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THE

ANCIENT CATHEDRAL

CORNWALL

HISTORICALLY SURVEYED.

By JOHN WHITAKER, B. D.

HECTOR OF BUAN-LANYHORNE, CORNWAll..

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. IL

ILontion :

PRINTED FOR JOHN STOCKDALE, PICCADIILT.

1804.

S. GosKELL, Ftimer, Little Queen Sueet, Holboin.

THE

ANCIENT CATHEDrtAL

HISTORICALLY SURVEYED.

CHAFIER FIFTH.
SECTION I.

X HAVE now brushed away those grains of dust in the telescope, which
prevented Dr. Borlase from beholding the bright constellation of stars,
that was darting its united etiusion of radiance upon the Christianity of
Cornwall. I have pointed out the stars by name to my readers, and
entered them in form upon my catalogue. Yet I have not named all :
others remain, provoking my attention, and challenging my admiration.
To some of these I now direct my telescope ; antiquarianism, like astro-
nomy, continually opening a new world upon the eye, and so carrying-
on the range of vision to the very extremity of the system.

" The paroch chirch," says Leland, concerning St. Ives, at the mouth
of the very same current of the Hayle, within which Breaca landed ;
and, with a reference to one of the very same company of Irish saints that
attended Breaca, " is of Ia, a nobleman's daughter of Ireland, and
" disciple of S. Barricius," the companion of St. Patrick *. " la and
" Elwine," the very person that we have seen mentioned in the chapter
immediately preceding, as one of Breaca's companions, " witli many
*' others^ as we have already seen, " came into CorneMaul and landed

• Leland's Itin. iii. 15 : " ♦ Barricius socius Patritii,' ut legUur in Vita S. Wymeri."
VOL. 11. B " at

2 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

" at Pendinas. This Pendinas is the peninsula and stony rok, wher
" now the toiin of S. les (or St. Ives) standith f ." The company of
Breaca thus appcai-s to have been embarked in two vessels, and. to have
entered the ITayle in the night, as I have previously supposed, unseen
by each other. One, therefore, having Breaca lierself on board, pushed
ashore at Rivier, on its eastern bank ; and the other, having St. lii, put to
land at the present site of St. Ives, on its tvestern, a site then a "stony rok"
merely, and a "peninsula" denominated "Pendinas." But " one Dinan, a
" great lord in Cornewaul, made a chirch at Pendinas, at the request
" of lii, as it is written in St. le's Legende *," in the history drawn up
at or near the time of her death, presersed with religious fidelity at
the church erected upon her solicitation, and read with devout atten-
tion in that church, during the offices of religion, on the day of her
death every year J. The Hayle of St. Ives was equally with the Alan
of Padstow then, a commodious port of passage from Ireland into Corn-
wall ; but had no town at the mouth of it, as the Alan had, and was
therefore entered by this company of high rank and fortune, we may
be sure, against their intentions, which must have pointed to Padstow,
even merely in their eagerness to reach the land, when they had been
driven from their destination. Breaca and her party found Theodore
the king of Cornwall, residing in his palace of Rivier, where they
landed, and living in the profession of Christianity ; Mobile la and her
party equally found one Dinan, a great lord of the country, inhabiting
his house near the ground on which they landed, and equally living in
the same profession. Those were permitted by Theodore to fix upon
any sites in his kingdom for their habitations, and therefore penetrated

i Pen-d'mas signifies literally Hill-head, and was therefore a very common appellation for
places in Cornwall. Thus " the very point of the haven mouth," at Falmouth, " being an
" hille, whereon the king hath buildid a castel, is cauUid Pendinant." (Itin. iii. 26.)
— "The king hath set his castel on Pendinas — Pendinas almost an isle." (Ibid, ibid.)
*' The point of land betwixt S. Just creke and S. Maws," and nearly opposite to the other,
which is still so denominated, " is of sumcaullld Pendinas.." (Ibid. 29.)

* Lcland's Itin. iii. 21, 22.

1(. Hence comes the name legenda or legend, by the Protestant interpretation of these
histories having now lost its original meaning, aad come to signify merely a lying story.

deeply

SECT. I.] • HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 3

deeply into it, with Elvvine J. While these settled with lii about the
new chapel, erected for them in the old parish of Lanant, and Pcndinas
rose into a town under her chapel's appellation of St. Ics §.

But we can lengthen out this list of saints. With la came her two
brothers, brothers equally ia nature and in atfection, brothers in a high
relish for religion, in a tender love for sequestration, in a fond feeling
of devoutness. " Saint Hya, that is. Saint Hy," as her name is now
varied a little by another author, " lies a virgin in the parish church of

X Leland's Itin. iit. 15, 16: "' Breaca jedlficavit eccl. in Trenewith etTalmeneth,' ut
" Icgitur in Vili S. Elwini," who must therefore have accompanied her.

§ The real name of the town, even as writte?i in the days of Leland, is St, les ; though by
an English assimilation of the name to that of the town in Huntingdonshire, which is deno-
minated from St. I vo, a Persian (Leland's Itin. iv. 159 — 161), it is equally denominated
St. Ives at present. The hill of Pendinas, at our St. Ives, is still called Dinas or Dennis,
but with an addition from the Saint, Dennis Eia; while the residence of Dinan assuredly
was that very house in the vicinity of St. Ives, which is traditionally denominated a castle to
this day J and from its other denomination of Tregenna (in English, moor -house), gave name
to the family more recently resident within it, even existing there to the days of the first
James ; and in a younge- branch, probably existing at Mawgan, near St. Columb, within
these few years. Norden's map of Penwith hundred notices Tregenno, " M. Tregenna;"
Norden's Description, p. 42, "Tregenno — the hovvsc of Mr. Tregennor ;" map of Pyder
hundred, for the parish of Mawgan, " Polgrcen, Jo. Tregenna \" Description, p. 68,
" Polgreene — the howse of John Tregenno, situate upon the north sea;" and in p. 103, in
" a Catalogue of Gentlemen and of their Dwellinges," are " Tregenno at Tregenno," with
" Tregenno, John, at Polgreene." Walker, in his Sufferings of the Clergy, 423, remarks,
" Tregenna, John; he succeeded Mr. Gammon," the last of three rectors whom tradition
recognises as Ham, Gammon, and Bacon, " in the rectory of Mawgan, which he made a
" shift to keep, but with great trouble and difficulty," till 1660-1, " and died possessed of it
" in the year 1683; he was a person of good learning, eminent piety, and sweetness of
" conversation." He was succeeded in the living by his son, and the latter again by his son,
all equally John Tregemia, with Norden's proprietor of Polgreen, and all ccjually proprie-
tors of Polgreen with him. The name of the family ended in 1754, the last rector leaving
only daughters. All this would have appeared more authoritatively, as well as more circum-
Btantially detailed, I presume, if the late Mr. Tregenna one day, on his maiden aunt's
production of the family genealogy to him, had not snatched it from her in a paroxysm
of indignation, that might seem to him a dignified superiority to family pride, yet was
really (I fear) a sacrifice on the altar of personal vanity, and thrust it hastily into the fire.

B 2 " the

4 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

*' the town of Saint Ily, upon the northern sea, about twelve miles
"from the farthest end of the western kingdom of Enghmd ; and
"her day is observed on the third of February*," as it still is on
the Sunday next after the morrow of the Purification. She " was the
*• sister of Saint Herygh, and tlie sister of Saint Vuyf." At a very
little distance from her, both these brothers took up their residence.
One of them, " Saint Hervgh," resided apparently in that adjoining
parish of Erghe ; ^^•hich, in the ignorance of the English about our
saints, and concerning our pi'onunciation, has had its name anglicised
into Erth, and \\as then supposed to have been dedicated to an un-
known saint of this name, plainly one of English oi'igin ; but is appa-
rently denominated from this brother to St. la, " whose day is observed
" on the vigil of All Saints, that is, on the last day of October," as it still
is at St. Erth's on the Sunday nearest to the festival of All Saints. The
other brother, " Saint Juy, the brother of Saint Herygh ;J;," was actually
denominated Saint Vny in pronunciation, and is mis-written Vuy only
from an accidental viciousness of reading, that had no pronunciation to
correct it ; but settled himself in his devout retirement at the neighbour-
ing parish of Uvy Lanant, or Lalant, because " he lies in the parochial
" church of St. Yu}' [Vny], near the village of Lalant, upon the northera
" sea, three miles from Mount St. Michael, where his feast is kept on
" the lirst day of February §," as it still is on the Sunday next to the eve

* ItineraTJa — W' Worcester, p. io6: " SanctaHya, id est, Seynt Hy, — jacetin ecc!esi&
" parochiali villae Seynt Hy, super mare boreale circa 12 miliaria ab ultimo fine occidentalis
" regni Anglix: et ejus dies agiliir tertio die Febriiarii."

+ ibid. ibid. " Sancta Hya, — soror Sancti Herygh, et soror Sancli Vuy."'

X Ibid. ibid. " Sanctus Herygh, fratcr Sancti Vuy, — jacet in quadam ecclesid," &c.
" Ejus dies agitur in vigilia omnium Sanctorum, id est uhimo die Octobris." The name of
Erghe liad been so long anglicised into Erth, in Leland's time, that he repeatedly speaks
of Saint Erth in Ilin. iii. 20, and that if the second Valor had not caught the original name,
it would have been for ever lost ; the first noticing it by its secular name oi Lanhtdnou, Lan
Udnow, or the Church upon Udnow, a manor (F suppose) so called, to whkh the name of
Udnow Parva, now Piran Uthnoe, apparently referred, and refers back.

§ Ibid. ibid. " Sanctus Vuy, fratcr Sancli Herygh, jacet in ecclesia parochiali Sancti
*' Vuy prope villam Lalant, super mare boreale, per Iria miliaria de Mont-Myghell ; ejus
•-' dies agitur die primo Februarii,"

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 5

of the Purification. Thus did the two brothers, with a steady' flame of
affection, that throws a blaze round the heads of all, unite with their
sister in life, and hardly divide from her even in death ; taking their
course with her from Ireland, fixing with her in Cornwall, fixing in her
very vicinity for life, and then lying down in her very vicinity at deatli-

Yet with tliese saints, both of them equally with their sister unknown
to Dr. Borlase, plainly landed another, who is actually mentioned by
the Doctor, the period of whose coming is also conjectured by the Doc-
tor to have been about the year 400, and the varied orthography of
whose name has caused him to be split by the Doctor into two*.
" PiRAX," notes Leland, from an ancient life of the Saint, in his very use-
ful mode of extracting the biography of saints, " who is called also Pieran
" and Kyeran, was born in Ireland, within the province of Ostrige ;
" Domuel was the father of Piran, his mother was called Wingela ; Piran
" was the disciple of St. Patrick. Piran came into Britain; Piran died
" and ivas buried in Britain ; Wingela, the mother of Piran, inhabited
" in a place near her son with holy virgins j-.'' The notes of Piran's
birth in Ireland, of his discipleship to St. Patrick there, of his coming
into Britain, dying in Britain, and being buried in Britain; all unite to
identify his person, to ascertain his chronology, and to fix him with the
company of St. Breaca, before in the region of Cornwall. He was indeed,
like Barricius and Sinninus before, the companion of St. Patrick. He
was even more than this, being one of four clergymen tliat preached
the Gospel in Ireland prior to St. Patrick. A native of Ireland, born
about the year 352, of noble parents, in the region of Ossory, and bred
Tip in the islet that gives denomination to Cape Clear; he became a
Christian in heart and mind, from the conversation of some laical
Christian there; went therefore to Rome, was there initiated into
Christianity by baptism, and spent twenty years there, studying the

• Borlase, 369 and 388.

t Lcland's Itin. iii. 195 : " Ex vitA Pirani. ' Piranus, qui ct Pieranus et Kyeranus, de
•* Hibernia oriundus in provinc. Ostrige. Domiiel pattr Pir.mi, mater ejus Wingela
" dicta. Piranus discipiilus S. Patritii. l*iranus vcnit in Brltann. Piranus obiit et sepultus est
" in Britannia. Wingela, inatcr Pirani, in loco prope filium cimi Sanctis virginibus
" habitabat'."

Scriptures,

6 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. V.

Scripturf-s, collecting copies of them, or preparing himself for orders.
Being ordained, and even raised to the highest rank in orders, the
episcopate, he returned into Ireland about 402, to convert his countrv-
men. He converted his mother (his father, I suppose, being now dead),
his immediate countrymen of Ossory, and a number of others ; thus
becoming the first in time, of all the apostles of Ireland *. Having now
triumphed in that greatest of external acts of goodness, the conversion
of many to religion and to God ; he did what was still greater, he
triumplied inleniulhj over himself. And as we are told by an ancient
biographer of another of the four preachers, antecedent to St. Patrick,
while this preacher and two of the rest refused, " Chiaran shewed all
"' concord and subjection and disciploship to St. Patrick, present or
*' absent -f." Hence he came to be denominated by his own biographer
in Leland, " Piran the disciple of St. Patrick." He then appears to have
retired into that solitude, which is so congenial to the feeUngs of
tlevoutness in general, and seems to have been so peculiarly soothing to
the hearts of all these sainted personages ; living in a small cell by a
fountain, as a hermit, within an extensive forest of Leinster, at a place

* Usher, 410 : " In Vita ipsius quam MS. habeo :—' Pater ejus — crat de nobiliorlbus
** gentis Osraigi — ; conceptus est — Kiaranus, natusquc, et nutritus est — in Clcra insula.'
*' — Circa annum CCCLII. natus est Kiaranus." P. 412 : " ' Triginta annis S. Kiaranus
" — in Hibemia habitavit sinebaptismo — sed — audiens famam Christianae rcligionis in urbe
" Romse esse, — adivit Romam ; perveniensque illuc, baptizatus est et doctus in fideCathoiica,
" ibique viginti annis niansit, legens Divinas Scrlpturas, librosque earum coliigens.' —
'' Anno CCCLXXXII. Eotnam adiissc, et CCCCII. in patriam rediisse, Kiaranum com-
*^ pericmus." P. 413, 414: " Ipsum vero Kiaranum collecta, quae in officio ejus olini
" legebatur, ita cclebrat, ' Dcus, qui B. Kiranum seniorem, confessorem tuum atque pon-
•' tificem, ante alios sanctos in Hiberniae insulam misisti'," Sec. "Indequejam dictus
" biographus ' Hibemia: sanctorum primogenitum' ilium appellat ; tum prxterea addens,
" non modo, — eum matrem ' fidelem Christianam — effecisse,' sed etiam, ' suum gen-
" tem, id est Osraigi, et plurimos alios de errore gentilitatis ad Christi fidem converlisse'."
P. 408 : " In Vita Declani legimas : ' Quatuor sanctissimi episcopi cum suis discipulis
" fuerunt in Hibemia ante Patrlcium, prasdicantes in ea Christum, sc. Ailbeus, Declanus,
" Ibarus, et Kiaranus'."

+ Usher, 418 : " Chiaranus enim omnem concordiam et subjectionem et magisterium
" dedit S. Patritio, ipso prssente et absente." From the uncertain writer of the life of
Peclan, one of the four, the other two being Albeus and Ibarus.

4 denominated

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 7

denominated " Sler Kcran' from him*. Here his Irish biographer
states him to have died ; but his British asserts, and the tradition of
Cornwall decisively confirms, that he removed into this region of
Britain f. His cell in Ireland grew into a monastery, the monastery
expanded into a city :|:, and the solitude of the hermit was invaded from
mere reverence by the \\'orld. To escape from the officious intrusion,
and to preclude the possibility of repeating it, Piran transported himself
over into Cornwall ; and came undoubtedly with that Breaca, that
Sinninus, that Germochus, la, as well as many others, who landed at
Rivier, or at St. Ives, but who thence dispersed themselves over the
country.

Piran went to the east, as Helen went, while lii staid at Pendinas on
the west, and there settled in a solitude that soon assumed his appella-
tion. • " .S. Piranes in the sandes," says Leland, " is an xviii. miles from
" S. les upward on Severne§." — " Here," adds Camden, " is a chapel
*.* erected in the sands to St. Piran, a saint even of Ireland, who rests
" at this place \\.'' The tradition of the place also reports, that he was
forced to tloat oxer from Ireland to it upon a millstone ; just as another
tradition at another place avers St. Petrock to have floated over to
Padstow upon an altar ^. The inhabitants of the parish are almost all

* Usher, 413.

t That Leiand's biographer was of Britain, these words evince : " Piranus venit in
« Britann."

X Usher, 413, from Irish biographer : "' De vUi materia celluiam suam inccpit ; et indc
" monasterium, et postca civitas, crevit'."

§ Leiand's Ilin. iii. 22.

II Camden, 140: " In salulo posltum S. Pirano sacelluni, qui Sanclus etiam Hibcrnicus
" hie requiescil." Hence Piran church is called in the Valor of Henry VHI. *' Piran in
" Zahulo;" and in popular usage, " Pnan-Zabulo." The Cornis It n&me is " Pier.in in
" Treth;" Piran on Sand, in the old writing relative to estates (Tonkin's MS. described in
the next note) ; and the parish is therefore said by Norden, 68, with a slight erroneous-
ness> to be called in the Cornish language Peran Krethf for " Pcran Treth."

f From a MS. Parochial History of Cornwall, by the late Thomas Tonkin, Esq. of
Trevawnancc, in St. Agnes, of which a fragment was luckily rescind from immediate ruin
by the Kev. Mr. Pye, rector of Tcuro, 1 have a copy of this fragment, and have written
notes upon it.

tmners r

8 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP, V.

tinners: that vast mass of earth, clay, sand, stones, and rock, which
spires up in a pyramid, about eighty acres in circumference, and at
least ninety fatlioms above the sea-level, imder the appellation of Sainf
Agnes Bal, out of which has been raised, for perhaps two hundred
years back, the worth of above ten thousand pounds in tin every year §,
being within the precincts of the parish, and therefore fixing a large
number of tinners within it. These parishioners of St. Piran have given
the tone to all the tinners of the county, and exalted St. Piran into the
patronage of them all. They all keep his feast upon the fifth of March,
hold a fair near his church upon the same day, and have, near the road
to Mitchell from the west, at the distance of two or three miles from the
church, an arched fountain, denominated Fen ton Bei'i^an lately, but
Piran Well now ; the very well, undoubtedly, by which he fixed his
hermitage, and from which he drew his beverage*. " The tinners also
" hold St. Piran's day," notes Dr. Borlase in his Natural History;" cease
" from all labour" on the day, " and (in all considerable mines) are
" allowed money to make merry withal, in honour of St. Piran, who is
•^ recorded to have given them sonic ve?'// projitahte inJbrmafio?2s relating
" to the fin mani/facfuref." This oral record the Doctor repeats without
reprehension, without suspicion ; thus concurs with the tinners in the
folly and falsehood of their zeal, by attributing to St. Piran informations
that could never have been given by him, by even moulding their holy
hermit into a scientific miner. But these votaries of St. Piran liave lent
at times a contrary direction to their fancy-formed registers ; with the
stupidity of drunken tinners in their prate, have shaped their saint
agreeably to their own practices ; and transformed that holy hermit,
that venerable bishop, that primary apostle of Ireland, into a wretched
dnmkard like themselves : nay, this very sottishness of ebriety, like the
falsehood of folly above, has made its way to the pen of authors as

§ Halsp. 3.

* Tonkin's MS. ; another MS. of his lent me by a descendant, Mr. Jago, of St. Ermej
and the great map of Cornwall.
t Borlase, 302,

weak

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 9

weak or as vicious as they, and polluted the page of literature with its
black current ;};.

Near him settled his mother Wingel, with a society of nuns which
she had brought with her ; as she had previously settled in a solitary
cell near him, within the isle of Ireland *. JVhere she now settled in
Cornwall, I am tempted by my curiosity to conjecture, and 1 am' urged
by my subject to conclude. The site can be at no very great distance
from Piran. A nunnery must be known from tradition, from records,
or from ruins, to have formerly existed there ; then, any remains of
the name of JFingel, however modified by the mouths of ages, would
be a strong confirmation of the whole. And all these circumstances
actually unite in Lanivet, a parish about twenty miles from Piran, well
known in Cornwall to have once had a nunnery, even shewing the
remains of it at this day, and knowing what I take to have been the
original site of it, since translated to St. Bennet's, about a mile and a
half on the west, by the appellation of Saitif Ganger for Saint Gangel
at this day f .

B-jt

J In Tonkin's MS. lent me by Mr. Jago, Vertot is cited as concurring with Tonkin in
adopting the drunken reveries of tinners, mediately or immediately, for real facts; but
enlarging their absurdity, by making him a Brctnon who was a native of Ireland, and fixing
h'wi in Bretagne, who removed only into Cornwall, just as the Bretoon legends have done
with other saints of Cornwall. (Lobineau, i. 9.) So much are historians like drunkards at
times in their accounts of characters, especially when they want to throw a shade of slander
over men illustriously religious!

* Usher, 413, 414: " Addens — cum mdiiitm fidelem Christiajiam et sanctam Deifamu-
*' lam. effeclsse, cella quidem in propinquo loco aedificata."

t T.anner says only thus : " ii. St. Bennet's, in the parish of Lanivet, nunnery. The
** tower whereof is yet st.inding (Tonkin, quarrj." The tower is standing still, two stories
high, having a gateway pretty entire, a flight of winding stairs of stone in an angle of this
to a chamber once floored over it, and below in the walls of the tower itself niches hori-
zontal or perpendicular; fi single moor-stone hollowed out for a tombstone, form inn- the
bed of those, and these calculated to receive a statue each. There is good reason to suppose
that the chapel was standing about the middle of the last century : a fine cloyster certainly
extended a few feci from the eastern end of it, ranged north and south, hail six windows
prot)ably in it, and ended on the north in a small cell, remarkable for two large windows,

VOL. II. c taken

] THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

But SO brightly did the reputation of St. Piran break out from the
darkness of his hermitage at Fenton-Berran, and in such a broad flash
of lustre did it lighten over all Cornwall, that a parish far removed to
the south-west has been long dedicated to him, and is called Piran
Uthno, or Little Piran, at this day ; that another parish to the south-
west, though not so remote, equally adopted his name many ages ago,
as I shall instantly shew ; and that a chapelry in the parish of Stythian's
is now called Piran Arwothal, or Piran Well, the latter name being
derived from " a strong chalybeate spring, much frequented of late
" years *."

AVe have thus seen the saint denominated Kiaran or Keran in Ireland,
Berran or Piran in Cornwall ; just as Ccann (I.), a head, is Ben, in Ben
Lomond, a mountain of Scotland ; and Pen, in Penmanmaur, a moun-
tain of Wales. Yet Dr. Borlase would gladly make Piran different from
Kiaran, because a manuscript in Usher's possession states the father and
mother of Kiaran to be Lugneus and Liadain, " whereas Piranus was —
" son of Domuel and AVingella f ." That very manuscript, however, is
cited by Lusher himself to mean Piran under the name of Kiaran ; and
the differeiKie in the names of his parents is noted by Usher as a
variation in one of his biographers from the other, the writer of Usher's

taken down about twenty-four years ago, and formed of flints, moor-stone rubbish, and

lime, in a caissoon of large, well-cut moor-stone. They were taken, as other parts of the

whole had been before, to build houses or rooms on the owner's lands adjoining. A small

bathing-place, with steps descending to it, is all that remains at present besides the tower

and its gateway. The architecture of all was handsome, but the extent seems to have been

very small, as the site was very confined. It was retired, under a projecting knoll, with- a

few acres of cultivated land, and a copse of eleven about it, yet not visible from any road

adjoining. The parishioners or the owner knew nothing of the founder (from the information

of the Rev. Mr. Lake, the obliging rector of the parish) ; they may therefore be well excused

for knowing nothing about St. Ganger, the prior site (as I suppose) of this nunnery, and

echoing still in its name, with a faint tone, the appellation of ihe original founder of both.

When the post-diluvian history of man is so little known, we can wonder the less at the

ante-diluvian being so nearly a blank.

* Tonkin's MS.

+ Borlase, 388.

manuscript

SECT. I.] niSTOniCALLY SURVEYED. 11

manuscript from Tinmouthf. Bat as the names in Tinmouth now
appear to be rigiit, from the Life of Piran which I have quoted above,
those in Usher's manuscript must consequently be pronounced either
false in themselves or additional to the others : that Life also proves the
propriety of Usher's considering Kiaran and Piran to be the same per-
sonage. " Extracts from the Life of Piran," says Leland : " ' Piran,
" %N ho is the same with Picran and Kycran, was a native of Ire-
" land ;]:'." Leland, therefore, did not call the parisli-church of
St, Keveryn, a little to the south-west of Falmouth, that " of St.
" Keveryn, alias of Pir amis ^,'' on the mere authority of Tinmouth, as
Dr. Borlasc supposes ||. Leland had much better, we see; and it does
honour to the sagacity of Tinmouth that he has been as accurate as
Leland in his researches. This church, too, is denominated in the
Valor of Henry VIIL " Kei/ran, alias St, Keverne;" and in that of
Pope Nicholas, " Ecclesia Sancti Kcyrani," or " Kiorani.'' Yet
*' St. Keveryn and St. Piran," remarks the Doctor with an air of con-
fidence that is suggested solely by his ignorance of these testimonies,
and that soars, like the hooded hawk, from the mere inspiration of
blindness; " were certainly different persons*," What then is the
ground of this certainty, in opposition to such positive evidence ? It
contradicts not the evidence, but flies to that problematical kind of
reasoning Avhich is always the refuge of imbecility and confusion.
" Doomsday says," he tells us from Tanner, " ' the canons of St.
" Pieran " (so exact is Leland's biographer of Piran in reciting a
name that under this form occurs only in Doomsday Book and in him !)
" ' held Lan Piran', " that is, some lands which, from " their belong-
" ing to a church of that saint, had the name of Lan Piran," but now
are called the church-lands of St. Piran ^; " and at Piran Sanz,'' which

t Usher, 410,

X Leland's Itin. iii. 195: " E.\ Vita Pirani ; ' Piranus, qui et Pieranus et Kyeranus, de
•" Hibcrniil oriundus'."

§ Leland's Ilin, iii, 24: " S. Piranes, alius Kenerine," or " Keverine," as afterwards.
II Borlase, 388.
• Ibid. Ibid.
^ ToiUcin's MS.

c 2 a note

12 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALl, [cHAP, V.

a note justly asserts to mean Saint Piran, " the bishops of Bodmhi had
•' a manor called Lan Piran," the present manor of St. Piran, and close
adjoining to the church-lands, " now almost entirely overrun with
" sands *." Yet where is the force and power of this argument ? It
was to prove, that St. Piran and St. Keveryn were certainly different
persons. But does it prove the point certainhj? Does it prove the point
prohahly^ Does it prove in any degree of even seeming probability ? It
does not in any degree ; it shews only the canons of St. Pieran to have
had some lands at Piran ; and it intimates only the bishops of Bodmin,
by whom it means merely the bishop and chapter of Exeter, to whom
the church was given by one of our kings ■\, to have had other lands at
Piran. But what is either, or what are both, to the design and destination
of the argument ? How do either or both prove a personal difference
"betwixt the saints Keveryn and Piran ? The mathematical axiom that
take equals from equals and equals remain, proves the point just as
much. Tet " we have at present," subjoins Dr. Borlase in a continua-
tion of the train of reasoning, " three parochial churches dedicated to
" him [Piran], and two of them are at present in the patronage of the
" church of Exeter: but St. Keveryn does not appear to have had any
" connexion wdth the bishop of Exeter any otherwise than as its diocesan ;
" the patronage is in lay hands J." In such hands, however, the patron-
age has been only since the Reformation, and previously teas not, as it
then belonged, with the college or monastery here, to Beaulieu abbey in
Hampshire § : so defective is the reasoning at the very close ! On the
whole, then, the argument suggests not the slightest difference between
the saints, and speaks only of a minute, incidental, extraneous difference
between the churches. The patronage of St. Kevern, it seems, does
not belong to the church of Exeter, as that of Piran in the Sands, and
that of Piran Uthnoc does ; and therefore — as the argument washes to
conclude, but presumes not to infer — therefore St. Keveryn is a different

* Tonkin, a parishioner, said long before, but with an evident exaggeration, '' now
f« wholly destroyed by the sands."
t Tanner.
X Borlase, 388.
§ Tanner.

Saint

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 13

Saint from St. Piran. Such is the logic of this extraordinary pas-
sage ! But what is still more extraordinary, the fidelity of it is as bad
as the logic ; the patronage of Piran Uthnoe being equally in lay hands
with that of St. Kevern;. and the argument, therefore, if it was not as
powerless as it is false, turning against the identity of this St. Piran with
the other. Yet what is still more than all, the very patronage of Piran
itself was not in the hands of either the bishop or the church of Exeter
till the Conquest, till even the reign of Henry I. after it, when he granted
the college at Piran to them, as being then in his patronage, when they
only succeeded to Ids in consequence of the grant, and are now patrons
of the vicarage y}'o>M it *. So thoronghly has Dr. Borlase lost himself in
the labyrinth of his own reasonings, his clue being very short, his path
very long, his resolution to push on very eager, and his quickness to
catch the turns very blunt. Piran teas the same with Kiaran, Kc} ran,
or Keveryn, the first of the converters of Ireland, prior to Patrick in
time, but condescending to rank as second in dignity, and the glorious
hermit of Cornwall, who came into Cornwall for the sake of sequestra-
tion in a hermitage, not indeed so early as about the year 400, only as
early as about 40o — another proof additional to the many before in his
and Breaca's companions, of the prevalence of Christianity in the
country ■\.

With

* Tanner.

+ " Here," cries Dr. Borlase, 388, concerning St. Kevern, in a conjecture which I am
happy to applaud after so much reprobation of him, " seems to me to have been a distinct
" religious house, with lands called Lanachebran, which we find mentioned [in Doomsday
*' Book] as one of our religious houses in Cornwall, but have not known hitherto where to
" fix it. * There was a society of secular canons in a place of this name, at or about the
"Conquest, dedicated to Saint Achebrann'." This is said from Tanner; but let us see
Doomsday Book itself: " Canonici Sancti Achebranni tenent Lannachebran, et tenebant
" tempore regis Edwardi." Yet, as Dr. Borlase goes on, " now this Saint Achebran is
•♦'not to be found in Cornwall 3 but St. Chcbran there is, commonly called Kevran, the
" same, doubtless, as called Kiaranus, now called St. Keveryn, in the hundred of Kerrier."
For " the letter A before Chcbran, whereby they make a Saint Achebran, is no more than
" a preposition in the Cornish language, signifying of, prefixed to the Saint Chcbran or
" Kevran." In the text of the new edition of Tanner, we accordingly read of " Lanache-
•' btau, or Lan-a-Kcbran, alias St, Kevran, in the deanery of Kerrier, Cistercian cell,"

where

14 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V,

"With liim and with the others came also, I beUevo, Fingar, and
PiALA, and RuDOC, and Bcrten, and Cakantoc ; who complete my
catalogue of Irish saints, and close my account of Breaca's companions.
Our notices concerning all, however, are very short, little more than
sufficient to link them into the great chain that came charged with such
a quantity of electrical fire from Heaven, and that dispensed it in such
pleasing etiiisions of light, thro\igh a country fully prepared by her own
Christianity to retain as well as to receive it.

t\liere svas .1 '' society," 8cc. ; and in a note wc are told, that " in the former edition this
" church [of St. Kevran] was confounded with that of St. Pieran [in the Sands] ;" that
" tiie late learned prelate Dr. Charles Littleton, bishop of Carlisle," from sonic communica-
tions, probablv of Dr. Borlase's, " informed Dr. Tanner of the mistake; and" that " the
" account of both churches, inserted in this edition, are [is] agreeable to the information
"communicated by him," bishop Littleton; and I cordially unite with all in embracing
the opinion. The want of a parish for the Lannachebran of Doomsday Book, and the want
of notice in Doomsday Book for the parish of St. Kevern, unite to shew the one is omitted
because the other is mentioned, and the one is mentioned under the name of the other. In
the next record too that we have of our churches in Cornwall, the Valor of Pope Nichojlas,
we find the scene regularly reversed — St. Kevern noticed, and Lannachebran omitted.

" Several considerable ruins are still to be seen," adds Dr. Borlase, " about a quarter of
^' a mile from the church of St. Kevern, at a place called Tregonin, where there is a tradi-
" tion among the neighbours," still existing, " that formerly there stood a priory; and a
■" part of these ruins is still called the chapel." The ruins arc gone, but the site is known,
and bones have been found in digging at a little distance. " This likely was the house, and
" St. Kevern the collegiate church, of these secular canons:" the church being a fine old
building, very long, very broad, with a nave and two ailcs, the marks of its once collegiate
dignity. ''These secular canons," the Doctor should also have noticed, had been changed
into monks long before the Reformation ; the monks had even deserted the house before it,
and even then the whole building was in ruins. This appears from a passage in Leland's
Itinerary, which the Doctor has carelessly overlooked, though it follows immediately after
the mention of " St. Keveryn, otherwise Piranus." For he says " ther is a sanctuary,
" with X or xii dwelling howses," the present church-town of St. Kevern; " and therby
*' was a sel of monkes, hut now goon home to ther hed hows. The ru'ines of the monastery
*' yei remenith." Even Tanner had told him, that after the Conquest " there was a cell
'' of Cistertian monks, subordinate to Beaulieu abbey, in Hampshire ; and the manor
" here," the very Lannachebran of Doomsday Book, " as parcel of the possessions of
f Beaulieu, was granted 2 Eliz. to Francis carl of Bedford,"

FlNGAE

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 15

FiNGAR or Guigner is noticed by Anselni before, catching the sun-
beams of history from the mirror of tradition, catching them much
distorted and discoloured, yet still catching them, as landed about the
year 4 Go, with a large company of Christians from the shores of Ireland,
at the mouth of the Hayle. The position of the parish denominated
Gwinear at present from him, St. Wynyar, St. Wyner, or St. Gwyner
in the last Valor, and St. Wyner in the first, answers very singularly
to this descent of sainted persons upon our shores : it lies immediately
contiguous to the ancient and present Rivier. He took up his residence
at it, as la did at Pendinas ; and therefore lent his appellation to that,.
as she lent hers to this.

But what became of " his sister Piala ?" To ascertain the point we
must take a large range in local intelligence, and move in a kind of
cometary orbit to our focus, collecting and diffusing light as we sweep
along.

In all countries the vallies have been inhabited before the hills, as
enriched by the washings of soil from the sides, and as lying more
sheltered from the stroke of the winds. In Cornwall they would be
peculiarly so, as the land is exposed by its position to peculiar violence
of wind, and as the old houses, in consequence of that, are almost all
in the bottoms. Tlius the parishes of Veryan and Ruan Lanyhorne,
each of which has its church in a valley, would there be inhabited
before the high grounds to the west of them ; those parishes naturally
spread up the hills about them, but kept the low lands near their houses
for corn and hay grounds, and used the distant grounds above for sheep-
walks. At the top of those hills actually lay a large range of land
adjoining to the two parishes upon their western side, but bounded by
the Fal and the Channel on the other side. These hills reared their
heads for ages in one extensive heath, belonging assuredly to both ; the
northern part to Ruan Lanyhorne, and tlie southern to Veryan ; and
they were naturally denominated lios, the mountain or the heath ; and
were as naturally denominated when the English came to settle among

us.

lO THE CATIir.DRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

US in 93(3, Rose-laxd; nor are we here deceiving ourselves, as critics
often are, in playing with the meteors of etymology. Fact conies in to
raise surmise into certainty. Hence only could have originated that
traditionary fondness, m hich is still so pi-edominant in the region, for
Roscland mutton in preference to all other. The first parish probably
that was formed upon this Ros, or sheep-walk, was one, which there-
fore took the appellation of it, is denominated Eglos-ros, or Heath
Church, in the first Valor, and has an estate of the same appellation,
Ij-ing close to the church at present. Thus, in the third of Henry \V.
we find the heir of one Joceus Dynnan possessed of a fee in Trelewith
and Eglos-ros*. And what she%\s the new parish to have been formed
out of Ruan I<anyhorne, as the old, there are two fields titheable in
common betwixt them ; the Higher Congier paying two sheaves to the
old and one to the new, while the Lower Congier pays sheaf for sheaf
to both. Hence we may learn to wonder at the folly of foreigners,
who have turned the name of Roscland into a compliment to the soil,
have honoured the mountain above the valley, for fruitfulness, and in-
terpreted a mere range of heath into a garden of roses. Hence too we
may learn to smile at the equal folly of the inhabitants, who still pretend
to fancy the Roscland mutton, just as the people of Bristol do the
Welsh ; so continue the langiiage, which was used ^hen that mutton
was fed, like this, upon the heathy mountain ; yet still affect to continue
it, when the mountain is enclosed like the valley, and the heath is
formed into rich pastures f . The northern point of the heath being
thus graced with a church, and the adjoining parts of the heath being
thus moulded into a district by themseh es, a chapelry first, and a parish

* Carew, 44; " Hasres Jocei Dynnan ten. in Eglosroset (Eglos-ros), ac in Trelewith,
*' I feed."

t " Their sheep thrive exceedingly," notes Borlase, 82, concerning the Sylley isles,
*' the grass on the commons being short and dry, and full of the same Utile snail, which
" gives so good a relish to the Sennan and Phillac mutton in the ircst of Cornwall.'" The
same snail probably abounded on the Ros, or heath, as it still abounds in some fields of the
parsonage at Ruan Lanyhome ; but is generally destroyed by cultivation of the land, though
now and then it escapes destruction ; upon one field it abounds so much, in spite of all cul-
tivation, as to be felt frequently crashing under the foot in walking.

4 afterwards ;

SECT. I,] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 1 7

afterwards ; Eglos-ros, or the Heath Church, now looks down from a
mountainous eminence, upon the well-watered vale of Ruan Lanjhorne
at its feet 'I.

About the same period probably, that is, about a couple of centuries
after this religious descent of the Irish upon our coast, such part of the
mountain-heath as lay most adjacent to Veryan, was moulded equally
into a parish ; and from th€ royal saint, lately deceased there, was de-
nominated St. Gerens. That this church and the church of Eglos-ros
were fornred originally about the same period, is suggested not merely
by the regular analogy of operation at the sides of Veryan and Ruan
Lanyhorne, but by the striking similarity in the site of each to the other's,
and the opposition as striking in the sites of both to the sites of their
mother-chuixhes ; these being lodged in the warm bosoms of two vales,
and those perching boldly upon the windy summits of two hills, Eglos-
ros upon the northern promontory of the whole, and Gerens upon the
southern. But that experience, which had originally driven our ancestors
into the shelter of a valley for the mothers, seems to have soon beaten
them back into it again for the daughters. The daring deviation could
not be recalled indeed ; but it was not repeated, in the two parishes that
successively occupied the remainder of this tract of hills. The third
parish won from the Avaste, appears to have been that little intake to the
west of Gerens, which now constitutes the petty district of St. Anthony;
but seems from its very pettiness to have once constituted a part of (Je-
rens district. It seems also, from its participation with Gerens, in being
detached from the main body of the county, as to the spiritual jurisdic-
tion over it, being made independent of the archdeacon, and subjected im-
mediately to the bishop himself*. And it seems once more, from that

:}; How directly then, in contradiction to fact, docs Mr. Tonkin in MS. interpret Eglos-
ros, " a. church in a v.illey r" Just as directly as he interprets Roscland the name of a
congeries of hills, rising one \ipon the back of the other, with scarce a gully between them ;
into a •* circuit of land in the vale, with a promontory?"

It asks discretion e"en in running mad.

* In the first Valor is "Ta.xalio pcculiaris jiirisdiciionis domini episcopi." There, under
" Dccanatns de Penryn," are equally Gerens and St. Anthony.

VOL. ir. D extraordinary

IS THE CATHEDRAL OF CORXTTALL [cHAP. V.

extraordinary right, which it once possessed, which is still continued
derivatively from it, and of which I know no parallel in the M'hole
island ; a right to half the revenues of Gerens rectory itself. Asa chapel
to Gerens it might take a partof its parisli, and might receive half of its
income. It was thus niade a parisii, I believe, and thus had a rector;
as we know it to be at present, and find it to have had formerly. But
it was so made, and so had, I also believe, at the very period in which
it was annexed to that free chapel of the king's before the Conquest,
that erection of one of our Saxon sovereigns, the collegiate church of
riympton in Devonshire. To this it was annexed, in all probability, at
the conquest of Cornwall in 930; when only could an English college
come to hold possessions in Roselajul, when Athelstan assuredly at-
tached the new rectory to his own or a predecessor's college, and when
he made it fit for the college's acceptance by exerting the paramount
prerogative of a conquest, in transferring half the endowment of the
church to the chapel. To such a transfer, no right, no power is compe-
tent, but that which absorbs all power, all right in itself, the englutting
authority of conquest -f. Two canons of the college now lived jn a
kind of parsonage-house, at St. Anthony ; one of them as half-rector of
Gerens, and the other as whole-rector of St. Anthony. But the college
being turned into a priory in the beginning of the twelfth century, the
parsonage-house became a cell to a couple of monks ; one of them, as
half-rector, having 465. sd. a year, the other, as whole-rector, enjoying
605. od. at the making of the first Valor. Thus did the right sink with
the possessions into a lay-fee, at the Reformation *. And at last, pro-
bably

t In Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 470, is the only case at all parallel with this, yet dif-
ferent from it. " Inveniens in ccclesia de Haia," says Giraklus Cambrcnsis, in his
account of the archiepiscopal visitation through Wales, — " niilitem quendam fratrem^'*
the patron probably of the living, " persona; tarn ollationes ad altare qiiam decimas exte-
" riores et ohventiones omnes cum persona dimldiantcm et ex cequo participantem ; statim
" enormitatem illam, sed non tamen absque difficukate et niilitis mulcta ac comminatione,
" delevit."

