Chapter V: Part 5

Here also was the rendezvous of the Cornish rebels under Humphrey Arundell, Esq. anno 3 Edward VI. who pitched their camp upon Castle Kynock aforesaid, and imprisoned such gentlemen as would not willingly ride with them, till the King’s forces vanquished the one, and delivered the other, at and near Exeter. (See St. Hillary.)

Now Sir Anthony Kingston, Provost Martial of the King’s Army, coming from Exeter to do justice in Cornwall according to the law of arms against such rebels as had escaped thence, executed Thomas Boyeer, the mayor of this town, and the miller’s man, is set forth in Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 124 (p. 292 of Lord Dunstanville’s Edition).

In this parish is St. Laurence, so called from the chapel dedicated to his guardianship. The name is derived from the Latin words, laureat and ensis, that is, a laureat sword, or a sword of triumph. St. Laurence was a native of Osca, in Spain, born about the year 280. He received holy orders from St. Xysten, who was raised to the chair of St. Peter in 257. During the persecution by the Emperor Valerian, St. Laurence, finding that not even the sacred vestments nor the decorations of the church were safe from profane hands, availed himself of the office of chief deacon, which he then held, to dispose of the whole, and to distribute the wealth thus acquired among the indigent of his spiritual brethren. This having been made known to the Prefect of Rome, a man devoted to the worship of false gods, but more, as the biographer observes, to the adoration of silver and gold, he demanded from St. Laurence the riches of the church, who promised in three days to produce them; and on the third day he returned with the poor persons among whom their value had been divided. When the Prefect, transported with rage, is said to have ordered his destruction by the most cruel death. The legend reports him to have been fastened on an iron bed, and consumed by fire placed under it. Hence the familiar emblem attributed to this martyr, of a gridiron. The event is referred to the 10th of Aug. 261.

In this parish the town, or rather village of St. Laurence, is situated between two hills, and with a pleasant river running through its street, about a mile and a half west from Bodmin. In it stands a lawres hospital, that is to say, a hospital for lepers (loure, or lower, in British is a leper), which hath good endowment of lands and revenues appertaining thereto, founded by the piety and charity of the well-disposed people of this county in former ages, for the relief, support, and maintenance of all such people as should be visited with that sickness called elphantiasy, in Latin lepra or elphantia, in English leprosy, in British lowerery; being a white infectious scurf running all over the bodies of such persons as are tainted therewith. Which disease heretofore in many families was hereditary, and infected the blood for generations.

This disease, though common in Asia, was thought to have been first brought into England from Egypt by seamen and traders, so that generally it spread itself over this kingdom about the year 1100. Soon after which, a general collection of charitable benevolences was gathered throughout the land by one of the Mowbrays, a gentleman tainted with the disease, for erecting and endowing the lazar-house or hospital of Burton, in Leicestershire, to which place was made subject all other hospitals of this sort in England, as the Master of Burton Hospital was afterwards made subject to the Master of St. John’s Hospital of Jerusalem, in London, and then, soon after the erection of lazar-houses throughout this kingdom, was invented that writ called Leproso amovendo, for removing a leper from his country-house to the hospital. But the custom in this place was such, that none were to be admitted by the governors of the same for the time being, unless the person so brought in paid them 5_d._ a pot for dressing their meat, a purse and a penny in it to receive alms. At present I hear of no lepers in this hospital, nor any person visited with this disease in Cornwall: however, daily in the chapel of Lawrence, by the townspeople, God is duly worshipped by a chaplain in deacon’s orders, who reads divine service to them according to the church of England; and at three several times at least in the year the Vicar of Bodmin, and Rector of Lannerat, for a small stipend preach and administer the sacraments to them. Infants baptized, and the dead bodies thereof buried, at Bodmin church.

The lands, customs, and privileges of this lazar-house,[17] or lower hospital, were much augmented or enlarged, and also confirmed by a charter from Queen Elizabeth, in the beginning of her reign, with the jurisdiction of a court-leet within the precincts of its manor of Ponteby, (id est, by the ford or bridge whereon the town of St. Lawrence is situate,) the white-rod erected or held up yearly whilst the court is sitting. It is also by that charter privileged with a weekly market, to be kept on Wednesday, within the town of St. Lawrence, though of late discontinued; as also with fairs yearly on the 10th of August and the 18th of October.

TONKIN.

In respect to the etymology of the name Bodmin, or Bodman, I have no difficulty. I looke upon the word as Saxon-Kernawish, bode and man, or bode-men in the plural, which may safely, and without a catachræsis, be interpreted, the preacher-man, or men. That bode signifies priest, or preacher, in the Cornish, the Gaelic, and other cognate tongues, I confirm by the authority of Alfred, the Saxon grammarian, and of Verstegan, from which is derived our modern Kernawish word for a priest.

And this sense is preserved in the names of divers other churches throughout the land; as in the hundred of Weston, Herefordshire, where we find Boddenham Vicarage, bod-den-ham, preacher-man-dwelling, den being in Kernawish synonymous with man.

[The remainder of Mr. Tonkin’s narrative agrees so nearly with that of Mr. Hals as not to require its insertion.]

WHITAKER.

“The paroch chirch standith at the est end of the town, and is a fair large thyng,” says Leland, an author with whom Mr. Hals had no acquaintance (though the Itinerary of that author was published in 1710, and in some years immediately following; and the Collectanea in 1715); “there is a cantuarie chapel at th’est ende of it.” This is the present school, situated a few yards east of the eastern end, raised upon vaults, ascended by steps, entered by an arched door of stone peaked, having a large arched window peaked; at the east two windows in the arch, two on the south, arched and peaked; with three stalls of stone on the south, near the eastern end. The space below, lately a bone-house to the church, now atttached to the school, must formerly have been a walk under the vault.

