are not always free from anachronisms. The ideals of their writers are not ours to-day.

They abound in the miraculous. They are adorned after a common pattern peculiarly their own. They draw largely upon Holy Scripture. Incidents related of one saint are sometimes transferred to another. Similarities of expression are found in them, perhaps pointing to a common origin or authorship. In short, all the elements which provoke adverse criticism are found in them.

And yet, making due allowance for the mentality of those who wrote and those who read them, there is no sufficient reason for impugning the veracity of the writers, much less for despising them.[81] They were neither deceivers nor deceived. The hagiographer had probably as great a regard for truth as his modern critics, but he knew nothing of the canons of literary excellence. He had never heard of “nature unadorned”; but he knew, just as we know, how banal and commonplace are the lives of many of the best men and women who have lived and worked for others, and he strove to portray them in colours which might make them interesting to a generation whose intelligence, so far as religion was concerned, had been chiefly moulded by Holy Scripture. He recognised analogies and emphasised them. He was conversant with the main facts and knew how impressive had been the personality and the life of his hero, but he had not, like Boswell, followed him about with a note-book. He was himself an impressionist and by no means sparing of his paint, one whose work doubtless won the approval of the age in which he lived. He had no message for succeeding ages.

At the same time only ignorance or prejudice will place all hagiographers on the same level or refuse to take account of alleged facts, even when they are concealed underneath an intolerable deal of fanciful adornment.

In some cases the Lives of the Saints, as presented by their authors, possess real historical value. Those of Sampson, Paul Aurelian, Winwaloe, Tutwal and Malo (Machutus) fall within this category.[82] The life of St. Sampson drawn up, according to Mgr. Duchesne, towards the end of the seventh century, of which the earliest and most valuable MS. is of the eleventh century, will repay diligent study.[83] It has a direct and important bearing upon monastery-bishoprics, and ought to possess a special interest for the people of Cornwall whose forefathers profited by St. Sampson’s ministry. The biography, as we should expect, contains its full share of miracles, but is, nevertheless, characterised by veracity in those statements which relate to the saint’s parentage, private life, travels and career. The picture is a true picture, however much we may dislike the method of treatment. The landing of the saint near Padstow, his sojourn at St. Kew, his destruction of the pagan idol in the hundred of Trigg and other details are all related and the topographical knowledge of the writer has been shown to be accurate.[84] It is doubtful, however, whether, at the present stage of historical research, it is possible for those, who are most competent to form a judgment of the value of the evidence afforded by the Lives of the Saints, to do so dispassionately and impartially owing to the antagonism which is provoked by the extraordinary play of fancy on the part of their writers.

That some of them possess historical value is proved by a Life the earliest MS. of which is comparatively recent. In the life of St. Petrock the text of which is not earlier than the fifteenth century it is stated that “Petrock, after visiting his compatriot St. Sampson, betook himself _ad cellam Wethnoci episcopi_. A little further on we read _unde etiam lingua gentis illius Landuuethmoch_ (for Lannwethnoc) _adhuc usque hodie dicitur_. Now Lannwethnoc presents itself in Domesday Book under the forms of Lanwehenoc (wrongly written Lanwenahoc) and Lan-guihenoc.”[85]

The remarkable thing is that a fifteenth-century writer should have recorded two facts which were as little known at the time when he wrote as they are to the generality of English readers to-day; the first, that in the days of St. Petrock a bishop might have been found occupying a cell, living as a monk or hermit, though not necessarily living alone; and the second, that there was in pre-Norman times a place bearing the name of Languihenoc, both of which are placed beyond dispute by the evidence given us in the chapter on Monastery-Bishoprics and by the testimony of Domesday Book. It surely requires an imagination of wider scope to believe that the writer was not transcribing or interpreting an authentic document than to accept the most fantastic legends of Celtic saints. The service rendered to research is twofold: it witnesses to the historicity of the Life even if it does not establish the reputation of its writer, and it adds one more to our list of Celtic bishops in the person of Guethnoc, who as Gwethnoc is honoured in Finistère and elsewhere in Brittany.