* Leland's Itin. iii. 30 : "A celle of S. Anionic longginff to Plympton priory; and here,
" of late dayes, lay 2 chanons of Plympton priory." P. 43 : " Plymtoun a collegiate
•' chirch, alias capella lilera domini regis before the Conquest." P. 45: " William Warwist

•• bishop

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVED. • 1 ()

bably in the eleventh or twchth century, certainly before the Valor of
the* thirteenth, the whole circuit of the heath was taken within the
pale of cultivation, and formed into distinct districts for religion, by
extending the principle progressively to the west ; thus erecting on the
only remainder that church, which, in the second Valor, is denominated
St. Just's in lloseland, under the valuation of 3"/. os. lod. but in the
first is called only " Ecclcsia de Sancto Justo," with the valuation of
4/. Oa\ 8(1. ; while Eglos-ros is charged at 5/. yet recharged at 1 C>1. Qs, o^d. ;
and Ruan Lanyhorne, having a parish much smaller than either, is
estimated at 5/. Qs. Sd. nor rose higher than to 12/. afterwards. The
primary rate of estimation bespeaks the primary heathiness of the
ground within the parish of St. Just ; as the secondary denotes the
rapid progress made in cultivation there, through two centuries and

" bishop of Excestre, displeased with the chaiions or prebendaries of a fre cliapelle of the
*' fundatioii of the Saxon kinges, — found nieanes to dissolve their college, wherin was a dcane
*' or provost and 4 prebendaries, with other ministers. Then he set up at Plvmpton a
*' priorie of canons-regular." In Henry's Valor, St. Anthony's is said to be only a chnpcl
to Gcrens. A gross mistake ! In Pope Nicholas's we lind, " Ecclcsia de Sancto Antonnio
"in Rosland 1x5." equally with " ecclcsia de Sancto Gerendo;" and this note to the
latter, " Portio rectoris ibidem xlvi^. \'n\d. Portio prioris Sancti Antonini in ecclesia de
" Sancto Gerundo, videlicet xlvi^. viiirf." or (as another, the Harleian, Valor reads)
♦' rectoris ecclesise Antonii ibidem xWis. \\\\d." We thus see the origin of a right, which
now appears so singular a secularization of church income, but which is made more singular
by the lay-owner's extension of it, not merely to a moiety of the settled permanent income,
the tithes and the glebe ; but to half of those oficrings at Easter, which are purely voluntary
in their amount beyond the two-penccs, prescribed by law, which, in the two-pences them-
selves, are purely the fruits of the rector's personal labours in administering the eucharist at
Easter, and to half even of the still more contingent fruits of his labours, in burying, in
marrying, or in churching. To none of these can the lay-owner have the slightest right,
his right l)eing to nothing contingent, to nothing paid fur personal oflices, to nothing be-
yond what was substantial enough to be estimated in a Valor. But when the rectorial
xrhurch of St. Anthony is said, in the second Valor, to be merely a chapel to Gerens, a re-
ference is probably made to its rcd'ucd condition under the plundering hands of our re-
formers; when it was deprived of all its endowments, as well as its house: it now possesses
only a petty annuity of 10/. a year from its lay-patron, and has divine service once a fort-
night only, from the rector or curate of Gcrens, as the stationary clergyman nearest to it,
one, therefore, sure to be lowest in his terms : so nearly is the little church of St. Anthony
brought back to what it seems to have been originally, a mere chapel to Gerens.

D 2 a hah'

20- THE CATHEDRAL OF CORN'Vl^VLL [CHAP. V.

a half afterw'artl ; a progress much more rapid in St. Just than in Eglos-
ros, from the later cultivation of that than of this, and from the building
of the town of St. jMawes at one extremity of that. But the position
of the two churches of St. Just and of St. Anthony shews us, that the
feelings of Gerens and of Eglos-ros had taught the erectors not to select
any of the high lands within their districts for the sites of their new
churches, but to run down with them into the sheltered bottoms ; both
of them being dropt into bottoms more sheltered even than those of the
mother-churches, even very narrow, very abrupt, and very wet, where
the ground hangs in a steep declivity over the church, but where the
church lies, for that very reason, peculiarly snug from the storms.

TIuis the church which was the first upon the heath, and so took the
heath's name for half of its own, appears from a train of circumstances,
some coeval and some subsequent, to have been erected about the
middle of the seventh century ; when the memory of St. Piala could not
have been fresh enough of itself to provoke a dedication to her ; but
w^hen the name of St. Piala was proljably attached from some casual
reverence for her in the mind of the lay-patron. Denominated Eglos-
ros in formal language, down to the first Valor ; it was equally distin-
guished in familiar all the time, by the name of its saint. Thus only
could it have come, as it did come, in two centuries and a half after-
ward, to have lost its local appellation, and to appear with its saint's
name settled in form upon its head, being thus characterized in the
last Valor, " Fellye alias PhiUey," as dedicated to " Saint Felix."

We have also another parish, under a similar title, but much older in
its date, one assuredly of our original parishes, and one upon the
northern coast of the county, even in the very vicinity of Gwynear. It
is called in the second Valor, " Felack, alias St. Felix, alias Phillack," as
equally dedicated to " St. Felix;" even " S. Filake's," by Leland*;
and " S. Feli's" in an old rate for fifteenths f. But by the first Valor
it is denominated in such a manner, so consonant to ail those appella-

• Itin. iii. i8. + Carew, 90.

tlons,

SECT. I.] IIISTORrCALLV SURVEYED. 21

tions, and so illustrative of all their meanings ; as ascertains the sex,
and appropriates the name of the saint, at both churches ; " Ecclesia
" vSanctai Telicitatis," being its appellation there. We thus see the
" Sancta Felicitas" of one of the churches, to be the same with the
" St. Felix" of both ; and the name to have been modified by pronuncia-
tion, into " Felack," or " Fellyc," into " Phillack," or " Philley," or
Pi aid. And the sister of Gwynear appears at last to have settled closer
upon the Hayle than he, on the same side of it, but immediately oppo-
site to St. lii, and in the district comprehending the very castle of Kivier
itself +.

BuDoc, however, appears to have pushed farther into the country,
even as far as Breaca and Germochus, even to the very brink of the

J As rival parishes have contended for the honour of being included within this region
of roses and of mutton, just as rival states contended once for the glorv of giving birth to
Homer ; let me, as a fair " arbiter elegantiarum" between them, here shew upon what
grounds I have acted in my determination above. By a rigid sort of self-denying ordinance,
I have rut oft' my own parish, with the parish of Vcryan, from tliat honour forever, 1 have
thus proved my impartiality at the expense of my ambition. And " this parish of Philley,"
says the late Mr. Tonkin, a most unexceptionable witness, " being the first in that tract of
" land called Roseland, co?isisting of four parishes, this. Saint Just, Gerens, and Saint
" ylnlhony; I think," Sec. Upon evidence so weighty, must a cause so important be now
settled decisively.

But let me add more gravely, that Tonkin, and Borlase, and Pryce, all unite in
giving Ros the occasional meaning of a valley. Yet this is surely impossible to be true. A
word, that in its general acceptance signifies a mountain, can never deviate surely into a
meaning directly opposite to that. All language is governed by analogy. Two opposite
meanings to a word, therefore, one general but the other occasional, would turn language
into confusion, and revive the builders of Babel again. Rhos (W.) is a mountain meadow;
Ross (E.), a promontory; Rhos, Ros fC), a mountain or a meadow, a moss, a heath, or a
common; and Rhosydh (C), heathy ground. Hence the interpreters of the Cornish,
losing the predominant idea of a mountain, yet retaining it in part, and combining with it
the idea of a meadow; have sunk the mountain into a valley, with a promontory to it, and
so have transferred to the valley what can belong to the mountain only. " Ericetum — enim
"Ros Britannice significat," says that best of all judges, Camden; " unde Rossitr in
" Scotiii, et Rossia alteri in Cambria, nomen, utpotc qui tractus satis siticulosi et aridi, sed
" hie," our Roseland, " colonorum induslriii Ixtior et fcracior. Post hanc Rossiam statim
" occanus," &c. P. 138.

SOU til

^2 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

south sea, as the British Cliantiel is ^^ ith a seeming magnificence of
expression denominated in Cornwall, A\'hen an appellation has been
once fixed upon a grand object, any application of it afterw-ards to an
object much inferior, strikes the mind of the hearer at first with a sense
of proud presumption in the ap])lier; till the mind recovers itself from
the stroke, rallies its powers of discernment, and sees the sensation to
be a revolt merely mechanical in the understanding, against an applica-
tion strictly just in itself. To the south sea then did Budoc pene-
trate, and to the south-east, almost as far as Falmouth. " I cam,"
notes Lcland in his progress from east to west along the southern side of
Cornwall, " to S. Budocus chirch." This is popularly considered as
only a chapel to the church of Gluvias, because it is now united, as it
equally appears united upon the second Valor, in one presentation and
one institution with Gluvias. But it is witnessed by the first Valor, to
have been a distinct church then ; " Ecclesia de Saneto Budoco," being
then noticed, as well as " Ecclesia de Saneto Gluviate," and that being
rated at six pounds, Avhile this is rated only at forty shillings. Yet the
one was pretty plainly a chapel to the other, as they are both subjected
immodiately to the jurisdiction of the bishop. St. Budoc's, indeed,
appears, from its superior value, two thirds more than Gluvias's, to
have been the mother-church ; Gluvias being merely a chapel, erected
on the eastern side of a creek, for the conveniency of the new town
arising there. It is now tlirown out of the town ; because the park,
belonging to the bishop, on the hill above, was laid open to the builder,
and the houses removed to another creek on the west, "na ith a Ions:
prominence of land at the side, as well as a greater depth of water in the
channel. There the new town began imder the years 1264, 1205, " in
" a more," at the head of this creek, with a collegiate church, founded
there by a bishop himself, even bishop Brunscomb, alias the Good Bishop,
" in the bottom of a parke of hys ;" the park still subsisting to the
erection of the church, and the founder of tlxh being therefore the opener
oUhat. Accordingly Nordcn speaks thus of " Gluvias," as " the churche
♦' for Penrin borowe, yet but a chappell appendant vnto Bndock, called
" Capella tie Behclland, — because it was buylded upon certayne lands

" called

SECT. 1.] HISTOKICALLV SURVEYED, 23

" called Bchelland feyldes *." Nor could Gluvias have ever pretended to
arrogate a supremacy over Budoc, till the town of Penrvn hecame con-
siderable enough, as it appears in the Valor of 1292; so vigorously had it
shot up in less than thirty years! to be a distinct rectory of itself, even
to become the denominator of that petty deanery of peculiars, which,
however, specifies Budoc first, Gluvias second, then Milor, Gerens, and
St. Anthony ; till both Mere reduced into vicarages, by being appro-
priated to the new college, that ^erm of the new town ; and till both,
for this very reason probably, were again incorporated into one, as they
appear in the second Valor, under that combined title, which shews us
the daughter for the first time presuming to take precedence of her
mother, " St. Gluvias and St. Budoke vicarage." Then, upon the same
principle of religion, another chapel was erected in the removed town,
continued to the days of Leland, but has been allowed to disappear
since ; that attention to the public offices of religion, which operated so
strongly before the Reformation, and does so much honour to our an-
cestors before it, having been shamefully relaxed since, suffering our
chapels to be desecrated, and leaving our churches to be deserted. St.
Budoc's then was the mother-church to Penryn, as it is well known to
have also been to Falmouth. Yet who was the saint that lent his name
to this original parish of Cornwall, and has the honour of enclosing two
of our principal towns within it ? Leland shall tell us. " This Budocus,"
he adds, " was an Irischman, and cam into Cornewalle, and ther,"
at Budoc, " DWELLiD," as a hermit f .

Yet

* Norden, 45.

t Lclaiul's Itin. iii. 25. In tlic first Valor is Uiis entry : " DecanatusdePcnri/n. Eccl.dc
*' S'" Biidoco vi. li.j eccl. dc S'° Gluviate xli." Lelaiid's Itin. iii. 26 : " The first creke or
" arme, that castith outh on the north-west side of Falemuth, goilh up [to] Perin, and at the
" ende it hrekith into 2 armcs, the Icsse to the college of Glascnith — at Perin, the other to St.
" Gluvias, theparoch chirch of Pcnrine thereby." P. 27 : " One Walter Good, bishop of
" Exccstre," meaning him who is commonly called Walter Bronesconib, who became bishop
in 1257, and died in 1280, "madeyn a more — , in the bottom of aparkeof hisat Pemine, a
" collegiate chirch." Itin. \V' dc Worccsire, 123: "Fundaciocollegii predict! perWalterum
" episcopum Excestrix in anno Christi 1265." Ibid. 128: " 1264, Pcryn villa — . Ecclesiacol-
" legii — fimdata fuit perWalterum de Goode cpiscopum Exccslrix." Lcland's Ilia. vii. 120 :

<' At

I't THE CATHEDRAL OF CORN WALE [cHAP. V.

iVt Bum EN went another way, equally penetrated towards the south
sea, but inclined much more to the west ; and while Sinnin settled near
the Land's Knd, she settled a little short of his abode, at the place so dis-
ting;uished afterwards by Athclstan's vow, so honoured with a college
of clcrg}' erected by Athelstan, so dignified still hy that existing remnant

" At the very licdtl of which [creek] stamletli a prety townc of marchandysc,and vytayle market.

" Yn the towne ys a chapel, and a quarter of a myle owt of the town ys the paroch chyrch."

This, adds Mr. Wilhs, in ii. io6, 107, " is an ancient manor l)eIonging to the sec of

" Exeter, of which it is at this day held by tlic corporation, wiio pay the bishops of that see

" a certain quit-rent for the toil of the markets and the fairs. The bishop is lord of the

" borough, ami forrois QT out-borough." In the 30th Edward I. " Thomas Button alias

" Britton," who became bishop in that very year, 1293, " exhibited his claim of infang-

" thef," 8cc. " in his manor of Penryn, which he challenged to be a free borough, and,"

of course, " ' to have the property of a market and fair; and that tiiese rights were enjoyed

" bv his predecessors'," bishop Quivil and bishop Bronescomb; " who probably made it a

" borough, there being several presidents [precedents] of bishops having done the same, as

" Josceline bishop of Wells, who made Cherd, com. Somerset, a free borough, lenip.

*' Hen. III." Bishop Bronescomb made it a bon ugh, and bishop Quivil a' free borough,

assuredly; and thus exercised the power which was not peculiar to prelates, but common to

all lords of manors or towns, and belonged to prelates only as such lords. A free borough was

merely a borough free from the payment of tolls to its lord. And Walter built the college as

akitidof casile to his new town, it beir^g " stronly [strongly] wallid and incasteilid, having

*' 3 strong towers, and gunnes, at the bat of the creke." (Leiand's Itin. iii. 27.) For that

reason alone could he have placed his college upon ground so improper for any building, so

peculiarly improper for a large one (see W. de Worcestre, 128, 129); upon a " glasenith

♦' I. viridis nidus, or wag mier" (Leland, iii. 26); because this was "at the but ende

" of the creke." There the college remained in part to the present century, its towers being

the " two watch-towers" of Penryn, in Hals, 145, '' still in being;" therefore, leading him

to say Penryn " was heretofore walled and fortified for its defence against enemies;" one of

them occasioning Willis to allege more truly, in ii. 106, that " part of the ruins of this

*' [college] are still standing, viz. a toner and some garden wails;" and all traces of it being

now swept awav, except the two stone piers of a large gateway, opening into the town. The

bishop's house, which had this park for an appertenancc, is noticed by Norden, 49, as " wiih-

" out the towne, — a mannor," house, •' called Penryn e Bryn;" or the Court of Penryn

(see Rowland's Mona, 90, gi); and by Hals, 145, as in English Summer Court Town,

merely Summer Court, a small house on the creek coming from the college, and very lately

rebuilt for a manufactory of paper-.

In Hals's bedlamite account of Penryn, 144 — 147, we have some verses cited from
*' the Cornish Manuscript of the Creation of the World, a play brouglit into Oxford in 1450,

"and

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. -^

ot' the college, a nominal deanery, a real jurisdiction, and a large re-
venue. " S. Buriana," Leland tells us, " an holy woman of Ireland,
*' sumtyme dvvellid ix this place, and there made an oratory *."
" The canons of Scih/f Bcnionr,'' as Doomsday Book informs us, " hold
" Eg/os-Lcrricf.'" So varied does the name appear, in the two men-
tions mad(; of it In' this record ! But it appears still more varied in the
Valors, the earlier specifying " Eeclesia de Beranes,'' according to the
Cottonian copy, or " Eeclesia Sanetae Berianre," according to Spelman's;
and the later mentioning " Boricni, alias St. Burien." Yet with another
variation, disgniising her name, I believe her to be the same ^\ith
" Bruinet [Burient], a king's daughter, that came into Cornwall
" WITH Saint Piran ;{:." And she even ap|>ears plainly to be " Saint
" Branca [Buranta], the virgin, who fies in the church of the female
" saint aforesaid, four miles y/ow Mount St. Michael §.'' The college

"and still cxtanl in the Bodleian library there;" whieh he did not understand, and I now
wish to apply. Some of them are these, as translated by himselt:

" Warbarth gans ol gweel Bohelhui, " Your wages is [are] prepared,

" Hag goad I'enrin eiitien, " Together with all the llelds of Bohellan,

" An Ennis, hag Arwinitk, " And the wood of Penrin entirely,

" Tregimber, hag Kcayllaek. " The island, and Arwlnick,

" Trcgcinber, and Kcgyllack."'
The words, notes Hals, arc "spoken as by Solomun rewarding the huilders of the iiiii'
" verse." So finely are all the unities of lime, jilace, .ind character observed by this
Cornish drama. Tliefiehb of Ihhcllan allude to the very lands, on which Ghivias church
was built; the wood of I'enryn, to the wood traditionally known to have been formerly there
in its imparked state : Ennys, not to the island of the Black Rock, as Hals most ridicnlously
supposes, a rock never inhabited) and ne\er habitable; but to an estate still denominated
Eiinvs, as well as to estates equally denominated still Arwiuick, Tregembcr, and Kcgyllack;
all with Behelland within thr [Kirisk (f illiii'ias, and all witnessing the author himstlf to hare
I'Cin a [larisjimner of it. Bacon ciics Willis, lor St. Mary Magdalen chapel, in Penryn,
when Willis onlv cites Leland, and for a chapel v, ithout a name.
• Lcland's hin. iii.

t 1'". 121 : " Canonici S. I'errione tenent Kglos-bcrric." In Cornish it was called " Eg'is-
" I')uricns, i.e. Ecclfsia Bunenx- \el Meiian;e" (Camden, 136); as Bwricn is ip this day
pronounced I'cricii in common conversation.

J Leiand's Itin. iii- 195: " E.\ \'ita I'irani. — ' Bruinet, filia cujusdam reguli'."
§ llin. W' dc Worcestre, 107 : " Saucta Branca, virgo; dies ejus agitur die primo . . . .,
" jaccl in cccle.-iil praedictac Sanctx per iiii miliaria Montis Michaelis."

\UL. 11. E - of

20 run CATHEDRAL OF CORXVVAI.L [cHAP. V.

of clorgy, erected in honour of this saint, seems to have been deserted
by them for some time l)efore tlic Reformation ; from the preposterous
nomination probably of Enghshmcn, of court chaplains, or of ministerial
expectants, to tlie preferments in it. They were there at the Conquest.
They probaby continued there for a good \\hilc afterward. But they
v»ere seldom resident at all in tlie days of Leland ; and therefore called
aloud for the compelling hand of discipline to be laid upon them.
■^' I'her lyith bctwyxt the sowth-west and Newlyn," says this ever useful
vchorographer, " a rayle or more of the se, S. Burycns, a sanctuary ;
*' v\ herby, as nere to the chyrch, be not above \m dwellyng howses.
*' Ther longeth to S. Buryens a deane and a few prcbcndarys, //uit almost
"" he nefher t/ier*." The college thus sunk into ruins, and the ruins
were destroyed by that retrograde zeal for religion, which should in
common sense have rebuilt instead of demolishing the college, and lune
-Settled a permanent colony of divines within it. There were three
prebendaries, a rector, and a dean; the three probably for the (hrec
churches of Burien, Sennan, and Ivcvin, the rector for tlic ruling church,
and the dean, as president over all. But now the dean,

Like Aaron's rod, lias swallow'd up the rest;
having first fatted his lean deanery of (j/. lOs. o-,d. in the last Valor,
^\•ith the rich rectory of the parish, instituted some ages before either
Athelstan ox the. dean, and in the last Valor rated at -18/. \2s. id. ; but
having also glutted himself since, I apprehend, v^itii two of the three
prebends. These are specified in the Valor under tlu" titles of Tirthnev,
Respcrnell, or Parva, and with the estimates of ;/., 7/. Gs. 8d., or 1*/.
jjc^pectively, '^J'w o of these, however, rJespernell and Tirthney, exist
merely in name, having been for a century past incorporated silently
jnto the substance of the deanery, and having therefore no known patron
iit present ; u hile the other, the very small one, has the bishop for its.
"Thus clergjmen shew a rapaciousncss of aA'arice, even in sacred apj)ro-
priations of income, that a sacrilegious Henry did not shew. AS'hat
he spared, they seize. And a parish, so large in itself, so amply
ibencficcd at fust, so riciily collegiated afterwards, is resigned up to
.the care of three curates ; while the rector, the dean, imd two out

* Leland's Itiii. vii. 127*
J of

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 2/

of the three prebendaries, are all living luxuriously in tlie person of
one divine, the very leviathan of St. Burien's, but taking his pastime at
a considerable distance from it*. The "oratory," then, which " S.
*' Buriana — there made, w^hile she sumtyme dwellid in this place"
as a hermit, was of the same sort as Breaca made upon another point
of our shore, the parish-church rebuilt by her; rebuilt at the ex-
j)ense of one, who, though she was a hermit like Breaca, was also like
her possessed of much "wealth, and was in fact the daughter of a king ;
becomings afterwards the place of her sepulture, so bearing her sainted
name upon its head, and receiving the supplications ot Athelstan to
God in it ; but finall}' taken down by the king, when he *' made ex voto
" a college where the oratory was," and ivhere the still collegiated yet
shamefully deserted parish-church is at present ■\.

Thus did the Cornish come to be, what Camden represents them to
have been in his time ; " men who have always respected so far the
" sulnts of Ireland, and those of their oivn country, as the tutelary spirits
" of it, that thcij have consecrated cdmost all their towns to them +."
But let me bind these three incidents close to my subject, by a fourth.
In the year 600, according to Harding, or 586, according to Powel,
says Dr. Borlase in his Chronology, " Caricis, alias Careticus, reigned,
" according to H. 3, to P. 2, }ears over all Britain, and in Wales, and
" in C'ornwall 15 more. Jt this time the Britons were, by the Saxons, —
" driven into Wales and Cornwall with their king Careticus.'' Not. in
Powcl's Catalogue §. This is that visionary kind of history, which still
haunts the scene of reality at times, " revisiting the glimpses of the
" moon," and " making night hideous." A sole sovereign over all
Britain about the \ear Ooo, or even 580, and driven tVom his imperial
throne into Wales or Cornwall, is merely a ghost, drest in armour of
gilt leather, gliding along the darkened boards, and vanisliing. Care-

• Tanner, Borlase, 383, 384, ami Hacon.
i Li'Ianil's Iiiri. iii. i8.

J Camden, 136: " Sanctos — Hibcrnicos, ct iiuUgcles suos, htcc gens ut tutelares ita.
" semper siispexit, ut omuia fere oppida illis consecraverit."
§ iiorlasf, 409,

E 2 ticus

28 Tin* CATIlEDn.M. OF COU.WVALL ^CIIAT. V.

ticus indeed was only the little kins; of a county, had no connexion
with Cornwall at all, and ruled only >\]iat has derived its appellation
from him, Cerctica, or Cardiganshire in Wales*. Nor did he or his
son CARANToe live so late as 580 or Goo ; the son passing over into Ire-
/(/ml about 132, in order to unite with Saint Patrick in the glorious
work of converting the Irish f; and afterwards, about 46o, coming
assinedlv into Cornw all w ith the large colony of hermits from Ireland,
some of tliem, like him, the companions of St. Patrick ; some too, like
Ijlm, the very co-operators with St. Patrick in converting the Irish.
Into Corn trail he certuinli^ came; and therefore came with that colony
of co-ojierators or companions, which has priced so very copious a
sx)urce of saints to the Cornish. " Karantoc was the son of Cerelicus,
" a king of the liritons," says an ancient life of him, in some extracts
made by Leland ; " Karantoc constructed an oratory for himself, in the
" place which was cuWcd Cuerith Kar-antatic^.^' This the biographer
afterwards denominates in a mode of termination, that may seem to
speak him a Saxon, but is e(jually ]>ritish also ; " Karan/o//, that Ls, the
" manour of Kaj-antoc, being the place given to Karantoc §." The
name of Gt/erifh Karantaac, therefore, thus explained by the biographer
as a Cornishman, is that Cornish appellation which was fixed upon the
ground, at the very period of ceding the ground to Carantoc ; and the
appellation is iruly correspondent with all, Giverydoe (W.) signifying a
land, a country, a region ; but Gucnet (C), which is still -nearer to the
name, meaniiig the ground. This land must have been assigned to the

* Usher, 441 : " Carantocum — Kcreclici Cerelicx apud Cambrobrit. aiinos regis filiiim."

t Usher, 441 : " Eodcm ipso quo in Ililieriiiam Patricias ailvenit anno, Carantocunij
" Hibernis Cemach appellatum, — in Hibcrnia conversari ccepisse, in Sancti itiius \'ita
'' Icgimus." — See also p. 517, for the specified vcar.

:|: Lcland's Itin. iii. 195: *' Ex \'ita Karantoci. ' KaranL fiiius Keretici regis Britann.';"
au ambiguous expression, that probably suggested the wild imagination of a kins; of all
Britain. " Karant. constru.xit oratorium in loco qui diclus Guerith Karantauc." This saint,
therefore, is difR'rent from the Karatoc, or Carantac, of Itin. viii. 72 : "Ex Vitii Karatoci.
••' ' Carautacus ii\\\.\s Rvderici regis. Carantocus fuit in ilibernia 30 annis ante nativitatemS.
" Danielifi'j" which Daniel died about 545. (Usher, 274.)

§ Leland's [tin. iii. 195 ; " Ex Vita Karantoci. — Karanton, i. c. villa Karantoci, locus
■" datus Karant/'

dignified

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVEl), 29

dignified hermit, by the owner of the soil under the permission of tlic
king. Both, therefore, must have been as mueh Christians in profes-
sion, as Carantoc was one in zeal. This zeal, which earricd Jiiin into
Ireland, and engaged liini witli the heathens, which exposed him to
infinite dangers, as well as subjected him to infinite troubles, strangely
subsided at last into the sequestrations of a hermitage. We consider
indeed the religiousness that thus retires, to be mingled with timidity,
to shrink therefore from the world, and so to withdraw into solitude;
when with more coui'agc it would be more useful, and, by giving an
example of practised holiness, woidd delineate to all viewers, mediate
or innnediate, the very picture o^ general i-eligiousness in lively colours.
Nor do we consider wrong, in thus thinking. This is clearly the case,
with the multitude of retirers. ]]ut with such men as Carantoc, as
Piran, and others before, men that felt enough of the impulse of spirit,
to meet the blackest frowns of tlu> world ; that kindled sutHciently with
the riame of Heaven, to struggle earnestly for the salvation of man in
contradiction to man's own desires ; the case is very difi'erent. Such
men had, such men could have, no timidity about them. Thev were
the magnanimo\is heroes of our race. They shewed themseh'es such in
magnanimous and heroical exertions for the conversion of man to
Christianity. But when the work was done, for which their spirits had
been strained, and their minds bent, to their fullest stretch of possibility;
their minds and spirits relaxed, seeking a repose from all their intense-
ness of operation, in the calm of contemplative religion, in the ease of
devout aspiration.^. In this manner, but with less dignity, Seipio retired
from the triumphs of war and the ingratitude of Rome, to walk with
i.iidius upon the beach at Gaicta or LorcJizo, to pick pebbles, to collect
shells, and let himself down to all the amusements of his boyish days*.
'Ihat therefore may be said of ilicm \\ Inch Livy writes of htm ; " in

* TuIIy Dc Oratorc, il. 22 : " Srepc ex soccro nico audlvi, cum is cliceret, socerum suum
" Ljelium semper fcrc cum Scipionc soliium riisticari, t-ofqiic increclibiliter repucrasccre esse
" solitos, cum rus ex urbc, t.iiuiuam e viiicuHs, cvolavisscut. Non audeo diccre de talibu^:
" viris, sed taincn ita solet nairaru Scaevpla, conchas eos et umliilicos ad Caielani et ad
'* 'Laureutum Icgcre consuesse, etad omiicni animi rcmissioncm luuumque descendere."

" voutli

30 THE CATHEnRAT. OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

" } outh they were contimially engaged in wars, in old age they seemed
"to shrink in their size, because they had not objects sufficient to call
" out their genius f." On this principle did Carantoc settle at a point
of our north sea, a little to the east of Piran ; fix his cell by the parish-
church there, and was buried within it at his death, assuredly ; so gave
his name to a parish, that surrounds the site of both at present, that
once had the collegiate church of Saint Karenfine upon the very site of
his, and still has the poor, plundered, naked church of Carantoh, or
Cranfoh. That church has been collegiated in honour of St. Carantoc,
we may be siu'c very soon after his death, and A\hilc his memory was
yet fresh among the Cornish. It is therefore mentioned in our record
of Doomsday Rook, as even then a college of canons. These " canons
" of S. Carentoch," says the book, " hold Langoroch ;" a name then
applied to the church and church-lands, by a colloquial contraction of
the saint's name, as it is still retained for the church itself, "and held it
" in the time of king Edward*." They appear, from the early Valor,
to have been no less than nine prebendaries and a portionist +. But alL
were torn away before the late Valor, by that low-thoughted penurious-
ness of sold, which fancies almost every expense too much for the ho-
nour of God's worship, but none too great for the gratification of its own
pride; which plunders the church of God to swell the luxury of its own
table ; and would, if it could, plunder even " Heaven's pavement, beaten
" gold," to heighten its own pomp of prodigality upon earth. Thus a
church so amply endowed, as to be rated in viilue beyond any other in
Cornwall, even at 8<j/. I.'').*. 8r/. near two thousand a year at present,
has been reduced so low by the audaciousness of sacrilege, as to remain
a melancholy momunent of its ravages in the eyes of the present gene-
ration. Nothing is left, not even the vicarage, that production of lazi-

t Livy, xxxviii. 53: " In juvcnta bclla assidiie gcsta; cum senecta res quoqiie dcflorncre,
" nee prsbita est materia ingciiio."

* Doomsday Book, f. 121 : " Canonici S. Carentoch ter.ent Langoroch, et tenebant
•'tempore regis Edwardi." Hals, 73: " The vicarage church of Crautock is commonly
" called Lan-Gurra, or Lan-Gorra."

X Pope Nicholas's Valor, by supplying from Spelman's copy the portion omitted in the.
Cotlonian.

ness,

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 31

iiess, or non-residence, in the canoiis, rated in the first Valor at forty
shillings merely, but turned in the second into a curacy, that subsists
merely on a pittance ot" eight pounds a-year certain*. So nearly have
some of the clergy been ground to atoms in their revenues, between the
jnoving miUstones of Popery and Protestantism ; both turning upon the
same spindle of selfishness, but Protestantism pressing -with still greater
force than Popery. So little, too, could the character of this sainted
son of a Welsh king, this honom-ed hermit of Cornwall, and this con-
verter of the Irish witli St. Patrick, operate to save his church, the
erection, probably, of some cotcmporary sovereign of Cornwall, from
the sousing harpies of desolation j- !

* Bacon.

t Cotcmporary with these was a sauit, purely Cornish in his birth, I apprehend, but
never yet afiixed to Cornwall. This is one of whom our memorials are not very sli"-ht, and
our evidences not merely modern. " IFItilst S. Palrick lalvured in the Gospell luiih so great
*' SHCcesse," says Cressy, 182-185, " Briltanij," that is, our isle of Britain, " was illustrated
" with the glory of another great saint ; who, notwithstanding, by reason of the calamities
*' afterward hapning, was forced to leave his juit'tre countrcv, and passe over into Annorica
" in Ciaule : this was S. VVixwaloc, the son of a certain noble person called Fracan, cou-
" sin-gcrman to a Bviliih prince named Coton, as nee reade in (he Gallican Martyrologe.
" Malbranc, a French antiquary, affirms that his mother's name was Alba, and sirname
" Trimavis, citing for his aulhoritij the ancient manuscript moniimenft of Monstriieil. —
" Malbranc earnestly contends that his sacred relics repose at Monstrucil, where they shew
" likewise his chasuble, albe, and stole ; and there is a church dedicated to his memory,
" in French called S. Waloy." This saint was professedly a British, and plainly a Cornish
man. He is remembered at Monftrcuil, wc see, and he is cqiiallv remembered in Corn-
wall, we know : a church has continued his name in both to the present day. In our
deanery of Kerrier we ha\e the parish of Gunwallo, and the church of it is dedicated to
Saint U'ljnwallow. This part of our coast, therefore, was assuredly that at which he
resided as a h.crmit, and from which he " passed over into Annorica," to settle finallv at a
monastery in Artois ; while the church of S. Waloy, at Monstn-uil, was in all probabi-
lity that " little private church, scperated from noysc and abode uf people, about a mile
" distant from his monastery," to which " it was .S. Winwaloc's custom to repair daily, —
" that he might more quietly and without distraction" prav there. (Cressy, 184.) He was
half .1 hermit still ; but he is now restored to Cornwall for the llrst time. Yet to Cornwall
was he given by the old niartyrologics, the additions made to Bede's specifying expressly on
the twenty -eighth of April " CounubIj*. nat. S. Guingualcbi Confessoris." (Betlte Opera,
362.) He was no martyr, wc sec, as he was only a confcs?or; and his /m/o/e was his
actual lirth-darj.

1 have

32 TIIR CATHEDRAL OF COnNWAT.L [cilAP. V.

I have thus carried my chain of evidence to a sufficient length tor the
present; 1 have particularly pointed out that rich embarkation of saints
which came over from Ireland into Cornwall about the year lOo. All
these saints existed, we shmUd now remember, in that very period of
oiu- Cornish history in ^\ hich Dr, Borlase dreams he " finds many holy
" men employed to convert the C^ornish to the Christian religion ;" when
the Cornish appear already converted, already Christians, and liaving
their kings, their nobles, their clergy, their monks, or their hci'mits,
all happily united in Christianity together*.

SF-CTION

* III that colony from Ireland came undoubtedly sonic who are not to be regularly traced
up to it at present, and therefore cannot be positively incorporated into its catalogue. Such
a one we find in Leland'* brief notice of " Withel, an Yrisch sainct" (Itin. v. 42), who
certainly gave name to the " Ecclcsia de Withiel" of the first Valor ; the *' Wythioll, alias
" Withicl," of the second, a parish in our deanery of Pyder ; because the name is pro-
nounced by the Cornish exactly as it is written by Ltland, not. IVijth'ioll or IVitk'tel, but
lyithel. This church, therefore, is not dedicated in reality, however it may be in report,
to- an unknown " St. Uvell," whose name has little or no correspondency of sound with the
appellation of the parish, but to this saint of Ireland, who echoes the name of the parish
with so just a tone in his own. W'e have also another parish, that I suppose to be equally
denominated from one of these ///ji/f saints. *•' The prior of Tywarclreth," says Hals, 11,
" with divers other benefactors, as appears from the carving and inscription on the stones
*' thereof, founded and endowed this church within the town of Trenanee, now St. AusTELt,
«' town ; after which it was indifierently written Trenanee Prior (Carew's Survey of Corn-
" wall, 47),. that is to sa\', the Valley-town l^rior (or pertaining to him) ; and again by
" him, Trenanee Aus-tell, i. e. the CV-ll, Chapel, or Hole Valley-town ; and again, Tre-
" nance Aus-ttll, i. c. the Valley-town, or out remote Cell or Chapel, so called in respect
" to Tyuardrelh, its superior or mother-church." With such a sweep of licentiousness
does this hero in absurdity take his course ! even when he seems, from his references, to be
most authentic in his accciuUs, he contrives to dash his folly of fiction in the face of his
reader. The etymologies are too contemptible for refutation, and the reference to Carew
is absolutely false in itself. Carew, in f. 47, makes no mention at all of " Trenanee Prior,"
mentioning only " Trenanstle" for Trcnau Auslle; as in f. 44, he mentions equallv under
the 3d of Henry IV. " Trenasanstel" for Trenans Austcl, The township was originally
called Trenanee, and in it resided the denominating saint. " S, Auslol," notes Leiand in
Itin. vii. 120, " crat hercmita." He took up his residence not far from a fountain here,
called to this day " St. Austell Well," though it is a quarter of a mile to the north of the
town, beins a hollow in the face of a high perpendicular rock, bellying wide within, and
arched in a jicak '.vithout. . Tlie very place is denominated from it Manacuchllc in writing,

SECT. II.] , iriSTORICALLY SURVEYED. 33

SECTION II.

I HAVE now raised my lighthouse, stone by stone, and story b)
story, till the top of it has nearly ascended to the period of St. German's
visit into Cornwall. But as I have some operations for St. German to
perform in Cornwall that are purely Christian in themselves, and imply
Christianity to be the religion established in Cornw all at the time, I am
compelled to raise my lighthouse still higher. Thus will the fire upon
it form a larger sphere of illumination, and irradiate the darkest clouds
about its head; we shall thus behold Christianity, at the coming of
Germanus into Cornwall, before it, even long before, dissolving all the
magic ties of druidism, bursting all the charmed bands of heathen igno-
rance or heathen viciousness, and setting the soul of our ancestors free,
free to assert her native dignity, to aspire after her natural place of rest,
to fly into the bosom of her Father and her Friend in heaven.

Though ^lelor was not a martyr for Christianity, yet he was (as I
have already hinted) a Christian when he was murdered. He was, says
his ancient biographer in Leland, " bred up in a monastery*," that

or Memkettle in pronunciation ; a Cornish appellation, that signifies merely the belly or
basin in the rock (see Hist, of Man. ii. 285, quarto), and a basin attracting always
the attention of antiquaries, recently engaging from them the title of a baptistery, yet now
appropriated, for the first lime, to its own use and its own saint : his cell, however, seems
to have been on the site of the town itself, to have been there modelled into a chapel after
his death, and magnified into a parish-church at last; thus proving the origin of the town,
and having a district taken for it out of the close-adjoining parish of St. Mewan assuredly.
A parish-church it was, even in the days of the first Valor ; being specified in it as " ecclesia
*' de Sancto Austolo," at the very time when it had been appropriated to the priory of
Tywardreth, as it had then " vicarius ejusdem." It was so appropriated in the reign of
Henry HI. : " Cart. 33 Ed. i. n. 38. recit. per inspeximus tres cartas Hen. 3. viz. pri-
" mam," 8cc. " secundam de eaclesia de Auslel, tertiam de libertate sanctuarii S. Austeli."
(Monasticon, ii. 586, 587, Tanner under Truwardrailh.J

* Lcland's Itin. iii. 194, 195: "Ex X'ita S. Mtlori. — ' Mclorus enntritus in coe-
nobio'."