“Bodmyn hath a market on every Saturday, lyke a fair for the confluence of people.” (Itin. ii. 114.) Bodmin was then at the height of its glory: it began soon afterwards to sink. The many decayed houses, says Carew, 120 years afterwards, prove the town to have been once very populous. What occasioned this decay was the Reformation, probably, throwing the revenues of the priory, and of the house of friars, into the hands of men laical and distant.

“There was a good place of Gray Freres in the south syde of Bodmin town. One John of London, a merchaunt, was the beginner of this house. Edmund Erle of Cornewaul augmentid it. There lay buried in the Gray Freres Sir Hugh and Sir Thomas Peverel, Knightes, and benefactors to the house.”――(Leland.) The remains of this form the south side of an open space, which must have been the quadrangle or court of the Friars, and have been surrounded by its buildings, on the east, the north, and the west. On the west end, near the grand door in these remains, was the church-yard, or burying-place, which Mr. Hals says was made a fair for cattle; and here were very lately found, by sinking a saw-pit, bones in a considerable quantity.

The remains themselves are, a long and lofty room, once a church, but since used as Mr. Hals describes. It has a fine window at the east end, peaked in the arch; the only part of it that is not blocked up being very pleasingly broken into small parts by mullions of stone.

It has another arch for a window to the west, but not so fine; and four arches on the north and south sides, all peaked, but those most easterly more sharply than the others. What Mr. Hals calls a font is still there; and a font it assuredly is, the Friars having just as much right to a font as to a burying-place; but the inscription upon it is on two or three squares of the hexagon in which the font is shaped, and is too modern to mean any thing.

“There is a chapel of St. ―――― at the west ende of the toune. There is another chapel in Bodmyn beside that at the west ende of the toune, and an almose house, but not endowid with landes.” (Leland, Itin. ii. 114, 115.) Query, says Tanner, respecting the latter, Whether this alms-house was St. Anthony’s or St. George’s? for the will of John Killigrew, proved A.D. 1500, gives legacies Pauperibus Sancti Antonii de Bodmyn, et Pauperibus Sancti Georgii de Bodmyn. Both these chapels had an almshouse. The latter is that chapel which stood on the summit of a hill north of Bodmin, called Berry, from some castle or fort upon it, I suppose, and giving name to the valley below it, Berrycoomb, or Bereum. The remains of this chapel are merely a tower, neat but slight, making a considerable object to the road from its elevation, yet small in its rise, or its pitch, and carrying a face of no great antiquity, being merely three hundred years old. The town, says tradition, stood formerly here, was burnt down, and then removed to its present site. That this is false as history we know for certain, as we know the town to have been where it now stands, but that the town in the days of its high prosperity had shot out hither.

“The showe and the principale of the toun of Bodmyn,” says Leland, “is from west to est along in one streate.” (Itin. ii. 114.) There were (says Mr. Hals upon the credit of information) within these sixty years past no less than thirteen churches, or free chapels, remaining either whole or ruined in the town and parish, and this was one.

The church of the priory, notes Mr. Hals, after the dissolution of religious houses, was converted to a parochial church. It was, indeed, such from the beginning: so Leland tells us concerning it in his time, “that the parish church standeth at the east end of the town,” &c. It was even converted as such from a rectorial to a vicarial church before 1290.

This prioral rectory church, Mr. Hals himself informs us, (long before the dissolution, and therefore not after the dissolution of the priory, as said before,) was converted by the Prior into a vicarage church; for in the Inquisitions of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, Ecclesia de Bodman was rated to the Pope’s annats at 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ Vicar. ejusdem nihil propter paupertatem. So directly does Mr. Hals confute himself; but the words of the record are not cited fairly, and are in reality these:

Ecclesia de Bodmynia vi_l._ xiii_s._ 4_d._
Vicar. ejusdem xi_s._

Nor could any one of the thirteen be a free chapel, as no such chapels existed in the first or in the second valuation, and therefore none are mentioned therein.

Vivian’s “tomb is adorned round with crosses.” In truth, it has only one, and that is upon the northern side. “The arms of his Bishopric of Megara,” the arms of this Priory, and lastly, “those of his own or of his ancestors.” But there are three fishes repeated as arms twice; and Mr. Hals affirms himself that the jurisdiction and royalty over the river Alan, from Camelford to Padstow Rock, was given to this Priory by Algar Earl of Cornwall; and in further testimony of Algar’s donation of the royalty of this river, he gave for the perpetual arms of him and his priory, In a field Azure, three salmon-fishes in fess barwise Argent; which arms were lately extant in all the church windows of the churches under the priory.

Castle Kynock, as called by some to this day, but called simply the Castle by the generality, lies more than half a mile to the south-west, has two ditches and two ramparts; the outer are very deep and very massy, the inner are much shallower and slighter. It takes in the whole crest of the hill, the ground within rising from the sides to the summit; is circular in form, because the hill is so; and has its only entrance on the east, denoted as an original entrance by the bridge of earth, as it were, which leads across the hollow of the ditches into it. The whole is double, I believe, to the extent that Mr. Hals gives it; and, from the position of the entrance on the east, appears to be Roman in its origin.

THE EDITOR.

It is not my intention to enter on any discussion relative to the remote and obscure antiquity of Bodmin. Tanner, in his Notitia Monasticon, says Bodmin, or Bodmanna.