At this point it seems convenient to summarise the results of our survey. It has been maintained that coincidence and resemblance have been invested with an importance disproportionate to their real value, that where coincidence has been claimed for the purpose of discrediting traditional doctrine it has often proved as illusory as the rainbow, that resemblance unsupported by other evidence has proved to be imaginary or superficial, that in the case of the Cornish saints, whose names have been supposed to resemble place-names, there is nothing to warrant the suspicion that they are eponymous, that the Lives of the Saints as they have come down to us must be estimated in the light of the mentality of the writers and readers of them, that, however ornate or barbaric they may be considered to be, when they record ordinary events the statements are worthy of investigation and often of historical value, and that a comparatively modern life of a saint may afford evidence of the substantial accuracy of the facts which it records.

It may not unreasonably be asked what then is the attitude to be observed towards those students of comparative mythology who endeavour to find a common origin for all religions by studying religious phenomena? There is no reason why it should not be friendly or even helpful. But, whatever may be the final verdict of that study, its present value will be generally determined by psychology rather than by logic. The man who starts with a theory, whether in favour of a common origin of religious belief or with one opposed to a common origin, will probably find enough evidence to confirm his theory. Darwins are not born every day; yet there is no hope which is more widely shared or more secretly cherished by those who give themselves to mythological research than the hope that they are at least potential Darwins. The desire to be scientific, that is, to reduce to system an array of facts, vastly preponderates over the desire to ascertain the accuracy of certain alleged facts and their relation to other facts of a similar nature. It is possible to accept the statement that worship originated in sacrifice, in the attempt to propitiate an offended deity, and to deduce conclusions diametrically opposed to each other. To the Catholic Christian it will perhaps be a substantial aid to faith, to the Protestant an encouragement to discard the errors of paganism, to the unbeliever a confirmation of unbelief. The subject—only as yet in its infancy—can hardly be ignored. At the same time its ramifications cover so much ground that comparatively few can be expected to acquire sufficient knowledge to be in a position to judge of its conclusions. Archæology, philology, ethnology, ancient philosophy, theology and mythology are only some of the departments of a study which aims at determining the origins of religious belief. Who then is sufficient for these things? He has yet to be born.

Cornwall, with its large admixture of Celtic blood, until lately speaking a Celtic language, inheriting a Celtic tradition, for centuries in close contact with Brittany, might have been expected to furnish materials enabling the student to differentiate the quality of its religious belief and practice from that of the Midlands. To accept the same creed is not necessarily to hold the same belief or to have the same religious ideal. Each people has doubtless its own instinctive beliefs which may or may not find a place in the creed which is professed. If those beliefs do find a place in it they will find emphasised expression in the popular worship. The appeal of Wesley in the eighteenth century struck home to the instinctive beliefs of the Cornish. In spite of the marked progress of Anglicanism during the last half-century the Cornish are largely Methodists, whose worship is still conducted in buildings which usually have as little claim to beauty as a railway station. They have no stereotyped form of service, no liturgy which lends itself to musical adornment. The hospitals and other charitable institutions in the county have in many cases been built and are mainly supported by others. And yet the Cornish possess a keen sense of beauty. They are musical, refined and generous. In skill and intelligence they will bear comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom. They are open-minded, fond of discussion and never tired when it takes a religious turn. Their nearest kinsmen in blood are the Bretons, with whom they have much in common, although in the matter of religious practice they are as far as the poles apart. While the latter cling with unrivalled devotion to the old religion, the former spend much time, like the men of Athens, in telling or hearing some new thing. Methodism on the old lines is moribund in Cornwall; Catholicism on the old lines is a living and a growing power in Brittany. During the last quarter of a century a remarkable change has passed over the face of Cornish nonconformity. Revivals have almost become things of the past. Conversion, theoretically the starting-point of Methodist religion, is no longer required to be sudden. The class meeting has lost much of its attractiveness. There is less reverence for the Holy Scriptures. Many of the old doctrines are being recast. Methodism is in a state of transition. The drift is towards rationalism, but the end is not yet in sight. Under these circumstances it is not easy to form a right judgment or to forecast the future of Cornish Methodism, but to one who has spent twenty-five years in its midst and who knows how deeply and instinctively religious is the character of the people it would seem that at a no distant date there will be a _volte-face_, in other words, that the essentially religious instinct will reassert itself. Two alternatives may supervene. There may be a return to the Catholic faith, Anglican or Roman, of which there are already signs or there may be recourse to Christian Science, Spiritualism or some occult system which attracts by its novelty and promises to satisfy religious craving. Rationalism, which may suit the Teutonic race and be a substitute for religion, is impossible to the emotional God-fearing temper of the Celt.