VOL. II. F indiiliitable

34 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

indubitable evidence of Christianity professed and established in the
country. We have even the very name of the monastery in that of its
president, and so come to know the chronology of another saint of
Cornwall: he was " bred up in the monastery of Saint Corentin-j-."
This saint, as Dr. Borlase tells us, " who is now called Curt/,'' a chapel
being now denominated from him Corantyn in the Valor of Henry VIII. ;
but Curij in popular usage, omitted (like Germo) in the Valor of Pope
Nicholas, and, like Germo, included then, as it now is, in the parish
of Breague, but included in it as a chapel to Gunwallo, a member still
of the extended body of Breague, though all Sithney interposes between
them, and once therefore uniting with Sithney to compose that body,
" was the first Cornish apostle of note that we know of. Born in Brit-
" tany, he preached first in his own country and Ireland, till, being
" driven away by violence, he again betook himself to the life of a
" hermit, which he had quitted for the sake of travelling [in Brittany
*' and Ireland], to instruct the ignorant [in Brittany] and the infidel [in
** Ireland] : he settled at the foot of a mountain called Mcnehont, in
" the diocese of Cornwall." A note refers to Parker's Ecclesiastical
Antiquities for what is called " the very rich rectory of Menihont, in
" Devonshire*;" without remarking that in Devonshire there is no
such rectory, and even no such vicarage. " But some think it Men-
" hynnett, in Cornwall ;" as the note, without any apparent conscious-
ness of the higher rationality of its second suggestion, immediately sub-
joins. ** Here the fame of his sanctity increasing, at the entreaty of
" Grallonus king of the Armoricans, he was consecrated bishop of
" Cornwall by St. Martin, bishop of Tours in France, and, being said
" to have converted all Cornwall, died in the year 401 ;{;." This account
is wholly derived from those impure sources of intelligence, Capgrave
and Tinmouth ; but the Doctor refers all to a source still more impure —
to his own authority, as he appeals to no testimony for it. Nor is it
worth while to dwell upon the apparent absurdities in it; he who

+ Leland's Itin. iii. 194, 195 : " Ex Vita S. Melori. — * In ccenobio S. Corentini'."
* Borlase, 369 : " < Uberrimam rcctoriam de Manihont in Devonia.' Parker's Eccl. Ant,
Drake, p. 381."
\ Borlase, 369..

** again

SECT. II.] HISTORIC.\LLY SURVEYED. -iS'

" again betook himself to the life of a hermit," being consecrated a
bishop, and he being consecrated bishop of Cornwall, '* at the entreaty
" of" — whom ? — the king of Cornwall surely ! — No ! — " of Grallonus
" king of the Armoricaiu." Only let me observe, that the second of these
absurdities is apparently generated by a mixture of conflicting atoms :
Grallon king of the Armoricans, at whose solicitation Corantyn \\'as
consecrated bishop of Cornwall, being actually king or count of
Cornouaille in Armorica*; and Corantyn, so consecrated bishop of Corn-
wall, being bishop of Cornouaille in fact, even lending his sainted name
to the cathedral of Cornouaille at Quimper f . We must however take
the history as it lies before us, because we have no other, and try to
pick up gold with Virgil out of this dung of Ennius. Corantyn, then,
who is said by Dr. Borlase to have " died in the year 401," certainly
died in a much eariier year ; as Melor, who was murdered soon after
the first reception of Christianity in Cornwall, we know to have been
educated in his monastery. He first settled as a hermit, probably upon
the shore of our south sea, upon that part of it in the parish of Breaguc
which has the chapel of Corantyn or Cury on it at present : from his
hermitage here, he seems to have been drawn by the king of Cornwall,
and to have taken the charge of that monastery, as it was called, or
that academy, as it might more properly be called, in which Melor the
son of the king was educated. This was the retii-ement, I presume, in
which he is here said to have " settled at the foot of a mountain called
" Menehont ;" at the foot of the mountain, high on the side of which
stands the church, uiid at the bottom of which Ues the vicarage-house :

* Lobineau, i. i.

t " La kgende de S, Menulfe ou Menon, que Ton trouve dans la Biblioiheque dii
" P. Labbe, tome ii, dans les BoUaudistos au tome iii. du mois de Juillet, rapporlc que ce
" saint pcrsonnage quittant la Grande-Brctagne, aborda au territoire des Osismiens, ou
" S. Chorentin etoit eveque; ' pervenit ad Minorem (Britanniam), in provinciam civitatis
" quse ab antiquis Oximorum nuncupatur, ci/jus Sanctut Chorentinus antistes erat'."
(D'Anvilie's Notice de I'Ancicnne Gaulc, 509.) " Des letlres datces de I'an 1 166 — ont ete
" donnees ' apud Confluentiam in ecclesiil B. Mariae et B. Chorentini.' On lit dans un
" autre litre du Cartulaite de Kimper, ' ecclesia S. Chorentini in Confluent iA'." (Ibid.
248, 249.)

F 2 the

SG THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

the former, like a church in Wales, had attracted to it the name of
Llan Heneth, or the Church of the Elder ; so lent the name of Men
Heneth, or the Moimtain of the Elder, to the hill on which it stands* ;
and thence extended it over the parish, in supersedence bf the ancient
appellation of Trcgelly f . This accoi'dingly bears stiU the name of Ma-
mhinnet in the Valor of Pope Nicholas, and of Mynhemjote, alias Men-
hyunet, iu that of Henry VIII. ; and the vicarage, once the parsonage,
1 suppose, was that early academy or monastery of the Britons before
tlie very first of all those schools of Cornwall, which have continued in
our parsonage or our vicarage houses, even as late as our own days. This
is also the church so distinguished in modern times, by being the first
which heard the liturgy in the English language ; as that is the moun-
tain so celebrated in ancient, by having the first knov^n school for
education under it. We thus see Christianity established so thoroughly
in Cornwall at this period, whatever the period precisely is, and soon
after the general acceptance of Christianity by the Britons, that an
academy was erected for the Christian education of the nobles, as even
the son of the king was educated in it. We thus too advance, by the
scale of Dr. Borlase's own chronology, up beyond the year 401, when
Corantyn is stated by him to have died, and nearly half a century bejond
the year at which St. German made his visit into Cornwall. And to
this accoiint of Corentin, however full for a person so little known, we
may just add two circumstances totally unknown to Dr. Borlase, yet
truly important to the history of him ; that he is mentioned expressly

* Mijnneu or Mennit, are mountains in Welsh and Cornish (Borlase) ; Myn or Men,
therefore, was once a mountain in those languages, as Moin, Muine, still are in Irish, and
Tenmamnaur is in Welsh ; Heiielh (C.) is age, Henydd (W.) an elder. So we have "Llan
" Heneth," a parish-church in Wales, not signifying (as Leland interprets the namej
" Fanum Obedientire" (Itin. v. 62), but " Fanum Pfesbyteri." This is now called '
" Henllan," I presume, in " the deanery of Rhose or Ross." (Liber Regis.)

f "The lordship of [Treeg]eliy, now caullid Minheneth lordship — : from Leskard to
" Minheneth a 2 miles, wher is a fair large old chirch. The personage is impropriate

« to ," Exeter college in Oxford. " The maner of JNIinheneth was sumtime caullid

** Treeellv, whereof the name and ruines yet remaine." (Leland's Itin. iii. 39, 40.) The
ruins still remain, 1 understand, in a gateway, &c»

4 upon.

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED 37

upon the additions made to Bede's Mart^rology in manuscript, as there
we read on the first of May thus, " in Cornwall, the birth-day of Saint
" CoNRiNTiN, the cofijessor and bishop*;" and that this saint was so
famous in those ages during which religion seems not merely (as it
ought) to have reigned paramount to all other ideas, but almost to have
absorbed tliem quite, as to have made the abbey of Glastonbur}^ proud
to possess the relics of " Saint Corentin the bishop f," equally with
the remains of St. Petrock and other less provincial saints J.

But we may mount still higher upon Dr. Borlases ladder, and actually
advance another half centur}^ beyond this : so sleepily inattentive has the
Doctor been to the verj' facts and dates which he furnishes himself!
The mind of a writer, unless it is very lively in its energies, and kept
awake by perpetual exertions, is apt to doze at times over its work ; to
perform half the functions of authorship under the influence of drowsi-
ness, so produce a composition

Got " 'tween asleep and wake."

* Beds Opera, 364, Smith : " Cornubix natale S. Conrintini confessoris atque pon-
" tificls." . , ,. , J

t Joannes Glastoniensis, 450 : " Os de Sancto Corentino episcopo," with " os de Sancto
*' Pctroco," &c.

X See Borlase's Nat. Hist. 315, for the English liturgy being first used in Menhynnet.
But what must have been the religious distress of the Cornish in the long interval between
the proscription of the ancient liturgy, and the establishment of the new in the English
language ? The English, too, was not desired by the Cornish, as vulgar history says, anil
as Dr. Borlase avers (ibid.) ; but, as the case shews itself plainly to be, forced upon the
Cornish by the tyranny of England, at a time when the English language was yet unknown
in Cornwall. This act of tyranny was at once gross barbarity to tlie Cornish people, and a
death-blow to the Cornish language. Had the liturgy been t'ransl.Ucd into Cornish, as it
was into Welsh, that language wmikl have been equally preserved with this to tlie present
moment. But this Hales in a comer h.;d not consequence enough in itself to secure it tliat
proper attention of humanity and of religion, equally with the extensive principality of
North and South Wales ; for savage indeed are those rulers who, for the sake of a petty
advantage in politics, sentence a whole generation of men to live wiilunit the bcrtelit of
public worship ; as was in our own days meditated equally to be done, according to the late
Dr. Johnson's information personally given 10 me, against the Scotch of the liiglilands, by
low wretches who could not lift up their souls above the sufTocaling vapour of politics.

" About

38 ' THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. V.

" About the middle of thcjburlh cenLuiy," the Doctor observes, " Solo-
" mon d/t/,e of Cornwall," or, as in his clironology at the end he cites
Leland, more properly calling him " the little /i/iig of" Cornwall*;"
thougli the Doctor still persists in calling him d/i/ic, even there, as if
lie thought the nominal king to be a real duke f ; " seems to have been
" a Christian; for his son Kebius was ordained a bishop by Hilarius,
" bishop of Poicticrs in France, and afterwards returned into his own
" country to exercise that high function '\.." The prior Kcby, therefore,
and 7)ot the posterior Corantyn, was surely M'hat we have alrcad}' seen,
the Doctor most contradictorily calling the latter " the first Cornish
" apostle of note that we meet with ;" the former being actually the
first in time, the first in birth as a certainly " Coniish apostle," and the
first too in " note" as the S07i of the king of Cornivall ; nor could
" Solomon duke of Cornwall" even " seem to have been a Christian,"
but must have been no Christian at all, if the posterior Corantyn has
been truly " said" before " to have converted all Cornwall." Yet
Solomon, the father of Keby, in fact does not merely " seem" to be a
Christian, but Mas certainly one, as his scriptural name of Solomon
£vinces at a glance. So early was Christianity seated on the throne of
Cornwall ; even by Dr. Borlase's own estimation of time, " about the
" middle of the fourth century," as the Doctor here avers, or " about
" the year 350," as the Doctor repeats in another place §. Keby him-
self, according to his biographers Tinmouth and Capgravc in Usher, to
whom the Doctor refers for his and their account, Jirst spent twenty
years in his education among his country men of Cornwall || ; being edu-
cated, like Melor, in some Cornish monastery assuredly, and most pro-
bably in what was afterward Corantyn's at IMenhynnet. Such a monas-
tery was at once a school and an university to the members, they being

* Leland De Script. Brit. 65 : " Solomonis, Corinice reguli."
t Borlase, 407.
J Ibid. ibid.
§ Ibid. ibid.

II Usher, 105: " ' Postquam viginti annis apud Cornubienses suos liberalibus disciplinis
*' incubuisset'," 8cc,

sent

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 3Q

sent to it very young, and therefore spending so many years at it. He
then went abroad to complete his education, and to prepare himself
more eminently for tlie office to which he obviously devoted his life at
this period — that of a clergyman ; nor had he any conception of that
hasty mode of preparing for the sacred character, of which we see such
frequent instances in his own Corn\^•all at present, and by which the
raw schoolboy is speedily transformed into the unfledged divine. A
Cornish education too might properly quality, he thought, for the
secular affairs of life, or even for the ordinary duties of the clerical
function ; but his mind aspired to higher learning, and his soul affected
a nobler excellence. He went into France, and repaired to Poitiers,
says Leland in his useful gleanings from some ancient life of him, as " a
" city very famous for the number of its professors, over which did then
"preside Hilary the bishop, that ornament truly great to divines*."
Here, as Leland adds, " he laid himself out in every sort of attention
" to the bishop, in order to procure his good opinion ; at last obtained
" from him that ordination on which his soul was so strongly bent ;
" and was even in proper time afterwards consecrated bishop by him f."
His episcopal powers he exercised probably as a suffragan to Hilary in
his diocese of Poitou ; and continued with Hilarj^, I suppose, shewing
all the reverence of a pupil to his tutor, and expressing all the piety of a
son to a father, till even the health of a Hilary yielded to the siege of
time, and old age terminated the long life of the prelate. Keby spent
no less than fifty years with him, if we can believe his two biographers,
Tinmouth and Capgrave, on a point so very extravagant in itself§.
Keby must certainly have staid there many years ; nor would any event,
in all probability, have torn him away from Hilary after so long a con-

• Leland De Script. Brit. 65 : " Galliam — petiit, et Pictonum invisit urbem, numero
" doctorum celcbcrrimam ; cui turn praefuit Hilarius pontifex, theologorum decus plane
" cximium."

+ Leland, ibid. " Gratiam antistitis modis omnibus sibi comparare satagebat; tan-
" deni, quod voluit maxime, impetravit ; idque tanto cum successu, ut episcopus ab eo
" dcsignaretur."

§ Usher, 105: '' Apud ciucm [[lifarium Pictavorum episcopum], Kebium Britannum— ,
'* per quinquaginta anuos mansissc, graduque cpiscopali ab eo accepto," &c.

tinuance

40 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

tinuauce together ; except the very demise of Hilary. Then the pi-in-
cipal attraction to Poitiers being removed from the heart, every object
there reminding him strongly of Hilary, and a shade of mournful recol-
lection being thus thrown continually over his thoughts ; he cast his
eyes back upon his native shore, and returned into his father's kingdom
of Cornwall *. He came not however to challenge that royalty in it,
of which his father had been possessed in his life, and to which he him-
self had a right to succeed on his father's death ; having undoubtedly
resigned up his right to his brother's family, vvhen he Ment abroad,
when he devoted himself to a studious life, when he dedicated his days
to the work of the ministry f ; and so escaping all that long train of
miseries, which Meluan, with Melor, suffered from it.

The chronology of this period, indeed, is confessedly very obscure ;
but we do not use the lights that we have. Let us then bring them for-
ward, and apply them to the history, for the first time. AMien Cap-
grave fixes the murder of Melor " at the very commencement of the
" Christian faith accepted by the Britons J," he plainly rcfers it to tlic
establishment of Christianity by Constantine, in the empire at large,
and in this island as a part of the whole. He I'efers it therefore to the
first fifty or sixty years after that establishment, so fixing it between
the years 3 13 — 370. Within this period were those councils held, at
which the bishops of Britain were present; that of Aries in 314, that
of Nice in 325, that of Sardica in 347, iind that of Rimini in 359 §.
But in 358, Hilary bishop of Poitiers, then banished into Phrygia for
his attachment to rectitude of faith, in his adhei-ence to the doctrine of
our Saviour's godhead; addressed a public letter to his brother-bishops
of the continent and of the isle, expressing his joy to hear " they were

* Usher, 105: "In patriam suam postea remeassc, referimt in ejus Vita Johannes
" Tinmulhensis et Capgravius."

t Leland De Script. Brit. 65 : " Majorl literarum quam opum paternarum studio
" tenebatur."

♦ Usher, 241 : " In ipsis Christians fidei a Britannis acccplae primordiis."
^ Usher, 511.

" uncontaminated

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 41

" uncontamined and unhurt, by any contagion from a detestable herest/'^."
Keby is also represented by Tinmoutli and by Capgrave to have left
Poitou and returned into Cornwall in 364 §. And Hilary, Avho had
been sent into banishment in 350, but was recalled from it in 30o or
36l, died at Poitiers in 308 or 3O9 ||. All these dates nearly coincide
together. The adventures of Keljy unite in general time, with the
murders of Melor and Melyan. Keby probaljy resigned up the crown
on the death of his father Solomon, to his younger brother Melyan ;
staid not at Poitiers probably half the years assigned for his stay,
such writers as Capgrave and Tinmouth measuring the lives of their
saints, by an antediluvian scale of years; went therefore to Poitiers
about 350, while his father was yet reigjiing, and when Hilary was
made bishop f; acted as a substitute for Hilary probably, during his exile
of four years from his diocese; so came back into Cornwall, in 308 or
369 probably. He came back, says Dr. Borlase from his authorities,
" to exercise that high function of a bishop, with which he was invested."
He came primarily to see his royal relations ; yet not to retire from
them into the solitude of a hermitage afterwards, as he had not retired
into any before ; but under the protection of their head to settle in a
town, as he had settled at Poitiers before, and there to act under the
Cornish prelate, as he had acted under the Poitevin, in the capacity
of a suiiragan. For these reasons, it seems, he settled about the
middle of the long diocese, and at the town of Tregoney, then not
what it now is, a mere kind of village, without trade, without industry,
^\ ithout money, but a town of the first consequence in the county, a
town of great commerce, a town of much shipping, a town of consider-
able extent, and as such, liaving tiro churches successively erected with-
in it before this period.

X Usher, 105 : " Incontaminatos vos et illaesos ab omni contagio detestandx hjereseos,"

§ Usher, 512.

II Cave's Historia Literarw, i. 164, 165, edit. 1738.

t Cave's Hist. Lit. 164: " Piclavorum cpiscopus esse constitutus, circa annum ex Baronii
" calculo CCCLV, nulla tamcn cogciite ratione, quin annis aliquot ante id tcmpus ad sedcm
•* Picuvensem evehi potuerit."

VOL. II. G Tregoney

4S THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V,

Tregoney was the very Jirsi town upon any branch of that fine liar-
bour, which forms the principal pride of Cornwall ; which excels all the
harbours of the isle, except Mil ford Haven, for security of anchorage,
for expanse of water, and for number of openings into it ; which there-
fore lies like a vast Briareus, stretching forth its gigantic carcass on
every side, and throwing out its hundred arms into the land around it.
Tregoney was upon the main arm, even the denominating river ; was
denominated Cenia itself, while the harbour Mas called the Mouth of
the Cenia ; and the southern road of the Romans in Cornwall terminated
at this Cenia, now Trc-Genci/, or Tre-Gonei/, more properly fhat than
this, as it is popularly entitled Treg'ncy, the Castle upon the Cenia,
now the Fal f. Tregoney was thus a town at a time, when Falmouth
town, when Penryn, when even Truro itself, was not yet in contemplation
for many ages ; held possession of the river Fal with its harbour at the
mouth, \\hen it had and could have no rival ; and so stood the original
lord, the natural sovereign of all. Tregoney, indeed, is noM^ deserted
by the tide of its harbour, and almost even by the waters of its river.
Yet that it once had the full, free, absolute enjoyment of both, is
evident from a train of concurring evidences. Its river, the equal deno-
minator of it and of the harbour among the Romans, is much more
considerable in itself than the currents either of Truro or of Penryn ; and
therefore carries its name over them all even to this day, as they unite
to fall into the sea together. But then, as ranging over a larger extent
of ground, as particularly traversing the moors of St. Stephen's, St.
l)ennis, or St. Roche ; it lay much nearer than they to the stream-jvorhs,
and was much more exposed to injuries from them. Such it must have
received very early, stream-works being the first mines of a country for
metal, as they were for gold on the Doria of Great St. Bernard formerly + ;
and an ancient stream-work for tin being actually found about nineteen
years ago, in St. James's Moor, at Tregoney, close to the current of the

+ Richard, 20: " Urbes habebant [Damnonii] — Ceniam," &c. " fluvii apud ipsos prae-

cipui — Genius," &c. P. 40, Iter xvi. "Tamara, m. p Voliiba, m. p

" Cenia, m. p " Ptolemy also, in ii. 3, notes the Mouth of the Cenia, Kiwwos

t Course of Hannibal over the Alp?, ii, 183, £cc.

Fal,

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 43

Fal, even under the very lualls of the original churchyard of Tregoncy
there. And the mischief produced by these injuries of ages, has conti-
nued down to our own times in despite of two laws against it ; is surveyed
by the neighbouring gentry with an improvident sort of serenity, that
foresees not the ruin of the very harbour itself in time ; yet is strongly
marked to the eye of historic curiosity, by a succession of the sea's re-
cedings from Tregoney *.

" The main streame," of Falmouth harbour, cries Leland, " goith up
" — ebbing and flowing, and a quarter of a mile above is the toxme of
" Tregoney. Here is a bridge of stone, aliquot ^^^V". , upon Fala
" river f." Leland thus shews the spring-tide in his time to have
reached within a quarter of a mile from Tregoney ; while it comes not

* Statute 23. c. 8. of Henry VIII. " Pileously comph'melh," as from " the inhabitants
"jof the towns and ports of Plymouth, Dartmouth, and Tcingmouth, in the county ofDevon-
" shire, Falmouth and Foway, in the county of Cornwall, that where the said ports have
" been in time past the principal and most commodious havens and ports within this realm,
" for the rode, surety, and preservation of ships resorting from all places of the world, as
" well in peril of storms as otherwise ; for where, before this lime, all manner of ships being
" under the portage of eight hundred tons resorting unto any of the said ports or havens,
" might at the low-water easily enter into the same, and there lie in surety, what wind or

" tempest soever did blow ; which said ports and havens been at this present tnne utterly

" decayed and destroyed ly means of certain tin-works called Streamworks — ,• that, where
" before this time, a ship of the portage of eight hundred tun, as is aforesaid, might have
" easily cntrcd at a low water into the same ; now a ship of a hundred can scantly enter at
" the Aft//" flood, to the decay and utler destruction of the said havens and ports, and also to
" the ruine and utter undoing of all the good townes — ;" it therefore enacts a penalty on all
persons who shall work or cause to be worked any stream-works, " nigh to any of the said
" fresh waters, river?, or low places, descending or having course unto the said havens or
" ports, or any of them," of " forfeit for every such time tliat any owner or tinner shall dig
" or wash, or cause to be digged or washed, any tin, contrary to the form aforesaid, xli."
This act was confirmed by another in the 27lh year of the same king, c. 23 : *' Because,"
fays tiiis second statute, " with the making of the said [first] statute, the inhabitants of the
*' said port-towjis or havens, having little regard, respect, love, or affection to the amend-
" ing and maintenance of the same towns and havens, — have permitted — the said owners and
" diggers to persevere — , without any manner of suit commenced or pursued ^" it doubles
the penalty.

+ Itin. ill. 28.

ti 2 within

44 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V,

within a mile and a half at present. But we can trace this retreat oi
the tide to a higher period than Leiand's. Tregoney, he says in ano-
ther place, " is at the aide tul sc inarJce\y A tradition, so loud as to
engage the notice of a passing traveller, yet so sure as to leave no doubt
upon his mind, and lend no diffidence to hi« pen ; told him, that the sea
not long before had risen much higher than within a quarter of a mile
from Tregoney, and even reached up to the very bridge of Tregoney it-
self. But we can carry the tlowing tide still higher up the channel.
*' Formerly," says Hals, who wrote about 1716, *' the sea ebbed and
" flowed above Tregny bridge and St. James's chapel, as the shells and
" sand there still to be seen, and tradition, inform us §." The trumpet
of tradition, we see, was still sounded in the ears of Hals ; and his eyes
confirmed the suggestions of his ears. He marked the shells of the sea,
lying in the channel of the river, and bedded in their native sand. Nor
need we to stop here. " Belowe Probus churchc," says Norden, and
should more properly have said, below Golden in Probus parish, but
upon the opposite bank of the Fal, " is a rock, called Hayle-boate Roche,
"wherein to this day," about 1581, "are many" and "great iron
*' RYNGES, whereunto boates have bene tied; now noe show of a
*' haven*." "This is," adds Mr. Tonkin, in 1733 — 1735, "a great
" rock of a sort of dun stone, at the head of a pretty large level, full of
" stream-work ; which probably, together with them higher up in the
" river, have choaked up the passage of the sea. There are no rings of
♦' iron at present, nor the signs, nor places of any. One may, however,
" judge from the situation and face of the countiy, that the sea came up
" hcre-\" Norden's testimony indeed is so clear, particular, and
jiercmptory ; that there is no rational possibility of doubting it. The
rock too is a double one, a higher and a lower ; two or three round
holes (whatever Mr. Tonkin may allege) still existing in the lower, for
the insertion of the rings, and two of them being close together, for the
two fangs of a forked ring. The ground below is all a marsh up to the
Fal, which is about two hundred yards off, and along both sides of a
brook, that parts the parishes of Cuby and of Creed, Cuhy as now written,

% Itin. vii, 129. § Hals, 80, • Norden, 61, 62. + Tonkin's MS.

but

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 45

but Kehy as formerly written and now pronounced ; the rock being on
the Keby side, at the very extremity of the parish, and with its face to
the brook. At this rock, said " the common tradition," in the days of
Mr.. Tonkin, said equally in the days of Norden, and so says still, were
the boats fastened which plied upon the river, when the tide came up
it to this place. This was so notorious an occurrence in itself, land the
rock w as so notoriously known to be the mooring-station for boats ;
that the very estate on which it lies, then and within these very few
years all an uncultivated common, but now a range of enclosures, bear-
ing grass or corn, adopted the appellation which it still retains, of Hal-
boat, or the Boat-moor ; and that the rock itself equally took the appel-
lation, which it equally retains, of Hdl-ljot-rock*. The ground lies
directly opposite to Golden mill, is continually occupied w ith it, but
extends across the lane leading up to the church of Creed, and is
vulgarly denominated the Ilalberts, for Halboats, at present. All these
testimonies combine into one, and produce a collective kind of evidence,
that fastens in a full conviction upon the mind. The Fal M^as navigated
from its mouth up to Creed parish, by the commercial vessels of
Tregoncy ; and the haven of Tregoney is still marked out, to the inqui-
sitive mind. About a quarter of a mile from Tregoney to the south-
west, in the lane leading to the diurch-town of Ruan Lanyhorne, and
close upon the channel of the river, is a building of brick, divided into
two houses, carrying a modern aspect with it, but bearing the signi-
ficant appellation of " Daddy Port." This name significantly indicates
by its meaning that primary port of Tregoney, which the river was sure
to form for it -below the bridge ; Tad (W.), Tat (A.), Tad (C), and
Daid (I.), importing the same exactly as daddy itself imports in collo-
quial English at present, and pointing out this part of the river as the
parent port of Tregoney. About a mile more to the south-west, in the
same lane, but considerably within the parish of Ruan Lanyhorne, is a
range of fields denominated Bosaiiiia, the Bos Haun (C), or the Haven-
house, haven being constantl}' pronounced haun by the Cornish, and .

• Nor are these names what they may seem to be, purely English 3 Hil (C.) being a
moor, Bftd (W.), Bad (I.), a boat, and Kok (A.) a rock.

Gorran

46 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

Gorran Haven, styled Gorran Haun by them. About a mile still lower

down in the channel, beyond the creek that runs up between two

parallel ramparts of hills, to water the narrow bottom in which stands

Lanyhorne castle in ruins, with the parsonage-house flourishing in

peace at its side, and the church rearing its head immediately over the

latter ; is a house called Devora or Ar Devra Veor, standing at the

northern extremity of a peninsula, and on the southern foot of a

round headland denominated Minit, Mynydd (W.), Menit (C), a

mountain, and lending its name to the field. This mountian unites

with that peninsula, to project directly across the channel, seeming to

bar all farther descent to the stream, and actually forming a basin most

commodiously barred from almost all winds. These have also a house

at the head of a creek just beyond them, denominated Ardevora, or more

relatively Ardevora Fcan, the Little, in opposition to the Great before ;

both the names being in Cornish Ar Devra, and importing the houses

upon the haven. Nor let ignorance triumph in supposition at hearing

these derivations, fancy another etymologist would fabricate another

derivation, and so smile at the impotence of reasoning in producing

etymons for arguments. Ignorance, like blindness, is very apt to

apprehend pitfalls in the plainest ground, and in its conceitedness of

fear, to prevent all possibility of conviction. But Leland himself speaks

in this very manner, of both these houses : " Petite's principal house

" was at Ardeueravian," Ardevora Yean, " in Falmouth haven, by

"the peninsula cauUid Ardeveramciir,'' Ardevora Veor f. And, to

close the evidence at once, Iceland adds in another place what carries

the haven of Falmouth up to Trcgoney itself; " from Tregoney to passe

" doune by the body of the haven of Falamuth, to the mouth of

" Lniiyhorne creehe, on the south-est side of the haven, is a 2 miles;];."

So apparently was the river from l^rcgoney to Ruan Lanyhorne and to

Ardevora Veor, or Vean, even all the way to the mouth ; considered

even in the late days of Leland, as the haven to the seaport town of

Tregoney. The vessels that went to sea, lay along these reaches of the

river by Daddy-port, or by Rosawna down to Ardevora Veor, and lay

fsecurely moored in this land-locked haven of theirs. The tall banks of

the

SECT, n.] HISTORICALLV SURVEYED. 47

the river on either side, point out the natural boundaries of the tide to
this day, the breadth of its current, and the depth of its w^aters. And
all this range of water is equally considered at present, even as low as
Trefusis Point, to be within the port of Tnaro ; Truro having risen upon
Tregoney, as Falmouth has risen upon Truro since. But Tregoney had
also, like London at present, another haven above the bridge ; and, like
it, for boats alone. These were employed, I suppose, in bringing up
the cargoes from the vessels below, to the warehouses on the quav ; and
in ti-ansporting them higher up the stream, for sale. Those employed
in the former work, would naturally be moored on the opposite bank of
the river ; and only such, as were engaged in the latter, be moored at
the rock above. These, however, must have been very numerous, to
give so signilicant a name to the rock and its common. But at Golden
mill, opposite to it, and therefore pei-haps claiming it still as a port of
itself, was, what we now call in our pedantic atfectation of French terms,
a great depot, a grand station for the landing and reception of wares, the
highest that the merchants of Tregoney had up the river. The numerous
boats belonging to this, were drawn up the brook at high water, were
moored fast to the rock, and so lay out of the course of tlie navigation,
or the current of the tide *.

* Mr. Tonkin observes at Hal-bot-rock, that " tlie sea came up here, and much higher ^
" according to the common tradition." But, upon this last particular, the voice ot tradition
speaks so faintly in its tone, and so loosely in its language, using only a vague generality of
expression, and specifying no one point higher; that we cannot rest upon its testimony.
Yet Charles Trevanion, esquire, of Crcga, in Kcby parish, procured an act of parliament
in the 19th of Charles II. for executing a plan that he had formed in consequence of the
<radition probably, and carrying the tide again " much higher" up, even " as far as
" Crowe hill in Saint Stephen's." But he never carried it so high as that, never as high as
Hal-bot-rock, and only a little beyond the bridge of Tregoney. His " first summer's work
"seemed to favour his design, biinging the salt-water hy two or three sluices aiwe Tre-
" goney bridge." But the floods of the following winter swept away his sluices, the walls
having been built upon the mud, that had descended from the stream-works, and beaten back
the tide. He therefore began again, and again encountered the same file. He still renewed
his eflbrls, however, " with greater skill, cost, and labour." He thus went on " for about
•* the space of twenty years." Al last with sorrow and compassion we find, that he " halk
*' spent the greatest part of his fine estate; and given over his undertakmg, as loo difficult
" and unprofitable an enterprise," (Hals, 81.)

5 In

48 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. T.

In this happy position of the town for commerce, however, it began
as a town from a principle much earher in its impression upon the mind
of man, than commerce. The military sagacity of the Romans, ever
on the watch to secure the naturally defensible passes of a conquered
country, saw the sloping side of Tregoney hill terminate in a prominence,
with a high precipice on each side, and a brook uniting with the Fal
under it. On this prominence they fixed one of their castles, which,
like most of them, was rebuilt in a more modern form afterwards, of
which the trenches were discovered in the rock on the north-west, about
nineteen years ago, and the mount in the middle still remains, as whit
it is denominated, the green hill, to the present day ; fixing here the last
link in their chain of military communications on the soidJi, because
here undoubtedly was then the lowest ford over the Fal, and this cur-
rent swept in one grand curve of deep waters before them to the
sea. But, though military ideas predominated with the Romans, ideas
of civilization always accompanied them, subser\'ient indeed, yet still
operative. A town constantly arose by the side of their castle. Here
it arose on the level below the northern precipice of the castle, and
along the banks of the Fal ; as here was the inviting position for a
town, and here the church of the town stood for ages afterward.
Leland thus notices the town in his time, as one " wher yn is an
" old cartel, and a paroch chyrch of S. James standing yn a more by the
" castelf." This is that church, to which the minister of Tregoney
is even now instituted by the title of St. James's; as St. James's festival
is also the annual tair-day of the town. That church indeed has been
deserted since the days of Leland; only an angle of it has remained
within the reach of memory ; even this was thrown down about nine-
teen years ago, in a search for tin, and, among the graves that the
searchers opened, only one of them had an appearance of a coffin in it.
The first act of civilization in burials %\'ould be, to do as our sailors do at
present, and as the Jews did to the very last *, to wind up the body in

t Itin. vii. 120. Norden, 64, says: " Tregny — or Tregeny — graced somtymes with
" Ponitry Castle, the ruijnes wherof yet speake, as they lye altogether rent on the topp of a
" mounte" Worcester, 95, adds, " Castellum Tregheny stat (pertinet Potnereys) in
'' Treleny burgagio [burgo] super je south,"

* Acts of the Apostles, v. 6, 10.

some

SECT. II.] iriSTOniCALLY SIRVEYED. AQ

some wrapper, and then deposit it in the earth; coffins coming into
general use, I believe, only within these two centuries pastf. What
attracted the town to this level, must have been the convenience of the
river, and the advantage of commerce upon it. The advantage and tlie
convenience accordingly operated so powerfully, that Tregoney grew
up to be what tradition loves so fondly to tell it was, old age naturally
.soothing its present decrepitude with the remembrance of its youthfid
activities ; and what my notices, previous or subsequent, confirm it to
have been ; a very considerable town. The quay foimed an embank-
ment to the river. Behind it ranged the town a\ ith its only chnrch. A
street of houses also, adds tradition, extended up from the level of that to
the high ground east of the castle, and so began the town upon its present
position, properly the High Town of Tregoney. Another street went
on, as tradition subjoins, winding under the precipice of the castle,
crossing the brook at the prominence, but not stretching directly on in
the course of the present road to Daddy Port and Bosawna, because this
was then within the channel of the tide ; turning therefore up the steep
hill on the left, and reaching to the present village of Res/iivias, an
asserted mile in length. What strongly corroborates this tradition,
there is another at Reskivias itself, and two more at Ruan Lanyhorne,
coinciding closely with it. The first is, that Ucskivias, or Resk'ivai/, was
certainly a city. The second is, that Trclonk, a farm-house within the
parish of Ruan Lanyhorne, ranging in its lands along the creek and
the river, was formerly a city inhabited by a king ; that this city reached
to Rcskivias; and that it was denominated the city of Reskivkis, or
Reskivai/. The third is also, that the cluoch-toivn of Ruan Lan}-
horne, which is on the opposite or Tregoney side of the creek from

■f The first coffin, I apprehend, was what is called a shell now in London ; the word being
the British cqfn of Wales, a trough, a tray, any hollow vessel of wood or stone, as caffnu
(W.) is to make hollow, koffen in Cornwall means tlie hollow of an open mine, as covin in
Covinus formerly imported a war-chariot. So coffin at present signifies the hollow of a
horse's hoof, of a paper case for groceries, and of a pie ur a custard ; while in French it
means a basket used by tallow-chandlers. The British origin of the word, therefore, shews
ibe Britons to have used shells. These were equally used by the ages since, even till the
British coffin was closed at last into a modern one.

VOL. II. u Trclonk,

50 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

IVelonk, was equally a city once ; that it equally reached to Reskivias ;
but that it went thither ah/ig the present road to Trcgoney, and extended
vp even to Tregoney itself. These traditions are very remarkable, as
they all unite together, and seem to be all substantiated by facts.
Ecs/iirias was assuredly a part of Trcgoney. Trelonk -vwis certainly a
royal house, as its very name indicates ; Tre Long obviously meaning
the Long House, and Long House being in Irish the appropriate title of
a king's mansion, as in hong P/iort; while all the buildings of Trelonk-
house are said to have constituted a village within memory, while
many foundations of walls have been recently discovered about it, \\ hile
a piece of ground, overrun with briers or brambles, was found about
seventeen years ago to be black earth, four or five feet deep, over a regu-
lar pavement ; and about forty-two years ago were discovered, what told
to vulgar antiquarianism the existence of three smiths' shops, a quantity
of cinders, with fragments of iron, at three places. And the church-
town has still a triangular recess on the road to Trcgoney, but just above
its church, which appears to have been once a market-place, because it
is denominated The Cross, because it gives the name of the Cross-parlis
to two fields adjoining, and the boys of the church-toivn still light their
fires of INIidsummer eve upon it, as at the ancient market-place of this
acknowledged city. The truth is, I believe, that both the church-town
and Trelonk became two terminating points to those'buildings of Tre-
gonev, Avhich successively ranged from ResMvias to them in pursuit of
the shrinking tide; that thus the buildings carried Tregoney up to them,
in sucli a long chord of houses, upon the high grounds of the river on
the south, as ended at Trelonk in some fouixdries for the iron of the
vessels navigating along the river.

Yet the town shot out previously up the sloping side of its own hill,
from the street noticed above ; as a chapel was there erected at what
was then the extremity of the High Town, and what is therefore the
widest part of the present, the open area a little east of the castle-hill.
This is mentioned by Leland thus, as *' a ch^p^] standing yn the middes
** of the towne*." It was afterward, when it became no longer

* Leland, vii. I20,

necessary

SnCT. II.] niSTORICALLY SURVF.YED. 51

necessary as a chapel, converted into a corn-hall ; and, when a corn-
hall became as unnecessary as a chapel was before, sunk under neglect
into ruins, presenting a real heap of rubbish to my eye in 1/77. But
the opulence of the town, and the extent of its buildings, did not end
here. It still pushed up the side of the hill from this chapel, so left it
as it was in Leland's time, and as its site is at our o^vn, " yn the
" myddes of the towne," but fixed another chapel much higher up.
This is equally noticed by Leland, as " at the est end of the town,"
which it also is at present ; but is not, what Leland and every one call it,
" a paroche chyrche *." It is merely, like the other, a chapel to St.
James's church ; a chapel for this eastern extremity of the High Town,
as the other was for the western. That is thus, as a daughter-chapel,
naturally and necessarily attached to ihis as the mother-church. Both,
therefore, are exhibited as one, as the one church of the parish of Tre-
goney, in the last Valor, thus, " St. James and St. Keby, alias Tregney,
" alias Tregoney, V. ;" St. Keby's being mentioned second, as the
daughter, and St. James first, as the mother, }et both as uniting into one
parish-church. This church was appropriated to the monastery of De
Valle in Normandy at first, but to the priory of Merton in Surrey after-
wards, and to what was successively a cell to both, the priory of Tre-
goney, not evanescent yet from the town, though never recognised by
it f . The church was thus deprived of all its great tithes, and has in land
(besides the churchyard of St. James's) only what is reputed to be the
endowment of St. Keby's, but is in reality the glebe-land of St. James's.

• Leland, vii. 120.

+ Tanner. " The priory of Tregoney," ihere mentioned in 52 II. III. just existed op-
posite to the old mount of the castle, and shewed a door-case of slone, peaked in the arch,
but has been very recently destroyed. Yet another doorway remains, almost opposite to the
site of this, but less apparent, as less in sight, being plainly the front gate of the priory
transferred to a stable, and, equally with the door-case above, shewing an arch of stone, a
little peaked. This is, however, much larger than thai was in the size of the arch, as that
was only the doorway of the chapel ; a niche being found in the wall there, and again built
up in nn ojiposite wall, for the reception of a small statue. In 1267, " the advowson" of
this priory belonged to the abbey De Valle ; but " this priory, with the advowsons of the
" churches of Tregoney and Biry [Bury I'omery in Devonshire], were made over to the
" priory of Merton that very year."

II 2 Alul

52 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

And the first Valor demonstrates all this to be true ; not noticing the
church and parish of St. Keby at all, speaking only of " the church of
" Tregoney" as ** worth c\'is. Vmd."' and of " the vicarage of the
*' same' as " worth xx.<f. *." The whole parish of St. Keby then, as
now reputed, is merely that of Tregoney in origin at first and in exist-
ence at present ; seemingly separated from the parish of the town, by
the burgensic privileges of the latter, and by the exclusiveness which
these actually give it. The very church of St. Keby too, as equally-
reputed, is merely a chapel to St. James's church, used accordingly by
Tregoney as its own and its parish's church, noiv that the tide has
deserted the town, and commerce has removed after it ; vote that the
original town and original church have resigned up the ground m hich
they occupied, to revert into its natural state of a moor again ; now that
the long street from it to Reskivias, and the longer from Reskivias to
Kuan Lanyhorne, have vanished with the palaces of an eastern tale ;
■now that the other street, from the moor to the first chapel, has equally
vanished, together with this chapel itself; and now that Tregoney
stands, like some nobleman, reduced by a revolution to abject poverty,
reduced equally in feelings as in finances, even stooping therefore to live
upon the basket of alms handed to it by its parliamentary represen-
tatives.