There was a church built here to the memory of St. Petroc, a religious man born in Wales, but who, coming from Ireland, is said to have built a monastery on the north coast of Cornwall, about A.D. 520, and to have been there buried; but his body being afterwards removed to Bodmin, a church was built to his memory, and the episcopal see for Cornwall was believed to have been therein placed by King Edward the Elder and Archbishop Plegmund, A.D. 705. Here King Æthelstan is reported to have met with old Saxon, or rather British, monks following the Rule of St. Benedict, to whom he granted so great privileges and endowments that he is accounted founder of the monastery here, about A.D. 926. That settlement was destroyed by the Danish pirates, A.D. 981; yet the religious continued here under several shapes, and much alienation of their lands, both before and after the Conquest, till about the year 1120, when Earl Algar, with the King’s license, and the consent of William Warlewach, Bishop of Exeter, re-established this religious-house, and placed therein regular canons of the Order of St. Austin, who continued till the general suppression, when it was styled the Priory of St. Mary and St. Petroc, and was valued at 270_l._ per annum according to Dugdale, and 289_l._ 12_s._ according to Speed. The site, with the demesnes, were granted, 36th of Henry VIII. to Thomas Sternhold, one of the first translators of the Psalms into English metre.

Any one desirous of learning all that can be known or conjectured respecting the Western Bishopric, is referred to “The Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall historically surveyed,” by the Rev. John Whitaker; where that subject and various others are discussed, with the eloquence, ability, erudition, and confidence, usually displayed by that eminent writer; who appears always to assume throughout the whole of his work the very questionable fact, that monastic historians, distant both in time and in space from the events which they relate, are possessed of perfect information, and that their narratives flow with unerring accuracy, at a period when none of the inventions for rapidly carrying intelligence, and for stamping it with the authentic impression of public notoriety, had yet occurred to the human mind.

I willingly leave these recondite, and, in truth, little interesting researches, for others of a more modern date, the objects of which are still extant, and their effects influencing the present times. Those connected with Bodmin we owe, in a great measure, to the ability, the industry, and the laudable zeal of Mr. John Wallis, the present vicar, on whom I would readily bestow more praise, if his merits had not rendered commendation from me superfluous.

One event, however, intermediate between the Saxon antiquities of Bodmin and those disclosed by Mr. Wallis, is so very curious, and so illustrative of opinions and of habits long passed away, that I cannot help inserting the details of it from Benedictus Abbas, an author of high reputation, Abbot of the great monastery of St. Peter at Medeshamsted, or Peterborough, and contemporary with the transactions which he relates.

In his work “De Vita et Gestis Henrici secundi et Ricardi primi,” ex editione Thomæ Hearnii, Oxon. 1735, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. i. pp. 228-229.

Eodem anno, quidam Canonicus de Abbatiâ Bothmeniæ, quæ in partibus Cornubiæ sita est, Martinus nomine, statim post Epiphaniam Domini, furtivè asportavit Corpus Sancti Petroci; et cum eo fugiens transfretavit, et illud secum detulit usque ad Abbaciam Sancti Mevenni, sitam in partibus Minoris Britaniæ. Quod cùm Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ & Canonicis ibidem Deo servientibus innotuisset, predictus Prior, consilio Fratrum suorum, D’n’m Regem Angliæ Henricum, filium Matildæ Imperatricis, adiit, ut, per ipsius potentiæ auxilium, Corpus Sancti Petroci, quod per furtum amiserant, recuperassent. Ad instantiam autem illorum, concessit eis præfatus Rex auxilium suum; & mandavit per litteras suas Rollando de Dinamno Justiciaris Britanniæ, quod sine dilatione faceret illud Corpus reddi. Audito itaque mandato Regis, prædictus Rollandus venit cum armatâ manu & potenti ad Abbatiam Sancti Mevenni, et præcepit illud corpus reddi; quod cùm Abbas et Monachi ejusdem loci reddere nollent, ipse minas addidit, jurans se per vim, nisi celerius redderetur, extrahere velle illud. Quod ipsi audientes, noluerunt iram prefati Regis Angliæ incurrere: sed beatum Corpus illud reddiderunt prænominato Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ, die Dominicâ Clausi Pentecosten, festo scilicet Sanctorum Gervasii et Prothasi, Martyrum, scilicet 13 kalendas Julii; redditumque est ei corpus illud Sanctum cum omni integritate, & sine aliquâ diminutione, Abbate & Monachis Ecclesiæ Sancti Mevenni, jurantibus super Reliquias ejusdem Ecclesiæ quòd de Corpore illo nihil retinerent, sed idem Corpus non alternatum redderent. Quod cùm factum fuisset, prænominatus Prior Bothmeniæ cum gaudio in Angliam rediens, Corpus beati Petroci in Teca Eburnea reconditum, usque Civitatem Wintoniæ detulit; et cùm in conspectu Regis allatum fuisset: Rex, viso eo & adorato, permisit prædictum Priorem in pace, cum Sancto suo, ad Abbatiam Bothmeniæ redire.[18]

Which may be thus translated:

“In the same year (1177), immediately after the Epiphany of
our Lord, a certain Canon of the Abbey of Bodmin, in
Cornwall, by name Martinus, secretly took away the body of
St. Petroc. Flying with it, he passed beyond the seas, and
carried the body to the Abbey of Saint Mevennus, in Lesser
Britany.

“When this transaction became known to Roger the Prior of
Bodmin, and to the Canons who served God in the same place,
the aforesaid Prior, with the advice of his brethren, went
to Henry King of England, son of the Empress Matilda, that
by his powerful aid they might again get possession of the
body of St. Petroc, of which they had been fraudulently
deprived. The King granted his aid to their entreaty, and by
his letters commanded Rollandus de Dinamnus, the Justiciary
of Britanny, that, without any delay, he should cause the
body to be restored. When, therefore, Rollandus had received
the King’s command, he came with a powerful and armed band
to the Abbey of St. Mevennus, and ordered that the body
should be given up; and when the Abbat and the Monks were
unwilling to comply, he added threats, that, unless the body
were yielded immediately, he would use force and take it;
which when they heard, they feared to incur the displeasure
of the King of England, and therefore restored that blessed
body to the before-named Roger, Prior of Bodmin, on the
Lord’s Day (Clausi Pentecostes), being the feast of St.
Gervasius and of St. Prothasius, martyrs, the thirteenth
before the calends of July (June the 19th). And that sacred
body was restored in all its integrity, without the least
diminution; the Abbat and Monks of St. Mevennus having sworn
on the relics belonging to their church that they had not
retained any part of the body, but had restored it wholly
unaltered.