-----

Footnote 80:

_Romans de la Table ronde_, p. 90.

Footnote 81:

To quote M. Loth, whose gentle irony would be spoiled by translation,
in his answer to M. Fawtier’s criticism: “Il (M. Fawtier) a été
évidemment, d’avance, fâcheusement impressionné par le fait même
d’avoir affaire à un _hagiographe et ce qui plus est_, comme il
l’avoue sans détour _à un hagiographe breton_. Si nos hagiographes
méritent une place d’honneur dans le martyrologe de la critique, c’est
peut-être bien que nos vies de saints sont d’une assez basse époque:
la vie de Samson mise à part, les deux plus anciennes ont été rédigées
vers la fin du ix^e siècle.”

Footnote 82:

J. Loth, _Revue Celtique_, xxii, p. 96.

Footnote 83:

The text has been edited by M. Fawtier and published by MM. Champion
(Paris). The reader should consult also the more critical notes on _S.
Samson de Dol_, by Prof. Loth (Champion, Paris) and if possible a very
illuminating little treatise, _La vie de S. Samson_, by M. L’Abbé
Duine.

Footnote 84:

Loth, _Saint Samson de Dol_, p. 26.

Footnote 85:

See the previous footnote.

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VIII

ANCIENT RELIGIOUS HOUSES

A brief survey of the monastic and quasi-monastic foundations is required in order to determine if possible which of them, if any, were originally Celtic in character. It will suffice to take the _Monasticon_, as edited by Dr. Oliver, and to examine the charters and notes respecting the several houses and to check them by means of such other records as are available. Neither Sir William Dugdale nor Dr. Oliver distinguished between institutions which were Celtic and institutions which were the common heritage of Western Christianity.

If a monastery existed before the Norman Conquest their main purpose was to trace it back, if possible, beyond that date, and, having done this, to record its fortunes as it fared forth through the centuries which followed. This purpose they achieved by printing in chronological order all its charters, whether preserved as chirographs or as inspeximi[86] derived from Charter and Patent Rolls. The following list comprises all the Cornish religious foundations given in the _Monasticon_:

St. Petrock’s (Bodmin) Priory.
St. German’s Priory.
St. Michael’s (Mount) Priory.
St. Stephen’s (Launceston) Priory.
St. Buryan Collegiate Church.
St. Crantock Collegiate Church.
St. Cyricus, or St. Cyriacus, Priory.
St. Probus Prebendal Church.
St. Keverne Collegiate Church.
St. Piran Collegiate Church.
Minster or Talkarn Priory.
Scilly Priory.
Tregony Priory.
Tywardreath Priory.
St. Anthony, Cell of Plympton.
St. Michael of Lammana Cell.
Truro Convent.
Endellion Collegiate Church.
Glasney Collegiate Church.
St. Michael’s (Penkevil) Collegiate Church.
St. Teath Collegiate Church.
Helston Hospital of St. John the Baptist.
Liskeard Lazar-house.

Of the twenty-three religious houses enumerated the first nine are mentioned in Domesday Book, which also mentions the priests of St. Neot, the lands of St. Constantine and of St. Goran and the honour of St. Che (_Honor St. Chei_). There are also a few churches which call for examination like those of St. Kew, Mawnan and Manaccan whose religious character is omitted in both. Languihenoc and Gerrans have been already considered. It is obvious that to give a full and complete review of all of them would require not a chapter but a volume.