Yet how came this last chapel, so exalted into a church in opinion,
and so remaining in fact the only church of Tregoney parish at present,
to bear the name of Saint Keby ? In the most flourishing state of the
town, I suppose, the saint settled at it. He settled not, however, at
the original, the commercial part of the town. He had no concern with
commerce. He settled at the eastern extremity of the whole, at that
raised eminence on the hill side, which looked down upon all the rest,
and which gave him at once the conveniences of a town with the
sequestration of the country. He dwelt upon that very ground, I
believe, which stands almost directly across the street of Tregoney,
which accordingly obliges the road out of the street to bend upon one

* " Eccl. Tregony" (Cotton MS.), '• Eccl. de Tregoni" (Spehnau's), ** Vicar ejusdera"
(Spelmaii's).

side

SECT. 11.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 53

side for avoiding it, and is now the very site of the church itself. Here
he lived v^dth so much sanctity of spirit, so much dignity of mind, and
so much devoutness of aspect, I suppose, that his house, like St. Maw^e's,
was rebuilt into a chapel upon his death, a chapel now buried almost
in the human mould accumulated about it, having the walk through its
cemetery sunk very deep between rows of sepulchres on each side,
having yet a couple of steps from the walk down into it ; carrying,
therefore, uncommon features of antiquity in this marking circumstance
of its aspect, and being the only chapel that now bears his name popularly
for its oivn through the whole extent of Cormvall. So usefully stands
this chapel of St. Keby at present ; to speak the large extent to which
the tide of prosperity once flowed at Tregoney ; to tell the early period
at which it reached its highest point there ; and to shew Christianity
successively producing at it a church upon the bank of the river, a
chapel upon the high ground behind, with a second chapel at the eastern
extremity of the whole, and the very last at or about the conclusion of
the fourth century *.

But, thus settled as St. Keby was at this principal town in Cornwall,
he left Corn%\all again so hastily, that Lcland does not notice his return
into it. He went away again in a few months after he returned ; as his
stay seems to have formed an interval in his life too minute for the naked
eye of history in Leland, and only visible to the microscope of a saint's
biography in Tinmouth or Capgravc : yet the fact is, that Inland over-
looked what Capgravc or Tinmouth saw. The episcopal character in
which Keby came into Cornwall, and the episcopal authority which
Keby exercised in Cornwall, Lcland transferred to a country in which
Keby never assumed that, and never exercised this, merely by throwing
his eye of history at a glance bei/ond the intermediate region of Cornwall-.
For that reason he represents Keby to have gone from Hilary and Poi-
tiers immediately to North- Wales and Anglesey ; sent thither as a bisliop

• See note near the end of this section. This church consists of two parts, one original
and the other posiericr ; the posterior is the southern ailcj but the original is the northern,
with the Lord's chapel projecting from it to the north.

54 TKE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

by Hilar}', even consecrated a bishop bv him in order to he so sent*.
But tlu" representation is equally absurd in its manner, and false in its
matter. It is certainly a splendid absurdity to suppose that a bishop of
Poitoii should send another bishop as a missionary — into North- Wales
and Anglese}% regions replenished equally m ith Christians, and governed
ctpially by a bishop as Poitou itself: it suppresses too the vv^hole fact of
Kebv's return into Cornwall ; but it equally suppresses the still more
marked fact, which I shall soon notice, of Keby's migration out of
Cornwall to St. David's and to Ireland.

There must have been some extraordinary incident to produce such
a violent change in the conduct of Keby : to drive away a saint, a
bishop, from this land of his father, this kingdom of his brother, to
which he had returned after so long an absence, and to throw him into
a strange country, an uncertain habitation, even the new life of a hermit.
Such an incident we actually lind in that dreadful revolution, by which
all the bonds of nature were torn asunder; ambition murdered the
sovereign of Cornwall, though a brother-in-law ; and savageness first
maimed, then murdered, a nephew. The sight, the hearing, or the
apprehension of such enormities, might well carry the religious Keby
in an instant out of the country. He went off, leaving such a strong
impression of his goodness upon the minds of his countrymen, from his
resignation of a crown and a palace for a life of studiousness, sequestra-
tion, and prayer, as occasioned them to enrol him on his death among
the native saints of Cornwall f .

* Leland De Script. Brit. 65: " Ut episcopus ab eo designaretur; hac interim injuncta
*' provincia, ut Venetos," the inhabitants of Venedotia, or North-Wales; " et Monadas,"
the natives of Mona or Anglesey ; " gentcs Cambri:e versus boream patriae [Britannia;]
" redditas, exemplis et sana iuformaret doctrina."

t The inhabitants of Tregoney keep his festival even at the present moment. This is
unknown, indeed, to the very inhabitants themselves, who suppose they are keeping the
feast of the adjoining chapel of Cornelly, in the parish of Probus, because Cornelly has its
feast upon the same day, the first Sunday after Michaelmas. But the feast is pointed out
to be St. Keby's by the concurrence of the parish of Kea, the church of which is dedicated
to the saint of Tregoney, in the observance of the Tregoney day, ''St, Key," notes Norden,
57, " — in recordes St. Keby."

i In

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 55.

In the want probaljly of a vessel bound immediately for that Ireland
which was not yet conA-erted to the Christian faith f, he shipped him-
self hastily, I suppose, on board one that was bound for PemFjrokeshire,
in order to remove from the bloody breach in nature, made, or likely to
be made by that prodigy of proliigac}% Rivold. He reached 8t. David's ;
he reached Ireland. He went to the latter, probably that his soul might
not be shocked again with the enormities of nominal Christians ; of men
whom, from their enormities. Dr. Borlase would have readi'y pro-
nounced to be heathens, if they had been of Conuvall instead of Devon-
shire, and to be actuated with all the persisting spirit of druidism. Yet
the saint took refuge from these enormities, not in the abodes of infide-
lity, \\ here the viciousncss of the human soul was sure to swell into
worse than the crimes of such Christians, as acting with the same vio-
lence, and feeling a feebler restraint ; but in solitude and devoutness, in
seclusion from the mass of mankind, and in attention to the continual
though unseen presence of his God. He therefore penetrated, not into
the country, but settled merely upon an islet on the coast, built him-
self a church, and continued four years *. At the end of these, he
removed from Ireland, apprchensiAC, probably, of some visits from the
infidels of the main land ; yet went not back into Cornwall, which was
still, governed by the usurping nmrderer probably, but went into that
Anglesey, to which Leland dispatches him at once [J;. Even then he
came not to be the bishop of the isle, much less to be the bishop of it
and of North-Wales together: he came only as he went to Ireland, as
a hermit, accompanied by a small societ} of hermits ; nor did he ever,
in all appearance, set his foot upon one inch of ground without tlie isle.
He crossed over from Ireland ; he landed at that promontory \v liieh now
is, which two lumdred and fifty years ago was, the very point of passage

t Usher, 512, 513.

• Ibid. 411 : " in palriam reversum Meiicviam conccssisse, ct inde trnnsfrclantcm iu
"Hiijiiniam, in qundatu insula, coiislrucla ccclcsia, aniiis (]iiatuor mansissc, — rctcrl in
" illiu.- V'lUi Joliunncs Tinnnulicnsis."

X Leland Di Script. Bnt. 65, and Usher, 41 1 : " Dcnnini, cum discipulis suis inde rece-
" dentcnij iu insula Mona »ive Anglcsiia consedissc, r«tcrt," &c,

out

5ti TJIli CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

out of Ireland into Britain :}: : there he settled at once upon the islet
forming tlie most westerly part of Anolesey, and under Holyhead the
most westerly part of the islet. There, adds Lcland very usefully, " he
"' fixed his abode, and a Innnblc one at first ;" being merely a cottage,
I suppose. " But the little king of the isle," a Christian and a friend to
Christians, " in pity to the poorness of it, liberally presented him w ilh
" a castle, which stood in the very vicinit}'. In consequence of this
" donation, a small monastery was formed within the castle, which
" was afterwards called from his name Caer Kcbj/," or Keby's Castle.
" At this time," subjoins Lcland concerning his own days, it has canons
*' or prebendaries in it, and exerts a pleasing hospitality to persojis
''passing over into Ireland §." Here he settled, and here he died;
from the re^ erence paid to him here, as at Tregoney before, lending his
name after his death to the church, lending it also to the village near
the church, still attaching the name of Ho/// Head to this point of land,
and even fixing the name of his preceptor or his friend Hilary upon
another point of the islet *.

Such

X Leland De Script. Brit. 65, and Camden, 54.1.

§ Leland, iliid. : " Humileni principlo posuit sedem. ReguUts insulae, ejus niisertiis
*' tcnuitatis, castrum, quod in ipsa erat extensione, douo liberalis dcdit- Unde et ibidem
" erectnm nionasteriolLim ; quo, ab ejus postea nomine, Castrum Chelni appellatuni est.
" Hac CEtate canonicos alit prasbendarios, gratuni in Hiberniam transfretantibus hospitium
" praebcns."

* Camden, 541 : " In cxtremo — ad occasum promonlorio, quod nos Holy-head, id est,
" Caput Sacrum, vocamus, adsidet tenuis viculus Ciitannice Caer Guhj ; cui Kibius, vir
" sanctissimus, Sancti Hilarii Pictavensis discipulus, fpii ibidem Deo vacavit, nomen fecit,"
Usher, 49: " Caer-Guhy — in Monae sive Anglescix promontorio quod Sacrum Angli
'* vocant, ubi Kebius, ab Hilario Pictavensi (a quo ct aiterum ejusdem insulx Hilary Voynt
" nomen accepit promontorium) episcopali gradu accepto, consedissc traditur." Rowlands,
144, intimates that this Hilary has been mistaken by many in the biography of Keby for
the bishop of Poitiers, but actually stands for a similarly denominated saint of Wales ; and
Mr. Gough has been weak enough, in ii. 572, to repeat the suggestion. With the unthink-
jn?, authority is the Brasilian eel itself to rest upon, which is to attract the electrical stroke
of torpor, and to feel its influence benumbing all the faculties: Mr. Gough has thus rested
upon Dr. Eorlase before, and is now come to rest thus upon Rowlands. The Welsh saint
is called by Rowlands, "our St. Elian, sirnamed Canna'id, i. e. the Bright, by Latin

" writers

SF.CT, II.] HISTORICALLV SURVEYED. L"]

Such was Keby, the son of Solomon king of Cornwall, and born
about the year 325 *, about the time probably when his father was
baptized an adult into the Christian religion, luicler the adopted appella-
tion of Solomon ; revered in Cornwall, revered in Wales, and worthy
of all reverence throughout the Christian w^orld ■j*.

\^'e

" writers called Hllarius, who — hath been often mistaken by many for St. Hilary bishop of
" I'oicliers;" and Mr. Gough repeats the impertinence, yet in this halt-dubious form:
" pupil to Hilary bishop of I'oilicrs, — or of Elian Ganniad, or the Bright, in Latin Hilarius,
" who has still resort at Llan Elian." But, as Ganniad or Ca»;i«/(/ signifies merely white
OT shining, and therefore could never correspond with Hilarius j so no ancient writer in
Latin calls Elian Hilarius, and no ancient writer in British denominates Hilarius Elian.
" By our British writers," says also the late republishcr of Rowlands's work, correcting the
text in a note concerning Elian, " he is called Elian," not Cannaid, but " Ceimiad." The
surmise of Elian being Hilarius indeed, was taken up originally without any reference to
the accompanying Ceimiad, or Cannaid, and was then reprobated at once by Leland ; he
briefly commenting upon the Welsh appellation of " Llan Elian" thus, " ^lianus, falso
" Hilarius." (Coll. iv. 88.) The fancy, therefore, seems to have been adopted in a mere
temerity of supposing Hilarius of Poitiers to be the yElian of Wales; and the adjunct of
Ceimiad to the name of ^lian, seems to have been latterly altered into Cannaid, in order
to support the temerity ; nor could either Mr. Gough or Rowlands have thought one
moment in this attempted transmutation of names. To shew this decisively, I need only
repeat Leland's account of Keby's going to Hilary, and afterwards settling in Anglesey :
" GalUam ergo peliit, et Pictonum i7it;isit urlem, numero doctorum cclelerrimam; ctii turn
" praj'uit Hilarius pontifex, thcologorum dciiis plane eximium. Chebius — tandtin — impe-
" travit, — ut epi^copiis ab eo designaretur — . Deinde et in Monam trajecit insulam."

* Usher, 512, fixes the migration of Keby to St. David's and Iieland in 364, and iiis
settlement upon the isle of Anglesey in 369. But, as I have already sliewn Hilary to have
become bishop of Poitiers about 350, and to have died ])ishop about 368 or 369, Kcby must
have relumed into Cornwall about 369, have migrated to Ireland about 37©, and have settled
in Anglesey about 374.

t " We have a tradition even to this dav," notes the republisher of Rowlands's work, 144,
*' about this Cybi, that he used to meet St. Scirlol weekly, at a place called Clorach, near
" Lanerchmedd, where there arc two wells still bearing their names." But, as Mr. Gough
tells us concerning the village of Holyhead, " near the extren)ily of the village stands the
" church, in wliich St. Kebi — foimded a small monastery," or, as the author meant to say,
to which belonged a small monastery founded by St. Kebi. " His monastery was succeeded
" by a college of presbyters," the canonici prahendarii of Leland, " founded by one of the
" lords of Anglesea in the beginning of the 12th century," and dissolved soon after Leland
wrote his account of it. " The church is built in form of a cross ; on the pediment of the

VOL. II. 1 '• north

58 Tnr, cATHr.DKAL or couxnvall [chap. \.

A\'e thus reach the topmost round of our chronological ladder; l)ut
•we reach it iKvt before ^\e have ascended with Clii'istianity in our Irands,

" north tian=!cpt is Sanrte Ki/l\ oia pro iiolus." This shews the church to have been ckiii-
calcd to him, as it still is, and as the original church therefore was. But why was Kehy's
little monastery calleil Cacr Gwhyl Lc'iand has enabled nic in my text to answer very
clcarK' a qucf^tion that naturally arises to every mind, and has never been asked or answered
before; even the relics of Lclaiul's castle remain unsuspected to the present day. "The
"wall of the chunk- ijard," says Mr. Gough, ail unconscious of the ra$//e while he is
dcscrihlne: it, " are solidlv built of stone dhposcd herr'ing-lonc fashion, entered by an aiident
" slnne-gnle, with a round tower at the north-east corners next the sea : — it is a square of
" 220 feet % 130 ; the w a lis on three sides 17 feet high and 6 thick ; the masonry of the
*' whole evidently Rovmii: along the walls are t^vo rows of round holes, four inches in dia-
" meter, hollowed tliroiigh like tho<ie at Segoutium, and merely plastered over." The last
part of this extract is professedly derived from Mr. Pennant, '• ii. 277," but is really derived
from ii. 287, 288, has copied him too closely in one point, and has missed his meaning in
two others. Mr. Pennant's reference to Segontium is just and proper, but INIr. Cough's is
really ridiculous: the former describing those holes in the walls of Segontium, to which he
assimilates these at CaerGubv, in ii. 229 ; but Mr. Gough never describing those holes at
all in ii. 556, yet keeping up the assimilation in ii. 572. Mr. Gough also says, the holes
are " hol'owed through" the walls; but Mr. Pennant tells us, that there are some " whicb
" pass through the whole thickness," and others " wliich are discovered in the end of the
•" wall, and seem to run through it lengthways" (ii. 229) ; and the former holes, which
Mr. Gough with a earelcss trowel has " merely plastered over," and so shut them up seem-
ingly from the eye in their original condition, Mr. Pennant has " nicely plastered within."
To this collection of the straws and feathers that float continually on the commoti stream of
writings, let me add, that the church, now a donative, was thus' registered in the Valor of
Henry VIII.: " Ecclesia co'lcgiat. de CciZ/'o Cubii." So plainly did the name of Ca.sile
continue to the period of the Valor ! even as plainly as the remains of the castle arc observ-
able to the present moment. But " two rocks, with ruins of little oratories" on them,
*' opposite to the church, have the names of Yriis Gyhi and Vnis Rug," of Keby and one of
his brother-hermits, who here lived insulated at times from the petty continent of the
monastery. Yet even here has antiquarian folly, that rankot perliaps of all follies merely
literary, fixed the see of the bishop oi Anglesey, of North-Wales, or of loth (Usher, 49] ;
and s,-) turned the mere heiniit, bowever social, yet still a hermit, into the prelate of a
diocese. Only more absurd can be what Mr. Gough relates with great gravity, and without
the most distant reprobation ; that " Baxter," whom all young antiquaries admire, but
who is in truth unly the Merry Andrew of etymology, " derives Caer Gybi," not from
history, not from tradition, not from that Keby in whom both tradition and history unite,
hit " from Caer Cmb, Irish iov forces or troops" (ii. 572). No man can ever be so simple,
I believe, as not to have one equally simple with himself, aud repeating hie fooleries after
him. ,

long

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED; 5Q

It^ng beyond the coming of St. Petroc-k, long beyond tlie landing of
Breaca, even up into the days of Kebj and of Solomon ; this the king
of Cornwall, and that his son.; this a Christian, the first king of Corn-
wall probably wljo was so, ///(//^ a Christian, a clergyman, a bishop;
but botlv existing before " the latter end of the Jhurthr' century, long
before " all thejlfth," nnd rertj long before " most part of the sixth T in
all wlucli Dr. Borlase dreams he " finds verv inanA' martvrs sufferine:
" death for the Christian faith" in Cornwall, and in which jve find only
Christian kings, Christian princes, or Christian priests, all professing
their belief of the Gospel together, all united in that belief with the
great mass of Cornish commonalty, all as unanimous in their belief and
profession as all the Cornish ai'e at this moment*.

SECTION

* Let nie note here a striking proof in Dr. Borlasc, of his own nnfixeclness of mind as to
his grand point, tlie peculiar obstinacy of the Cornish in adhering to druidisni, and shrinkino-
back from Christianity. Finding what " is plainly a CromUh" in Kent, but what is also
given by tradition to " Caiigcrn, brother to Vortimcr king of the Britans, who [whose
" father Vortigern] invited the Saxons into Britain;" yet believing it " difficult to prove
" that the Christians ever erected structures of this kind," though he has just before noticed
one in Wales, with crosses upon tl-.c supporters of it (p. 226) ; he endeavours thus to reconcile
the former fiict with his general hypothesis. " If this tradition is true," he cries, " Catigem
" (it may he saidj was likeltj a Christian, and the people "ho erected this monument
"Christians;" when he and ihey were cer/ai;//y Christians, as appears cquallv from my
accounts preceding, and from his confession immediately subsequent, " Britain hauing
" Itjore this," the middle of the Jifih century, even " above two hiiidred vcars before"
(p. 369), " received the Christian religion. But it must be considered that the Cijristianity
" then amonc the Britans," at large, " particularly those of Cornunl/," in ivhich region Ite
thus acknowledges Christianity to have been settled equalbj as in the rest cj' Britain, to the
rejection of his whole hypothesis;, but " from whence," he adds, in order to recover him-
self, "Vortimcr canie and succeeded his father Vorligern, who was advanced from tfiat
"earldom to be the general king of Britain:" history all false ! as V'ortigern was king of
the Dimetx in South-Wales (Hist, of AJan. ii. 16, 17, quarto) ; this Christianity " uas so
" deeply tainted with druidism," an assertion, for the truth of which he odcrs not the
slightest evidence, though he extends it over all Britain bv his own confession, and over
South-Wales particularly by his own argument; and this Christianity " exercised the great
"abilities of the Jri^h .'^aints;" /;/>7j Christianity, though so fresh from druidism,. not
being tainted with it at all, " so long after as well as hfure this period," in that Cornwall
alone., within \\hifh wc have hitherto seen these saints employed by the Doctor; mit (as

I 2 here)

Go THE CATHEDKAL OF CORNWALL "[CHAI'. V.

SECTION IlL

I HAVE now swept away, with the poAvcrful hand of truth, that
fubviloiis multiplicity of martyrs \Nith which the golden legend of
Dr. BorJase has filled the calendar of Cornwall; and so filled it forsooth
in compliment to the unyielding genius of the very druidisni which had
been beaten out of all its dominions to the east as avcU as north, but is
credulously believed, in contradiction to a host of facts, to have retired
into its impregnable fines in the we.^t. Yet I must do Cornish druidisni
the justice to say, that it tvas in some instances most disgracefully un-
vieliling, even as unyielding as the drnidism of the north or cast ; and I
must fix some martyrs for Christianity in the calendar -of this country
that are all unnoticed by the Doctor, but are regularly answered by
others in other parts of the island. In doing this, however, I shall
have the Christian satisfaction of finding that the number of martyrs
made by druidism in Cornwall, even under the hottest paroxysm of
hostilitv against the Gospel, is less, much less than it is represented by
the Doctor to be : it is, indeed, very small ; yet even in Avhat it is,
Britain in general, and Devonshire in particulai', paitake of the ignominy
with Cornwall.

here) to rectify a Christianity tainted with druidism, but to convert from druidism to Christi-
anity itself ; that '^ it IS difficult' to determine whether we are to look upon Keith Coty-
*' house," in Kent, " as a druid or as a Christian monument."' (['. 226.) The exclusive claim
of Cornwall to perseverance in druidism, is here given up repeatedly by our author; he
abandons his whole system for the sake of a temporary advantage; he confessedly makes all
the Britons as tenacious of druidism as the Conmh ; he indirectly makes the Kentish Britons
to be peculiarly so; he even states the Cornish to be equal receivers of Chrit^tianity with the
Kentish and with all the Britons. Yet he dwells upon his hypothesis at the very moment
in which he is deserting it; and vainly tries, by falsehood or by sophistry, by incidents
wholly untrue in themselves, or evai (if truej forming no chain of reasoning, to derive the
Kentish tcnaciousness from^he Cornish; a fact pressed hard upon him, he endeavoured to
escape from its force, and he threw off his load of belief, in order to expedite his flight, yet
etruggled, out of a principle of shame, to conceal his conduct from himself.

1 'lluit

«ECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SUUVEl'ED. 6l

•That last, that crowning persecution of the Christians, which broke
out under the authority of Dioclcsian on the 23d of Februarj', in the
year 303, and continued to rage through nearly ten years afterwards,
must stand for ever as a strong broad stamp of blood upon the forehead
of heathenism ; to mark the bnitality of its spirit, to expose the savage-
ness of its efforts, in opposition to the Gospel and to Cod. It actually
carried such a sweeping destructiveness with it, in the eyes of its very
directors, that they could set up inscriptions recording their own infamy
in displaying their own success ; and triumph in their supposed extinc-
tion of the very religion, the very name of Christianity over the whole
face of the empire *. In this tempest of violence, which broke out from
the depths of hell, which carried all the malignity of hell in its fury, and
is to be equalled only in all the annals of human madness by the more
confined hurricane that has lately burst forth among the Christians of
France, renouncing their Christianity, recoiling backwards into hea-
thenism, and there finding its original rage against the Gospel ; Aaron
and Julius we know to have been martyred at Caerleon in Wales, as
well as Albanus at Yerulam. At the martyrdom of the last, particu-
larly, the citizens of Yerulam appear to have harboured a malignity
against the Gospel that was very similar to Dioclesian's, and discharged
itself in a vciy similar manner, " as a disgrace to Albanus's memory,
^' and as a terror to other Christians," so we find noticed in an ancient
history of his passion ; " inscribing his murder upon marble, and inscrt-
^' ing the stone in the city-walls," over the principal gateway assured!}',
the entrance nearest the place of execution, and the access from London
just under it f . In this persecution, too, we find some not yet held up

♦ " Cliinife cnim in Hispania, in piilclird columni hoc inscriptuni legimiis: DiorlelianHS
" Jovius (I Muxim'iuru Herculeus Caes. Aitgg. amplifhato per or'itnitevi et occidentfm imp.
*' Bom. et NOMi.N'E CiiniSTlAxoRCM DF.i.ETO gilt rempubUrum evtrtcbnnt. Kursus ibitltm
<* esl altera hac inscriptio, Diocletian. Caes. Avi>. Gakrio in oiiente adopt, sui'j^ustitionf.
** CHnisTiANORUM DELETA ft ciiUu dvorum propagato. Lcguntiir hx>c rliam Arevaci
*' Hispaniae, in columnis pluribus." .'^mith in Bedo, p. 660, 661, from Grulcr, i. 280.

•t Camden, 293 : " In hujus opprobrium et Clnisiiaiioriun terrorcni, ut in antique ejus
*' flgoijc habetur, Verolainitnscs ejus mnrlyriuin marmori inscripscrunt, nioenibusque insc-

" ruerunt."

02 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. V,

to fame, martyred in Devonshire and Cornwall. We do not know with
a decisive certainty, indeed, that these sutFered Hke those m the las^
persecution, but the analogy of history intimates they did ; nor could
any martyrdom but one so recent at the resurrection of Christianity
from its supposed sepulchre, its resurrection (like its founders) with
new power upon its arm, and m ith apparent divinity in its face, have
left memorials of the mcu't}TS to direct the triumphant Christians in tho
honoiu's whicii they paid to their memories, and to point out the very
scenes of their sutierings for the sites of their new churches. Thus,
Albanus at Verulam, Jidius and Aaron at Caerleon, were remembered
well to have svilfcred, and to have suffered at such particular places near
their respective towns. The persecution ceased about November 312;
and the Christians were restored to all their rights. Then, instantly, as
Gildas has already informed us concerning the ivhole of Roman Britain,
" all the pupils of Christ in Britain, as after a long ivintery night, with

" ruerunt." See also Stiikeley's Itin. Cur. plate 95. Camden's incident is derived pro-
bably from an author cited by Leiand De Script. Brit. 66, 67, yet reprobated as spurious by
Usher, 80, 81, but so reprobated upon principles surely too slight for the occasion. The
account was, " Ex vulgari Anglicano in sermoncm Lalinum a Gulielmo Albanensi monacho
" convcrsa," says Usher. T\\\s \i confessed ly William himself . (Usher, 81.) Yeiwho
wrote the English, or uJience the English was derived, does not appear,, while the work
itself challenges a much earlier date, jigainst that challenge, not an atom of argument is
produced; in proof of the challenge, I need only produce one passage out of the author's
own " prologus," as cited by Usher himself: " ' Quisquis bcatorum martvrum gloriosa cer-
" taniina tentaverit ad niemoriam revocare, necesse est, si tamen evaserii\" Alive liimself,
" ' ODIA sosTiNENT paganorum'." (Ushcr, 8i.) For a character so assumed, as Usher
pretends it was, so unlikely to be assumed, as so diOicuit to be supportcjd, no reason posi-
tive or probable can ever be assigned : yet what is more extraordinary, the character is sup-
ported rcsularly and invariably to the end, as my future extracts will shew. But let me
prove the point here : " ' Ilriuc'," says the autiior concerning the scene of St. Albau's mar-
tyrdom, " * inter csetcra naz/Z/orz/JW relatione cognovi, qualiter vir sanclus'," &c. " ' Omnem
" rei seriem diligentcr inquisivi, didid, et (ne lateret posierosj in hunc modum stylo
" memoriiequc mandari curavi'." This is, in short, that very authority, I believe, upon
which Bede modelled his account of tlie martyrdom of St. Alban, differing in nothing, as
we shall soon see, from a British account of it; but having particularly the same miraculous
creation of a fountain at the scene of martyrdom, and the same omission of the name of
St. Alban's converter^ as tliis biographer of St. Alban has. (Usher, 80; and Bede, i. 7. J

"joyful

I5ECT. m!] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 0.3

'*' jovfiil eyes receive the temperate serene light of the air of heaven ;
•" rebuild the churches that were torn down level with the ground ; /ay
" the foimdat'ions of large churches m honour of the holy martyrs ; rear
" them, finish them, and every where display (as it were) their victo-
" rious sUindards." They constructed their churches in the west and
«outh, equally as in the cast and north, to the honour of the late mar-
■tyi-s, and with the names of the late mart}TS affixed to them ; thev also
-constinicted them with that addition of locality which constituted the
principal part of the honour, which peculiarly affixed the name of tlie
^cliureli, and was so necessary to the human mind in its full comprehen-
sion of the martjr's merits ; a position upon the very ground at which
the soul of the martyr had gone on his own flame of fire to paradise.
Thus the church of St. Alban was erected upon the very hill, without
-the walls of Verulam, on which Albanus had suffered only a few years
before ; as the churches of Julius and Aaron were equally constructed at
their respective scenes of martyrdom, without Caerleon *. The whole
island, indeed, seems to have sprung forward at these happy moments,
and run to shelter itself from heathenism in the fostering arms of Christi-
anity ; the citizens of V^erulam, in particular, not merely removing from
.the view that inscrij)tion over one of their gates, which attested their
shame in witnessing their murder of St. Alban ; but even recording the

■* Bcdc, i. 7 : " Passus est — bcalus Albanus — die decimo kalendarum Julianaruni "
June the 22d, " — jiixta civitatem Vcrolamium ; — uli postca, redeunte temporum Cliri?tia-
■" nonim scrcnitate, ccclcsia est — constructa. — I'assi sunt ea tenipcstate Aaron et Julius
" legionuin urbis cives." (Giraldus Canibrensis, in Itin. Waliisc, 836.) " Jaccnt A/f [at
" Cacrleon] duo nobiles, et post Albanunj ct Amphibalum prascipui Britannias Maioris
•' protomartyrcs, et ibidem marlyrio coronati, Julius scilicet et Aaron, quorum uternue
" ecclcsiam in urle insignem habebat suo nomine decoratam. Tres enini cgren-ia; in hSc
" urbc, antiquis temporihus, fuerunt ecclcsiae, una Julii martyris, — altera vero beaii Aaron
*' socii cjusdcm, nomine fiindata, — tertia vero," &c. From the church of Julius " the
"house of Julian took its name," about a mile out of toiin; — "the parish-church of
*' Llianharan (lam (corruptly for Lhan Aaron) was dedicated to the last of these; and near
" the church is a field termed Kae Aaron, Aaron's Field, to this dav." (Arch. ii. 7 •
fjibson, 728.) " Julio — et Aaroni," says Godwin, 598, " — palrum adiuic nostroruni
" menwria capellx visebantur constructa", quarum una ab oriental!, altera ab occidental!
" parte oppidi, duobus plus minus milliaribus disjunctae crant." « '

triumphs

0-1 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V,

triumphs of their new-adopted rehgion in the very same manner, by
inscribing square stones over the gates of their walls in a pious memorial
of them ■*.

The church of Saixt Columb in Cornwall deriA^ed its appellation,
not (according to the very natural surmise of Camden in all his editions
before that of lOo;) from Columbanus, otherwise denominated Co-
lumba, the Irish saint of the Western Isles of Scotland f ; but, in tlie
correcting strani which he judiciously adopted for this edition, " from
" Columba, a very pious tcoman and a martyr, as now I have been with
" certainty assured from her life +." He was so assured by Nicholas
Roscarrock, Esq. a gentleman of family and fortune among the Cor-
nish, and, what is more pertinent to the point, one celebrated by
Carew, " for his industrious delight in matters of history and anti-
" quity §," from a letter dated August the 7th, 1607. The church, says
the letter-writer, " in truth — taketh name of Columba, a v^oman-saint,
" who was a virgin and martyr ||." It is accordingly called in the Valor
of Pope Nicholas, " the church of Sancta Columba^ ;" the patent for
the fair in November entitles her, " Sancta Columba, the virgin ;" and
the fair is now held upon what is styled in the patent, " the day of

* Leland De Script. Brit. 30 : " Civitas vero Albanl de tyranno triiimphos portis ac
" muris, in pium opus exsculptis quadratis saxis, inseruerunt. Cujus facti et Anonymus,
" qui Vitas Albani et Amphibali elegajitisshne pcrscripsit, Saxomtiis paganis Verolamium
" turn occiipantlhits mentionem facit." The person thus mentioned with our martyr, even
Amphihalus, is by some moderns, who are content to expose their own folly in exposing the
falsehood of others, ridiculously supposed to have been merely the f/oaiof Albanus; but was
the clergyman that converted him, noticed viithout a name by Bede, by Anonymus, and first
named by Geofl'rey of Monmouth, from some memorials in Wales. (Usher, 81 ; Leland, 6;
.M. Paris, iii.)

t Leland's Coll. i. 10 : " S. Columba sepuUzw in Higecaland" the Saxon appellation of
lona, or Icolmkill, the very Hii of Bede, iii. 4.

:f Camden, 140: " Columbae piissini^ mulieris et martyris, — utjam certo ex ejus Vila
*« sum edoctus."

§ Carew, 127.

I Camdeni Epistolre, p. 91.

<J " Ecclesia Sanct* Columba."

" Sancta

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 65

" Sancta Columba, the virgin and martyr*."' Nor is this virgin-
mai-t} r of Cornvsall the same with the virgin put to death by Aurehan
at Sens in France ; as she has been eonjcctured by some to be f . The
day of the French saint is the thirtij-Jirst of Dccemher, as Eede's Mar-
tyrology, the oldest (1 believe) vvhich Me have among us, on that day
notices " the passion of Sancta Columba, the virgin at Sens, under
" Aurehan the emperor + ;" but the fair of the Cornish saint is held on
the Thursday after the thirfeejith of November, and the feast on the
Sunday subsequent to that. Our Cornish saint, indeed, was purelv a
native of Cornwall ; Roman, like the virgin of the same appellation iu
France, like Julius too, or Albanus in ^Vales and Hertfordshire ; \et
British-Roman, the descendant probably of a Roman family settled in
the country. Lives were accordingly written, we know, of St. Alban
and of St. Columba i?i tlic British language §.

The town of A'"erulam, so famous equally In our civil and our eccle-
siastical history, had shot up to a very high pitch of grandeur, and had
e^ en acquired the very rare dignity of a nninicipium ; before the in\asion
of the Saxons II . But then all its splendour was overcast, and all its
majesty was lowered, for c^ er ; the same tempest of war, which levelled
Silchester, equally levelling this, and both after an obstinate defence

* Hals, 59.

t Jlals, 59.

% Bede, 460 : " Passio S. Columbte vlrginls, Scnones [Senonis], sub Aureliano iin-
" peratorc."

§ To those who love to mark the aberration* of the human mind, it must be amusing to
observe Hals, 59, calling the saint by the name of Columbanu.s, in opposition to Camden's
correction of himself; because now no such person "as Sancta Columba," or " no such
" book extant" as this life of that saint, " I cnn hear of." Yet, in p. 67, he owns himself
to be " informed, that the patron of this church is Sancta Columba." But after all appears
the publisher, one Brice, a printer at Truro, afterwards a printer, bookstller, and author,
at Exeter, with all that pertness which uneducated abilities are sure to give, with all that
ignorance of reasoning which unassisted nature is equally sure to supply, and with all that
tendency to scepticism, to which such ignorance, such pcrtne<=, arc equaliy sure to gravi-
tate as to their natural centre; sneering at both, yet finally coming back to the wrong.

H Richard, 36: " Municipia — ii. Verolamium ct F.boracura, viiii. Coloiiiac," &c.

VOL. II. K probably

66 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP, V.

probably against the Saxons %. From that period, Verulam and Sil-

chestcr equally became a mere range of lofty walls encircling a mass of

ruins. The state of Verulam particularly is exhibited to us in these

lively colours, during the tenth century. " Ealdred the [eighth] abbot"

of the adjoining church of St. Alban, says the historian of the church,

" ransacking the ancient subterraneous cavities of the old city which

*' was called Werlamcestre, overturned and filled up all. But the rough

*■' broken places, and the streets, with the passages running under

" ground, and covered over with solid arches (some of which passed

*' under the water of the Werlam river, which was once very large, and

" flowed about the city) ; he pulled do\\"n, filled up, or stopped, because

** they were the lurking holds of thieves, night-walkers, and whores :

*' but the fosses of the city, and certain caverns, to which felons and

" fugitives repaired as places of shelter, from the thick woods around ;

" he levelled as much as ever he could *." Such was then the state of

Verulam,

^ Gilcias Hist. viii. shews, that, some little time before his writing, the scene of St. Alban's
inartyrciom was in the possession of the Sa.xons. — But another author, equally a Briton,
equally a Christian too in heart and design, though not yet baptized, being born since the
Saxons became possessed of the country, says thus of Verulam : " ' Gives quondam Verola-
•' niienses, ob elationem cordis sui declarandam, qualiter passus sit Beatissimus Albanus in
" muris civitatis suae sculptum reliquerunt ; quam sculpturam, longo post tempore, in muris
" eorum jam rimosis, et ad ruinarn inclinatis, inveni, vidique moenia pra vetustate jam
" labi'." At uhat period this author wrote, is plain from the following passage : " ' Si quis
" enim de nece martyrum aut de sanctorum gloria narrationem coeperit ordinare, mox qui
*' eorum felicitati invident irasci, fremere, et ad mortem usque persequi, consuevenmt,
" Inde est, quod passionem Sancti Albani martyris, qualicunque stylo posteris traditurus,
" operi titulum non prsepono ; malens tacendo nomen omittere, quam loquendo nomen
" puriter et vitam amittere. Quamvis igitur insidia?itiian laqueis plena sint omnia, sup-
*' presso tamen nomine, quid viderim, quid audiverim, non tacebo. — Romam proficiscor,
" ut illuc gentilitatis errore deposito, et lavacro regenerationis adepto, veniam assequi
*' merear delictorum," (Leland De Script. Brit. 66, 67.) The marble recording the murder
of Albanus, therefore, had not been torn down, but turned with its face inward, as the
inscription must certainly have been placed out of sight, and yet appeared in the gaping walls
afterward.

* M. Paris, 994: " Ealdred us abbas — anliquas jcrip/arai subterraneas," I read, antiquos
scroHados subterraneos, " veteris civitatis quae Werlamcestre dicebatur, perscrutatas
•* [perscrutatus], evertit omnia el implevit. Tracones vero et vias, cum mentibus subter-

'* raneis

SECT, III.] HISTORICALLY SUnVF.YKD. 6?

\''erulam, and such it had ///c« been for four centuries: the church of
St. Alban all the while standing sohtary upon its adjoining hill, and
from the woody height of its own Hulin-hursf commanding all the
mournful scene of desolation ! Yet the town qf St. Alban's grew up,
not (as might naturally be surmised) from the gradually attracted popu-
lation of Ycrulam, for Verulam had no population at ail, we see; but
from a population invited out of the neighbouring country at once, by
L'lsin, or Ulsig, the eighth abbot f . Then Eadmer the ninth, employing
men to ransack those ruins again, " in the midst of the ancient city they
" tore up the foundations of a great place," says the same historian of
the church ; " and, while they were \^•ondering at the remains of such
*' large buildings, they found in a hollow repository of one wall, as in a
" small press, among some lesser books and rolls, an unknown volume
*' of one book, which was not mutilated by its long continuance there;
" of which neither the letters nor the dialect, from their antiquifif, were
^' Inwivn to any person who could then be found ; but the inscriptions
" and titles in it shone resplendent in letters of gold." So early were
illuminations used in our books ! " The boards of oak," so old are
books in boards ! " the strings of silk," of such antiquity are silken
strings to books ! " in grait measure retained their original strength
" and beauty. When inquiry had been industriously made veiy far and
♦' wide concerning the notices in this book, at last they found one priest,
*' aged and decrepit, a man of great erudition, Unwon by name ; who,
*' knowing the dialect and letters of ditferent languages, read the writ-
*' ing of the before-mentioned book distinctly and openlv. In the
" same manner he read without hesitation, and he explained without
*' difficulty, notices in other books, that were found in the same room
*' and within tlie same press. For the letters were such, as used to be

** raneis et soliiic per artificlum arcuatis (qaoruni quidam subtus aquam Warlamiac, qua:
*• quondam, maxima, civitati full circiimfusa, trausicrunt) ; diruit, implevit, aut obturavit.
" Erant cnini, laiibiila latronum, vespillonum, ct meretrlcum. Fossata vcro civitatis, et
" qiiasdam speluncas, ad quas quasi ad refugia redeunles, maicfici el tugitis i a densis silvit
*' vicinis fugerunt in quantum poluit explanavit."

t M. Paris, 993: " I'agum — Sancti Aibanis el incolas, dllexit et promovit ; ab partibus
*' ciwumjaccntibub ipsum, — populis ijoiivocatis fecit inhabilari."