“When this was done, the before-named Prior of Bodmin,
returning with joy into England, brought the body of the
blessed Petroc, closed in an ivory case, to the City of
Winchester. And when it was brought into the King’s
presence, the King, having seen and adored it, permitted the
Prior to return in peace with his Saint charge to the Abbey
of Bodmin.”

It would appear that such depredations must have frequently occurred, since one precisely similar, but not followed by a restoration of the relics, took place in the neighbouring monastery of St. Neot. In this case, the stolen body of the Saint, having been enshrined at Eynesbury, in Huntingdonshire, bestowed his name as a new appellation to the place. See “A Description, accompanied by sixteen coloured plates, of the Church of St. Neot, in Cornwall,” by J. P. Hedgeland, 1 vol. 4to. 1830, with Illustrations by Davies Gilbert.

Mr. Wallis has collected a very great variety of curious and interesting particulars respecting this town and parish, and given them to the public in a work entitled, “The Bodmin Register; or, Collections relative to the past and present State of the Parish of Bodmin.” And, in doing so, he has proved that the antiquities of a county cannot in any way be illustrated, except by the exertions of individuals locally residing in the district to which their attentions are directed, and that from zeal and ability in such persons every thing may be expected.

The following are extracts from this publication:

The benefice is a vicarage in the gift of Lord de Dunstanville, situated in the Deanery of Trigg Minor, and in the hundred of Trigg. The following are the dimensions of the church: length 151 feet, breadth 63 feet. The greater part was built in the reign of King Edward the Fourth. It was roofed in 1472, as appears by an inscription on the cornice on the northern side of the south aile of the chancel. The northern chancel and the tower appear to be of an earlier date. The walls of the tower are eight feet thick at the base, made for the support of a lofty spire, which was destroyed by lightning, between seven and eight o’clock on Saturday evening, December the 9th, 1699. The present awkward pinnacles were then erected: three of them are dangerous from the decay of the stone.

The ancient building in the church-yard, adjoining to the vicarage-house, was, it is believed, a chantry chapel dedicated to St. Thomas. The interior, 44 feet 9 inches by 19 feet, was used till lately for the free grammar-school. It is now converted to a national school for girls. Under is a crypt or bone-house.

The isolated tower at Berry, on the north of the town, belonged to the chapel of the Holy Rood. The building of this tower was commenced on the 12th of September, 17th of King Henry VII. 1501.

Since the year 1814, both the church and church-yard, which were in a very ruinous and neglected state, have been greatly altered and improved.

Over the porch are the remains of two small rooms, each about eleven feet square, formerly the record and the council rooms of the corporation. The floor of the higher one, the record room, gave way about eighty years ago, as some gentlemen were inspecting the documents. In the lower room some valuable records had remained for a long time neglected, till in the year 1807 or 1808 they were removed to the guild-hall, and there examined and arranged. They contain many curious particulars relative to the history of the parish, and incidentally of the county, during a period of five hundred years, the oldest document bearing date in the 14th Edward II. (1320). Among them is a charter of the 36th Edward III. (1362); another, in good preservation, of the 3d year of Richard II. (1380), having reference to the reigns of Henry the First and Second. A minute of the receipts and payments for the rebuilding of the church, in the years 1469, 1470, and 1471; and also for the erection of Berry Tower, in 1501; the contract with Matthy More, carpenter, for making the pulpit and open seats throughout the church in 1491, the carved remains of which are at present much admired; Resolutions of the Corporation on the destruction of the spire in 1699; also a Petition to King Henry the Eighth, on the eve of the Reformation, conveying some ludicrous charges against the Prior; with various others.

In the north chancel is the altar-tomb of Prior Vivian, the inscription on which has been inserted in page 76. The tomb was repaired, and placed between two pillars of the chancel, in 1819, by the late Sir Vyell Vyvyan, of Trelowarren.

The very splendid organ was given, in the year 1775, by Mr. James Laroche and Mr. George Hunt, at that time Members for the town.

Mr. Wallis enters into a very minute detail of particulars highly interesting to the immediate neighbourhood, but which would occupy too much space in a general parochial history of Cornwall.

The carving in the church is indeed greatly admired, but a large part of that admiration is excited by the appropriate and judicious manner in which it has been rendered ornamental by the present vicar.

The inscriptions on various monuments are noticed by Lysons, and other writers.

But a splendid addition has been recently made to the decorations of the church by Lord De Dunstanville, on his retiring from the office of recorder in the corporation. The large east window of the chancel is entirely filled with painted glass, and the middle part contains a well-drawn representation of the Ascension.

Bodmin parish contains 5279 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815:
The Town 7784
The Parish 3077
―――― 10,861 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831:
The Town 1012 0
The Parish 318 10 1330 10 0

Population, in 1801: | in 1811: | in 1821: | in 1831:
The Town 1951 | 2050 | 2902 | 3375.
The Parish 348 | 383 | 376 | 407.
―――――― ―――――――― ―――――― ――――――
Total 2299 2383 3278 3782
Increase on a hundred in 30 years, sixty-four and a half per cent.

GEOLOGY.