Before attempting to deal with the subject, within even the narrowest possible limits, we may profitably ask ourselves what courses were open to the members of monastic communities, which had been in the ascendant until the Saxon Conquest of Cornwall, in order that they might come into line with the new ecclesiastical régime? Three courses presented themselves. The first was to allow themselves to be disbanded as the regular clergy were compelled to be at the time of Henry’s reformation; the second was to conform to the rules of one or other of the recognised western orders and to become affiliated to it; the third was to transform their convents of regular clergy into colleges or collegiate churches of secular clergy. No doubt there was a strong conservative party who resisted all change, otherwise it would be difficult to understand the spoliation of which there are traces during the Saxon period and of which after the Norman Conquest there is abundant proof in Domesday Book. Of the three courses which have been suggested the third seems to have been favoured under the Saxons and the second under the Normans.

Taking the nine monastic bodies which stand at the head of the foregoing list in order, it will suffice to say that after serving as the seat of an abbot-bishop the monastery of St. Petrock probably became collegiate and parochial. In Domesday Book it is always referred to as St. Petrock or the Church of St. Petrock. The date of its reconstruction as a monastery is obscure. There does not appear to be any evidence to show to which of the religious orders it belonged until the _Ordinatio_ of the Priory by Bishop Grandisson in 1347, in which it is ordained that the prior and convent shall celebrate the Divine Office and observe vigil, fast, silence and prayer according to the rule of Blessed Augustine. Long before that date it had therefore doubtless become a convent of the Black Canons. Sir John Maclean expressly states, though on what authority I have not been able to discover, that it was Bishop William Warelwast (1107-1136) who settled therein regular canons of St. Augustine. In the _Taxatio_ of the vicarage, by Bishop Bronescombe in 1269, the vicar was assigned, as a part of his emolument, the victuals (_liberacionem_) of one canon.

The monastery of St. Germans was served by secular canons before the Norman Conquest. Bishop Leofric (1046-1073) removed them and introduced canons regular. In 1270 Bishop Bronescombe ordered the excommunication of certain persons concerning whom he vouchsafes no particulars save that they were _Sathane satellites, proprie salutis immemores_ and that they had expelled those whom he had sent to take charge of the priory during the vacancy caused by the death of Richard the late prior. His letter is valuable because it affords evidence that the bishop of Exeter claimed absolute power over the priory and its possessions so long as there was no prior appointed, and apparently the right of confirming the prior’s appointment.

Of St. Michael’s Mount some particulars will be found in Chapter X.

The church of St. Stephen by Launceston was like that of St. German served by secular canons at the time of the Domesday Survey. By Bishop William Warelwast (1107-1138) to whom Ralph the dean of St. Stephens had surrendered the deanery it was made an Augustinian priory and so remained until the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII. Harassed and despoiled by Robert Count of Mortain in the years which followed the Norman Conquest, under the fostering care of Reginald Earl of Cornwall (1140-1175) and Richard King of the Romans (1225-1272), it soon became the wealthiest of the religious houses in Cornwall. The relations between the parochial church of St. Stephen and the priory are somewhat obscure. The church was taxed independently of the priory in 1291, but in the _Inquisitio nonarum_ of 1346 the church was assessed at £10, of which 40s. was chargeable to the prior.

The collegiate church of St. Buryan is undoubtedly an early instance of the conversion of a Celtic monastery to a recognised English type. King Athelstan by charter gave a small piece of his land in a place which is called the church of St. Berrian ... to be free of all taxation unless the clerks who had promised him their prayers, viz. 100 masses, 100 psalters and daily supplications failed, to perform their task. The place which is called the church of St. Berrian was evidently Eglosberria or Eglosveryan, of which we have already spoken. In later times it was advantageous to the dean and his fellows to cite Athelstan as their founder and their church as a royal chapel. All that the Saxon King did for them was probably to guarantee to them security of tenure for the lands which they already held and freedom from payment of geld.