K 2 " written

68 THE CATITHDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

" writ fen at tlie time irhen Jerulam was inhabited ; and tlie dialect was
" that of the ancient Britons, then used by them. There were some
" things" in tlie other hooks, " written in Latin, but these were not
" curious; and in ihejirst book, X\\c greater one, of which I har^e made
" mention before, he found written the hfstory of Saint Alba.v, the
•* protomartyr of the English ; which the church, at this verif day,
" /'ecites and reads ; to A\-hich that excellent scholar Bede lends his
" testimony, ditlering in nothing from it. 'i hat book — , in which the
" history of St. Alban was contained, was reposited with the greatest
" regard in the treasury of the abbey, and exactly as the aforesaid
" presbyter read the book tiritten in the ancient dialect of England or
*' Britain, with which he was well acquainted ; abbot Eadmer caused it
•' to be faithfully and carefully set down by some of the \\iser brethren
*' in the convent, and then more fully taught in the public preach-
" ings. But when the history was thus made known (as I have said) to
" several, by being \^'ritten in Latin ; what is wonderful to tell, the
" primitive and original work fell away in round pieces, and \\as soon
" reduced irrecoverably to dust*." This is a most curious, amusing,

and

* M. Paris, 994, 995: " Fossores, — in medio civitatis anliquas, cujusclam magni palatii
*' fundamenta diruerunt, ct, cum tantorum vestigia xdificiorum adniirarentur, invenerLmt
*' in cujusdam niuri concavo deposito quasi almariolo, cum quibusdain minoribus libris et
*' rotulis, cujusdam codicis ignotum volumcn, qucxl parum fuit ex tarn longinquii mora
" demulitum. Cujus nee iitcra nee idioma alicui tunc invcnto cognilum pra: antiquitale
" fucrat, quarum epigratnmata et tituli aureis Uteris fulscrunl rcdiuiiti. Asscres qucrni,
" liganiina serica, prisiinam in magna parte fortitudincm et dccorem reiinucrunt, De cujus
" libri notitia cum multum longe laieque fuerat diligenter inqiiisitum, tandem unum senem
"jam decrepitum invenerunt sacerdotem. Uteris bene eruditum, nomine Unuonani, qui,
•' imbutus diversoriim idiomatum linguis ac literis, legit distincte et aperle scripts libii
" prxnominati. Similiter quas in aliis codicibus, in eodem almariolo et in eodern haljitaculo
" repertis, kgit indubitanter, et exposuit expresse. Erat enim litera qualis scribi solet
" tempore quo cives Warlamecestram inhabitabant, et idioma antii|uorun» Britonum, quo
"tunc temporis utebantur. Aliqua tamcn in Latino, sed his non opus crat : m primo
" autem libro, scilicet majori, cujus prius fecimus mcntiouem, scriptam ijiveni.t historiam
*' de Saneto Albano Anglorimi proiomartyre. Quam ecclesia, diebus hodiernis, recitat
" legendo. Cui perhibet egregius doctor Beda testimonium, in nullas discrepando. — Ille
♦' liber, hi (juo hiitoria Sancti Albaui coiitincbalur^ in ihesauro charjssiiue repouebatur. Et

" sicut

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. OQ

and striking discoverv, exhibiting a little scene of Herculaneiim by an
antici])ation of some centuries to our eyes. It sb.ews also the amazing
ignorance of the British language, which at this period prevailed close
to the very walls of that celebrated capital of a 13ritish nation ; and the
still more amazing knowledge perhaps in one divine, amidst such a
general ignorance, concerning that language. But it equally shews the
kno^^ ledge to have continued in one or more to, or nearly to, the very
days of Bede ; as he had procured a translation of it, or a similar work,
from the British, two or three ages before this discovery of the manu-
script, a translation " differing in nothing from it ;" as the English,
when reclaimed to Christianity, adopted St. Alban, the protomartyr of the
Britons, for " the protomartyr of the English too," and as " the history
" of St. Alban," \\hich had been " recited and read" in the church of
the Britons assuredly, became equally recited and read in that of the
Saxons also *. And it still more clearly proves the martyrdom of St.

Albaa

'< sicut prxdictus presbyter ilium antiquo Anglico vcl Britannico idiomafe conscriptum, in
" quo pcritus exlilit, Icgerat ; abbas iste Eadmcrus per prudenliores frairuni in conventu
" fecit (ideliter ac diligenter exponi, ct plcnius in publico pra;dicanio edoceri. Cum uutcm
" conscripta hisloria in Lutino pluribns (ut jam dictum est) iiinotuissct ; exempltr prlmi-
" livuni ac originale (quod mirum est dlctu) irreslaurabilitcr in pulverem sul)it() rtd.,ctuni
" cccldit annuiatum." Tlie site of this palace so stored with literature, heathen and
Christian, remained conjectural!)' visible to tlie eye of antiquarianism, as late as the days of
I.eland : " vidi — locum, nunc obductum frutlcibub, ubi probabilis conjectura est fuisse
" pfl/(7^'«/» Verolamii." (Coll. iv. i68.)

• Bede, i. 7; and Usher, 81. M. Paris, 995, shews the account recited in St. Alban's
own church, to lie different in i.otiiing from Ijcdu's, though taken from tlie manuicript
discovered at Verulam. Yet the account given us by Anonymus is just tjie same in sub-
f-tance with both, having the sauie crea'.ion of a founiaiu Ijv a miracle on the hill of martyr-
dom, and the same <)mis>ion of the iKtme of St. Alhan's converter; even being proftssediv
the mere echo of that tradition, which would be sure to be formed from the niemorv of an
account written i)v the prn, anil recited in the church, before. " Quid L^idi'iim," says the
author as to the ruined w alls of Verulam, " ((uid aiiJitrrim," as to the traditional history uf
St. Alban, " non taccho." (Lelaiul He Script, lint. 66.) lie refers only to colloquial nar-t
ration for his authority, as he also hints. just before at his endeavouring to draw such
narrations from the lips of persons around him, and so provoking the pagan masters of them
all ; " si quis — de neee martvrum — Jiaiid/ioiiem cu^perit ordinare," ?fc. N"r can any
ubjection be rais':d to this, though Usher, p. 80, has attempted to raise one^ from the seem-
ingly

70 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cH\P. V.

Aiban to have been written originally at the moment of restored Chris-
tianity, when the memory of St. Allan's townsmen still retained faith-
fully upon its waxen tablets, all that they themselves had seen of the
sufferings of St. Alban a few years before f .

Just

ingly prophetic turn of a sentence. The sentence is not prophetic in realitv. It is only in
that tone of seeming prophecy, whicli hope, which earnest hope frequently gives to the
inind of man ; the ivish that an event may be springing forth from the heart to the pen, and
there forming itself into a trust that it ivill he. ''Tenipus erit," says the author, " ut con-
"Jidimus, quo religiosi viri, viri Christiani ad prasdicandum gentibus venient in Britanniam :
'*' verum tempus futurae gratis quavdo fulurum sit, ijii'ia cerium von haleo, islliic bujus
" laetitiae magnitudincm non cxpecto."

t " Anonynius," says Leland, concerning the writer cited before, an author all unknown
to scholars at present, yet writine; at a period for which we peculiarly want authors, and highly
praised by Leland, " vir non niediocriter eruditus, eo tempore floruit," that I have noticed
already ; " — et, quoniam Albani \'erolamiensis — clarhsiiua erat ajjiid indigenas mevtoria,
*' omnia diiigentissime, sed tanquam al'md agens, didicit, qua: illi, vel usque ad mortem
" invicti, pro religione Christiana patiebantur. Ciiniquc jam probe instructus cssct, cala-
" mum sumpsil pingendx historia; mm incptum ; ac operi longc sanctissimo ita incubuil,
" lit nullus unquam Apelles gentilium dcorum effigies melius cxpresjerit, quam hie Albanum.
*' — Anonvmi opus floridum, luculenlum, venustum, vivit perpctuoque vivet." That Mr.
Newcome should know nothing of this work, or, if known, should not dare to use it ; is not
to be censured. A reprobation from such a writer as Usher, acts with historians like a
horse-shoe over the door upon witches, frightening all from entrance. Nor ought we to
expect more than the common portion of courage, from men bred up in all the sequestratioix
of studiousness, and consequently shrinking like hot-house plants before the blasts without.

But Mr. Newcome, erring in another way, and confounding the " little chapel uilhout
" the walls of Verulam, built formerly by the new converts in honour of this blessed mar-
" tyr," with a " chapel" wUhln the walls " called afterwards St. German's chapel;" says,
" this church had been demolished by the [Saxon] invaders near 300 years before" Ofia,
yet, " this chapel — would tend in some degree to preserve a remembrance of him;" and
adds, " it is likely that the memory of Alban lived only in Offa's time, in the report and
*' tradition of old people" (p. 25) ; when Offa died in 794, when Bede finished his history
in 731, and Bede gives us a large account of St. Alban's martyrdom; when Anonynius
writes his history about 590 before, and gives us an account just as large. Yet Mr.
Newcome subjoins in the same strain concerning the discovery at Verulam, '< this story hath
" so much the air of a monkish imposture," though he acknowledges it to be related by M.
Paris himself, " and of that affected reverence which they would draw to \.ht\x founders," he
means to their saints, Alban being the saint and not the founder of the church ; " that I
" have written it at length, as a just specimen of that art ivhlch monks used, to sanctify
4 *• falsehood

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 71

Just SO, assuredly, was the case with the Sancta Cohimba of Corn-
wall. An account of her maityrdom was drawn up at the same period,
equally written in the British language, and equally recited in the
church-offices of Britain. " Her life," said JMr. Roscarrock in his
letter to Camden, and by his language shews it to have been, like that
of St. Alban, or like that of all other saints, much more ample than a
mere description of her martyrdom, even to extend into a history of her
whole life, " I have in my hands ; it was translated out of the CoR-

*' falsehood or novelty," a distinction strange in itself, novelty (if not truth) being false-
hood in fads, " and often downright fraud and deception," fraud and deception as crowning
falsehood. Here, liowcver, is a positive charge of falsification brought, against all monks
in general, and these monks in particular, for this asserted discovery of St. Alban's life.
Before this asserted discovery, even ages before it, the whole of the life was known to Bede,
and had been published by Bcde to ail the kingdom. What peculiar end of honour then
to the saint, could be served by such an imposture and such a forgery ? None certainly.
Yet, in the poor spirit of Protestant scc[)tlcism, which l)elieves every thing ill, however
absurd, concerning monks, and which is fully as ridiculous in the eye of sober criticism, as
monkish credulity itself; this author speaks boldly in the charge, because he speaks from
prejudice; but then sinks into weakness in the proof, because he is dealing with reason.
" For it is probable," he thus founding a violent charge upon a mere probability, that
" JEWnc the Second composed this little history in Latin; because in bishop Osmond's breviary,
•' or mass-book, there is an office composed by ^Ifric in honour of Alban" (P. 35.) The
argument of probability here is just as absurd in itself, as it was before in proof of positive
crimination. That iElfric composed this history is 7Wt probable, though ^Ifric coniposed
an office. His writing the latter is no argument the most distantly probable, thai he drew
up the former. And the stone fortress of evidence for the discovery, is not to be shaken by
pointing sucli a spear of straw against it. But, in fact, yElfric only took the discovered
history, framed from it an office for divine worship, and set this office to music, i'Elfric,
says M. Paris himself, 995, when chantor of St. Alban's, was persuaded by his brother then
abbot, " ut historiam ad notam de Sancto Albano componeret." This M. Paris notices
again, in 996, as " quam nunc cantator composuit historiam, et ciJcni votam mclicam
"adaplavii; ct, auctontatc fralris sui archiepiscopi, niultis locis AngUte fecit publicari,
" diemque ejusdem martyris honorari." This office, therefore, was used peculiarly at St.
Alban's. Yet it was all taken from that very history, of which it is ridiculously brought to
disprove even the existence; because that very history is noted by M. Paris himself again, as
" quam ecclesia dicbus hodiernis recitut legendo." (P. 994.) But we here see the word
composed so early as this period in use, for setting to music; and Mr. Newconie deceived by
the double meaning, to make a composer tlic very author.

;2 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. V.

"nisii*." This testimony is t'ull and complete. The saint, whose life
had been written in Corni&h, must certainly have been a saint of Corn-
wall; as he, whose history had been written in the British of Yerulam,
was certainly a British saint of that town. Kor can the non-appearance
pf the original life at present be alleged against the existence of it ; any
more in the case of Sancta Columba, than in that of St. Alban, Nor
can the denominated translation of Jier life be therefore surmised to be
the real original ; because the translation itself is non-apparent equally
with the original at present, and the very existence of the translation
may on that principle be equally discredited. The translation of Sancta
Columba's life as undoubtedly existed in the hands of Mr. Roscarrock,
as that of St. Alban's existed in the abbey of his own name, and in the
historv of our own Bede. But, as the original of St. Alban's life was
reduced into dust from the dampness in whicli it had lain so long, by
the time the translation was freely circulated ; so that of Sancta Co-
lumba's was thrown aside, resigned up " blattainmi ac tinearum epulae,"
even at length lost for ever, from the translation of the Cornish into
English, from the insolent triumph of the English over the Cornish,
and from the Protestant inditfcrence to the lives of saints, that prevailed
equally with the English language, triumphing over all history, all
gratitude, all reverence, in its Gothic spirit.

In the lives of these saints have I already tracked tlie steps of
Christianity, moving in majest)^ over the subject empire of Rome, the
Roman provinces of Britain, and the angular region of Cornwall. I have
thus wound my way slowly, to her incorporation w ith the civil economy
of nations, to her adoption and patronage among the kings of the globe.
I have particularly reached the year 325, twelve years after the cessation
of all hostility against the Gospel, and about the year when a king of
Cornwall was baptized by the scriptural name of Solomon ; just as one
of the martyrs in the last persecution had been previousl} baptized, by
the appellation of Aaron. The immediate predecessor of Solomon was
the very king pri)bably, by whose authority, under the edict of Diocle-
gian, Sancta Columba was martyred. Accordingly we lind a Cornish

* Canulciii Eplstolx, p. 91.

sovereign

SECT. HI. J HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. /3

sovereign residing in the parish of St. Cohinib, about a mile to the south
of the church, and at a house still denominated Tre-h/ning, or the
abode of princes; a house, to which there is a formal causey jet ap-
parent, from a remarkable fortress adjoining, a Roman camp originally,
but the reputcHl castle of king Arthur afterwards^ Arthur being almost
as popular a hero in romance with the Cornish as witli the Welsh *.
At the extremity of the estate still belonging to tliis house, and upon the
edge of the moor then adjoining assuredly to its demesne, the groimd
there carrying all the appearance of a moory enclosure to this day, being
plainly a part of that watcrj^ wilderness of desolation, which is now
denominated Goss Moor, which was even when Leland crossed it
" a morisch ground, al baren of woodde-j- ;" but was formerly covered
with woods, iis tradition reports the timber of the church of St. Columb
to liave been all cut upon it, and tliercjoi^c carried the appellation of
Gosse (C), a wood originally, the reported scene of Arthur's huntings;
remains a monument at present, apparently the tomb of a British
king. This, in the language fomiliar to the Britons of Wales, is deno-
minated Coytt'

The

* Kcann (I.), Kyn (W.), Kyn (C.),'is the head in the human body ; and hence Kyn (W.)
in composition is the first, or chief, or excellent, Cyntav (W.), Kensa (C), Ktnla (A.);,
Kcann (I.), are first, and Cyn (W.) is a prince. Tre-Cyn-cn (C.) would be the house
of princes. In 3 Men. IV. " Johannes Haniclyn tenet dimidiuni parvi fcodi in Trelaniicn,
" Radul[)luis Darundle tenet dimidium parvi ftodi in Tiekinnen," both in tlic liundrcd of
Pyder. (Carew, 43.) " Yea, tradition tells us, he [Arthur] resided at Castle Dennis."
From Castle Dennis does " a siony causey, now covered with grass, conduct you up and
" down the hill," on which the fortress stands, " towards Tre-kynwg, that is to say, the
" king's, prniec's, or ruler's town." (lluls, 6j[..) The estate is now divided in t\v(j, and
has two houses upon it, Higher and Lower Tre-kyning. The Higher was called simply
" Tre-kyninge" in the very davs of Hals fp. 66), and the Lower denominated " Tre-kynlnge
" Vcan, i. e. Tre-kininge the Less" (p. 67). The ancient house on the Higher was pulled
down, and another erected on the site, by " James Jenkyn, gent, attorney at law, temp.
" James L" (p. 66) ; as the appearance of the modern building suggests, and as the settle-
ment of the Jenkyns then in it confirms. Some slight remains of the old house still con-
tinue; but tradition reports the new to be hardly a tenth purl (if the old in size.

t Itin. iii. 12, 13.

J " Not far from this Coyt, at the edge of the Goss Moor, there is a large stone, wherein
«' is deeply imprinted a mark, as it had been the impression of four horse-shoes; and [it] is

VOL. 11, JL " to

7-i Till". CATHEDRAL OV COUNWALX [ciIAT. V,

The top-stone of it too, in a strain of romance that accounts very
satisfactorily for tlie name, is fabled bv tradition to have been u"^ed by
the devil, as the top-stone in some of tlie W'^elsh is equally fabled to
have been used by Arthur, that equal proprietor of all extraordinary
vkorks among the Welsh populace, Avith the devil among the English ;
in the Britibh exercise of quoiting §. The top-stone is the most striking
part of the whole, and therefore the denominator of it; being a black
kind of iron-stone, very hard, very massy, and no less than thirteen or
fourteen tons in weight. Yet it hxis been raised by some poA\'er of me-
chanics, that therefore is supposed popularly to be all unknown to the
present age, and to shew us in union with Stonehenge and Abury
temples, our inferiority in one important region of physics to the rudest,
equally as to the most refined of our British ancestors*. That some of
the Roman or Grcecian powers of mechanism may be lost, some of the
Grcecian sublimities or Roman refinements in the geometry of raising
immense weights ; is readily to be conceived, and easily to be conceded.
" No one is ignorant of the toil and labour," says the sober Montfaucon
himself, A^hich " it cost the Cavalier Fontana, a celebrated architect,

*' to this clav called King Arlhiiys Slone. Yea, tradition tells us they were made by king
" Artliiir's horse's feet, when he resided al Castle Dennis and Inmtetl in the Goss Moor.
" But this stone is now overturned by some seekers for nionev." (Hals, 64.)

§ " From the oblate and spreading form of the upper stone, resembling a discus,^' savs
"Dr. Borlase, very justly, as the form has certainly suggested the tradition; " this monumcrrt
" is in Cornwall called by the name of Quoit." (P. 224.) Yet the tradition is not peculiar
to CornwalL any more than the form, l)eing as extensive as the tradition concerning Arthur
himsdf; because (what Dr. Borlase inmicdiatdy adds) " in Merionidshire (Wales) also
" there is one calledKoetcn-Arlhnr, or Quoits of Arthur; and another in Carnarvonshire,
" called Bryn y Goeien, orthe Quoit Hillock."

* Hals, 64: " How, or by what art, this prodigious flat stone should be placed on the
"top of the others, amuseth the wisest mathematicians, engineers, or architects, to ttll or
<' conjt-'cture." Arch. ii. 272. Mr. Po\\nalI : " It haiji aKvays been matter of wonder with
" the vulgar, and a subject of disquisition with the learned, to -conceive how these unwieldy
" masses of stone, of a bulk and weight beyond the commonly known [wwers of man to deal
" with, could have been moved, conveyed such a length of way as some must have been,
•' and how finally tticy were raised such heights. The one have imputed these effects to
" map-icians and giants; the others, to operations equally fanciful, though assuming the
** name of philosophy."

"to

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 75

" to erect the obelisk in St. Peter's Place, -which is yet to be seen there.
" The design of the machine he made use of to effect it is engraved and
" publibhed, and is looked upon by our architects with adniiration. But,
" after all, what was this obelisk in comparison of those colossal statues
" of above a hundred feet high, of the cg/ossus at Rhodes, and even of
" the oU'/isIi ii'hich is heforc St. John Latcran, which far surpasses in
" magnitude that of St. Peter, and which would have lain prostrate to
" this day, had it not been broken into several pieces by its fall, which
" facilitated the raising it again. But all these great machines are naw
" lost ; so that, if any thing of uncommon weight was to be erected,
" new machines and engines must be thought upon, the expense of
" \\hich would perhaps be greater than the work itself, though it fall
*' far short of those enormous buildings the ancients raised. These
" curious inventions, I say, are all lost through the injury of time ; and
" nothing remains to us but the machines they made use of to erect
" the obelisk and columns of the Hippodrome at Constantinople, which,
" after all, is so imperfectly represented, that I question whether any
" thing can be made of it or not *." These glorious inventions of the
geometrical genius of Rome, or Athens, were undoubtedly swept away
by that grand revolution in all the eastern and western parts of the
globe, the subversion of the Roman empire ; which turned back the sun
of science many degrees upon the dial, and plunged all the arts in the
gloom of midnight. Then such only as were calculated for the reduced
stature of man, emerged from the gloom again ; and the others were
left to perish there, as adapted to purposes too great and gigantic for the
new pigmies of the earth f. Yet, with all this ample allo^wance in

fa^•ou^

• Monlfaucon, iii. part ii. c. i.

t In Arch. vi. 59, Mr. Pownall notes a " rock whose weight is twelve hundred tons,"
reccnilv raised out oF a swaiDp in Russia, drawn upon rolling balls several iffihw^by land,
sent on a float to Fetershurgh, and there diseniharked to make the pecUstal for a statue of
Peter the (jreat, i)y the work of Count Carhars, of Cefl'alonia; a work, adds Mr. Pownall,
at the close, " which appears to nic, not only the greatest operation of mechanics which
" was ever efl'ected in our world, but jinique.'" Penes autliorem sit Jides ! In Arcli. viii.
444, sve have this account, much less marvellous in itself: " The greatest work of this
** kind," says Mr, liarrington tlicre, " seems to have been the removal of the rock in
. 1. 2 " Russia,

70 Tin: cvriinDRAi. of Cornwall J^chap. v.

fiivour of I^oraaii or Grascian machinery, 1 cannot extend one particle of
it to the British. That a principle of mechanic power, which was
known to the veiy Britons themselves in all their rudeness before the
Roman arrival, should be effaced entirely from the memory, and wlioUy
unconceivable by the mind, of the present generation of Britons, would
be one of the most extraordinary incidents in the whole history of o\ir
iblajul; would indeed be an incident of so miraculous a quality, as not
indeed (according to the " insaniens sapientia" of some reasoners) to
become absolutely incredible iu itself, but to require the highest degree
of evidence for it. The fact, however, is entirely ditierent. We have
common machines at present, that, by means of the screw, can raise
288 hundred weight, or more than fourteen tons ; we have also im-
proved machines, that, by an addition of four pidlies to the screw,
unite all the mechanical powers in one grand combination together, and
can therefore raise a weight of 2400 hundreds, or 120 tons; yet the
largest stone in tliat structure of the largest stones among the Britons,
Abury, on the largest scale of estimation, is not more than seventy
tons*. How practicable then was it for the Britons, even in a much
lower acquaintance than \\ hat toe have with the mechanic powers, to
raise such stones as the coverers of our coyts, as the sc^uareid pillars and
flat architraves of Stonehenge, and the vast monstrous masses of Abiuy?
Yet, at the same time, how highly do all these shew them advanced in
the use of engines with the screw, even under their state of rudeness,
and before the coming of the Romans, to be capable of raising five
times as great a weight as our common machines, and more than lialf
as great as our improved can do!

Our coyt is formed of five stonies, one covering, three supporting,
and one buttressing, with a cove or hollow under the <;overing and

" Russia, which serves as a pedestal to tlie statue of Peter the Great. The engineer upon
" this occasion was the Count de CiAmri, who took the advantage of afroil, and with the
" assistance ai four liandrud labourers brought it to Pttcrsburgh, For an account oF the
" ingenious expedients which were also used, see the Count's own relation, illustrated "by
" ei)!rravii)o;s."

• Stukelcy's Abury, ijr.

between

SCET. HI.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 77

bct^^•cen thc^ other stones, now used for a pig's-liouse, just as the temple
of Peace at Rome is made a fold for sheep on every Friday, the ancient
and modern market-day of the Forum, but allowing three or four men
to stand upright within it. The side-stone on the left or north is a spar
exactly perpendicular, seven teet in height, and four feet six inches in
width at the middle ; the side-stone on the right or south is an iron-
stone six feet eleven inches high, and three feet scA^en inches wide in the
middle ; the back-stone on the east is equally an iron-stone, seven teet
six inches in tallness, and three feet three inches in width at the middle ;
and the coverer, which is equally an iron-stone, lies reclining from this
along tliose, forming a declivity of 19 degrees 40 minutes from east to
west *. I mention these little circumstiinces, not from an antiquary's
parade of accuracy in petty uninteresting points, but to explain more
clearly a peculiar incident in the construction of the whole; the northern
corner of the back-stone appears to have broken off under the weight of
the top-stone, as the latter was laid or was settling upon the former ;
and the top-stone now touches not the back-stone in that corner at all,
resting only on the other, the southern corner. In consequence of the
accident the whole weight nearly of the top-stone was canted off upon
the adjoining side-stone on the right or south ; this, finding that to press
with a force which it \\'as not calculated to bear, began to shrink from
its original uprightness, and to lean considerably towards the north ; it
would have leaned very considerably if the eastern edge of it had not
lapped over the southern of the back-stone, there impinged strongly
upon this in its inclination, and been stopped by the resistance which it
thus encountered : even with that resistance, it has. come to lean no
less than lO degrees 30 minutes to the north, or two feet out of the
true j)crpendicular. The Mdiole building, therefore, was in the most
imminent hazard of being soon off its poise, and the supporting stones
were likely to be crushed to the ground by the covering stone. To
prevent this, with the same skill and boldness which could raise such
nuLsses upon such s\ipporters, which could also calculate the duration of

• How ciiamctrically contrary to tlic truth, then, does Mr. Hals, p. 69, speak of it as
"* bonding towartls the cast" instead of the nest I

a structure

78 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

a structure so warping, and even rest secui'c enough in their calcula-
tions to work under the warping structure, a fifth stone was introduced
into it, being thrust in behind the side-stone on the north, as a buttress
to the northern edge of the back-stone. A stone was hastily chosen,
tapering upAvards in form, but about six feet in tallness, a kind of bas-
tard spar, having two legs, a long and a short one, to it ; the long leg
was pitched in the ground, while the short remains above ground use-
less, and the body of the stone was then fixed reclining in a sharp angle
against the edge of the back-stone, so as to compose a rude kind of
powerful arc-houtant to it. Thus buttressed, the back-stone has re-
mained between the supporting and the pressing stones, without any
inclination at all to the north ; yet with a projection to the west, the
quarter on which it felt no resistance, of 7 degrees 30 minutes, or one
foot from the perpendicular. Thus has the structure stood as firm as if
no misfortune had befallen it, and is likely to stand till the end of time.
Yet what is the design and drift of such a building ? On this cpiestion
antiquaries have been much divided, learning perhaps puzzling the intel-
lect equally with ignorance, and good sense standing frequently a mute
upon the stage, that erudition may stalk in declamations along it. It is
not what it has been considei'cd by the generality, an altar-monument
for the oblation of sacrifices ; the very aspect of it proclaiming to every
eye which can see, and to every mind which can think, that such it
could never have been : the very view thus becomes demonstration itself,
and all good sense must have been buried in a quagmire of learning
before it could have been believed to be such. It is merely a sepulchral
monument, merely a mighty tomb, constructed at such a vast expense
of manual labour, and with such high exertion of mathematical know-
ledge, to save the remains buried within it from all probability of vio-
lation, yet to honour the. remains with a memorial equally conspicuous
and grand..

That such a monument as this, which the Welsh antiquaries have
recently taught us to call a cromlech, was not an altar. Dr. Eorlase
has argued with much force, yet not with all which the argument

should

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 79

shoiikl surely have suggested*. Mr. Pcgge, indeed, has \\Titten in
Oipposition to the Doctor, but has adduced nothing that carries the
weight of a straw in the balance f. The Doctor, however, has brought
from the Louthiana of ]Mr. Wright a positive proof for the sepulchral
nature of the cromlech ."j;, a proof which the wary wisdom of Mr. Pegge
liiis not presumed to encounter. To this I add a proof equalltj positive,
aiid from Corn\\ all instead of Ireland, lying open to the public eye in
such a work as Nordcn's, a work that unites with Carew to compose a
primer (as it were) for Cornish antiquaries. " Withicll — a parish,"
cries this Carew Rediriv((s, " wherein one Gydlye not manic yeares since,
" as he was digging [into] a borowe or burial iiill, — founde in the bottome
" of the borow 3 whyte stones sett triangularly as pillers supporting
** a-iiothcr stone nere a yarde square, and under it a earthen pott,
" verie thyck, haulfe full of black slyme matter, seeminge to have
" bene the congealed ashes of some worthy man," some man of
worth, " ther comitted in this manner to his buriall §." This
was a cromlech with a barrow over it, and therefore coidd not possibly
be an altar. All the larger barrows in the isle, as the Carn Beacon of
Cornwall, or the Silbury Hill of Wiltshire, have (I doubt not) such
subterraneous cromlechs in them ; all resting, as tliat rested, " in the
" bottome of the borow," and covering a bod}^ burnt or unburnt below.
Nor is cromlech the native name of these sepvdchral structures, it being
merely one used popidarly in Wales from what was seen by the cije in
some, the reclining posture of that top-stone ivhich had no mound upon
?711; w\\\\g i\\e native, tlie ^t?/^/'^/ appellation is obviously T/t' /;//)(?//?, in
Welsh a hillock, a knap, a tump; or Tuma, Tuama, Tamha, in Irish
a tnnip, a sepulchre, a tomb. Thus we have " a round mount or bar-

* P. 226-230. lie has even been weak enough, in 228, to aver, that it was designed
" first, on every side to fence and surround the dead body from the violences of the weather,"
when a common grave, all level with the earth, would answer tills, and more effectuallu ,
than the supcrbest monument of stone.

t Arch. iv. 1 14.

X Borljsc, 232, 233.

§ I'. 70.

]j Rowlands, 47.

80 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

*' row at this town," as Gibson informs us concerning Bala in Merioneth-
shire, "called Tommeu y Bala," or the tomb at Bala*: Tommev m
Welsh signifying a hillock primarily, and (as here) a tomb derivatively.
This, indeed, is supposed from its name, form, and situation, " not to
" have been erected for burial," but for warfare f, when its very appel-
lation shews it to have been for burial only : such appellations denote
the popular meaning of the objects, and such suppositions betray the
learned reference of them. The popular understanding keeps generally
to the solid ground of actual appearance, and of immemorial tradition
combined together ; while the genius of learning mounts astride upon
its witches' broom, and flies away to the moon. Barrows are denomi-
nated tombs in British, on the same principle upon which tombs are
denominated barrows in English ; because tombs for ages were merely
barrows, and barrows were the only burrows or burying-places for
ages.

But let us pursue this thought a little fartlier. At Inverness we have
the " strange-shaped hill of Tommeri Hcurich,'' says Mr. Pennant, and
" — that singular Tommen is of an oblong form, broad at the base, and
" sloping on all sides towards the top, so that it loohs like a great ship
" with its heel i/pwanls. — It is perfectly detached from any other hill,
" and, if it was not for its great size, might pass for a ivork of art ;};."^
A work of art it undoubtedly is, notwithstanding its great size, and a
tomb, too, constructed in the magnificent size of British art. " About
" a mile -w estward from the town of Inverness," adds an author who
published some years before Mr. Pennant, yet seems all unknown to
him, " there rises out of a perfect fiat a very regular hill, whether natit-
" ral or artificial, I could never find by any tradition ; the natives call
" it Tonm Heurach : it is almost in the shape of a Thames wherry turned
" keel upwards, for which reason they sometimes call it Noah's Ark'.
" The length of it is about 400 yards, and the breadth at bottom about
" 1 50. From below, at every point of view, it seems to end at top in
" a very narrow ridge ; but when you are there you find a plain large

* Gibson, c. 793, f Ibid. ibid. J Tour in Scotland, 1769, i. 137, 138.

1 ** enough

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 81

" enough to draw up two or three battalions of men*," From all this
the hill appears to be in the form of a boat, or of what is only a larger
boat, a ship ; is therefore not natural, but artificial ; and has therejbrc
also been denominated in Erse Toma-lieurach or the Currash Barroiv, a
barrow far exceeding Silbury Hill in size, being even the largest in the
whole island. It must accordingly have been much admired by the
Roman ula or wing of horse, once in garrison within the Alata Castra,
on the site of the castle at Inverness, that little steep hill which adjoins
closely to the town, and commands the pass over the Ness, then a ford,
but now a bridge. " There is in Perthshire,'' notes Mr, Guthry, a
Scotchman, witnessing a Scotch monument, witnessing this without
any recollection of that, and actually turning our remark into a reality,
" a barrow which seems to be a British erection, and the most beautiful
" of the Jiind perhaps in the ivorld : it exacthj resembles the fgitre of a
" ship with the keel uppermost. The eommon people call it Ternaif,
" which some interpret to be Terrce Navis, the Ship of Earth -j-," This,
then, is another barrow constructed in the form of a boat or ship, and
distinguished accordingly among the Romans themselves by a title that
has no foundation in the Erse language, and is therefore a corruption
colloquially transmitted of Terrce Navis into Ternay. The corruption
is still retained in the Erse, as Tir (E.) is land, and Tir-mor (E.), or
great land, is a continent ; and as Naebh (E.), a ship, is even ^^ rittcn
Naoi in Irish. The Romans saw this barrow as well as the other with
admiration, even named this from \\ hat they saw, and gave it a name
M hich has been surprisingly preserved to the present day: so very an-
cient is this barrow confessed to be by its Roman name! so \cry ancient,
therefore, are these ship-barrows in general confessed to be, by this in
particular ! Nor are these, T\ve must remember, confined to Scotland ;
we have them equally in England. " Dr. Salmon," we are informed,
*' describes a barrow of the same form at Ilaltwisel, in Northumberland,

* Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, 1754, vol. i. 277, The author's
name (I think) was the same as his bookseller's, Birt, who returned to London, there lived
till he had come to his last guinea, and then, with a horrible dtTibcratencss of impiety thai
marks the last extreme of infidelity, coolly shot himself with a pistol.

t Guthry, 147, edit. 1774,
VOL. II. M •' upon

82 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

*' upon an eminence above South-'r\np. The country-people call it
*' Castle-hill ; but, as it is in no defensible shape, he," with all the folly
of unthiiikingncss in conjectures, " supposes it made by the Danes, as
*' a memorial of victory," a ship a memorial of a y'lctory gai?7cd hi/ land!!!
" It h(t/gc(I Old on each side tike a ship, is" like a ship " contracted at
" both ends, and," like a ship again, " is lower at the middle than at
" the ends. Mr. Vine" also " describes owe of this form,'' we are
told, '' but only 130 feet long, in Sussex*." Even " not far from
" Upper Stirthill, in the parish of Burton Bradstock, and himdred of
*' Whitchurch, Dorsetshire, and near the road between Dorchester and
" Bridport," adds Mr. Hutchins, " is a vast barrow, called Skipfon Ili/I.
" It stands on an eminene, and at a distance looks Ulcc a large boat, or
" hull of a ship, turned heel upwards. It is yAQ feet long, lOl broad
" at the top, and 147 high in a slant line. // seems to receive its name
"from its form, and is 250 feet longer than Silbury ban'ow in AVilt-
" shire f." But, as Mr. Hutchins subjoins, " Wormius speaks of them
** as appropriated to kings, and peculiar to the earlier age, when the
" bodies were burned ;};." The authority of Wormius is of Uttle mo-
ment with me, upon such a subject. He knew too little of remains
purely Celtic, to determine about their designation or their date. But
here he determines with good sense in his favour. He recognises ship-
barrows as existent in his own country, and existent only as the tra-
ditional barrows of kings. The size of the barrow, indeed, denotes
plainly the grandeur of the person buried. And as the assimilation of
the barrow to the keel of a coracle in form, must have resulted from
some vapour of fancy that we cannot catch in our alembic of history
at present ; so does the assimilation itself appear upon the face of the
Erse to have been ver}- frequent in fact, because Gerach (E.) is a coracle,
and Curagk (E.) is a Jut-ri/ing-place. Yet all these coracle barrows
were merely like the smaller that we have just seen, cromlechs covered

* Survey of England, p. 6i8, and Geutleman's Magazine, 1768, p. 384.
t Dorsetshire, i. 341.

■^ Ibid. ibid. : " Regies tumulos ad magnitudinem et figuram carina; niaxiniae navis ex
" lis quas possidebant fabricates volimt. Men, Dan. p. 42."

2 with

SECt. III.] IfTSTORICALLY SURVEYED. 83

with barrows. Their magnitude shews this. They are peculiarly,
therefore, the barrows for kings. For others, as the pomp of sepulture
shrunk up in the shrinking size of the sepulchre, barrows contracted
into moimts, and dwindled away into hillocks ; long the nobles reposed
imder hillocks and the kings under mounts, yet both in chests of stone
covered with mounds of earth, as at Withiel or Carn Beacon, or in
chests formed above ground, and conspicuous to the eye, as at St.
Columb.

But, to these two cromlechs for a king or a noble in Cornwall, let
me add one for a noble only, even equally with both of them a sepulchre
in Cornwall, and a sepulchre still more circumstantially than at Withiel,
shewing the cromlech covered with a barrow. In the middle of that
extended waste the downs of St. Austle, was what was called one
BAKRow. This waste, in 1801, was resolved to be enclosed, and the
barrow was obliged to be levelled ; the finer parts of the earth to be
used for manure,, and the nibbish apparent upon it to be turned into a
fence. In this operation the single workman came near the centre,
and there found a variety of stones, all slates, ranged erect in an
enclosure nearly square. The stones were about one foot and a half in
height, oppareiithj fixed in the ground before the formntion of the
harrow, and then covered over ivith rubbish in order to form the harrow.
The stones were all imdressed, but had little stones caret\dly placed in
the crevices at the joints of the large; in order to preclude all comm\i-
iiication between the rubbish without and the contents within. Even
I he tops of the erected stones were regular in height; a circumstance
<»f nicety in such sort of architecture, that I know not to have been
ever fomid before, and that unites w itii the carefulness preceding to
denote ihe htteness of the building. On the even heads of these was
laid a square freestone, which had evidently been hewn into this form,
whicli seemed to rest with its extremities oJi tlie edges of the others,
and was about eighteen or twcmty inches in diameter. But the summit
of the harrow losc about eight or ten J'cef above all ; being perfect in its
parts both above and below. The enclosure, ho\N'ever, was apparently
the principal part. Yet what wasreposited in it ? The leveller expected

M 2 to

84 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

to find the usual object of vulgar searchers, a pot of money. In this he
was disa[)poinlcd. He found, however, a dust remarhahhj fine, and
seemingly inclining to clay. On the surface it was brow n, about the
middle downwards it took a dark chesnut colour, and at the bottom it
approached towards a black. Nothing could be perceived in the whole,
that bore any resemblance to sand ; the enclosing stones having proved
very faithful to their trust. What was this dust then ? On stirring it
,up, a multitude of hones appeared, and betrayed the elements that
composed it. The bones were ditFercnt in the sizes, but none exceeded
six or seven inches in length. Among them were some pieces about the
largeness of a half-crown, which from their concave form convinced
him they were the parts of a scull. The whole mass of bones and ashes,
if put together for mensuration, might (he thought) be about one gallon
in quantity. On touching the bones they instantly crumbled into dust,
and took the same colour with the same fineness as the dust in which
they w^ere found. They were exceedingly white when they were first
discovered, but remarkably brittle ; the effect assuredly of their calcina-
tion in a fire, antecedent to their burial. Much in fineness and in coloiir
with these ashes, appeared several veins of irregular earth on the out-
side of the enclosure; which from their position without yet adjoining,
and from the space occupied by them there, he conjectured to have been
bodies laid promiscuously upon the funeral pile, but which I conjecture
to have been only the ashes adhering to the ground, and not possible to
be separated from it, for a burial with the rest within the enclosure.
They had nothing of sand in them, but seemed inclining to clay, and
even more so (from tlie adhering soil probably) than the dust of the
enclosure. And, as the workman was fully convinced of what every
one else must acknowledge, that the ashes and the bones of the enclosure
had once belonged to a hiunan body, he very properly took up the
whole with care, placed the stones nearly in their original posture
within an hedge contiguous, then in building, placed also the bones with
the ashes within their original enclosure there, and even placed the
covering-stone over both. Such was the One Barrow of these downs,
furnishing a decisive evidence for the true designation of a cromlech, for
its having no sacrificial purpose whatever, and for its haAdng only a

funeral

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 65

funeral one; as actually topped with a barrow of earth, as actually
containing a stone chest within it, as actually having ashes and even
bones within the chest ! Nor need I to say more upon the subject than
to note, that the very mausol^eum of Augustus at Rome was undoubtedly
what it has never been surmised to be, a harroiu of earth upon a chest of
stone. This intimation will undoubtedly excite the surprise of my
reader. Yet it is very true. Strabo himself shall prove the point at
once. " The most dignified object there," he tells us, concerning the
Campus INIartius, " is what is denominated the JNIausoleeum, a eakrow
" upon A LOFTY VAULT OF WHITE STONE, at the margin of the river,

"but ALL COVERED WITH EVER-FLOURISHING TREES TO THE SUMMIT;

" and on the very point above is a brazen statue of Ccesar Augustus, as
" under the barrow are the chests of him, of his relations, or of his
" domestics*." This account is very explicit, and this evidence is even
express. But the barrow is now gone, and only the broad girdle of
stone, that bound the base of it, remains. This forms the wall of a
garden, on that flat roof which once bore the barrow ; and the statue
of Augustus, which once crowned the summit of the barrow, is still
preserved to grace the centre of the garden. Thus what was once a
magnificent cromlech, with a barrow above it, like the one in Ireland
and the two in Cornwall, is now contracted into a mere cromlech, like
our own at St. Columb ; only more artificial, more elegant, and more
magnificent, being a round tall room ^^•ith deep recesses in the sides.