Dr. Boase says of the Geology: the town of Bodmin is about midway between two insulated groups of granite, and it is principally built of a stone quarried on the spot, and which well deserves the attention of geologists. This rock in the deeper parts of the quarry becomes more blue; but its common appearance presents various shades of drab or fawn colour, with irregular spots of an ochreous yellow. It breaks into thick laminæ, or slabs, which are traversed by parallel joints; so that, with care, this stone may be obtained in oblong quadrangular masses. It is soft; sometimes so much so as to lose its cohesion. The substance appears to be almost entirely argillaceous.

All the cultivated parts of this parish, north and north-west of the town, rest on this rock: and the barren parts on a schistose rock, which is very siliceous, affording by its partial disintegration no more than a shallow, meagre soil; silica predominating in the one, and argillaceous earth, or alumine, in the other. The characteristic rocks of these genera occur next to the granite in the parishes of Blisland and St. Breward, and they will be noticed in the description of the latter parish.

* * * * *

The editor is aware that the article Bodmin has extended to a very great length. It might easily have been extended much further from interesting materials collected by Mr. Wallis relative to the past and present state of this chief seat of our ecclesiastical establishments. On their abolition the town unquestionably fell into great decay, till about the middle of the last century, when roads were made in all directions, and Bodmin, from being almost inaccessible by the modern system of travelling, became an extensive thoroughfare; the market has grown into one of the first in Cornwall, and the whole town is renovated by trade and industry.

If any further apology is required, the editor hopes that he may be excused for some partiality towards a place which he has represented in eight successive Parliaments, after as many unanimous elections.

[15] Speccot.

[16] Bocarne, or Boscarne, seems evidently the house [on] a
rock.

[17] This establishment having completely degenerated, and
become a mere receptacle for persons of the very worst
description, the charter was, about twenty years ago,
declared forfeited; and the revenues have been attached to
the county hospital, reserving a preference for lepers over
all other patients, if any such should present themselves.

[18] A similar account of this curious affair is given by
Hoveden, another contemporary author, who continued the
history of England from the year 731, where that of Bede
ceases, to 1202, the fourth year of King John.

A.D. 1177. Eodem Anno, Martinus, canonicus regularis
ecclesiæ de Bomine, furtivè asportavit corpus Sancti
Petroci, et fugiens secum detulit in Britanniam ad Abbatiam
Sancti Mevenni. Quo comperto, Rogerus Prior Ecclesiæ de
Bomine, cum saniore parte capituli sui, adiit Regem Angliæ
Patrem; et adversus cùm effecit, quòd præcipiendo mandavit
Abbati et Conventui Sancti Mevenni, ut sine delatione
redderent corpus Beati Petroci, Rogero Priori de Bomine,
jurantes super Sancta Evangelia, et super sanctorum
reliquias, quòd ipsi idem corpus, et non alternatum, cum
omni integritate reddiderunt.

But King Athelstan is said to have given a part of the
bones, the hair, and the garments of this saint to the
church of St. Peter at Exeter.

BOTUSFLEMING.

HALS.

Is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north, Pillaton; south, Salt-Ash, and part of St. Stephen’s; east, Landulph; west, Landrake. For the first name, it signifies “Flemings’ Parish;” for blo, bleau, pleu, in Cornish, is of that signification (viz. a parish); for the second name, it signifies “Flemings,” making amends, or supplying defects (see Verstegan on the word Bote), and seems from the name to be a church founded or endowed by some gentlemen of that name, in order for the commutation of penance for sins committed, and to pray for the founder’s soul, his ancestors, and relatives; by which expedients most religious houses and churches heretofore were built. Originally these Flemings came from Stoke Fleming in Devon, so called, for that once a nobleman of Flanders resided there, and was lord thereof: one of whose posterity, tempore Richard I. in this place, held by the tenure of knight’s service seven knights’ fees, by the name of Stephen Flandrensis (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 48), who probably was the founder of this church, still bearing his name. His son Richard Flandrensis was sheriff of Cornwall three years, from the third to the sixth year of King John’s reign. Finally, the estate, name, and blood of those Flemings, tempore Henry IV. ended in a daughter and heir, which was married to John Coplestone, of Coplestone, in the county of Devon.

This district of Bote-Fleming, at the time of the Norman Conquest, was rated under the name of Pillaton, still contiguous therewith. But at the time of the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of benefices in Cornwall 1294, in order to the Pope’s annats, Ecclesia de Bote-fflemmen in Decanatu de Est Wellshire, was rated iii_s._ iiii_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £16. 15_s._; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax 1696, £103. 14_s._

Mutten-ham, id est, the Mutton dwelling or habitation, alias Mott-an-ham, the meeting or court dwelling, in the year 1689 was the dwelling of my kind friend John Waddon, Esq. (a justice of peace and deputy-governor of Pendennis Castle for King James, under John Earl of Bath); in which house and place his lordship first treated with the Prince of Orange’s Commissioners, in order to render into his possession the castles of Pendennis and Plymouth, which soon after was performed, on condition of the Earl’s holding his former dominion as governor of those places under him; whereupon he caused the Prince’s declarations to be first proclaimed or published in those garrisons amongst the soldiers; who received and heard the same with great joy, shouts, and acclamations, to the utter destruction of King James’s jurisdiction and power in Cornwall and Devon, and establishing that prince’s.

At this time were dispersed those rhymes, said to be made by father Peters:

“Henricus Octavus
Sold the land that God gave us;
But Jacobus Secundus
Shall refund us.”

The dispersion of which two papers, made all possessors of church lands and impropriators, together with all rectors and vicars of churches in Cornwall (except Mr. Beauford of Lantegles, and Mr. Polwhele of Newland,) to renounce their allegiance to King James, and to take an oath of fealty to the Prince of Orange, after his accession to the crown of England.