The Canons of St. Crantock who held the manor of Langorock at the time of the Survey (1086) also survived the various changes made in the constitution of their community until their dissolution in 1536. Robert, Count of Mortain, had already seized their lands when the Survey was made. His son, Count William, founded the Cluniac house at Montacute in Somerset, and to it he is said to have given the church of St. Crantock. It is certain that in 1236 the prior of Montacute transferred the church and its possessions to William Briwer, bishop of Exeter. The bishop thenceforth became patron of the deanery and prebends. In 1291 there were on the foundation a dean and nine prebendaries. St. Crantock had become a typical collegiate church. The several stages through which it passed leave no doubt that as Langorock it had established its claim to considerate treatment by Saxon and Norman alike.

Of St. Keverne we learn from Domesday Book that the canons of St. Achebran had one manor which was called Lannachebran, which the same saint had held in the Confessor’s time. There is, however, evidence of its quasi-prebendal character more than a century before the Survey was made.[87] By Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, the church was given to the abbot and convent of Beaulieu for the good of his own soul and that of King John his father.[88] The vicarage was taxed by Bishop Bronescombe, in 1260, very unfavourably to the vicar, there being assigned to the abbot and convent of Beaulieu more than five-sixths of the income. Leland, writing about the year 1530, states that near “The Paroch church of S. Keveryn otherwise Piranus,” there is a sanctuary with ten or twelve dwelling houses and hard by “there was a sel of monkes but now gonn home to ther Hed Hows.” These monks were doubtless Cistercians from Beaulieu who, for some reason or another, had been temporarily resident in the parish. The appropriation of the church by Earl Richard, and its taxation by Bishop Bronescombe, had left it a rather poorly endowed vicarage, of which the patronage and greater tithes belonged to Beaulieu. That Lannachebran was originally Celtic and monastic does not admit of doubt.

The account supplied by Domesday Book respecting St. Pieran (Perranzabuloe) is very illuminating. “The Canons of St. Pieran,” so the statement runs, “have a manor called Lanpiran, which in the time of King Edward they held freely.... From this manor have been taken away two manors which in the time of King Edward rendered to the Canons of St. Pieran four weeks’ farm (_firmam iii septimanarum_). Of these manors Berner holds one of the Count. And from the other hide which Odo holds of St. Pieran the Count has taken away all the stock (_pecuniam_). These two manors rendered to the Dean by way of custom 20s. in addition to the said farm (_firmam_).” The first of these two manors was that of Tregebri, which elsewhere in Domesday Book is described as being “of the honour[89] of St. Perann.” The Count of Mortain took from both all that had formerly belonged to the saint. Dean and canons were swept away at an early date and the church given by Henry I to the dean and chapter of Exeter. When the vicarage was taxed in 1269, to the vicar was assigned the altarage of the mother church of St. Piran and of the chapel, together with all the offerings derived from the exposition of the relics, the vicar rendering a yearly tribute of six marks to the dean and chapter. The relics referred to were those of St. Piran the founder of the church, concerning which some interesting particulars are supplied in an inventory of the year 1281. Among other treasures mention is made of a reliquary in which is kept the head of St. Pyeran, with the rest of the relics secured with iron and a lock, a hearse in which the body of Pyeran is placed for processions, a tooth of St. Brendan and a tooth of St. Martin within a silver box, also a pastoral staff of St. Pyeran adorned with silver and gold and precious stones. Two centuries later when making St. Agnes parochial, the bishop ordained that if the parishioners of St. Pyran should bring the saint’s relics to St. Agnes in procession as formerly, on Rogation Tuesday, they should receive honourable welcome and the oblations presented in the chapel of St. Agnes according to custom.