All unites ^^'ith the name of Tre-kyning near that of St. Columb, and
with the reach of the Tre-kyning estate up to it, to shew a British
monarch interred under a monument of stones, then lying upon the
moor, or within the wood here. Others were found in 17Q4-5, within
the fields to the north-west, almost all spars, genuine or spurious.
Others again, sometimes spars, but more commonly iron-stones, were
also lying even to our own times, immediately on the east. And one,
equally large with the top-stone, was very lately buried there, in a ])it

* Lib. V. sect. 8. AfioXoyuilalon Ji to Maua-nXuo* xaXK/xSiov, iwi xfniriJis i4'iXr{ XiwxoXiSt/ Tfoj tm irola^w
;^k>ua, a;ffi xopt/^n; Toi; a 160X171 Tiy JivJfam <ru»>iji$iC 11' axjw f*£» b1 mm (ft y^a.'Kx.n TB Zi^arou KaKTa^j*

deep

80 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

deep enough to admit the passage of a plough over it. Nor let a tomb,
that, however large and massy, yet carries such a face of barbarism
upon it, be thought too rude, too gross for a British sovereign in tlie
late days of Dioclesian ; too savage in its appearance, for Britons so long
refined by all the arts of Rome ; and competent only for such of them as
were prior to the Roman settlement among us. Reason would suggest
this, but fact repels the suggestion. Reason is often interposing her
Verdict in histor}% and on points of really dul:)ious authority ought to be
respectfully heard ; but only exposes her own airy impertinence, when
facts come forward to oppose her. Such a fact we have in a monument
near Aylesford in Kent, veiy similar to our own, and veiy similarly
denominated ; being just such a tomb, composed (as our own was
originally) of four stones, erected over the remains of Catigern the
second son of Vortigern, slain here in a battle against the Saxons in
455, and popularly denominated therefore Kitt's Coiy House; thus
erected a century and a half after our Coyt, yet just as rude and as
massy as ours, exhibiting exactly \vith it

The rustic grandeur, and the surly grace,

of a primaeval building of the Britons*.

But

* Mr, Colebrooke, hi Arch. li, 107-117, has written about this monument, till his judcr-
uient was lost in a labyrinth. Yet Mr. Gough, in his Camden, i. 231, chooses rather to
wander about with him or with Mr. Pegge, than adhere to Camden himself. In Saxon
Chronicle, A. D. 455, we read, that " Hengist and Horsa fought with Vortigern the kinsr,
" at the place which is called yEgclesford," Aylesford ; " and his brother Horsa was slain."
This fixes the year precisely. " Secundum helium [fuit]," says Nennius, an author all
tinhiown to Mr. Colebrooke, " super vadum quod dicitur in lingua eorum Episjbrd [Elis-
*' ford] ; et ibi cecidit Horsa, ci\m filio Giiorfhigirn cujus nomen era! Catigirnus." (c. xlvi.)
But Mr. Colebrooke says, 117, " allowed — , I think — it must be, that the Saxons remained
" masters of the field;" though it certainly can never be allowed by any man that reflects on
these words of Nennius, " Guortemir — Horsam, satellitem beljicosum, prostravit, caeleros-
" que infugam versos ut stipulas terr;e allidil" (c. xlv.), or on the very course of Nennius's
battles preceding and subsequent, the first on the Darcnt, at Crayford there (Sax. Chron.),
the second at Aijlesford, and the third on tlie souther>i coast, (c. xlvi.) Bede also says thai
Horsa was killed by the Britons, and that " hactenus in oricntalibus Cantise partibus
'• monunientum hubef," not " habuit" as in Mr. Colebrooke, 112, "suo noniins insigne.''

(i. 15.)

SECT. 111.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 87

But about a mile to the east of the Coyt, on the veiy skirt of Castle-
X)ennis Moor, is a house and an estate distinguished by a name, that to a
literary car carries at once the sound and signification of Saturn's Temple.
Accordingly we find this deity, the first in the parentage of the heathen
gods, and the deposed father of that reputed sovereign of gods, Jupiter,
retaining the appropriate appellation among the Britons, which he
maintained among the Romans, Thus Sadwrn (W.) is either Saturn
or Saturday, and Zadarn (C.) is Saturn only. Nor was the knowledge
of this god communicated by the Romans to them. His worship was
transmitted equally to both, from that common source of idol deities to
the world, that great fountain of the bitter waters of heathenism, Mhich
was opened upon the nations of the earth in the days of Terah.
Saturn's name therefore subsists to the present day, equally in the
language of the extra-provincial Irish as in tliat of the Cornish and
Welsh ; Sat hair u, Sathurn, being Saturn ; Satliarn or Dia Sathuirn^

(i. 15.) Accordingly at Horsted, near Aylcsford, is, what has been always " reputed to be
•' Ilorsa's nioniimeiit by the people of the country, — a great quantity of flint stones, which,
•* by length of time, and the drijiping of the trees, are overgrown with moss." (Mr. Cole-
brooke himself, no.) This is a mere barrow, while that is a visible cromlech ; both erected
at the time by the victorious Britons, that noticed by Bode, a Saxon, while this is passed
over, but both unnoticed by Nennius and the Saxon Chronicle. The first who mentioned
the monument of Catigern, was Camden; and he mentioned it only as from that faithful
repository of local antiquities, the tradition of the country. " Ceciderunt hoc praelio," he
cried, " duces partium, Catigcrnus Britannus et Horsa Saxo, quorum hie ad Horsted non
" procul hinc sepultus loco nouien reliquit ille niagnifico elatuj funere contumulatus creditur
" prope Ailesford, ubi vasta ilia saxa crecia sunt, qux imperitum vulgus," men not led
astray by the false lights of learning, " a Catigerno Keith Coty-house hodie vocat." (Edit.
1590, p. 248; edit. 1594, p. 245.) In vain th.'-Tcfore has Mr. Colebrooke attempted,
with Mr. Pegge and Mr. Gousjh for his auxiliaries, to wrest this monument from Camden
and from history. The arm of a giant could not wrest it. Tlie arm of an infant, the arms
of many infants combined, could not move one of these stones out of its place. Tlie site
agrees exactly with the battle, tradition concurs precisely with history, and tiic barrow of
Horsa iniitcs with the cromlech of Ca'igcru, lo appropriate all with uucommoti docisi\eness.

See also another author in Arch. .xi. 3H-41, who has written, like Mr. Colebrooke,
without thinking.

At Kilt's Coty-housc the covering-stone is a good deal 'ess tha:i the covering-stone at
the Coyt, in weight; tki.-! being tliuteeu or fourteen tons, and that only ten tons seven
hundreds. (Borlase, 224.)

Saturday,

88 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

Satnrda\% in Irish *. So thoroughly were our British ancestors ac-
quainted with the name, through all the kingdoms of Britain and
Ireland ! The best and the worst of judges have accordingly united, in
interpreting Tre-sadarne, the name of a house in four or live parts of
Cornwall, into Saturn's Temple, Mr. Hals notices our own, near St.
Columb, thus, " Tre-saddarno, that is to say, God Saturn's Town, a
*' place where the god Saturn was worshipped by the heathen soldiers
" [of Castle-Dennis], who probably had their temple or chapel there
" before Christianity -}-." Dr. Borlasealso mentions Zadarn, Saturn, indc
*' Trezadarn, 1 own of Saturn ;}: ;" having previously inserted Saturn,
among the objects of British idolatry §. And with all this collateral
support from the appearance of the god's name in so many of the British
dialects, the appellation of Tre-sadarn plainly points at a building; not
indeed a " town," as the Cornish are so unthinkingly prone to interpret
their own Tre, thus catching the secondary idea of the word before
the primary, the derivative meaning antecedently to the original ; but
merely a " house" appropriated to the god, and standing formerly on
the site. Buildings vanish, but appellations remain ; and tJiesc fre-
quently come at last to be the only memorials of those. With such a
memorial of a temple of Saturn formerly existing here, we see Trc-

* So Satha'trn (Erse) is Saturday, and Sadorn (Armoric) is either Saturday or" Saturn.
All this shews us the folly of Pryce, who acknowledges no Saturn in the Cornish language,
though expressly acknowledged by Borlase, and though appearing so evidently in the colla-
teral British of Wales, of Ireland, of Scotland, or of Bretagne ; who therefore interprets
Tre Sadarn as Tre Cadarn, the strong house ; and so ventures upon an elymologv, that
bespeaks its own reprobation. But " Llan Saturn," alias " Llansadwrn" (Rowlands, 351),
the name of a parish-church, within the Isle of Anglesey, is merely what Leland interprets
it, the church of " S. Saturnus aut Saturninus" (Coll. iv. 90). The saint's real name
indeed is Safurnus. He is expressly mentioned in the Life of St. Wenefrid, who " Henth-
" but petiit ubi habitabat S. Saturnus; verba Saturni ad Wenefredam," &c. (Leland's
Itin. iv. 137, 138.} lie was a saint of /a a/ejj and has therefore lent his name to a church
in Waifs.

t Hals, 64.

X Borlase, 464.

§ Borlase, 172 : " We have— some reason to think them [rocks] dedicated to Saturn ;—
"for we have many places in Cornwall called Tre-sadarn — , and wc have Nan-sadarn,
" or the Valley of Saturn."

kyning

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. ?9

kyning, Tre-sadarn, and the Govt, all uniting together to mark the
establishment of heathenism, near the town of St. Columb ; to shew us
a heathen king residing at the first, worshipping at the second, and
lying intombcd at the third. Yet Saturn in all probability derived his
name from that father god of all the heathen idolatry, when the
heathens " sacrificed to devils and not to God \ :" even him, who
like Saturn was the head and sovereign of all the devils, and was actually
named so like him, as amid all the variations of languages, and with all
the terminations of names, to be only transnominatcd from Satax into
Saturn ; this confessed son of Cosliis and Terra, this earth-fallen angel
of heaven retaining his appropriate name of Satan, or the enemy to the
last ; while his more ambitious son, the usurper of his father's throne,
and even the maimer of his father's person, arrogated to himself the
very appellation of God, and was denominated Jehovah or Jove. Such
were the principal divinities of heathenism, all of them devils, and one
of them, the arch-devil, acknowledging himself by name to be Sata7i !

The king of Cornwall then, the immediate predecessor of Solomon^
but a Pagan himself, and a resident in the royal house of Tre-kyning, in
consequence of Dioclesian's edict probably, ordered a yoimg woman of
the Roman naineof Columba to be put to death for her Christianity. The
scene of the execution he directed to be nortii of his own house, behind
the hill that backs it on the north, and upon the very site of the present
churchyard ; ground sufficiently distant from his house, not to annoy
his f ings with either the sight or the hearing of the deed during its
transaction, yet rising higher than any immediately adjacent, even look-
ing down into a steep valley on the north, and conspicuous from all the
high lands beyond. Here the fatal fire ^^ as kindled, I suppose, casting^
its awful gleam upon the sides of the hills opposite, and carrying a
strong terror with it to the heart of every secret but cowardly Christian*.

Here,.

t I Cor. X. 20.

* rire appears to have been thena common implement of niartyrilom. vSoTJcdesaysof the
Sancta Columba of France, that, " superato igne ca\<a est" (p. 460), when the fire could
not dispatch her a weapon diJ. So likewise we find (ire used in I'olycarp's martynloni

VOL. II. N ^Russtl'i

QO THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

Here, too, ^^ as seen, I suppose, the virgin saint of Clirist:anity, iilrcady
a confessor, soon to be a martyr, looking down with a smile upon all
that earth and hell could intlict, as eager to pass on the wings of hover-
ing angels to the peculiar blessedness of martyrs in eternity. The
flames encircled her, her body was consumed to ashes, and her soul
flew undoxibtcdly w ilh all the vigour of that eagle, which at the burn-
ing of the dead body of a Roman emperor was dismissed from the funeral
pile "to mount with the fire into the sky, to carry the soul of the
" emperor from earth to heaven, and so to begin his deification among
" men *." She thus became du'scrvcd/ij deified so far among the
Christians as to have her memory revered in solemn sadness, and her
name pronounced \\ ith religious rapture for a peculiar saint of the Gos-
pel ; for one of the highest of all saints — a martyr ; for one upon \\ hom
Christianity had shewed its strongest powers of magnetism, in raising
her sublimely above the eartJi, and in attracting her to her kindred
spirits in paradise. In a i'ew years afterward her religion became the
religion of the empire itself, Cornwall was broken into those divisions
called parishes, which are so familiar to our minds as divisions formed
for the sake of religion, but which were neccr formed for atiij religion
except the Christian ; an extensive region here was thrown into one of
them, and the church of it was naturally fixed upon the very ground on
which its own martyr had suffered: so the church of St. Alban was
built on the scene of his martyrdom as soon as ever the persecution
ceaseflf. The individual spot here, ,as at St. Alban's, was assuredly
uithin the walls of the church, while the place of sepulture for her

(Riissel's Patres Aposlolici, 344, 348, 350, 354) ; '^ut what brings his death to a near con-
formiiy with hers, the (ire becomes suhilued, and he is therefore slain with a sword
(p, 354, 355}. See also Lliisebius's IJist, viii, 6, 8, 13; De Martjr. Pal. 4, 8^ 5, lOj 11,
4,31, 433, for fire so used,

• Herodian, iv. p, 156, 157; Edinburgh, \']2^: As1o> a-fi^at. a-vn rv wfi an^tvaoium h^ toi

Ocko SfflBxsi/s'te*. See also Montfaucon, v. pt. ist, iv, 9, plate 31, figures 3, xi. plate 32^ fig. ;z,
u'here an eag!e is bearing the soul of an eriiperor to heaven.

♦ Bede, 1.7: " Redeuute tempontm ecrenitatt',"

remains

SECT. HI.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. Ql

remains, as for St. Alban's, was at a little distance irithoiit + ; but her
name was certainly affixed to the whole, like his. A representation of
her is known to have been carved in stone formerly upon the ends of
tlie io(jf, and other representations appear to have been painted upon
the glass of the windows, in which she (with a Roman allusion to her
name) carried a Columha or dove in her hands §.

The saint of this church, therefore, must be acknowledged by all,
though she is wholly unnoticed by Dr. Borlase as a martyr for Christi-
anity among the Cornish ; as a virgin put to death for the Gospel by the
heathen king of Cornwall ; as, indeed, one grand evidence of druidical
malignity, impelled however by the malignity of a man who was noways
druidical himself, even Dioclesian, against the glorious followers of
our Redeemer. She has thus the honour of standing conspicuously
forward upon the shores of Cornwall; that host of martyrs with which
ignorance has crowded those shores, all vanishing away at her presence
like ghosts before the rising day, and she herself appearing robed in the
brightest beams of the sun. Yet she stands not alone ; she is accom-
panied on her right hand and on her left with other martyrs, though
none of them are Dr. Borlase's ; all suffering assuredly in the same per-
secution, as, from the erpial recentness of their sufferings, the lives of
some of them were A^ritten equally with hers, and as they were all the
children of one pair of parents.

Leland selects the following notice from a life of St. Nectan, now, like
that of Sancta Columba, I believe, lost for ever to the curious world :
" Erechan," cries the biographer, " a little king in Wales, from whom
" the district of Brecknock took its name, had by his wife Gladwisc
" twenty-four sons and daughters, \vhose names \\'erc Nectan, John,

X The body of St. Albaii appears reposited without the church, " sub cespite abscondir
" turn ;" and canicil tlictice by Offa " in (juandam ccclcsiam ibidem extra urbem Veroia-
" miiim, ill honoroni bcali inartyris coitslruclam." (M. Paris, 904.) But the spot oa
which lie was mariyrid was wUliiti the church, as the church was built " uli niartvr, pcr-
" cussus, sanguinem suum fudit pro Christo." (Ibid, ibid.)

§ Hals, 62.

^2 " Endelicnt,

C)2 'JKE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

" Endelicnt, Menfre, and Uilic ; Tedda, Mabcn, AVencu, and Wcn-
" sent ; McievNcnna, "W'enna, Juliana, and Yse ; Morwenna, Wymp,
" AN'cuheder, CUxler, and Keri ; Jona, Kananc, Kcrhcnder, Adwen,
" Hi'lic, and Tunialanc. All these sons and daiiglifers were afterwards
" holy martyrs or confessors, in Devonshire and CormvaU, living the
" life of hermits* y Giraldus Cambrensis, who took his Journey through
AN'alcs in the end of the twelfth century, relates the very same incident.
wit<li some slight variations and some useful additions, thus : '* There
" was anciently," says this traveller, the earliest tovr-maher wliich we
have in all the island, and the father of that long line of v\ riters which
has afforded such entertainment of late to the very indolence of amuse-
ment, seeking indulgence in reading itself, " within that region which
" is allied Brecknock, a man powerful and noble for the x'uler of it,
"whose name was Brachan, and from whom the land also was deno-
*' minated Brecknock, of whom this seems memorable, that the British
*' chronicles testify him to have had twenty-four [sons and] daughters,
" all J'rom their youth given up to acts of obsequiousness to God, and
** happily terminating their lives in adherence to their adopted sanctity,
*' as there are yet many large churches in IFalcs distinguished hy their
" names. Of these one is in the district of Brecknock, not far from the
" head castle of Aberhodni, placed upon the top of a certain hill, but
" called the church of Sancta Almadha : for this had been the name of
" the holy virgin who, even there, rejecting the marriage of an earthly
" king, and mari'ying herself to the King Eternal, triumphed in a happy
^'martyrdom. IJer solemn day is celebrated hi the same place every
" year, on the first of August, vrhere, on the same day also, numbers

t Leiand's Coll. iv. 153: '•' Ex Vila S. Nectaai. * Brechanus, regains Walllae, a quo
'■' Brocclianoc provincia nonien siinipsit, ex Gladwisa. iixore viginti quatuor fiiios et filias
" genuit, quorum haec sunt noniina : Ncctanus, Joannes, Endelient, Menfre, Dilic; Tcdda,
" Maben, Wcncu, Wenscnt; Mcrewcnna, Wenna, Juliana, Yse; Morwenna, Wynip,
" Wcnheder, Cleder, Kcri ; Jona, Kananc, Kerhender, Adwen, Helic, Tamalanc. Onincg
" isli filii et filis postea futrunt sancti niartyres vel confessores, in Dcvonia el Cornubia,
" vitam hereniiticam agentes',"

" of

Sr.CT. III.] HISTORICALLY St'RVErED. 93

'•' of the common people usually assemble together from distant parts*."
But \\'illiam of Worcester, writing from the very calendar of the church
at Mount St. Michael in Cornwall, even repeating the same story with
new additions, very usefully recites the names thus, and so^ives us a
second security for rectitude in a point peculiarly exposed to errors :
" Nectan, John, Sudi^hrent, Menfrcf/e, and De\\un ; Tttiha, INlabcn,
" Wen/u, and Wensent; Marwcnna, Wenna, JuUiana, and Yse; Mor-
" wenna, AVym/p, A¥enhede//, C'lcder, and Kery ; Jona, Heley, Lufianf,
" Tierhender, Adicen-hehje [Adwen Ilclye] and Tamalan^ -j-." In this
nan-ative there is some incredibility of matter, from the extraordinary
nature of the whole ; and an additional incredibility in the manner, from
a variation of circinnstances in the three relaters. Yet here we have
one of those cases in which scepticism is compelled to fly before evi-
dence, and history triumphs over incredibility. The first account is
given by that best of all authorities, the biographer of St. Ncctan ; this
receives what it does not want, a supplemental authority, from' the
particularity of its notices, and the specification of its names ; it is again

* Camden's Anglica, &c. 826: " Erat aiitem antiquitus regionis illius quje Brechineoc
'' dicitur, dominator vir potens et nobilis, cui nomen Brachanus, a quo et terra Brecheinoc
'' denominata est, et de quo mihi notabile videtur, quod ipse [ipsuni] 24 habuisse filias
*' historic Britannicoe testantur, omncs a puerilia divinis dirdilas obsequiis, et in sanctitatis
•' assuniptie proposito vitani feliciter terminasse. Extant autem adhuc basilicas per Cani-
*' briam mult.-e, earum nominibus illustraias; quarum una in provinci^de Brecheinoc, non
" procul a castro principali de Aberhodni, in collis cujusdam vertice sita, quas SanctDS
" Alniedba' ecclcsia dicitur, hoc ctcnim virginis sanctae nomcn exliterat, qua: et ibidem
'• tcrreni regis nuplias respucns, JElcrno nubens Kegi, fa;iici niartyrlo iriumplunit. Celi'-
" bratur autem solcmnis ejusdem dies eodem in lt)co, singulis annis, in capite Cal. August!,
" ubi, el eodem die, multi de plebc longinquis ex partibus convcnire solent." She is also
noticed by William of Worcester thus, with a little variation of the name: "Sancta Elevet/ta,
" vjrgo et mnriir, una 24.filiarum reguli dc Brekehaynoke in Wallia — , jacet [in] ceclcsia
" moniaiium virgiinnn villjc dc Usque, et fijit niartirizata super niontcm per unum miliare
" dc Brekcnok, — et lapis ubi deeapitabatur ibi remanet." (Worcestre, 158.) " Sancta
•' Elavefa, virgo, jacet in eeclesia apud Usque," (P. 160.)

t W, de Worccstre, 129, 130: " Nectanus, Johannes, Sudebrent, Menfredc, Delyan;
" Tctha, Mabcn, Wentn, Wensent, Marwenna, Wenna, Julliana, Yse; Morwenna,
*« Wymip, Wcnhcden, CIcdcr, Keryj Jona, ll'.lcv, Lanant, Rerhendcr, Adwenhelye,
" Tamalant."

corroborated

Q4 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. V.

corroborated in its general import by the testimony of Giroldus, his
cited evidence of British chronicles, and the Cornish calendar at Moinit
St. Michael. But it is finally confirmed beyond all reach of doubt by
the remaining liveliness of many of the names in the parishes of Corr>-
wall, where mamj of the persons are here said to ha-se lived hermits,
and to have died confessors or raai'tyrs ; where, therefore, all the names
conld not be recorded, Devonshire having a right to several, and Corn-
wall claiming only the rest.

Tlie first or principal of these, the first on the list as the eldest of*
them all, or the principal in our eyes, because his life gives us the ori-
ginal account of all, Nectan, was one of those who settled in Devon-
shue as a hermit, was honoured in Devonshire as a saint, and had even
a church erected in Devonshire with his name to it. He was buried at
Hartland, and at Hartland a church was constructed bearing the name
of St. Nectan ; originally collegiate for secular priests, afterwards con~
ventual for Aiistin canons, but now robbed of all its possessions,
reduced into a mere donative, yet still glorying in its relation to
St. Nectan*.

John, however, took up his residence in CoruMall, and in a parish
that has been denominated from him. Its assumption of his name,
however, has been so much disguised to the critical eye by a variation
in the orthography, proper in itself, but concealing the identity, that>
had we not been led by the history, we shoidd have searched in vain
for the origin : John being a Welshman, his name must have been
written in his native language Jeuaii, or Jcvan, or Evan \. We have
accordingly a parish-church in our deaneiy of East, which is called
" Ecclesia Sancti Ivonis' in the earlier Valor, but St. Ives in the later,
or St. Eivc in popular pronunciation, and is well known by tradition

* Leland's Coll. iv. 153 : " S. Neclanus — Ilartlandias sepultus." (Tanner and Bacon.)
+ Kichards's Welsh Dictionary,

among

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVKYED. 95

among the parishioners to have derived its name from the British appel-
lation of John J.

Endelient retired to another part of Cornwall, and gave name to
another parish within it : this name is echoed back from the parish,
without the slightest variation in the repetition. Thus, in the deanery
of Trigge Minor, we lind " Ecclcsia Sanctas Endelientne," specified by
the lirst Valor ; then a churcli collegiate of four prebendaries, now the
rectory of St. Endelien, with three prebends detached from it. And
from the entry of the name in that Valor we learn, w^hat we could not
learn from either Giraldus's account, Williams's Catalogue, or St, Nec-
tau's Life, the sex of this saint,

Menfrede, 'J Appears from the same evidence to have been equally
]VJe\fi{e, Ja daughter, and to have equally taken up her abode in
Cornwall: she settled in a parish immediately adjoining to her sister's.
In the first Valor, directly before St. Endelien, we see " E-cclcsia Sanctae
" Minviredre" noted ; in the last we sec it noted with a nearer confor-
mity to the second appellation, '* Mynfray, alias Mynforde, alias St.
" Miniver;" as in a calendar belonging once to the monastic church of
Bodmin, we find the day of " Sancta Menefreda, virgin, not martyr,
'* on the 2-ith of November *."

Teth A, "» Appears equally a daughter, and fixed her hermitage in the
Tedda, J parish immediately adjoining to St. Endelien's; the three
Bisters ranging in a line along the sea, but at a little distance from it, east
and west. Immediately attcr the church of St. Endelien in the first Valor,
we have " Ecclcsia Sanctje Thethu*," a collegiate church of two pre-
bendaries, now St. Tethe, a mere vicarage. It thus shared the common
fate of almost ail collegiate churches, tlieir opulence marking them out
for plunder, ajid their reduction now being in proportion to their great-

X Hals, 116: " As the parishioners tell us, St, Eve n a corruption of St. Ivonis ui
»• British, i. e. John,"

• VV, <i^ Wprccstrc, 108 ; " iSancta Mmcfrcda, \iigo, non martir, tlio 24. Novcmbrig."

ncss

gO THE CATHEDRAL OF COIINWALL [CHAP. V.

ness before, reformation paring off all, that the grossest selfishness of
w orldiv avarice woukl pronounce superfluous in the ministerics of reli-
gion, and so contracting the plump body into a naked skeleton. But,
in this contraction, some colleges shared a different fate from others ;
St. Tethe's church shrivelling up into a vicarage, while St. Endelien's
continued a rectory; because the anatomical knife of sacrilege, I believe,
shrunk in fear at times from too keen an abscision.

Maben fixed another hermitage a little to the south of all, and appears
to have been one more of the daughters. We have acct)rdingly in the
same Valor, even under the same deaner}^ " Ecclesia Sancta; Mabcnae,"
now the rectory of St. Mabyn near Wadebridge.

Marwenna, 1 However, went away from the neighbourhood of
Merewenna, J her sisters, in a spirit, probably, of stronger abstrac-
tion from the world with all its ties, yet still kept within the confines
of Cornwall. She went up into that angular part on the north-east,
which was subdued by the Saxons long before the rest of the country,
by its peninsular kind of separation from it, as it exhibits a much greater
number of Saxon appellations for places than any other district of Corn-
wall, and indeed lias hardly any Cornisli left within it at present.
There, under the deanery of Trigge Major in the first Valor, we meet
with " Ecclesia de ISIarwentchurche," or " INIarewen church," as the
name is differently given by the Cottonian and by Spelman's manu-
scripts; but find it denominated " Marliam church" in the last Valor,

though dedicated to " St. Marvenne."

Wenna, equally a daughter, rested behind all her sisters, as I sup-
pose the landing to have been made at Padstow, the old port of passage
from Ireland, the most commodious too from Wales, and set up her
pilgrim's staff a little to the east of St. Columb. There, in the deanery
of Pyder, one Valor points out " Ecclesia Sanctee Wennae," as the
other gives us " Wen, alias Wenman," that is, Wenn's Place ; mann
still signifying plax'.e in Welsh, once signifying it therefore in Cornish,
and this church at Wenn's Place being actually dedicated to St. Wenne.
1 A little

SECT. III.] * HISTORICALLY SURVEYHD. 9^

A little to the north of her, about midway between her and St. Min-
\ cr, with only that tide-river the Camel or Alan interposing betwixt
them, rested Yse : but whether this saint was a son or a daughter I
cannot tell. The record that has hitherto ascertained the sex here tails
us; the sexual terminations of words in Latin not lending us any i;ght
now, because either the parish is omitted, as then making a part of
another, or it is mentioned under its secular, and not its sainted name.
Nor can the other Valor assist us, denominating the church " St, Esye,
" alias Isye, alias Ithy," but concealing the sex under the ambiguity of
the English language.

Yet ^^oRWEN^^A went away with her sister of nearly the same appel-
lation, Merewenna or Marwenna, into the contracted angle of Cornwall
on the north-east. There, some miles to the north of Marham church,
and at the apex of the angle, we have what is denominated by the first
Valor, without any express specification of the saint, yet with a secret
reference to her, " Ecclesia de Morewynstow ;" in the encroachments
of the Saxon upon the Cornish of this peninsula, the parish having
adopted the name of its saint with a Saxon word like Padstow for its
own name, and so being denQminated INIorewyn's »S/o^f or Place. We
thus see it equally denominated " Morwinstow" in the , last, and know
it to be dedicated to " St. ^lorvenna ;" and as INIorwenna went to the
very point of the angle of Cornwall, so Nectan, her elder brother, passed
into the adjoining part of Devonshire, even up to Hartbnd, there.

Cleder appears to have been a son, and to have taken his stand much
more to the south than either of these two sisters, only a few miles to
the east of his sister Tedda or Tetha. There we find in the first Valor
" Ecclesia de Clcdery," as the name is read in the^jCotton MS. but
" Ecclesia Sancti Cledredi," as it is more specifically read inSpelman'^j
yet the " Cleder" of the second Valor is known to be dedicated to
St. Clether, being popularly denominated St. Clethcr itself at present.

Keri retired a little to the c.ist of St. Clether, I isuppose, and'HEEiE

staid in the vicinity of St. Mabyn, I apprehend; In the deanery of

vol.. II. o Trigge

08 mt CATIIEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. V.

Trigge ISIajor, tlie first Valor exhibits " ra)>ella de Egloskery," or
" Egloskyry," and the second the curnev of " Egloskorry," now deno-
minated " Egloskerry," yet so denominated as the church of Keri.
That Valor equally exhibits " Ecclesia de Eglosheil," and this the vicar-
age of ** Egloshele;" a name in which the personal appellation of the
saint, and the Cornish term for a church, are equally as in the former
incorporated together, to constitute the common title of the cliurch and
parish ; but of which the literal signification, when it is reduced to its
constituent parts again, is merely the church of Hele or Helie*.

Adwf.n settled very near to St. Teth, and a little on the eas-t : there
we have the parish of " Advent," now dedicated to " St. Advcn," but
united with " Lanteglos juxta Camelford." This " is called Advent,"
cries poor Mr. Hals, who commenced his course of Sisi/phian toil with
this parish, " from Advent Sunday (on M'hich probably it was conse-
" crated and dedicated to God, in the name of St. ylnnc, by the bishop
" of Exon), viz. the nearest to the feast of St. Andrew, and refers to
" the coming of Christ, Advent being derived from the Latin word
" advent us, a foming or arrival;" and, as the sentence ran originally
because it now runs in the rnanuscript, before the publisher presumed
to curtail and change it in printing, " Advent pro ad^'eniat, synonimous
" with 7r^o(r:-^jiuii, proserchomai, advenie?zs, answerable to the Hebrew
" Nl Ba approprinquo, to approach or to arrive, to draw near." I thus
exhibit INIr. Hals, with all his erudition (as he thought it) waving in a
crest of honour upon his head, and really (as my reader will think)
with his cock's-comb cap of folly 'pricking up its asses eai*s at the sides.
W^hat the name of the parish means is very obvious to common sense;
however ISIr. Hals in his learning may be puzzled to discover it : the
appellation is m'irely personal, and that of the church's saint, and I
have pointed out the very person who bore it f .

* Jona, I suspect, had a chapel at Lan-yon, in Gwincar parish ; Lan-yon naturally
meaning the church of Jona,

t William reads " Adwen-helye" as one name, because he has interpolated " Helie**
before, and would otherwise have had one saint too many for his number.

But

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 99

Hut we have one name more to be apj^ropiiatcd ; wliat is written
" Kaiianc" in Leland, being Lanant in AViJliam. This is the name of
a [)arish at present, which we have colloquially corrupted into La/unt;
which we had so corrupted long enough before Henry's Valor, for the
\ alor itself to adopt the false appellation, but wliich is written in its
original orthography by the earlier Valor, as " Ecclesia de Lananta."
From the termination of this, too, the saint appears to have been a
female, who settled more to the west than any of her brothers or sisters,
and lent her name to that church, which carried afterwards as a prefix
the appellation of another saint, Uny, who lived and died in the parish
at a later period *.

"NVc thus lind very many of these sainted names still resounding in
Cornwall, still affixed to pur churches, and still retained by our parishes:
the others have either been lost in the lapse of ages since, or have their
names disguised to us by false readings, or are referrible to Devon.shire
entirely. All of these saints, says the primary narrative above, were either
confessors or martjrs for Clu'istianity in Cornwall m\d in Devonshire.
Nectan we particularly know to have been a martyr ; but then he was
a martyr where he Mas buried, at Hartland, in Devonshire f . Others

* " Ewiiy, alias Uny, Lalant cum S. Jesse, alias S. Ives." (Henry's \'aIor.)
t Leland's Coll. iv. 153 : '' Ncetaiuis martyr Hartlandia; scpullus." William, 130, 131,
speaks tlius of Nectan : " Sicut— primogenitus fuit, ita cxteris omnibus lionestate vitsc
" major fuit, et prodigiorum choruscate excellentior, extitit. — Vencrandus vir Ncctanus,
" per quxque ncmorosa," plunging into all tlie thick parts of the woodland, " dispendia
" investigando quererc," seeking and searching out the circuitous ways in it, as flying from
persecutors, " ab iis repcrlus latronibus," was at last discovcre4 by the cut-throats who
were in quest of him, " in loco qui adhuc hodie dicilur Nova Villa," Newton, '* ibi jam
" ecclesia in ejus honwem construitur," a mere chapel, I presume, " 15 kal. Julii capiic
'' truncatus est;, et caput suum propriis accipiens manibus, per medium fcrme spacii sta-
•• dium," for half a furlong, " usque ad fontem quo morabatur," which is at the abbey, I
believe, and from which he had plunged into the thick parts of the wood, "dctulerit;
" ibique sanguine [sanguineo] circumlinitum sudori," bedewed all over witli a sweat of
blood, " cuidam lapidi imposutt; cujus adhuc ca;dis et miraculi, sanguinolenla in eodetn
" lapidc remanent vestigia." These marks probably were made at first, in mere comme-
moration of the trailitionary incident, and were afterwards appealed to in the forgctfulncss
of ignorance as proofs of its truili,

o 2 of

ioO Tfffe CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V,

of them were cqiiaHy martyrs in Cornwall. His or their martyrdom,
therefore, proves vot the later establishment of Christianity in Cornwall
than in Devonshire, proye-s indeed the eqnal non-establishment of it at
the time in both ; and pi'oves the druidism of Devonshire, if druidism
had been prunarily concerned in the business, to have been just as
malignant to the Gospd as the druidism of Cornwall. Giraldus also
shews us a sister to all these saintSy even in the Welsh principality of
her andrheir fathei',' put to deatli by a king whose honourable suit she
had rejected, and so made a martyr fot the Gospel m AV'ales. They all
therefore came into Cornwall, probably on the murder of their sister,
certainly at a period m hen Christianity was both professed and perse-
cuted ; professed by some, but persecuted by others ; professed by the
little king of Brecknockshire, but persecuted from a personal dislike to
one individual by a superior sovereign. This persecution had begun in
a paroxysm of rage, and burst out into the martyrdom of the king's
daughter ; but probably Avas extending its rage and directing its bursts
steadily against her sisters or brothers, all equally Christian an ith her-
self, all involved certainly in her religion, all sharing probably by im-
putation in her rejection of the ting. They therefore agreed to leaA'^e
Wales together, to retire into Cornwall, so to fly beyond the reach of
the murderous tyrant. They thus retired to exercise that religion in the
solitude of a sqiarate hermitage, which they could not exercise together
in the palace of, their fatlier. They retired from Wales at a period
when the Christians of. Roman Britain, as Gildas informs us, had many
churches construeted for the public rites 'of de\'Otion ; they became mar-
tyrs or confessors in Cornwall and Devonshire, when those churches
were levelled to the ground; they Avere sainted,, and had churches
erected to their memory when Christianity Avas again tolerated, was
soon encouraged, and Avas speedily established*. They thus differ
essentially from all the hermits that Ave have seen before : those A\ere
protected or patronised by the kings or nobles of Cornwall, all of them
now Christians ; while these Avere seized by the heathen hand of power,

* Gildas, c. viii. : " Renovant ecclesias ad solum usque dcstructas, basilicas sanctorum
" niartyrum fundant, construunt, perficiunt."

were

5ECT. in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 101

were dragged to prison, were probably sentenced to death, and some of
them actually put to death. They thus became confessors or martyrs at
the closing persecution of the Christian church, when the malignant
spirits of earth or hell made their last efforts, and lavished all their arts
of violence in one last exertion to crush the genius of a religion for ever,
that derived a flame of animation from the very fires of heaven itself,
that therefore rose strong under the heaviest weight of human or diabo-
lical oppression, and was always aspiring to mingle with those fires again
from which it originally came.

So high are we carried by this singular train of anecdotes, which has
hitherto lain unnoticed amid the dust and cobwebs of antiquarian litera-
ture, in the history of our religion among the Cornish ! We have
beheld it patronised where Dr. Borlase imagined it to be persecuted ; we
liave found it persecuted where Dr. Borlase did not suppose it to exist ;
yet persecuted only \^-hen it was also persecuted in Devonshire, m hea
indeed it was persecuted all over the Roman empire. V\g particularly
perceive in this royal family of AVales, in this glorious household of
Welsh confessors and martyrs, the names of many of those saints whose
memories we are yearly celebrating in our parish-feasts, and whose
appellations we are daily pronouncing in those of our parishes, without
knowing who, or when, or v\'hence they were. Most of them were
Irish we now see, many of them Welsh, but some Cornish ; holy men,
holv women, sons or daughters of kings; devout hermits, religious pre-
lates, even picus kings themselves ; renouncing the world for religion*
resigning their lives for their I'aith, and rejecting earth for heaven ; but
so rejecting or so resigning merely at the finishing period of persecution,
and so renouncing under the establishment of Christianity in the isle as a
part of the empire, though a couple of centuries afterward. That happy
le^{'n of" the world, Chiistianity, was long struggling to ferment the
mass of the empire, by slow degrees subdued a part of its natural heavi-
ness, biit at last diffused her quickening influence very successfully
through the whole *.

•to

• " St. Kaync," says Dr. Borlase, " or Kcyna, a holy virgin of the blood royal, daughter
" of Biaganits prince of Brecknockshire, is said to have gone a pilgrimage to St. Micliael's

«' Moimt,

103 THE CATHEDRAL Ol- CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

"Mount, ill Cornwall. (Carew, p. 130; Capgrave, p. 204; Willis Not. p. 103.) Now
" this saint lived in the end of the Jiflli century, and as she probably dwelt in the casteiu
" part of tliis county (where her church and well are still to be seen, and her festival is ceie-
*' brated on the 30th of September), it is not at all improbable that she should come this
" pilgrimage to St. Michael's Mount; a fact farther confirmed by the legend of St. Cadoc
" (though disfigured by fable), who, according to Capgrave (fol. liv. and ccv.), made a
" pilgrimage to St. Michael's Mount, there saw and conversed with St. Ka)ne; and on his
" return, parched with thirst, miraculously produced a most pleutiful and healing fountain
" in a dry place, and had a church dedicated to him in Cornwall, where this miracle was
•' performed." But where in Cornwall this church is. Dr. Borlase knew not himself, I
believe, and I long found myself all unable to say, knowing no church at all of his name
within the count)', knowing only St. Cadoc in St. \^ccp, and St. Cadoc in Padstow parishes,
at both which was certainly a chapel dedicated to him. The latter, however, is meant, as
William says thus : " Sanctus Cradokus [Cadokus] est honoratus in ecclesia capcllx piope
" Patisloiu in comitalu de Cornewaylle, propter verme.'; destruendos Inlendo aqiicejhnlis ibi-
*' dem;" not for opening a well, but for freeing it from w orms ; " from which it appears that
" this place" St. Michael's Mount " was dedicated to religion a^ /ea^/ as anciently as <Ae latter
" endoi\\\eJifih century." (P. 385, 386.) The conduct of the argument here is wonderful ; first
referring to mere report for the pilgrimage of St. Kayno, afterwards denominating it a. fact,
and finally confirming it by another report from the very same <piarter, Capgrave, the relator
of both legends. But the grand absurdity of this passage lies in its direct and positive con-
tradiction to what the Doctor has said before in this often-cited passage of p. 368, that " iu
" the remote corners of the island druidism had taken deep root, and it would not give way
*' to weak eflbrts ; hence it is that after the Roman empire, and much the greatest part of
** Britain, had been Christian, we find many martyrs suffering death in Cornwall for the
" Christian faith ; and hence it is that in the latter end of the fourth, during all the fifth,
" and most part of the sixth centuries, we find so many holy men employed to convert the
*' Cornish to the Christian religion." Yet 7iow we find St. Michael's Mount " dedicated to
" religion &\. least as anciently as the latter end of ihc ffth." We thus close all the errors
of Dr. Borlase concerning the first establishment of Christianity in Cornwall, with a contra-
diction to them from a fact as alleged by himself, direct, comprehensive, and sweeping.