TONKIN.

I shall take leave to add this interpretation of the words making up the name of this parish. Bote signifies help, succour, aid, or advantage; as in Bridgebote, Burgbote, Ploughbote, &c.; and Fleming, from its ancient lords the Flemings, which family was heretofore of good esteem in this county. In the times of Richard I. and of Henry III., the Flemings are recorded as having large possessions in Cornwall.

THE EDITOR.

The following very extraordinary occurrence has taken place with respect to the estate of Hatt in this parish.

A brother of the last Mr. William Symons went through his clerkship as an attorney with Mr. Rashleigh at St. Austell. He there formed an attachment to a respectable young woman, but in a situation of life so much inferior to his own as to excite a violent opposition against this marriage on the part of his friends. In consequence Mr. Symonds suddenly disappeared; no trace could be discovered, nor was any information received about him, either by his relations or by the deserted object of his affection.

The elder brother died unmarried, and his sisters or their families took possession of his property; till, about forty years after Mr. Symonds had left Cornwall, a young man claimed the whole as his eldest son, and finally substantiated his claim by the verdict of a jury, and to the entire satisfaction of a full court. His father had disappeared about the year 1780; he had employed himself in various humble, but not disreputable occupations, married, and finally settled in Liverpool, where he was accidentally drowned. His family then first acquired, from inspecting his papers, any knowledge of Cornwall, or of the stock from whence they were derived; they found his articles of clerkship, with various letters and documents, which placed his identity beyond all doubt, and the son now possesses the manor house, with a fair private gentleman’s estate.

This parish contains 995 statute acres.
The annual value of Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1887 0 0
The Poor Rate in 1831 223 3 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 210 | 237 | 297 | 279.
Increase on a hundred in 30 years 32.86, or nearly 33 per cent.
Present Rector, Rev. William Spry, instituted 1826.

This parish is said by Doctor Boase not to be favourable for geological pursuits, the rocks being generally covered with a fertile soil; they belong, however, to the calcareous species.

BOYTON.

HALS.

Boyton is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the east the Tamer River, south Warrington, north Tamerton, west North Pedyrwyn, and as a mark of its antiquity and grandeur it was taxed in the Domesday Roll 1067 or 1087, by the present name. In the Inquisition of the Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester before-mentioned, Capella de Boyeton, in Decanatu de Stratone, was rated xxx_s._ but whether rectory or vicarage I am ignorant; the same not being mentioned either in Wolsey’s Inquisition or Valor Beneficiorum. The patronage in ――――. The incumbent ――――. This parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, £89. 14_s._

Most probable it seems to me, that this place was denominated Boyton in memory of a colony of the Boii Gauls, that out of that country of Gaul first planted themselves here; who were a people on the further side of the Rhine, that with the Helvetians first invaded Gaul, as Cæsar informs us, and placed themselves amongst the Hedui, a people of Gallia Celtica, near the Loire River, and possessed a great part of Burgundy; Cæsar also makes Boia in Gaul the name of a town.

Bradridge in this parish, the broad ridge or farrow of land (Saxon), is the dwelling of John Hoblyn, Esq. barrister at law, son of Mr. Hoblyn, attorney at law, of Bodmin; which place came to this gentleman by marriage with the sole daughter and heir of William Symons, Gent. attorney at law, as it did to him by marriage with the daughter and heir of Heale.

The Heales’ arms are, Party per fess Argent and Sable, a pole counterchanged with three trefoils, one on each side the pole in chief, and the other thereon, in base counterchanged.

At Northcott, in this parish, temp. Queen Mary, lived Agnes Prest, but where born, or what her maiden name was, is to me unknown, whose merit challengeth to be recorded in this place, as being the only martyr that suffered death for the Protestant religion in the diocese of Exon during the said Queen’s reign. She is described by Holinshed, Howell, alias Hooker, and by Fuller from them, to be a contemptible woman in respect of her person, (as St. Paul was for a man,) little, and short of stature, and of a brownish complexion. She was indicted, as Mr. Vowell says, at Launceston, in this county, upon Monday the fourth week in Lent, the 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary, before the Grand Jury there assembled. The matter suggested in the Bill was: “For that she denied the Real Presence in the sacrament of the altar; and for saying the same was but a sign and figure of Christ’s body; and that no Christian doth eat the body of Christ carnally, but spiritually.” The evidence against her were her own husband and children; from whom she fled, for that they would compel her, by force, to be present at the celebration of mass. Notwithstanding, upon their testimonies the bill was found, and indorsed, “Billa vera.” Whereupon she came to her trial before William Starford, then Justice of Assize, (probably he that wrote the Pleas of the Crown,) where, upon a full hearing of the case, the Petty Jury also found her guilty, on the testimony aforesaid; after which she was presented to James Turbervill, Bishop of Exeter, for further examination on the premises, but she persisting in her former opinion, was by him condemned as a heretic.

After her condemnation, she refused to receive any money from well-disposed people, that formerly relieved her, saying, she was going to that City where money had no mastery. Soon after she was delivered over to the secular power to be burnt, to Robert Cary, of Cockington, Esq. then Sheriff of Devonshire, or to his Under Sheriff, who saw her executed at Southernhay, without the walls of Exon, in the 54th year of her age, and in the month of November, 1558. This was the only person in whose persecution Bishop Turbervill did appear, in matters of religion, during the time he sat in that see, (consecrated Sept. 8, 1555, deprived in January 1560,) and, as Dr. Fuller saith, her death was procured more by the violence of Blackston, the Chancellor, than by any persecution of the Bishop.