There has been much doubt concerning the identity of St. Piran. From the inventory of 1281 it would seem that at that time he was identified with St. Kieran of Saighir in Ireland, otherwise it would be difficult to account for the presence at Perranzabuloe of relics of St. Brendan, the friend to whom the saint sent a supply of milk in the form of a milch cow, and of those of St. Martin the founder of churches in Ossory, St. Kieran’s native county, a person so highly esteemed by the saint that he extracted a promise from him that when they died they should be buried in the same grave. It is certain that in the thirteenth century, and a fortiori in the eleventh century, the foundation of St. Piran was regarded as Celtic and that the church claimed to have in its custody the crozier of its episcopal founder.

“The canons of St. Probus have one manor which is called Lanbrabois (Lamprobus. _Exch. D._) which King Edward held at the time of his death.” Such is the testimony of Domesday Book. The name of the manor suggests a monastic origin, but nothing whatever appears to be known of the saint or of the founder of the prebendal church. Had St. Edward been the founder it is probable that some use would have been made of the circumstance by succeeding generations. King John confirmed the grants of the church made by his ancestor (_avi_) Henry I and by his father Henry II to the bishop and cathedral church of Exeter.[90] By Bishop Briwer it was appropriated to the office of treasurer of the cathedral, together with the patronage of the five prebends, but the patronage was subsequently transferred to Bishop Bronescombe and exercised by him and his successors until the suppression of the prebends by Edward VI.

Having briefly considered the religious houses—using that term in its widest sense—concerning which mention is made in Domesday Book, it is worth while to pass on to those whose endowments either excited not the rapacity of the Norman, or were too slender to find a place in the Great Survey, and to those which were evidently founded after the Norman Conquest. Taking them in the order already indicated, we have the five establishments dignified by the name of priories.

The priory of St. Cyricus or St. Cyriacus in the parish of St. Veep is stated by Lysons to have been founded by William Count of Mortain, but no authority is quoted for the statement. In 1236 Bishop Briwer wishing to relieve the church of St. Nonn (probably the neighbouring church of Pelynt) from a yearly charge of six marks, four shillings and three pence heretofore payable to the little cell (_cellula_) of St. Cyricus, granted to the latter out of the revenues of his see a yearly payment of five marks. The cell was affiliated to the Cluniac priory of Montacute in the county of Somerset and was for a long time in the patronage of the family of that name. It is futile to speculate respecting its origin, and it is not safe to say that it was of Saxon or Norman origin, for St. Carreuc is found in three Breton parishes.[91]

The priory of Minster or Talkarn described as the church of St. Merthian of Laminster was, somewhere about the year 1130, given by William, son of Nicholas (Botreaux), to the monks of the Benedictine abbey of St. Sergius at Angers. Here again we have monastic associations suggested by the locality of the priory. Laminster was apparently already a place-name when the gift was made little more than half a century after the Norman Conquest. The priory, by reason of its connection with the French abbey, was suppressed during the fourteenth century.

The priory or cell of St. Nicholas, situated on the island of Tresco, Scilly, was probably Celtic in origin. The Charter of Henry I granting to the abbot and church of Tavistock and to its monk Turold, the churches and land in Scilly uses the following words to limit and describe the tenure of the land—it is to be held “just as the monks or rather hermits (_monachi aut heremite melius_) held it in the time of King Edward of Burgald bishop of Cornwall.”

Tavistock was a Benedictine abbey founded in the latter half of the tenth century. The rule of St. Benedict was broad and elastic, and monasteries could and did embrace it without parting entirely with their traditions.[92] It was, in fact, the only rule recognised in England during the whole of the Saxon period. Admitting all this the phrase “monks or rather hermits,” is so studiously vague as to imply a doubt as to whether the brothers had in the Confessor’s day submitted to any recognised rule whatever. It is certain that while bringing them into a closer relationship with Tavistock the King intended to enforce a stricter discipline, otherwise his further provision that they should, like “the King’s own prebendaries” have his peace and protection, would have been unnecessary. The King does not confirm any supposed charter of Athelstan or of Edward, but gives the religious community at Scilly to the abbey at Tavistock, and, apart from the reference to the latter King, there is nothing to lead us to regard the monks as Benedictine or as affiliated to the abbey until Henry’s charter was granted. As a cell of Tavistock, the Scilly monastery appears to have existed until the suppression of the mother house, but little is known of it subsequent to the middle of the fifteenth century.