The whole allegation, however, is merely a mass of falsehoods, created only by a con-
fusion of names, and refuted by the evidence of history. Was indeed St. Kayne the
" daughter of Braganus prince of Brecknockshire," she must have lived (as in the text I
have shewn the sons and daughters of Brachanus to have lived) in the leginning of the
fourth: so much more contradictory to all his hypothesis would this alleged fact be ! But
sKe was certainly no daughter of his; all of them that came into Cornwall being enumerated
bv name in the life of St. Neclan a real son, and no such daughter occurring in the list.
She was in truth the daughter of Brethonus king of IVala, not Brachanus king of Breck-
nockshire: she went also into Somersetshire, not Cornwall, and took up her residence there,
not here. Tliere also St. Cadoc, who was her nephew by his mother's side, and the son of
a king of South- Wales, actually buried her. " Ex Vitii S. Gundlei Regis. ' Gundeleus

" filius

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVED. 103

•' filius regis Anstralium Britonum. Gundeleiis ex Gladusa iixore Cadocum genuit. Obiit
" Gundeleiis juxta ecclesiam quam cojistruxerat ; preserite Dulrilio episcopo Landavensi' ;"
consequent! V lotig after the days of Braclianiis king of Brecknockshire, even nearly tico
centuries after, as Dubricius died in November 522 (Richardson's Godwin, 572-591), " 'et
" Cadoco, 4CaI. Aprilis'." (Leland's Ilin. viii. 53.) " Ex Vita S, Keina3. ' Keina Bre-
" tliani CiViR. Keiiieiuir, id est, Keina virgo'," Gwyryf (W.) being a virgin still, " ' locos
*' iibi Keina habitabat serpentibus jiberavil'," &c. : the margin says, " Kcinesham," and
" ' Cudocjts matcrteram suam Keinani sepelivit'," at " ' ecclesia Caine a Danis vastata'."
(Il)id. 53, 54.) We thus conclude ihc fables of Dr. Borlase concerning the first establish-
ment of Christianity in Cornwall, with on<^ fable detached from the rest, incidental in its
introduction, but crowning in its detection.

Nor is the Doctor's reference to Carew one iota more satisfactory than his appeal to Willis
or to Capgrave. Carew speaks of St. Kayne's Well, not Willis's, near the mouth of the
eastern Loo, not even another in the parish of St. Kaine higher up this current, but a third
at Trekue or Trekieve, about a mile to the north of St. Clere's church. (Norden, 86, his
and great map.) Yet Dr. Borlase, by his mode of appeal equally to Carew and to Willis,
has fixed both the last and the first, though so distant from each other, to be the very well
at which " she probably dwelt in the eastern part of this county :" by his speaking, however,
of " her church and icell," as still " to be seen" there, and of " her festival," as " cele-
" bratcd" there " on the 30th of September," he again settles her well with Willis speci-
fically at St. Martin's. The fact is, that he was confounded in the topography of this his
native county, fancied the three wells to be all one ; even imagined St. Martin's near Loo,
because denominated with an alias St. Kayne's to be St. Kainc's near Leskard. But he
suffered himself to be led into this confusion by adopting the very natural ignorance of a
stranger to the county, and taking all Willis's aberrations without a moment's thought into
liis own work.

Yet, as Dr. Borlase has referred to Carew, let me wind up this long note with another
proof of the Doctor's absurd reference to him : " I will relate you," says this topographer
in a very remarkable passage, '* another of the Cornish natural wonders, viz. St. Kayne's
" Well; — not Kayne the manqueiler, but one of a gentler spirit and milder sex, to wit, a
" woman. He who caused the spring to be pictured," in some drawing (I suppose) then
shewed at the well, " added this rime for an exposition :

" In name, in sh.ipe, in quality,
" This well is very quaint ;

" The quality, that man or wife,
" Whose chance or choice altaines

" First of this sacred streamc to drinke,
" I'hereby the mastry gaines."

A w-cll endowed with such a quality as this, either settles or precludes at once all matri-
monial disputes about power, and is the peculiar felicity of our own county; but what

a enhances

10 1 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. V.

enhances the bkising greatly, not one hmhand of Cortiwall has been knouti fur a ccnlunj
past to take advantage of the quality, and so secure his sovereignty for ever. Dr. Borlasc,
we see indeed, did not even know where it was ; but other antiquaries have known, and
antiquaries, perhaps, want more than most men to maintain their husbandly prerogatives
by so easy an expedient, yet not even a single antiquary has presumed to drink of this matri-
monial Helicon: I might have been near it, but forbore to visit it; the advantage is gene-
rously resigned up to our wives, and the daughtei"s of St. Kcina reign in every family.
Cornwall is thus a Marlignij upon a grander scale, and Dr. Borl.ise has levelled one of the
most extraordinary wells in the world, the happiness and the honour o/ Cornwall, to a
mere fountain of common waters, near Loo, near Leskard, or near any other church in
Cornwall.

CHAPTEB

SECT. I.] HISTOKICALLY SURVEYED, 105

CHAPTER SIXTH-

SECTION I.

1 HAVE now levelled to the ground tliat strange and Gothic line of
tVontier \\ liich the hand of Dr. Borlase had thrown up against the in-
roads of Christianity, and for tlie defence of druidisni as the exclusive
lieathenism of Cornwall. The Cornish became Christians with the other
Britons of the north and west ; were with the others polluted by that
" detestable heresy" of Arianism, but cured by the vigorous operations
of the Council of Nice ; were afterwards with the others infec-ed by the
proud folly of Pelagianism, yet again cured by the coming, and by the
preaching, of Gernianus. He went into Wales, he came into Corn-
wall to coeiplete his work; he went to king Benli in Wales*, and he
came to king Theodore or Tewdor, probably in Cornwall, then residing
at a royal house, assuredly in the present parish of St. German's. Yet

• Ncnnius, c. xxx. : ''Rex — cui nomen erat Benli, in regione Jal." In Denbighshire
tnd ihe vale of Cluyd, " Moel Benlli, or Fennli's Hill is a strong British post, probably
" possessed by the chieftain of that name mentioned by Ninniiis." (Gough, ii. 586.) This
fortress may seem at first 7iot to agree with the description, as Nennius speaks of Ger-
nianus's arrival " ad ostium iirlls," and calls it " urbs" twice afterwards : but, as he also
calls it " arx," the other name must be considered to mean only a castle. It was, however,
" in regione Jal," which is now a mountainous tract of Denbighshire, having its name
properly preserved in Gibson only (c. 820, with his map), and disguised into Yah in
Lcland's Itin. v. 35 ; Camden, 547 j Gough, ii. 583 : it is now not far from Moel Benlli,
anci ihcn enclosed it probably. All was in I'owis-land, Nennius speaking of it as in the
" regio I'ovisorum" (c. xxxiv.), and Fowis-land then comprehending all this part of the
country, (Gough, ii. 583.) '* Moel Fenlli, or BenllVs Hill, is remarkable for liaving on
" it a strong Britisli post, guarded as usual by dikes and fosses. This probably was possessed
" by a chieftain of that name, for Nennius speaks of such a regulus of the country of Yulv."
(Pennant's North-\Va!is, i, 416.) Mr. I'ennanl was liic speaker, we find, and Mr. Gough
is the echo; yet neither of tlicm has attempted to accommodate such a fortress to the
narrative of Nennius. •

VOL. II. p where

106 THE CATHEDR.VL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. M.

whore in the parish was that house ? This it is impossiblt; to point out
\A ith any greater share of certainty than what resuUs from a mere ana-
lysis of names, and throws a quivering sort of morning- twihght over
the inquiry; this, however, will be sufficient for our purpose, if we can
prosecute our inquiry under the clouds that hang over it with any critical
insight into the Cornish language. The ignorance, indeed, that pre-
^ ails among the present inhabitants of Cornwall concerning the language
of their ancestors, concerning the signification of the local names that
meet them at every turn, is very wonderful in itself: but it appears
peculiarly wonderful if ever vanity happens to irradiate the ignorance,
and so exhibit it more conspicuous to the world, " the blackness of
" darkness" then being strikingly displayed by the passing flash of a
meteor. Thus a gentleman even literary, refined, and lively,, observing
lately a field of his that was vulgarly kno\\u by the appellation of the
Bowling-green, to be denominated in his legal papers Pare Bchan (or
Little Field) in Cornish, was struck with the supposed magnificence of
the title, ridiculously resolved to build a house upon it for the jsake of
this, and then more ridiculously gave his house the Efiglish appel-
lation — of Behax. Park. A howling-gj^een of Cornwall was dilated and
expanded by the force of folly into a park of England ! Such are the
monsters produced by ignoi\ince, when it is impregnated by vanity !
but as 7('e arc secure from this, so are we in no danger from that. L«t
us see, therefore, the names of the greater houses in the parisli at pre-
sent. They are these r Hendra, Cutcrew, or Treskelly, Pole-Martin,
^lolinek, or Coldrinneck, Bake, Cnddenbeak, or Catch-French. None
of these seem to signify a royal habitation ; but, in order to see effectu-
ally v.hether they do or not, we must examine the British of them iii
its real import, pursue the analogy of meaning tlirough the British dia-
lects, and so reach tlae radical idea of every appellation at last.

IIendra, indeed, which is compounded of Hc/i old, and Dja a house
in Cornish, carries antiquity in its name, but bespeaks no royalty. Cut-
crew implies it only to have been a hut in a wood ; Cuit (C.) being a
wood. Crow (C.) being th^ same word with Crowyn, Cryivyn, Creivynn
(W.)., a kennel or a hut, and with QruQ (English), a rack in a farm-
yard.

Slirr. I.] HlSTOniCALLY SURVEYED. 10/

yard. BuITreskelly is a name of grander import, Tre KcUi signify-
ing Grove House, and the intermediate letter being only interpolated
ctiplionice gratid occasionally. Pole-jNIartin is merely the standing
water; Pol (C.) being the same with Pool in English, meaning merely
water as in the Pool of London, that part of the Thames which is im-
mediately below the old bridge, and therefore requiring the union of
Alcrtlnjii (A.) with it for stagnating the water. By the same analog)' o(
language, the equivalent Lock of the Britons, applied equally by us
English in our Lahe to a piece of stagnant water, is still used by the
Highlanders and the Irish for an arm of the sea, and was even used with
Lake by Leland's cotemporaries in the Very vicinity of London, for an
arm of an inland river. " The first arme that breketii owt by west of
" the mayne streamc," says Leland himself concerning the river Lee of
Hertfordshire, " ys a mile lo\^-er then Wormeley, but in that paroch*
" and is ca\dlid Wormeley Lokke, and rennith by Cheston nunnery and
" paroche, standing on the west side of this arme. And owt of this
" strcame brekcth a litle beneth Cheston nunnery, an arme cauliid the
" Shere Lake, because that it devidith Estsax and Hertfordshire ; and in
" the lengt of one medow, cauliid Frithey, this Lake or arme rennith
" not but at great fluddcs*." JSIolinek speaks only its own relation to
a mill, Mclijn (W.), Mclln (C), Melhi, Melll, Mid, Miii-Ican (I.),
miporting a mill, and being only the echoes of the Latin JSIohi or Molcii-
d'lnum ; with the termination of the possessive adjective, the same in
British as in Latin, and shewing itself equally in Britann/cus and Brc-
thont'A- (C.) for British. And Coi.drinneck is descriptive solely of the
land on which it once lay ; as Col (C.) is a ridge or neck of a hill, Rki/n
(W.) a mountain, a hill, a cape, or a promontory ; R/n} (Erse) the same,
Rhijn (C.) a hill, Rliipien, Rnvcn (C), a hillock, Rhin (1.) a peninsula
or neck of land, or (which is evidently the primary idea) the point of a
sword or spear, and Rinneach (L) sharp-pointed. Col R'luncach, there^
fore, refers to that sharp-pointed ridge of a hill, on which Coldrinnock
originally stood, and what is denominated the Higher Coldrinneck still

t)U\nds.

* hin. vi. 55.
■» r 2 Ba8.e

108 THE CATHEDRAL Ol' CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

Bake assumed its appellation probably from the original smallness
of its house ; as Little has been frequently used for the surname of
a person, as a gentleman's house in Wiltsliirc is denominated Litt/ecof
at present, or as Netley Abbe}', in ITampshire, is properly denominated
Little at times, the very Letclege of Leland* ; and as Bdch (^^^), Back
(C), answers to Little in English. Just so, Tre-Z>^^ is a name even
for the capital of a large manor in Cornwall f . Ty Byclian also signifies
in the laws of Howel Dha %, what modern refinement is now exalting
into a water-closet ; and so stands a full evidence that we had, at least
from the settlement of the Romans among us, a presumptive evidence
that we had before their settlcuyint, those necessary appendages to our
houses, which have been found in the Roman buildings at Pompeii, and
in Roman remains within our own island, which were therefore known
to our monasteries probably from their first erection ; but were certainly
familiar to them during the eleventh or twelfth century, yet were un-
known even in jNIadrid within these fifty years, and are even unknown
to families above the vulgar in Cornwall at this day. Nor do « e find
tjiem wanting among our Saxon sovereigns or Saxon nobles, though struc-
tures of such a quality cannot be expected to catch the common notice
of history. jNIan is obliged to do what he is ashamed to mention, feels
himself degraded by tlie necessary attentions to his own body, and so
proves himself in descent, in destination, or in both, superior to his present
situation even in the scale of nature alone. Yet a memorable incident
in the death of a Saxon king has brought the building forward to the
eye cf history, and compelled our historians to mention it. That gallant
hero Edmund Iron-side, the true representative of the Athelstans, the
Alfreds, or the Cerdics of his family, the last supporter of the Saxon
monarchy, and in whose fall it fell ; even he, in ioi6, " sleeping for a
" night at Oxford, when he stepped aside into ;x secret retired room for
" the functions of vatiire, a son of Eadric's, instigated by his father,
" concealed himself in the secret pit, struck the king [as he was

* Itin. iii. no : The abbey is equally termed Lettelue, in the inscription upon its ovva
seal. (Arch. xiii. 195.J

+ Hals, 1 16. ,

X Howel Dha, i, 47, p. 71,

-" sitting]

SECT, ij HTSTORICALLr SURVEYED. lOQ

" sitting] in his private parts, ^^'i(h a poniard doubly sharpened,
" thus gave him daidly wound, and flying, left the weapon in his
" bowels §." So familiar in our houses of roxjaltij at Icsat was this kind
of room, as early as the murder of Edmund in lolO ! Yet we find it
in another fact of murder, above a hundred years before, and at the
house of a mere noble; since " Earl Stephen, the brother of Walo,"
says Worcester, " as silting in secession he eased nature, is struck with
" an arrow through the u'indow, and dies from the M^ound the same
" night iJ." And we also find it mentioned repeatedly as an appendage
to oiu' monasteries, in the ages since ^[. Teagh Beug, or Beg, means tlie
same sort of building, in Irish. But, what is very surprising, the
popular denomination for it- is the Bog, or the iiOg^-house, among the
academies of Oxford ; even of that Oxford, at which we find one in
1 1 0, and among those academics, who as little think they are talk-
ing British, when they so call it, as the alderman of Londoa thought
he was talking prose when he spoke in conversation. But just in the
very mode of forming Bach into a substantive, so leaving it to stand as
the designator of an object by itself, we find Beach (1.), Bee (English),
the ancient as well as the modern appellative of what the natives of
North- America call the Englishman's fly, as introduced among them by

§ Matt. Westm. 401 : " Rcge apud Oxoniam pcmoctante, cliim ad Jomuni secretiorem
" ad exqiiisita naturx divtrteret, filius — Eadrici, patris instinctu, in fovea delitcscens secrc-
•' taria,— eundem regem ciilti-llo bis acuto inter cclanda percussit, et co lethaliter vidncrato,
*' inter viscera fiigiens ferruni reliqiiit." Malmsbury, f. 40 : " Ad. naturae requisita
«' sedcnti."

II Flor. Wigorn. 337 : " Stephanus comes, frater Waloni?, cum in secessu residens
" aivum purgaret, sagitta per fenestram percutitur; unde eadem nocte extinguitur."

f\ At Winchester monastery, one of the oldest probably in the kingdom, were '• donius-
" necessarix, ac officiiix ; monarchorum." (Wharton's Aiiglia Sacra, i. 185.) St.
Alban's monastery, about the year 1200, is said to has'c rebuilt " vctus dormitoriuni
" ruinosum et pr;e vetustate tabefactum, cum dormitorii appeiidiciis," like our night-stools
in our bed-rooms, " vkhWcet, domicilio >iece5sariorv7n." (M. I'aris, 1047.) Peterborough
monastery was burnt down in tlie twelfth centur\', " practcr capituluni, et dormitorium, et
" necessarium." (Leland's Coll. i. 15.) And Chillendtn, prior of Christ-church, iu Can-
terbury, from 1490 to 151 1, " domos quamplures," as answering to the great number of
monks, " mcessariai, longo tempore dLrutas, de novo fecit ac cmcndavit." (Wharton's
Anglia Sacra, i. 143.)

the

no THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

the English, and what our ancestors the Britons so denominated merely
from its littleness-

CuDDEX Beak reflects a very different light to the mind's eye, is
purely local, is confined to the site, and implies a wooded point of land.
ijoat (C.) is timher or wood. Coed (W.), v\ood, timber, or trees, Coedcn
(W.), a tree, Cudon (C), Ciidon, Cuddon (W.), a wood-dove, properly
and precisely (as appears from analogy) any thing belonging to a wood ;
Cvdyn (W.), a lock of hair, or wool ; Cud'in (C), the hair of the head,
a lock of hair, or a bush, and properly any thing bushy or wood-like.
Thus we have one of earl Moreton's manors within Cornwall, called
expressly in Doomsday Book Cuda-irold *. ^^^e have even a headland
a little to the east of St. JMichad's JNIovmt, more appositely to our
present purpose denominated Citddcn (or wooded) Point, at this mo-
ment. Bca/t indeed, in the name at St. German's, is only the same in
signification as point. Yet it is equally liritish with its accompanying
Citdden, being still retained without disguise in the Armorican Bch, but
changed into Pyg in Cornish and Pig in Welsh, still preserved in all its
primitive form by Beah in English, and meaning in all these languages
the bill of a bird. But such a bill is so denoted, from the prior import
of the word; Pig (W.) being a prick or point, Piecell (C), a dart, an
arrow, a javelin; Piga (C), to prick; Pigol (C), a mattock, a pick-
(Kve; Pikel (in Lancashire) a. pitch -fork; and Pig (('.), i^ pig in English,
so denominated from the sharpness of its snout. Beak therefore signi-
fies any sharp or pointed object, and so comes here to import a point of
land sharp in its configuration. But let me elucidate this explanation by
a reference to authority. " Beg, Bee, or /jWj," sa}s Pelletier in his
Dictionary of the Language of Bretagne, is "a point, a pointed extre-
*' mity; I find it used for the face, or at least for the mouth," surely
for the mouth alone, by transition from a bird's bill, " in this passage
" of the Life of St. Gwenole, IIo hec d'ain /tec tequet, ha vi ystryset, Put

* Hals, 140, says, that this is the name in Doomsday Book for Cuddcn Beak itself;
wjien it is oiilv one among many names ot lands under " Terra comitis Meritoniensis,"
and when all these are discriminated expressly from the lands of the bishop at St. Germans.

" your

SKCT. I.] niSTORlCALLT SURVEYED. Ill

" your face [month] to my face [mouth], and embrace mc [press mc, or
" give me a pressing kiss] : Bee is used also for the beak of birds, and
" even the muzzle of four-footed beasts," by the same transition from
the bill of a bird. — '' Bee is one of the ancient words GaUic or Celtic,
" recognized for such by the ancients and by the moderns. Tliough
" we see it written before ' Ho L'ec,' our Bretoons pronounce it com-
" monly ' Ho i^ec,' your bill, your mouth ;" just as we have seen Bee
in Armorican changed into Pig in Welsh, or Pi^g in Cornish, and just as
we still use it familiarly among ourselves, in Peak a sharp prominence,
or a sharp angle. — " It is iVom the figure signified by this word, that
" we have those appellations of Bee cTAlUer, of Bee d" Amies, to mark
" the point of land which forms the junction of two rivers,'^ as an angular
prominence between them. " We also give the name," for the same
reason, " to promontories and eapes ; and it is common on the western
" side of Normamli/, as Bee de Champeaux, Bee d'Agon, BccduBanc*.^'

This

* PelTetier, 47 : " Beg, Bee, on Bek, pointe, extremite pointue. Jc le troiive pour ti
" face, ou dii nioiiis pour la bouche, en cet endroit de la Vie de Saint Gwenole, Ho Lee
*' d' am bee leqnet, ha m'ysiryset, Mettez voire face £ur ma fnce, ct m'embrassez. Bee se

** dit aussi du bee dcs oiseaux, et meinc du niuseaii des betes a quatre pieds. Bee est iin

" de ces anciens ruots GauK)is ou Celliquc, rccoiinus pour tels par Ics anciens et par les
*' inoderiics. Quoique I'Dn voyc ei-dessus, ' Ho jBtc,' nos Bretons prononcent coniniune-
*• ment, ' Ho Pec,' votre bee, votre bouche. — C'est dela figure signifie par ce mot, que sont
" veniis ccux dc Bee il'Aliier, de Bee d'Ambe?, pour marquer la pointe de terre que forme
" la jonction des deux rivieres. Oti donne aussi ce nom, aux proniontoires et caps; ct il
" est comniun dans l.i cole occidcntale de Norniandie, Bee de Champeaux, Bee d'Acon,
" Bee du Banc." That I correct the very lexicographer of the Brctoon language, in his very
explanation of Brctoon terms ; may seen? to carry an air of high presumption, in the act.
But the correction appears too just from the context to provoke the charge. '• Put
" vour mouth to my mouth, and press me [with a kiss]," is obviously the meaning from
that law of sound jcnse, which is paramount to ail criticism on language. W. I'cileticr
himself a';cordingly renders the words very nearly up to my interpretation, in 844, 845.
" Slris," he there says with more of mind as he had advanced farther in his lexicon,
" etroil, serre, presse — . Dans nn endroit de la Vie de S. Gwenole, il est employe au
*' si ns honnele. Ho lee (Vam bee lequel, Ita m'slryzet, Mettez votre bouclie a ma louche, ct
♦' m'embrassez, me presuz C'esi Gralon, que I'on fait parler ainsi a son parent Fragan,
" pere da saint. Je lis dans autre endroit de cette meme Vie, Striz, comme adverb, pour
*' dire de fjics, ou oj-ec application, et attcntivement. — Davies n'a point de mot, qui repond
" a celui-ci." The Welsh in truth has no word correspondent. The Irish also has none,

Bui

112 THE (^ATHEDTIAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP- VI.

This is fully sufficient of itself to ascertain the meaning of our Cornish
appellation. But as we had lately an etymologist, Mr. ISIorgan, a
dissenting teacher at Leskard, from Wales in the vicinity, who em-
ployed the knowledge of his native language frequently in decyphcring
the local names around him ; who was actually deemed by those thai
could 7iot judge, to be very happy in his explatiations ; yet was in fact

most fantastically -wrong, resolving Cudden Beak (for ijistance) into

€udin (W.), a lock of hair or wool, and Bach (W.)' little' ; VCt inter-
preting it a little promontorij , as if a promontory coidd possibly be
expressed in any language by a lock of wool or hair ; for that reason I
have taken so large a compass of examination before, and for that reason
I shall enlarge a little more now, willing to chase away such imj)ertinence
for ever from the minds of my cotemporaries in Cornwall. Pellctier has
thrown a considerable light upon the subject. I have augmented this light.
But more may be still thrown. I therefore remark additionally, that in
the interiors of that Normandi/, in which we find a local name completely
Cornish, Tre-porf, for the port-town of Eu ; we equally find Bee distin-
guished by its ancient abbey, but situated at the conjlucnce of two
rividets*. We also find there, what approximates both in sound and
sense very closely to our Cudden Jicak, Caudedcc, . a town near Rouen ;
at the union of a couple of currents, like that ; like that too, at tlie point
of a ivoody hill ; and actually resolved by Bullet, the great linguist of
the Celtic, Just as I have resolved Cudden Beak, into Cod a wood, and
Bee a tongue of land at the union of two rivers ■\. We have even in

But the Cornish has, not in Pryce however, but in Borlase ; Slr'iz biing interpreted by the
latter as narrow, streight [strait], and Striza to bind fctst. The predominating idea of the word
then, is wliat I have fixed npon it above, preying; applies equally to a kiss, as to an embrace;
and, in conjunction with the word mouth, can mean a kiss alone. And I thus notice the wrong,
that Pryce has done to the Cornish language and to himself, by omitting this with nu-r
mcrous other words sptcilied bv Borlase, and this so aiuhcnticated by the appearance of the
game word in Armorick, strait in English, slrictus in Latin. See also v. 3, a note

* Bullet's Memoires sur la Langue Celtique, i. 129: "Bee, bourg situe sur unc langnc
'•■ de terrc, a I'smbouchure du Bee dans la Rillc. — La riviere de Bee a pris son nom de ce
" bourg."

t Ibid. 130: " Caudebec, sur le bord de la Seine, qui y re^oit luie petite riviere, — au
" pied d'une niontagnc couverte de bois. Cod, foret; Bee, embouchure."

2 Pelletier's

•fECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SUR^'T:YED. I 13

Pelletier's own province of Bretagne, Bee du Raz, a headland on the
shore near Brest. But to bring the argument home to our own region,
upon our coast of Cornwall, in the line of the north sea, and near
to St. Genys, we have a promontory denominated expressly Cam-beak,
or the Crooked Point, to this day. That Cudden Beak had a large
wood adjoining to it even at the Conquest, I shall soon shew ; and that
it is a hill projecting between two currents of water, the surveying eye
assures us at once, Polvathic being a stream on the west, and Tiddiford
on the east *.

Not one of these names, however, confesses any relation in itself to
royalty. Yet perhaps the only remaini))g one will, as it seems peculiarly
strange, and very difFcrerit in sound or form from all the rest ; Catcii
Frf.xch. I'his indeed is so different, and so strange, that it naturally
excites our surprise at the hearing, and powerfully provokes our
amazement on examination. It is plainly a name that has been thrown
into the crucible of vulgar pronunciation, and come out again disfigured
completely in its aspect. What its original aspect therefore was, it is
the business of critical chemistry to ascertain. The mere sound of the
letters at first suggests to an English ear, that the name is derived from
some interception of a party of French, landed upon the coast adjoining,
and penetrating thus far, about three or four miles, up into tlie coimtry.
I'his is accordingly the very interpretation, which Carew, in his usual
spirit of both thinking and talking with the vulgar, has adopted ; but
adopted with so much want of expUcitness, as shews he was half
ashamed of it. " Catch-French," he says, is "a house, so named (by likcly-
" hood) for some former memorable, though now forgotten accident f ."
Such an interpretation, indeed, is worthy of thevidgar alone, who are
obliged to ring Tiames like vessels, and to judge of their goodness by
their sound in the EnglJ.sh language. Scholars, therefore, mount upon

• Carew, 109, \viih a good luck that seems more the result of accident ilian of jmlg-
tnent, and niertlv from attention to the I'.nglhh termination of the name, has fallen upon
♦ his very etymon. " At the to\vn'» end," he says, " Cuddenbeak, — from a wcll-
" advanced promontory, which enlituled it Beak, taketh a pleasant prospect of the river."

t Carew, log,

VOL. 1 1. Q '-ilC

H4 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

the wings of learning, and soar a higher tlight; explaining the name
into C/iasse Franche, or a Free Chase. P^tyniologists always refer a
local appellation to that language, %% ith \\ hich they arc most conversant
themselves ; schoolboys, or young academics, to tlie Latin or the Greek,,
and lawyers to Norman-French. But in etymologizing there is a better
light to direct us, than any which learning can furnish, good sense ;
a kind of solar beam, steady and sure, in comparison with \^'hich learn-
ing is merely an unctuous vapour, kindled by accident, dancing at ran-
dom, and leading into (juagmires. Men of judgment know, that locak
names should be explained only in the vernacular language of the
countiy; and that, though affectation may occasionally generate a
foreign name, as nature makes a monster now and then, } et the regular
coiu'se is very different. The local names in Cornwall are almost all
Cornish. They are so in the parish of St. German's particularly, as we
have seen already ; though lying along the line of its eastern frontier,
a part first subdued hy the arms aa<i most marked by the language of
encroaching England. This name of Catch- French, therefore, we may
be sure, is equidlj' Cornish with the rest. We have even a name, and
the name of a royal house, not very dissimilar to the former half of this
name at an early period of our and the French liistory^; when, in 88/,
the Danes are reported to have left Paris, to have rowed under the bridge
against the current of the Seine, till they came to the mouth of the
Marne, to have then turned into the Marne, and, " with some toil, to
*' have readied a place wliieh is called Caziei, it is a roijial villa*." Nor
is its Cornish geneiJogy very difficult to be unravelled. Thus Cae (A.)
is a hedge, Ke (C.) is a hedge, Cae (W.) is a hedge or an enclosure,,
Kca (C.) is an enclosure, and Kac (C.) is a " field f. This is conse-
qxiently the same with the Saxon pi-5, or our het/ge ; is accordingly
lengthened out in ancient monuments of the Gauls, into Cag'ia a close,
an enclosure; and ends at last in Caga, a cage, both in French and

* Asser, 54: " Sub illo ponte sursum contra Signe loiige remigando,. — tlonec ad ostium
"^flLim'mis quod Malerre noniinatur pervenisset, tunc Sigonani deserentes in ostium Matcrras
*' divertunt, contra quod diu ac longe navigantes, demum non sine labore usque ad locum,.
** qui dicitur Caziei, id est villa .regia, perveaerunt."

t Bor!asc»

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 115

in English, in Caqiie (French), Cac (Armoricun), Cag (Enghsh) a httle
barrel, in Cog, Cager, a Aillage, or in Ciigcois, old French for a vil-
lager*. But we have a village within our own Cornwall, upon the
shore of the south sea, and in the parish of Ruan Minor near the Lizard,
denominated with a closer approach to similarity Cfl6?g-e-with ; as w6
have equally a house in Madcrn parish entitled Rose-cff^/o-.^yel, and in
Illugan parish Nance-^-ccro-e Downs, Great l^iance-keage, Little Nance-
hcagp, near Nance. NVe have thus traced out a Cornish word that
adaj)ts itself with great exactness to the former half of the appellation,
and shall more easily discover another, which will with equal exactness
suit the latter. Pnnsa (I.), Prins (A.), and Fryrts (C), is the same
Word with the English and the French Prince ; we even have the word
compounded into local appellations in the " Croft Prince^ and the
" Goon Prince' of St. Agnes parish ; two appellations that, in the
Cornish tone of pronouncing them, would be " Croft Fryns" and " Goon
** /ryns." Here, then, without any violence offered to the language,
merely " lenc tormentum ingenio admovcns plemmque duro," and
exerting only the power requisite to elicit the truth by examination, I
have found a house in the parish of St. German's that tells us its royal
origin, and was honoured probably with the residence of Germanus
during his visit in Cornwall,

From several of these names we see that the parish Avas once covered
with woods, and that some of the houses were prior to the destruction
of the trees ; records also come in to confirm the existence of those
woods, even so late as the Conquest, and to shew us the large dimen-
sions of them even then. Doomsday Book notices one Mood on that
part of the manor of St. German's, of which Cudden Beak (as I shall
shew hereafter) had the capital house upon it ; to be two miles long and

* Bullet, ii. 247, 248. By " ancient monuments" Bullet means lives of saints, histories^
and chronicles. ^Sce liis preface to vol. ii. at the end.) Felleticr, in p. 106: " Cacous — ,
" nom est, si jc nc me tronipc, venu dii Francois Caqiie, ))ctit toimcaii, proiionce pnr niw
" Bretons Cac." Tlie English language i,.us appears to have preserved a Uriliih word, when
all the dialects of the British have lost it.

Q 2 one

llO THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAr. Vr.

one broad* : it also speaks of another wood in the parish, as four miles
long and two hroad \. Much of the woods, liowever, had undoubtedly
been then destroyed ; and we find accordingly two ranges of pastures
then, the first two miles long and one broad, but the second four long
yvith two broad '\.. This destruction first began probiibly at Catch-
Frexch, and the house there I suppose to have been on a lawn in the
bosom of the forest, a mere lodge for hunting in the woods around.
But the forest afterwards receded on every side, from the permitted
excision of the trees, and the licensed construction of the houses, till.
Cut-crew, the mere hut of some woodman, rose into a gentleman's
habitation ; till the house of the king's ^A'arden of the woods perhaps
assumed the appellation of Hendra or Old House, in reference to the
new houses about it ; and till Treskelly became characterized as the
House in the Grove, when others were now in open situations. A mill
had been erected for the use of the palace, probably about a mile from
it, and the house of the king's miller adopted a name descriptive of his
business, Molinek. A small house \\as also built at Bake, and had
the degrading appellation of Little assigned it by those who always
denominate from what they see ; Avho have therefore denominated a
privy in Wales and in England, with a singular coincidence of language
for eight hundred years together, Ty Bychan, the Bog, or the I^ittle
House. But CuDDEN Beak continued long to be screened from the
winds on its exposed situation by large remains of the proscribed forest,
and so acquired the natural title of the Wooded Point. Yet, as the
English language broke in upon the Cornish, the latter retreating
towards the west before the victorious progress of the former, Cornish
names of places began to be assimilatetL in sound to English ; lie-
sfronget, or Stronget Passage, near Penryn, w-as vitiated in pronuncia-

* Vol. i. fol. 120 : " Silva ;i leucas longra et unani leucam lata." For the Icueth-
of the leuca, see an explicit passage in Ingulphus, fol. 517, Savile, first produced by
Spelman.

t Ibid. ibid. " Silva iii^ leucas longa ct ii leucas lata."

X Ibid. ibid. " Ibi pastura iiii leucas longa et ii leucas lata;— ibi pastura ii leucas lata
" [longa] et unam leucam lata,"

tion

SECT. I.J HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 117

tion into its popular name of Strayigivcegc at present f ; and Cadge
Frpis was corrupted into Catch-Frekch*.

The king of Cornwall was probably induced by Germanus to begin
this excision of the trees, and to turn the old wood into a new parish
by erecting a church, by settling a rector at it, and by giving him the
tithes of the new enclosures, with a portion of the enclosures for a glebe.
Germanus certainly resided some time in the present parish, as " the
" inhabitants," only eighty years ago, " retained several stories" con-
cerning him. The church was plainly erected within a short time after
his visit, because of the compliment that was paid to his name in affixing
it to the church ; a compliment that was paid perhaps in all the places
which he visited, was certainly paid in several, but in all must have been
paid while the memory of his visit was yet warm upon the royal mind,
while the view of his religiousness was yet lively in tlje ro^al breast,
and both yet breathed in aromatic odours to the royal remembrance.
Germanus died the year after this journey into Cornwall §, and was im-
mediately sainted. This appears from the express appellation of Saint,
which was given him by the biographer of Lupus ; when he says, that
Lupus went into Britain " with Saint Germanus, a man replete witb
" all perfection and spiritual grace;};." But it appears still more early
from facts in our own island. " Near the walls of the ruined Verulam,"
cries Camden, " the chapel of Germanus even yet retains his name,
" though it is now applied to profane uses, on the spot from ivhich, aa
"from a pulpit, he spoke the divhie word, which soine fragments of an

t Lcland's Itin. iil. 27.- "Betwixt the point of land of Trcfuses and the point of
" Rcstronget wood, is Milor creek — . Good wood in Rcstrongct. The next creci< beyond
" the point in Strongel wood is cauilid Restronget. — Betwixt Restrongilh creke and," &c.

* It is very extraordinary that the name of the family which formerly possessed tliis estate
was correspondent with this etymon in the prior half of it, Keck-w'itch. Yet as the " ancient
••^ dwelling" of this family " was in Essex, where this gentleman [Mr. George Keckwitch]
" enjoyeth fayre possessions" (Carew, iO()j ; the cornspondency is merely casual, a kind of
lusiis naturce upon etymologists.

§ Usher, 204, 205.

X Usher, 176: " Cum S. Germane, totius pcrfectlonis et gratiiC splritalis pleno."

" ancient-

1 1 p THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

** aiic'tcnt history cojicern'wg St. Albans church do witness §." This has
been pulled down since the days of Camden, but the site is still marked to
tl e eye; it was not, hovACver, where Dr. Stukcley has placed it, within the
wal s of Yerulam, and near the eastern end of the town, but stood upon
the vacant ground between tiie river and the walls, towards that bridge
by M'hich Fishpool Street in St. Albau's is stretching out to people the
desolated site of Yerulam again. And such was the reverence paid to
Germanus's memory, that though Verulam was ruined soon afterwards,
the whole compass of it destroyed from end to end, and tlie site of this
grand munkipium of the Romans converted into a deer-park for the
abbey adjoining, with the Roman walls standing for pales to it, yet the
ground retains to this moment the appellation of St. (jcrman's Farm :
the continuance of the chapel jx^rpetuated the name througli its history
as a park to its condition as a farm. Thus has the memory of St. German
survived upon this scezie of his distinguished acti^ ity through all the
revolutions of Verulam, from its height of splendour at the time, to its
abyss of humihation at present ; has even extended from a lonely chapel
without the walls, in spite of all revolutions, and diffused his name at
present over all the site of the city *.

§ Camden, 293 : " Juxta prostrataj urbis moeiiia, Gerniani saccllum ctiamnum nomine,
" etsi profano iisu, superest; quo loci illc, pro suggcstu verbum diviniini efi'atus erat ; ut
*' anli<|uas faiii Albani nicnibranulae tcstantar." Tbiis, when archbishop Baldwin went
through Wales in 1188, to preach up a crusade, at Abcrteivy " In loco — preedicatiojiis,
" juxta caput pontis, tanquam tanti conventus memoriale, locum capellce in viridi planicic
*' statim plebs devota signavit; Jihi vestigia loquendo ad popidum archiepiscopus ^^xera?,
" altare designantes." (Giraldus Cambrcnsis, Itin. Cambr. 860.)