And here it may not be impertinent to show, that our ancestors the Britons of Cornwall received and took the blessed Sacrament in the same sense as this martyr Agnes Prest did receive it; that is by faith only, contrary to the doctrine of Transubstantiation: as is evident from Mount Calvary, a manuscript in verse in the Cornish tongue, written about five hundred years since, a copy of which is now in my own custody, which containeth the history of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ, according to St. John’s Gospel; wherein, amongst others, verse the 79th containeth these words:[19]

Du benegas an bara, therag ay ys abestlye,
An gorfe ay ma, eshenna, ynmeth Chrest, sur rag rye why
Kemeras a berth, en bysma, dispersys henna nos avyth
Dybbery tho gans cregyans, thu da gober teck hag gevyth
Hay gwynsa wor an foys, ef a ranas in tretha
Yn meth Chrest, henna ys goyse ow, evough why pur Cherity.

Which sounds thus in English:

God blessed the bread in presence (or among) his Apostles (or
Disciples);
The body of me in this, saith Christ, certainly given for you;
Taken secretly, and in this world despised, this night shall be.
Eat it with faith, thy good, fair reward, and remission.
And the wine on the wall he divided amongst them:
Says Christ, this is my blood; drink you in pure charity.

Anno Dom. 1050, Berengarius, a deacon of Angiers in France, disproved and refuted the doctrine of Transubstantiation in a large manuscript, which he sent with letters to Lanfrank, then Abbat of Caen in Normandy, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070 to 1089, which letters and reasons, in the absence of Lanfrank, being opened by some of his clergy, the same were transmitted to Pope Leo IX. whereupon calling a council at Rome, and the letters and reasons of Berengarius being read, he was condemned for an heretic in 1051. In France also the same year, Pope Leo IX. assembled another council at Versailles against Berengarius, which likewise condemned him for a heretic. The like did Victor II. successor of Pope Leo IX. in 1055, in which council Berengarius answered personally for himself; That, as to the doctrine he taught concerning the Sacrament, he adhered to no particular opinion of his own, but to that which was the ancient and common doctrine of the universal Church.

After Pope Victor II. his successor Pope Nicholas II. assembled at Rome a council of a hundred and thirteen Bishops against Berengarius’ doctrine; who thereupon submitted the same to the Pope and his councils’ correction, who prescribed him a form of recantation. But afterwards he published a refutation of that recantation, and of the doctrines therein contained, anno 1059. Notwithstanding which, the fourth council of Lateran, under Pope Innocent III. in 1160, (Frederick II. being then Emperor), consisting of four hundred bishops and holy fathers, established the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiantion, which was afterwards further confirmed by another council at Lateran, in Rome, under Pope Innocent V. an. Dom. 1215.

TONKIN.

The etymology of this name, Boyeton, may be either from the Cornish word “byu,” which is pronounced like “boy,” or from the French “bois,” a wood, which agrees extremely well with its situation in the midst of woods.

I take most if not all the parish to be a part of or holden from the manor of Boyton, which belonged to the Priory of Launceston, and was ultimately given, inter alia, by King Henry the Eighth, to the Duchy of Cornwall, in exchange for the honour of Wallingford.

THE EDITOR.

For a detailed account of Berengarius, see Le Grand Dictionaire Historique, par Moreri, under the word Berenger, who refers to a great variety of authorities.

The account given of Agnes Prest is curious, if she alone suffered in the whole diocese of Exeter during Queen Mary’s persecution. They still exhibit at Exeter the place of her martyrdom, and are persuaded that grass has refused to grow on the spot ever since.

The measurement of this parish is 3,710 statute acres.
The annual value of Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1477 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 240 5 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 319 | 402 | 406 | 452.
Increase on an hundred in 30 years 41.7, or more than 41½ per cent.
Present Vicar, Rev. Edward Rudall, instituted 1826.

The hamlet of Northcot lies in Devonshire, and is therefore not included.

Dr. Boase observes, the dunstone of Devonshire, so ably described by the late Rev. J. E. Conybeare, in the 2d vol. of the Transactions of the Geological Society of London, p. 495, constitutes the rock of this parish. Its compact varieties are very quartzose, and form barren hills; but the schistose dunstone produces a good substratum, which near the Tamar affords productive arable and pasture land.

[19] The whole of Mount Calvary, with a translation by Mr.
John Keigwin, made in the year 1682, has been printed by the
Editor of this work from a manuscript in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford. The passage above cited occurs in the
44th and 45th stanzas. The general meaning appears to be the
same, but the words are differently spelt and divided. The
Editor has also printed “The Creation of the World, with
Noah’s Flood,” a Play, or Mystery, in the Cornish language,
and a Translation into English by the same Mr. John Keigwin;
both from the office of Mr. Nichols, No. 25,
Parliament-street, London, the printer of this work.

ST. BRADOCK.

HALS.

St. Bradock is situate in the Hundred of West, and has upon the south Boconock, the west St. Wennow, east St. Pynnock, north Cardinham, and by this name Bradock or Brodock it was taxed in the Domesday Roll. If its etymology is Saxon the name means broad oak.

In the Pope’s Inquisition into the value of benefices before mentioned, anno 1294, Capella de Bradock in decanatu de Westwells, appropriata domui de Lanceston, was valued at xiii_s._ iv_d._; from whence it appears that this church was endowed by the college of St. Stephen, near Launceston. In Wolsey’s Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum, at viii_l._ xiii_s._ iv_d._ The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter; and this parish was rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax for one year in 1696 at 57_l._

TONKIN.

This church is a vicarage; the patronage in Samuel Wetton, Esq.; the incumbent, Mr. James Pearce, who has also the sheaf.

The manor of Bradoke is one of the two hundred and eighty given by the Conqueror to Robert Earl of Morton.

THE EDITOR.