Tregony Priory. At an early date the churches of St. James, Tregony, and of St. Cuby, appear to have accepted the rule of St. Augustine and to have been constituted a cell of the abbey of de Valle in Normandy. When and by whom this appropriation was made is unknown, but it is certain that it was made after the Norman Conquest. In the year 1278 Bishop Bronescombe gave his sanction to the transfer of the priory of Tregony to the priory of Merton in the county of Surrey. This was in furtherance of an arrangement between the prior of Merton and the abbot of de Valle, whereby the possessions of the former in the diocese of Bayeux were exchanged for those of the latter in England. Bishop Quivel confirmed the sanction of his predecessor in 1282, and until the dissolution of the religious houses the cell, which had become a vicarage, belonged to the monastery of Merton.

Of Tywardreath Priory little need be said here. At the time of the Domesday Survey, Tywardreath was one of the thirty manors in Cornwall which had been given by the Conqueror to Richard Fitz Turold. By Richard the priory was founded and affiliated to the great Benedictine abbey of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at Angers. The list of charters recording successive endowments is exceptionally complete, and for genealogical purposes the charters are of very great value, but they afford no suggestion of a pre-Norman foundation.

The cell of St. Anthony in Roseland represented a survival of an order of things of which we have little recorded evidence. In the thirteenth century it derived its main support from the church of St. Gerrans. In the _Taxatio_ of Pope Nicholas IV the prior of St. Anthony is assessed at the same amount for his portion in the church of St. Gerrans as the rector himself. A little more than a century later, in the _Inquisitio nonarum_, St. Anthony is described as a chapel (_capella_) of St. Gerrans. Such information as we have points to a quasi-monastic establishment of St. Gerrans, followed by a parish church at Gerrans and a small monastery at St. Anthony. The latter was made, at an early date, dependent on the Augustinian priory of Plympton, and in the earlier half of the sixteenth century consisted of two canons.

The Cell of St. Michael of Lammana, situated in the parish of Talland opposite Looe Island, which formed a portion of its possessions, was given by John de Solenny in the twelfth century to the Benedictine abbey of Glastonbury. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, granted to the abbot a licence to farm out its revenues, and this probably accounts for the scant information supplied by the public records respecting the cell. The name Lammana points to Celtic monasticism.

The Convent of the Preaching Friars at Truro throws no light upon the subject before us. The friars first came to England in the year 1221. It is a striking proof of the rapidity with which the order spread that Bishop Bronescombe should have dedicated their church at Truro in 1259.

The origin of the Collegiate Church of Endellion is obscure. In 1273 the rectory belonged to the prior and convent of Bodmin; in 1342 Bodmin or King’s prebend belonged to the same; in 1265 Marny’s prebend belonged to the family of Bodrugan, and in 1266 Trehaverock prebend belonged to the family of Modret. The parish of Endellion was not in St. Petrock’s hundred of Pawton, nor do any of its three Domesday manors appear to have belonged to the saint. It would therefore seem as if the advowson or a moiety of it had been given to the priory after its reconstitution on English lines. In any case it would be rash to claim a pre-Norman origin for Endellion Collegiate Church.

The similar establishment at Glasney, near Penryn, owed its foundation to Bishop Bronescombe, who in 1267 consecrated the church of St. Thomas the Martyr and its churchyard. Glasney was an entirely new college, not the rehabilitation of an earlier institution, and on that account it does not enter into the present enquiry.[93]

The church of St. Michael Penkevil was made collegiate in 1319, as the result of the benefaction of Sir John de Trejagu. It was to be administered by an archpriest and three fellows who were to live under the same roof and to dine at the same table. It had no early monastic associations.

The date of the erection of St. Teath into a Collegiate Church is more obscure. Between the years 1258 and 1264 Bishop Bronescombe founded two prebends in St. Teath church, and, inasmuch as the number of prebends does not appear ever to have exceeded two, it is probable that the church owed its prebendal character solely to the bishop.

The Hospital of St. John the Baptist at Helston and the Lazar house at Liskeard, being comparatively modern foundations, need not be examined.

Reference has been made to three churches or religious houses—it is not clear which is the appropriate term—which are mentioned in Domesday Book, but which are omitted in the _Monasticon_.

In the former document it is stated that St. Constantine has half a hide of land which in the time of King Edward was free of all service, but since the Count of Mortain received the land it has always rendered geld unjustly like villeins’ land. This land, known as the manor of Tucoyes, was bestowed upon Wihumar and henceforth lost to the Church. The exemption from geld implies a monastic foundation, but no other trace of monastic origin has been found in connection with the church of St. Constantine.

Of St. Neot it is stated that the saint held a manor called Neotstou, consisting of two hides of land in the time of the Confessor, Godric being the priest in charge, and that the Count of Mortain has despoiled the priests of all their land save one (Cornish) acre. It is also stated that the two hides of land have never rendered geld. Monastic the church of St. Neot undoubtedly was, but in this case we have trustworthy historical evidence to prove that it was not Celtic but Saxon. St. Neot had himself founded the house in Saxonised territory. No trace of its original character is to be found in later documents. It would therefore seem that it had already become (in 1086) purely parochial.

The honour of St. Cheus or Che, of which the manor of Tremaruustel was a member at the time of the Domesday Survey, has hitherto resisted all attempts at identification. It probably represents a moribund and extinct monastic holding of considerable extent.

The Domesday manor of St. Mawnan (wrongly written Maiuian or Mawan in both copies) had fallen into the King’s hand before the Conquest. But the church of St. Mawnan is referred to in many subsequent translations under the name of Minster, which suggests a monastic origin.

Manaccan, the monks’ church, calls for no comment.

A very interesting and convincing example of the conversion of a purely Celtic monastic house to English uses is supplied by St. Kew. On linguistic grounds alone Professor Loth arrived at the conclusion that Docco, the monastery where St. Sampson made the acquaintance of St. Winniau, was St. Kew. An examination of the various forms under which the church is described in the Episcopal Registers revealed the forms Landoho, Lanho and Lanow. A Patent Roll of 1307 furnished the following statements, viz. that King Edgar (958-975) gave to the canons of Plympton two carucates of land, 100s. of rent in Landoho and the church there for the support of two canons celebrating divine service there and dispensing alms and hospitality to the poor, to pilgrims and other guests, that in a case tried before John de Berewyk and other justices (circa 1300) it was shown that the prior and convent of Plympton had failed to fulfil the above conditions and that, taking into account all the circumstances, the King now (1307) grants to the prior and convent the right to substitute a secular vicar and chaplain for the two canons at Landoho.

An examination of the Plympton charters showed that Henry I gave the church of Tohou to William Warelwast, bishop of Exeter, and that he gave the church to the priory of canons regular which he founded at Plympton in the year 1121. No one can doubt that Tohou and Docco are variants of the same word, which is found in Brittany as Tohou and Ohou. It is not difficult to follow the various acts of spoliation. King Edgar evidently reduced the patrimony of the Celtic monastery to the amount specified above while retaining the manor of Landoho, which until the Norman Conquest embraced the manors of Poundstock and St. Gennys. The three manors passed as an undivided whole to Earl Harold as demesne lands. By the Conqueror they were given to the Count of Mortain. Henry I claimed the remaining revenue of the monks and gave it to the bishop who transferred it to Plympton priory. Edgar’s gift to Plympton was a legal fiction which enabled the priory to evade responsibilities which were implied in the charter of Henry I and explicitly stated in that of Henry II when canons regular were substituted for secular canons.[94]

In brief, St. Kew was the site of an important Celtic monastery which, visited by St. Sampson in the days of St. Winniau, despoiled by King Edgar and stripped bare by Henry I, nevertheless retained some semblance of its ancient glory until the latter half of the thirteenth century.