This living, which is stated in the Liber Valorum to be a rectory, was consolidated with Boconnoc in the year 1742, and the clergyman’s residence has recently been removed to Bradock. The united parishes are now in the presentation of Lord Grenville.

Bradock down was the scene of two important events in the civil war.

First, a victory obtained by the King’s forces early in 1623 under the command of Sir Bevill Granville, Sir Nicholas Glenning, Sir Ralph Hopton, Arundell, Trevanion, and other gentlemen of the county, over a much larger force commanded by Ruthven, Governor of Plymouth. The victory was so complete that Ruthven with difficulty reached Saltash, accompanied by a few only of his troops, from whence they were speedily driven across the Tamar; and this advantage mainly contributed to the more splendid victory at Stratton, obtained on the 16th of May of the same year; a victory which, rolling on its tide of success through Devonshire and Somersetshire, over Lansdowne and Bristol, might have swept the whole of England but for the recoil of its waves from the walls of Gloucester.

The second event was on a more extensive scale.

Lord Essex having conducted a large army into Cornwall, was followed by the King in person, till they approached so near that the King had his head quarters at Boconnoc, and Lord Essex at Lanhidrock, when, after various skirmishes and proposals for negotiation on the part of the King, Lord Essex at last, on the 30th or 31st of August 1644, accompanied by Lord Robartes, and some other officers, abandoned his army, and reached Plymouth by sea; and on the same day Sir William Belfour, with Col. Nicholas Boscowen, Lieut.-Col. James Hals, of Merther, Henry Courtenay, of St. Bennet’s in Lanivet, Col. John Sentaubyn of Clawanar, his Lieut.-Col. Briddon, Col. Carter, and others of the horde of two thousand five hundred cavalry, forced their passage through the King’s army, over St. Winnow, Boconnoc, and Bradock Downs, to Saltash, and from thence to Plymouth. Their escape is said to have been mainly owing to the negligence of General Goring, whose ill conduct and exactions in Cornwall, have left his name as a term of severe reproach up to the present time.

After these discouraging events, Major-Gen. Skippon found himself in command of the infantry, for whom he obtained a favourable capitulation, the particulars of which may be seen in Lord Clarendon’s History, and they are given by Mr. Hals, from whose statement the above is chiefly abridged.

Mr. Hals adds a circumstance illustrative of the animosity excited by internal dissensions; and, as his feelings and opinions were all on the royal side, the narrative may be esteemed deserving of credit.

Notwithstanding the articles, the disarmed soldiers of the Parliament, as they marched by the King and his army on Boconnoc and Bradock Downs, and elsewhere, were barbarously slaughtered and shot upon by the King’s soldiers, so that many perished thereby, others were stripped comparatively naked, and robbed of their money, others had their horses taken from them; whereupon Major-General Skippon, with undaunted courage, rode up to the King’s troop, and told him personally of the injury and violence offered, and the slaughter of his men, contrary to the articles, which in such cases were kept inviolable by all nations of men; and therefore prayed the King to be just, and to prohibit those barbarities of his soldiers for the future, which the King forthwith commanded to be done. But his word and authority were little regarded while his army were in sight of the Parliamentary soldiers.

This total discomfiture of Lord Essex’s army left the King without an enemy in arms through the whole of Cornwall, and a letter is preserved in the hands of Lord Dunstanville from his ancestor Sir Francis Basset, respecting the last words addressed to him by the King: “Mr. Sheriff, I leave the county entirely at peace in your hands.”

Bradock contains 2935 statute acres.
The annual value of the Real Property, £. _s._ _d._
as returned to Parliament in 1815 1025 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 83 18 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 173 | 188 | 235 | 301;
being an increase of 74½ per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish may be geologically considered as a part of Boconnoc. The substratum is the same. The rocks and stones are rather more quartzose, accompanied by an increased appearance of shorl.

ST. BREOCK.

HALS.

St. Breock is situate in the hundred of Pyder, and hath upon the north St. Issy; east, Wadebridge on the Alan river; south, St. Wenn and Withiel; west, St. Columb Major.

The name is derived from St. Breock or Briock, the patron of this church, of one in the island of Guernsey, and perhaps of Breage near Helston.

This St. Breock was a native of Ireland, born at Cork about the fifth century. A man famous in his day, for the most strenuous support of the orthodox faith in opposition to Arianism, the heresy at that time distracting the Latin Church. He was bishop of a diocese in Armorica, now called Britany, where the place of his residence is at this day distinguished by his name.

This parish does not appear in the Bishop of Lincoln’s valuation; but in that of Wolsey it is rated at 41_l._ 10_s._ 6_d._

In the Domesday survey this parish was rated under the district of Pelton or Penpow, now Powton.

This Powton was the voke lands of a manor given to the See of our Cornish Bishop; afterwards to the Bishop of Kirton, and then to Exeter; finally to the Priory of St. Petroc at Bodmin. After the dissolution of monasteries, this barton, together with the extensive manor to which it belonged, passed through a great variety of hands by sale, so that Mr. Hals says the manor had sixteen lords of different families in about sixty-two years; a mutability not to be instanced in any other lands in Cornwall, except Fentongellon in St. Michael Penkivell, which also contained a religious house, but in 26 Henry VIII. was converted to secular purposes.

This manor of Pelton has always possessed a court leet, where writs might be entertained without any limit of amount; but, the lord of the manor having suffered from various escapes of persons confined for debt, the prison, and with it the judicial functions of the court, have been discontinued. Sir William Morice, the secretary of state and friend of General Monk, acquired this manor by purchase. His second daughter, Barbara Morice, married Sir John Molesworth of Penconnow, and brought this property into that family, where it still remains.

Hurston in this parish, which I take to be from the Saxon, and to mean wood town, is still situated in a wood, and formerly belonged to the Cormynews of Fentongellon.