* Camden, in his reference to " anliquae fani Albani niembranuL-p," appears to have
met with 'a record more accurate and more just than what M. Paris had found. Camden's
author makes the building a chapel, erected on the very spot from which Germanus preached
10 the assembled crowds j while M. Paris's calls it merely " halitaculum — illud, in quo
•' idem Sanclus Germanus, postquam vcucrantcr corpus sancti martyris de terra levaveret,
" moram fecit aliquaiido." (P. 993.) Camden's is apparently the true account, while
Paris's is as contradictory as it is false. Though it is denominated an habitation, and though
Germanus is said to have resided some time in it, yet it is instantly declared by Paris to have
been " in convalle ponicerii," in the valley without the walls of Verulam ; " ubi paludes et
" arundines capacia loca rcddunt iiihahitabilia," a place capable of receiving assembled
crowds in it, but fiot hahituhle in itself, because of the reedy marsh there. There the build-

2 ing

«ECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED, 11 Q

Tn that very region of Jal, too, w hich we have seen Germaniis visit-
ing before, and in that very parish probably at which he visited king

Benli,

itig '•' ignobiliter jacuit derelictum, et aedlficia dlruta vix vestigia memoriae prxdicti saiicti
•' rclifiucrunt;" nearly five centuries having now passed since the visit of Gcrmanus to
Verulani. But then " fabricata fuit basilica," a grander kind of chapel, the very chapel
vhieh Camden saw, " jiueta mcenia," just without the walls j and " quidam ibidem
" monachus claustralis, exiniia; sanctitatis vir, vitam longo tempore duxit hcrcmilicam,
*' hortos coluit, hcrbis et leguminibus et aqua in abstincniia. niirabilc, ct orationihu*
" indefatigabilibus, deduxit." (Ibid.) The next abbot, " non procul a loco illo, ora-
*' torium in honore Sanctse MaritE Magdalcnre construxit," which still remains, but 'a
equally without the walls, and is close by the old entrance into Verulam from London,
(Stukeley's Itin. Cur. in plate 95, and Mr. Newconie's History of St. Albau's,. p. 28.)
Yet Dr. Stukelcy places the chapel ivitkin the walls, and Mr. Newcome coincides with
him; implicitly following tlie Doctor, even when he himself lias just given an .account
from M. Paris that directly contradicts the Doctor. " Germanus," he cries, in p. 32,
from the historical errors of M. Paris, " — had made some abode at this place, and had
" dwelt in a small habitation;" which, however, Mr. Newcome is prudent enough not to
place with M. Paris in an 2/«inliabitable site. But, as he adds immediately from M. Paris
concerning what M. Paris could not hut know to he true, this building was " Ichiiul tiie wall
•' of Verulam, and contiguous to the pool :" yet, as he instantly subjoins, " some remain*
" of this chapel are to be seen in Dr. Stukeley's View of Verulam," which places it within
the walls. So contradictory can a writer be in a small compass ! As, however, he advances
farther in hi? history, he sees he is wrong, and corrects Dr. Stukelev, but forgets to correct
himself. " In the spot where Dr. Stukcley has placed St. German's chapel," he remarks
in p. 508, from a plan of VeruLim made in 1637, " here stood a very respectable mansioa
"of brick, with a court in front, and stables. Sec. a place fit for genteel inhabitants ; and
" the chapel was situated 7iear the — lank" of the river or morass, " in the corner of a little
«' meadow." This meadow is evidently what is mentioned in the fourteenth century, thou2;li
Mr. Newcome seems all unconscious of the relationship ; when Richard the twenty-eighth
abbot is said by Mr. Newcome himself to have " augmented the pool of the abbey-mill
" after repairing the same; and the meadow adjoining, called Saint German's Meadow,"
to have " raised." (P. 228.) Yet where docs all Verulam appear to bear the name of
St. German? It appears from Mr. Newcome, though with his previous contradictoriness,
" the old site of Verulam," he tells us in p. 508, " is still called Snnt German's Fartn."'
The language is fully comprehensive, we see, and covers the whole site; yet the tide in-
stantly recedes, as Mr. Newcome instantly adds, " all the broad part of the same, cxlend-
♦' ing from the — bank to the Hampstcad road, and containing more than 70 acres," whet*
the whole is not, indeed, 450, as Chauncy relates, p. 416: yet, as Mr. Newcome himself
allege^, p. 28, " not less than 100" is all thai " is calli;d by that name." But this i$
merely that casual contradictoriness of confusion in which iileas impinge upon ideas,

'• As gods meet gods, and jostle in the dark;"

because

120 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNVTALL [cHAP. Yr.

Benli, the long tale in Nennius of Germanus's coming to the gates of
the citadel, of Benli's refusing to let him be admitted, ajid of all the
wonders resulting from both, being cs'idently false in itself, a mere
mass of Gothic architecture, resting upon a slight pillar of truth in the

becautjc the author avers immediately below, that " after the fall and ruin of Verulam, this
*' siic received the name of Germanuj — these Jields still bear this name;" and " in the year
" 1637 — the jiroperty of Saint German's Farm — was in sir Thomas Cotton," &c. An
abbot also, about 1330, " caused the hedges, ivai/i, and closes, about Saint German's,"
the old town so called, and now a farm, " to be repaired, and sowed a croft there of four
" acres with acorns, -intending to make a wood;, he had sown this larid {with corn] foux
*' years together, and never had a return of the seed again," from the many foundations in
the ground, I suppose, and from the iiarduess'of the streets between them ; " but this year,
" after sowing the acorns, he caused seven bushels of seed to be thrown on the ground,
" and," from such repeated rippingsof the soil, I presume, " in the following autumn the
** crop was about -ten quarters of very good wheat." (P. 228.) This site, however, is divided
into six or seven " fields, called Dorvaille, upper, lower, and miildle, which alludes to
" the name of these lands in the time of Henry HI. when they were called Derefold"
fp. 508); and when a neighbouring baron, "cum — injuriis injiirias multotiens accumu-
" lasset, tandem quendam monachum — nequitcr percussisset armatus, equum pretiosum co-
" opertum Insidens, el armatorum multorum agmine stipatus, discurrcns ct fugans cum
" suis canibus et venatoribus, jiixta curiam nostrum, scilicet apud Derefold; quod quideni
*' abbas et conventus," from the high ground of the monastery, commanding all the site of
Vcrulam, " intueri potucrat, et audire." (M. Paris, 1072.) "At the lime of the Con-
" qu«st,-^at the survey directed by William," notes Mr. Newcome, 507, " here was a
''vivarium (see Doomsday), or place for keeping wild leasts, and choice animals," with
them : " here was the only place of this kind in ihe whole kingdom." Yet, to shew how
inaccurate authors can be in tlieir very reference to records, this vivarium in Doomsday
Book appears to be merely a fish-pool, and is actually opposed to a park. " Unus parens
•^ ibi est," says the Book expressly, " hestiarum sylvaticarum," words meaning merely
what beoji means in Saxon, wild leasts in its general signification, but only deer in its par~
ticular, and so giving the park the appellation of Doe-fold, or Dor-vaille; " et unum
" vivarium piicium" (fol. 135J; even that very fish-pool which the seventh abbot bought,
with Kingsbury certainly, and with Verulam assuredly, from king Edgar, " piscinam mag-
" nam et profundam, qure j?Mpo/ diccbatur, erat autem regum piscaria," which the abbot
iinmcdiatelv, " in quantum potuit, — rcileoit in aridani," of which " adhuc apparent ter-
" mini et ahx crcpitiincs juxta A'iam etvicum qui Fispolslrale nimcupatur," yet " remansit
" — abbati (ptadum non magna piscina" (M. Paris, 993), large enough, however, to be
noticed bv Doomsday Book. I have entered into this long note in justification of my text,
-and in elucidation of some points of local history concerning St. German, peculiarly cloudefi
over v/ithconfusedness,

centre ;

SF.CT. 1.] HISTORICALLY SURVl^YED. 131

centre; we equally find great reverence paid to liis niemorv, and a
parish-church distinguished by his name. In " Yale lordship," says
Leland, " — there " is— a 4 or 5 parodies ; whereof tlsc most 'famoiis is
'■' Llan-ArMom, I." e; Fanum Germani. — Grcato pilgrimage and. ojfer-i-
" ing was a kite to S. Liniion *." The object of devotion to the'oflx^ring
pilgrims, was the image of Germanus in the M-all of the church. " Larl-
" armon [is] a village," says Mr. Pennant, '^ whose chui-ch is dedi-
" catcd to St. Germanus; he was a most popular patron, and has'iuun-
" bers of other churches in Wales under his protection : a?i imasc of an
" ccck'siaslic, still to he seen in ilic church n'ull-f."

There must equally have been an image of Germanus In our Cornish
church ; and a .statue still kept in the priory, but reported to be the re-
presentation of the la.st prior, is assuredly that very image. It is about
three feet in height, and appears plainly (o have been fixed in a niche;
the bottom of it shews a large spike to have been thrust up the body of
it, in order to preserve it from falling; a hole capable of admitting a'
finger into it still appearing there. It was not placed, however, like
the \\'elsh image, in a niche in the wall, but in one of tabernaclc-Mork,
as the back of it is not left rude or unfinished, is indeed as finished as
the front, and was therefore calculated for a niche open equally on
both : it also bears in its hand a smaller statue, about five or six inches
only in length, standing upon a book, and designed (I doubt not) to re-
present our Saviour resting upon the Old Testament ;}:. It is of wood,
painted with the face vermihoncd, and the robes carved, from the
good state of preservation in which it still appears, being of no great
antitpjity. It is accordingly dressed just as, I suppose, its counterpart
in Nortii-Walcs to be, being equally wiUi that " the image of an ecclc-

* Leiand's Ilin. iii. 35.

t Tour in Norlh-Wales, i. 407. So, " in provincia dc IJ'urlhremon," near Radnor
(see iv. 1, before), we lind " ecclcsia — Sancti Gt-rmani" (Giraldus's Itin. Cam. 821), now
" Sannit Harnian," in the maps, I suppose, and " St. Harmon, alias IJan Armon, prc-
" bend and vicarage," in tbe deanery of Melleneth.

% So wc have in a painting at one of the churches of Seville, "a Saint Anthony of Padua,
'♦ holding the infant Jesus on a book." (Swinburne, ii. 39.)

VOL. II. R " siajtic;"

\22 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

" siastic ;" yet not of a secular ecclesiastic, but of a merely monaslJc
one. A loose kind of frock is bound about the middle with a cord-like
girdle, that hangs in a tasselled string to the foot ; a hood stands stiffly
reclining upon the shoulders, and a tippet is lying flat under it, a hood
designed for the head, and a tippet formed for the neck ; not such as
are worn in the universities at present, a hood with the head part hang-
ing below the rump, or a tippet dangling in a triangular fold like a
shoulder-knot behind, but as worn recently or at present by our women,
the tippet, particularly, being pointed behind like a woman's handker-
chief, and reaching down with its point to the middle of the back.
But the statue bears equally that symbol of a clergyman, either monastic
or secular, which was originally a circle of hair upon the crown of the
head, which however became afterwards (as here) a circle of baldness,
produced from time to time by shaving, and was denominated a tonsure
under either form *. It thus stood within a niche, but under a canopy,
attracting the reverential attention, and receiving the idolatrous adora-
tion of the whole parish ; yet has now suffered more than two centuries
of slight and contumely in return, what was once worshipped as a
divinity being afterwards affronted as an idol, the slight even continuing
when the contumely had ended, the slight actually surviving all know-
ledge of the reason for it, and the unknown god of the temple being
thrust into a corner at the head of the stairs to the offices below. It
stood originally, no doubt, in the front of that gallery which I have
previously noticed to have been an organ-loft, to have been torn down
at the Reformation, and to have had its ascent to it blocked^ip by the
position of a pew against the door. The images of our churches, indeed,
were o-enerally placed, not (as is commonly supposed) in the chancel,
but in the front of that loft or gallery which rose high, and ranged pro-
jecting between the chancel and the nave, so united with the partition-
ing rails to shade the chancel much from view. But these galleries or

* St. Jerome : *' Nee calvitium novaciila esse faciendum, nee ita ad pressum tonden-
" dum caput ut rasorum, similes esse videamur." Council of Toledo : " Omnes clerici,
" de tonso superius papite toto, inferius solam circuli coronam relinquant." ^Bingham, ii,

403-4050

SECT. I.] HlSTOraCALLT SURVEYED. 123

lofts, with their statues, were removed by Henry, restored hy Mary,
and again removed by Elizabeth -f-. I thus account at once for the pre-
servation in safety, and lor the recentness in appearance, of St. German's
image here. This was removed to the priory for its preservation, and
there kept in safety from the hands of tliose reformers upon reformers,
those imbibers of the vinegar of reformation in a double distillation of
sharpness ; who rose about a century afterwards, who reared themselves
upon the shoulders of the first reformers, who, denominating themselves
saints, vN'ould not allow aay to be denominated saints beside, stripped
the very Apostles of the prefix of saintship to their names, and would
certainly have demolished this image of St. German, if it had still con-
tinvied in its niche.

Had this image not been a recent one, modelled when all the colle-
giated clergy had been for three or four ages obliged to assume the
monastic manner*; and when therefore every dignified divine was
naturally considered by tlie miUion as a monastic one; St. German
would have appeared in a different dress, in the genuine robes of a
clergyman of the time. How then would he have appeared ? I will
endeavour to ascertain this, so open a curious point of history, and cor-
rect not merely the error of this image, but another error, seemingly
sanctioned by still greater authority. " As to the kind or fashion of
" their [the clergy's] apparel," says Bingham, " it does not appear for
" several ages, that there was any other distinction observed therein
" between them anil the laity, save that they were more confined to
" wear that which was modest and grave, and becoming their profes-
" sion, without being tied to any certain garb or form of clothing. — This
" was St. .Jerome's direction to Nepotian, t'nat he should neither wear
" black nor white clothing ; for gaiety," attached to white, " and

t Mr. Denne's Histories of Lambeth Palace and Parish, p. 257-259. Mr. Dcnne at-
tributes the first removal to Edward, overlooking this passage in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i.
457: " Anno XXX Henrici viij. regis, stalua diuorum e tcmplls siihlata sunl ; et scrinla
•* argentea et aurea, una cum gemmis et aliis ornamentis annexis, ad Jisatm regium delala
** sunt."

* See vil, 3, hereafter.

jt2 ** slovenliness,"

12-1 THE CATIIEDUAL Ol- CORNWALL [ciIAP. VI,

"slovenliness," attachciUohlack ! " were equally to be avoided." But
the artificial idea of " slovenliness" attaclied to black, soon gave way
to the natural one of gravity. " At Constantiilople," the metropolis of
the empire, and therefore tlic exemplar to it, '' in the time of
" Chrysostom and Arsaeius, the clergy conmionly went in blacky Yet
not in colour merely did their garments differ from those of the laity,
though Bingham avers they did. Of " the tiniica,'' adds he, " there
"were two sorts, the datinatica and the collohhiiii; which differed
" only in this respect, that the collobium was the short coat without
f- long sleeves, but the dalmatka was the — long coat with sleeves, both
*' which were used by the Romans." The former seems to correspond
exactly with our short cassocks at present, and the latter with our long.
And the suggestion seems to be confirmed by the Life of Cyprian,
which says (as Bingharh confesses) he wore a dalmatka. But, as the
collobium was called hemiphorium by some, so the duhnat'ica wcis
styled caracalla by others. " The caracalla, which some now call
" the cassock," cries Bingham, " — was — first brought into use among
" the Roman people" by him who had his name from it, Antoninus
Cai'acalla. " But whether it was also a clerical habit in those days, may
•' be questioned, since no a7Wie7it author speaks of it as such; but, if it
" was, it was not any peculiar habit of the clergy, since Spartian, who
" lived in the time of Constantine, says they were then used by the
" common people of Rome, who called them Caracalla^ Antoniancp,
" from their author*." This is all untrue in form or in substance, and
I mean to prove it is. The dress of an ecclesiastic lias been from tlrc
first ages, what is still the most distinguishing part it, a cassock. At.
appears to have been so from a very remarkable though utterly unnoticed
incident, in the very first movements of Christianity and a clergy in our
isle. When Antoninus Bassianus, the son of the emperor Severus, adoptetl
himself, and recommended to his subjects, the use of the Gallic cara-
calla ; the dress became very common at Rome, but continued most
common among the lower ranks there f. It thus remained to the days

* Bingham, 11.411-413, edit. 2d, octavo, 1710.

i Spartian, ix. Hist. Aug. Scrip. 417 : " In usu maxinie Romanx pleLis frequentatae."

I>.lc i,

(*/■» Paat Hi .

ru/.Xs/lttt X.-i.tfl/',.) M-,/.fl..,-/„J„l, l^r.-.,M/i:

SECT. I.] IIISTORICAT.nY SURVETED. 125

of Dioclesian ^. It was then, like our cassock, flowing down to the
feet §. But before the days of Dioclesian it had been adopted, with
some distinguishing difference assuredly, as the appropriated dress of the
clergy. Thisdiffercnce I conjecture to have been what we see in our statue
of Gennanus, the addition of a hood lor the head, to tlic caracalla of
Antoninus ; as the ancient glossers, seemingly from a mere association
of ideas, produced by a combination of objects familiar to the eve, '\n-
tcrprct caniai/la hy cuciil/tts, a garment with a cowl to it||. Accord-
ingly ^ve find the caracdlla, in less than sixty years alter Dioclesian,
actually noticed by St. Jerome, as JiiniLshed tcith a hood, and as used by
wonJis or ascetics*. And in a canon of the Saxon church, about the
year 7.50 only, we find this express direction ; that " the priest, when
" he sings mass, is not to have on a hood-cap; and, if he reads the
" Gospel, he should lay it,'' as it is laid in the statue, " on his shoulders j-.''
Tliat the caracalla was adopted by the clergy, and has been transmitted
in the clerical cassock to our own days, was originally the conjecture of
Salmasius ; vitiating the mune successively into curuca and casaca t,
therefore wild in its appearance, yet (what is wonderful) true in its
substance. Rut by so vitiating the name, in order to derive tlu^ thing,
he was wild without necessity ; cassock being related to caraccdla only-,
as now signifying what the other J'ortiierli/ signitied, yet borrowing its

^ Sparlian, ix. Hist. Aug. Scrip. 416 : " Ilodlcq. Antoniuianse diciintiir."

§ Ib'ul. 416 : " Vcstimento — dcniisso usijuc ad lalos."

^ Ib'ul. 417 : " Ka^KKiXXio; glossae cxponunt ciicullam." (Salniasius's note.) — So the verv
" caracalla" of St. AIb;iii is called " cuculla" by the middle ages. (Wharton's Anglia
Sacra, i. 184, and Usher, 78.

* Ibid. ibid. : " Caracallx, de tjuibus Beatus Hieronynms, crant palliala cum cucullis,
" qualia nionachi et ow^iIki gercbant." — tjshcr, 78: " Hieronynms (cpist, 120, ad Fabeo-
•' lam) tt Eucherius (Instruction, lib. ii. cap. 10) indumeflium saccrdotaje — in modum
" carucalUe fuisse (.Wvuni, sed sine cuculla," and so " caracallas fuisse" thm " — cuculiatae
•' satis indicant."

t Cone-ilia, i. 117, Pccnitcnlialc of Archbishop Egbert, cai.on ix. The translation is
thus in Latin: " Cum saccrdos niissam celebrat, non portct caiacallam cassiatam ; sod,
*' cum Kvangelimn legit, imponai earn lutmero." The translation should have been nurtiv
carutailii' lassitoii.

If. Spartian, ix. Hist. Aug. Script. 417; Dio, 1311, notes,

own

IJ6 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

ov.n nan)e tVoni Caxng, Casog, a term equally Celtic with the other,
equally applied by the Gauls to that garment assuredly, and still used in
the Highlands for a coat or a cassock §. But that the cassock of modern
times is the same with the carncalla of the ancient, is shevsTi historically
hv Bede, an " ancient author," overlooked h}' Bingham ; for Bcde speaks
" of it as" a "clerical habit in those days" of Dioclesian himself, and
even as the " peculiar habit of the clergy" then. In his account of that
pioto-martyr of Britain, whose name we so justly revere, at the grand
persecution of Christianity under Dioclesian, " Albanus, still a pagan,'*
he says, " received into his house a certain clergyman flying from the
" persecutors." This clergyman converted and Ijaptized him, in the
course of a few days ; at the end of ^^■hich, some soldiers came to search
the house for the clergyman. Then, warmed with a flame of generous
friendship for his spiritual father, " Albanus presented himself to the
" soldiery for his guest and teacher, clad in his habit, that is, in the
" CARACALLA with which HE was drcst; and was carried bound to the
" judge j|." Here we observe clergymen in that very early period of
British Christianity, in the very moments of persecuting h(;athenism,
^vearing the discriminative habit of their profession in a cassock, and
wearing it so publicly, so regularly, that a layman by putting it on,
perhaps too by concealing-his face in the hood, could pass for a clergy-
man. In this little anecdote, as in a glass, we see the early origin of
our clerical cassocks, and we behold the early appropriation of cassocks
to us clergymen. From that period we trace the cassock under this
Koman-Gallic appellation of caracalla, as appearing for ages in use
among the clergy. We find it worn by an abbot in France during the

§ Hence casog mharcachd in Erse, a riding-coatj and a cassock is, by Shaw's Erse
Dictionary, 1780, rendered casag. Casiil in Welsh, which originally signified a chesuble
only, has latterly been used, from mere assimilation of sound, to signify a cassock as well as
a chesuble.

I Bede Hist. i. 7 : " Albanus, paganus ad hue, — clericum quondam persecutores fu-
" gientem hospitio recepit — . Se Sanctus Albanus pro hospite et magistro suo, ipsius
*« habitu, id est, caracalla qua vestiebatur, indutus, militibus exhibuit, atque ad judicem
" vinctus productus est."

SECT. I.] IIISTORICALLT SURVEYED, 127

Jifth century *. We find it noticed on St. Alban himself by king Alfred,
in his translation of Bede's account; for a " monk's habit f ." We also
behold it noticed on St. Alban again, by a monk of his abbey, under the
fourteenth ; in an express reference to that title of a caraculla, which
was still popular for it, and with all that easy familiarity, with which
an historical clerg\'man would speak of a cassock at present J. But it is
finally noticed by a writer of the sixteenth, upon one who w^as an.
English clergyman of Cornwall, in the ninth; yet no longer indeed
under the title of a caracalla ; for w^hat it is still worn among the
clergy, as " an interior tunic §." On the statue of Germanus it is not
so \\ orn, because this statue is monastically dressed, and has only one
garment. By the Cornish abbot above, however, it was w^orn just as it
is by the clergy at present, as a garment under a gown ; the toga being
equally retained from the Romans among us, but retained with all a
Roman's reverence for it, as an upper robe for the clergy, and as an
upper mantle for magistracy. The great dilFcrence in dress then between
the monastic and the common divine was this at last; that the cassock
was worn by the former, as in the statue of Germanus, bound with
a sash as we now bind it ; and that the latter equally wore it boimd,
but Vv'ith a gown flowing loosely over it. Yet there w^as also another
ditfcrence, of a slighter quality indeed, but more noticed by the eye of
the world. St. Jerome, as I have already obser\'ed, speaks of the
caracalla as then furnished with a hood, and then used by monks. The
hood was then beginning to bo dropped by the common clergy, and to
be continued only by the monks. The hood was so continued in fact
till the Reformation, the monastic statue of St. Germanus (as I have
said before) having a hood strikingly appiu-ent. Hence the cucuUits or
loit'l has become at this day the appropriate badge of a monk. And
hence a bishop of Winchester, in the reign of Edgar, \\ hen he wanted

* '* Dans le cinquiemc siecle Saint Oyan, abbe de Contlat, avoit un dc ces babillemen*."
(Bullet, ii. 276.)

t Bcdc, 477: " Munuc 5e5yjichn."

X M.Paris, 997: «• Quendam panniculiim — , ipsum — Bcaii Amphibali — c.incallamj
—in — paiinicuio qiicm caracaiiun vocai.t."

§ Lelaud's Coll. iv. 3 ; " Tmiicain intcriorcm.'^

5 to

\23 THK CATUKDKAL OF COItNM'AI.L [CHAT. VI.

to change the clergymen of liis cathedral into monk:*, came into the
quire just l-xMbre the service began, M'ith a nuinbcr of " cowled cas-
" socks" in the arms of a servant; ordered the clergy there assembled for
the service, to " t!iro\v off their clerical habit," in throwing olf' their
uiuowlcd cassock with their gown, and actually indxicing some of them
to strip for assuming " the monastic garment f." Nor can I refrain
from cx])ressing my wish, at the close, that the cassock, long or short,
the caracal/a, as used short by the Gaiils, or as lengthened out by
Antoninus;}:, was still the discriminating habit of the clergy in these
moments of peace ; ^^ hen it \\as worn at a period, in which it be-
came the very mark for i)crsecution, the very attractor to the liglitning
ofit§.

The parish thus distinguished by the name, tlius revering the memory,
and thus honouring the statue of that genuine saint, Germanus, be-
came the largest in Cornwall, being reckoned to be seven miles in
length, half as many in breadth, and twenty in circumference (|. Yet
the population of the whole is still slender; all the houses within the

t Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 219: 'H'aratis quamplurimis nionaclionim a/rnliis, die
-" quo conimunio — cantabatur choruni iiitravit, vestes (juas paraverat secum dcferri facii^ns. —
" I^itur (inquil) — appreliendile — vcstem monacliilcm — . Nonuulli ex illis stalim, abjccto
" clerical! habilu, monachi facti sunt."

X Sparlian, 416, 417 : " Vcstimcnto— dcmisso usque ad ta1os(quod ante non fuerat), unde
" hodieque Antoniniana: dicuntur caracalliE hiijinmocli," so long.

§ Salmasius asserts the caracalla to have always had a hood or cowl, " Nunquamcaracalla
<' sine cuculla;" and Bullet derives the very name from the circumstance, " Car, tete, Caly
" couvcrturc." But, as there is not a shadow of authority for giving hoods to the caracal/as
of Antoninus, or of Gaul, so Bullet's derivation is not of the slightest consexpience. . He
has placed his gambols too much in this fairy laud of his, to be respectable in derivations.
The original word I believe to be still preserved in Erse, and to be its Carat Itiilliamh, an
upper garment, which in pronunciation (I apprehend) would be sounded like Carachitlla ;
and lo be radically the same with Carrvgh, Carruch (A.), Corwg, Corwgl, Cwricgl, or Cwragl
(W.), a coracle, Celtic words signifying leather (Hist, of Man^ ii. quarto, 300-302),
that first material used in making garments, and thai which has peculiarly lent, in Malmes-
bury, 122, Saville, &c. the title of i«/Jcr-/;(-///fC(/7«, ov mrplice, to the garment worn over
the cassock in divine ofTices,

II Willis, 147.

compass

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SrRVEVED. 12()

compass of it, even those of the very village included, being computed
not long ago to be less than three hundred and thirty ^. A plant set
late in the season, is always backward in its advances; unless sonic
peculiar richness of soil, or some peculiar ai*t of improvement, lends it
an extraordinary gi'ow th. But what additionally proves the parish to
have been later in time than its neighbours; Coldrinneck, though all iii
the parish, and paying all its small tithes to the church of St. German's,
yet pays its great to the church or parish of JNfynhcniot, and so shews
itself to have been formerly a member of Mynheniot.

The church of St. German's, then, -uas parochial before it became
episcopal. Cut off as the Cornish were from their original bishop and
see at Exeter, by the Saxon reduction of East-Devonshire ; they were
to form a ne\v bisliop, and to fix a new see for themselves. But, on
the plan of settling both in a village preferably to a to\\'n, no church
could be selected for the settlement of both in it, except what was pre-
viously parochial. That this was actually the case at St. German's, is
finally apparent from the very church itself. Consti*ucted as the old
part evidently Mas for a bishop, it was as evidently constructed upon
tlic site of a preceding c/iitrc/i. On the eastern face of the southern
tower, is a plain water-table at present ; projecting from the very stones-
of tlie tower, to cover the junction of the roof withVthem ; and now
standing ahove the present roof, even ttro or three feet above it. This
proves the tower, as it contains six bells at present, to have been the
cumpauilc of a pre^•ious church ; and to have had the present church
attached to it, when the previous was rebuilt for the cathedral of Corn-
wall. But this cathedral appears to have been lower in the roof, than
the merely parochial church before, by all the distance between the
present roof and the ancient water-table. Built during the last moments
of Rojnan residence in this island, or just after the Roman departure out
of it, the parochial was raised probably with some of the Roman lofti-
ness of architcctxHV. JUit when the cathedral came to be built, tv\o
ages of trouble and anguish and desolation had passed, oyer all the regions

1! Willis, 147.

VOL. II. S of

130 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VI.

of the Roman empire. The tide of conquest, that had once flowed on
so vigorously from Italy, that had long reached its highest Mater-mark,
and no\N- been at a full stand for some time ; receded rapidly, leaving
those shores of Britain, which it had covered so usefully with its waters,
to be possessed by sea-monsters of the fo dest kind. The cathedral
therefore partook in this humiliated state of Britain ; rose not, though
a cathedral, to so lofty a pitch as the parochial church before ; and
would indeed have certainly taken the parochial for its own uses, if this
had not necessarily wanted what was considered as essential to a cathe-
dral, what in fact lent it its very denomination of a cathedral, a cathedra
or throne for the bishop in the eastern wall of it.

From the sight of our cathedrals in England, less august indeed than
the cathedrals of France or Italy, yet grand in their dimensions and
dignified in their architecture ; we are inclined, in the obsequiousness of
intellect to perception, to expect an amplitude of size, a loftiness of
ceiling, and a mode of construction happily bold or venerably extrava-
gant in itself.

Snatching a grace beyond the reach of art ;

when a cathedral is placed before us. But from the spirit, predominant at
one time, of placing cathedrals in villages ; we find our ideas of cathedrals
considerably lowered, and are led to expect a cathedral even less august in
England, than a cathedral is in Wales at present. So in Leland we read
this account, of what was once a cathedral at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire :
" the body of the abbaye chirch dedicate to our Lady," the church be-
ing, like our own at St. German's, both abbatial and cathedral, " servid
" ontille a hunderith yeres syns, for the chife paroche chirch of the
" town," and thus was equally parochial too with our own *. In so many
points extraordinary does this church coincide with .St. German's ! Yet
even this parochial, abbatial, and cathedral church, remained within a
hundred years before Leland's visit, roofed in part with mere thatch.
*' A preste of Al-Halowis," says the same author, " shot a shaft with
"*■• fier into the toppe of that part of S. Mary chirch, that devidid the est

*- Itin, ii. 76.

" part.

SECT, r.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 131

" part, that the monkes usid, from [that] the townesmen usld ; and
" this partition, chauncing at that tyme to be thakkid yn the rofe,"
though it was not in Leland's, " was sette a fier ; and consequent!}' al
** the hole chirch (the lede and belles melted) was defacid f ." Such
was Sherborne cathedral then ; M'hilc St. German's was as much supe-
rior to it as our English cathedral is to a Welsh one at present J !

In thus building the parochial church of St. German's at first, it was
from such a physical principle of attention, as we have previously seen
gi\ ing name at a ver}' early period to the Damnonii of Devonshire §,
and as the necessities of local situation compel the Cornish to observe at
this day ; fixed by the king of Cornwall upon the eastern side of a hill,
in order to guard it from the rifling winds, to A\hich all Cornwall is ex-
posed from its pointed projection into the vast Atlantic on the west. A
house also was constructed for the rector, upon the same principle, at a
point lower on the side of the hill, though not so low as what was
afterwards the ground of the priory. When lord Eliot rebuilt the
church-front of the priory some years ago, he dug a hollow way along
this front, large enough to admit the passage of a cart ; he formed vaults
in the ground towards the church, ample enough to contain the wood
or the coals requisite for the use of the family ; covered over the arched
roofs with turf; and only threw light into those by several grates in
these. In this operation, he discovered what were clearly the founda-
tions of the rectory-house. The ground, as far as the work proceeded
towards the chmrh, appeared full of ivalls, ranging in all directions,
but all laid invariably in a mode, very different from the manner of tlie
present times, very diflercnt from the manner observed in the founda-
tions of the priory, but the very same as is frequently seen in the ivalls
of the Romans among us, upon two or three courses of stones placed
edgewise, or (as the mode has been propei-ly denominated for the sake
of distinction) in the herring-bone fashion. So strikingly docs this

t Itin. ii. 77.

J So the cathedral of Norwich was ambulatory to the reign of Rufus, ami was sometimes
fixed *' in vico qui Elmham dicitur, in sacello ligmo." (Wharton's Anglia Sacr.i, i. 407.)
§ Ch. i. s. 2.

S 2 discovery-

132 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

discovery come ia to confirm my <>;cncral train of reasoning here, to fix
on the ground a rector>-house antecedent to the priory, to give it
ahnost all the ground betwixt the priory and the church, and to leave
only away of access to the chapels in the nortli aile of tlie lattei-. The
churchyard, therefore, extended only to the east, the west, and the
south of the church ; and j'or that reason continued to extend so, e\ en
within our own days. Such was the state of the ground when Athel-
stan came to St. German's. Then he preserved probably a part of the
rectory-house, certainly left the foundations of it to rest in the ground,
and raised liis priory lower down the hill, partly upon rock, partly
upon sea-beach, and all at the head of that little bay, w hich nature had
there formed as a (Uverticiihim from Tiddiford creek. By this the tide
came up from the creek and the Liner to the very foot of the priory
walls; and, in recovering this from the dominion of the salt-water,
lord Eliot has lately won twenty-five acres of land. Even within these
very few years a building remained upon the site of the rectory-house,
running out at right angles from the western end of the church-front of
the priory, stretching up towards the church itself, and being perhaps
the last remains of the rectoiy-house ; perhaps the old hall of the house,
as the whole was a long narrow room, used only for a laundry. Besides
this, there was even a garden upon the ground, commonly denominated
the Church-garden, and the aged representative of the rectorial
probably.

Thus occupied by a garden and buildings was the ground on the north
side of the church ; and the churchyard was necessarily tlu'ovtn to the
other sides, reaching out on the east up to the end of the present lawn,
and ranging on the west up to an ash-tree there. But lord Eliot, a
few years ago, induced the kite bishop Keppel, and the late cliancellor
Carrington, to have the whole of the churchyard levelled on the east
and west, to prohibit sepulture for the future in any part of it, and to
order a new burying-ground for the parish at a little distance. This
was a great point gained for the accommodation of aspect to the priory,
as well as for the convenience of dryness to the church. Solely to this
improvement do we also owe some discoveries related before, and the

priory

SECT, I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 133

priory now, for the first time, turned its face upon the church. The
rectorial house, from its close \-icinity to the church, assuredly turned
its front away from it, and faced about to the bay. The prioiy certainly
did. This, adds Mr. Willis, in l/lG, " fronts to the river, — and has a
" court before it, adorned with a strong pier by the present proprietor,
" Edward Kliot, esq. — against the banks qf the river*." It was forced
to front so, hj the rectory-house interposing betwixt it and the church,
so coming closely to it. It therefore turned its back upon the church,,
and presented its face to the bay. The prospect on that side was all
obstructed, but on this was open and large. Yet now, when the back-
front has been rebuilt by lord Eliot, when it has been lengthened out
at one end into a long gallery for pictures, when this has been made
the general sitting-room of the family, and when it necessarily looks out
towards the church ; the back-front has become in effect the principal
one, and has assumed all the consequence that its position originally
challenged for it. Another point, however, was still wanting to tlie
perfection of the whole; The unsightliness of the churchyard from the
windows, had become more than ever an object of moment to my lord's
taste, and had, therefore, been removed by my lord's •management,
Eut now the last remains of the rectorial house were torn down, the
rectorial garden was destroyed, and the churchyard in view was all
levelled into a lawn with the ground of both;

Yet curiosity is willing to ask, and vivacity is eager to answer, what
was the form of a rectorial house generally in these ages. AVe cannot
indeed turn up the ground here, in order to trace the dimensions of the
substance by the outlines of the shadow, and ascertain the rooms by the
foundations. These are now all removed, and the knowledge which
'they could communicate has vanished with them. Yet we have a-
resource still left tor information, on this hitherto unexplored point.
The sun often ministers his light by the moon, when he himself h;is
sunk in the ocean. We have a rectorial house still existing within the-
county, still shewing all the greatness with all the littleness of an-

•■ Willis, 149, 150,

ancient.

134 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

ancient parsonage, being the latest perhaps that was ever built upon the
ancient model, and so standing the lair icpresentative of all the ancient
at present.

'• Contiguous with the churchyard" of Su'int Coliiinb, says Hals,
" was a college of black monks or canons Augustine, consisting of three
'• telloM's, for instructing youth in the liberal arts and sciences *." This
author must always be allowed some confusion of ideas ; and he here
confounds objects that are very distinct, fellows, canons, and monks,
by turning his " three fellows" as reported to liim (I suppose) from
some seeming tradition, into canons or monks, as seemingly reported to
him by hislorj . For " / take it,'" as he adds immediately, " to be 07ie
" of those three colleges in this province, named in Speed and Dugdale's
" Monasticon, whose revenues they do not express, nor the places where
'•' they were extant ; but tell us, that they were dedicated to the Blessed
" Virgin Mary, the lady of angels, and were black monks of the Au-
" gustines f ." He thus builds an assertion bold and positive, on a
surmise frivolous and false. But he must frequently be allowed some-
thing more tlian confusion, CA^en an unfaithfulness to his very authori-
ties, a citation of testimonies directly opposed to him, or a falsification
of them for serving his own purpose. Accordingly " those tliree colleges
" in this province, named in — Dugdale's Monasticon," as consisting of
** black monks of the Aiigustmes ;" arc actually tlirce thus noted there,
" Can. S. A. Bodmyn Pr. 270 - o - 1 1
" Can. S. A. Lanceston Abb, 354-0-11
"Can. S. A. S. Germani Abb. 213. 243 - 8 - J"
Where their " revenues" are all expressed, and their " places" are all
specified. The college of St. Columb, therefore, cannot possibly be one
of the three ; being no abbey of either black or white monks, and no
priory of either Augustinians or Dominicans. In fact it was merely the
PARSONAGE-HOUSE, denominated a cottage here, as I believe such houses,
or their sites, to be still denominated in various parts of England ; and
as I particularly remember the site of one to be denominated at Eccles,

* Hals, 62. t Ibid. ibid. J Monasticon, i, 1039.

5 near

SECT. I.] MISTOUICALLY SURVEYED. 135

near Manchester. A parsonage-house, indeed, was called a college
originally, because it contained a collegiate kind of family, and a colle-
giate kind of school w itliin it.

" The retainers of the church," I have said formerly concerning every
parish-priest among the Sa.vons, " consisted- of six persons under the
" rector, the deacon, sub-deacon, and acolyth, the exorcist, lector, and
*' ostiary :" but " the priest and deacon only were reputed to be in holy
" orders ; the rest were denominated clerks, and even in contradistinc-
** tion to these, and have transmitted the name to their successors, the
*' parish-clerks of the present period ; and, as they assisted in the ser-
" vices of religion, they had seats in the chancel with both, and their
" stalls remain in many old parish-churches at present." There " they
" have frequently induced our antiquaries, without reason, without
" authority, and in mere ignorance of the ancient custom, to suppose-
" the churches to have been formerh' co/leu:iafed*." So I once said
without any the slightest knowledge of the present case, yet with a
seemingly pointed reference to it ; I said so merely from the canons of
the Saxons, and from the constitutions of the French cotemporary with
them. Thus, then, were formed those first colleges of clergy in our
island, the immediate parents of what we have denominated colleges
since, and stamping a parental likeness upon their progeny; these being
.several priests incorporated into a society for the senice of a church
while t/iose were merely the laical retainers of the church under the
deacon and priest of it: both, however, were societies rcgularlv colle-
giated, and both resided in what were popularly entitled colleges. " The
" same custom" also " prevailed in France; mention being incidentally
" made" in the capitula of tlie Franks, " of the * cler'icos qxios secum
" habent presbyteri' f."

But there was another circumstance in these parsonage-houses which
united with the preceding to gain them the appellation of colleges. Each
house was a colltigc or school for education, " llie clerks" in it, as I

• Hist, of Manchester, ii. f^uarlo, 427, t Ibid. 430.

equally

13(5 THE CATHEDRAI, OF CORNWALL [cHAT. VI.

etiiiallv noted once, " were, all destined for holy orders ; each priest
■' \\as previously a. clerk; and persons were gradually promoted through
" every of" the inferior offices, to the diaconate and priesthood. The
'•' j>ropcr instruction of thcni for orders was connnitted to the care of
•• the priest, as the education of youth in the monasteries was consigned
" to theahhot ; and the priest and abhot, therefore, were equally denomi-
" nated the rector or governor." Hence then is derived that very appel-
lation for a beneficed parish-priest among us, ^^•hich is the most ancient
in origin, most dignified in sound, and most advantageous in revenue;
^vhich we naturally consider as relative to his parish, but here find
referring merel}^ to his school. Nor was this all the school that a parish-
priest kept in his house ; he " had other pupils with his clerks : his house,
" in reality, was a little academy for the sons of the neighbouring gentry,
" as the bishop's was another and a greater. This curious and unnoticed
" particular appears plainly in the Saxon constitutions. Let the bishops
" willingly tcaclt schools and instruct, says the twenty-sixth ecelesias-
" tical law of Canute ; and let every priest have a school in his house,
" says the twentieth canon of Theodulf. The bishops, abbots, and
" rectors, are required as early as "/Ay, to keep i\\c\v families in continual
" application to reading ; and for that purpose to conjine the boys to the
" schools, and train them up to the law oi' sacred knowledge ; that, being
" thus instructed, they may become in all respects useful to the house of
" God, and the spiritual ornaments of it. And if any good man will
" send his children to the priest, says another canon of a later date, the
" priest ought to teach them w illingly, not expecting any reward from
^' their relations, except what they voluntanly give*." We even find
the same practice on the continent, mention being incidentally made in
the capifula of the Franks, not merely concerning the " clericos quos
" secum habent presbyteri," but also of the " scholarios" that every
presbyter had ; and some directions being given for the government of
these schools f.

So diffused over the continent, equally with the island, this primitive
provision for the elementary or the plenary education of our youths, we

* Hist., of Manchester, ii. quarto, 428. i Ibid, 430.

mav

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 13/

mar be sure continued for ages afterward in botli ; even till other
societies were formed, and other buildings erected under the retained
appellation of colleges, for the more formal, more public, more general
purposes of education. AVc accordingly see it continued for the ele-
mentary in this very college at St. Columb, even beyond the erection of
such buildings, and the formation of such societies. " In this college,"
notes Mr. Hals, very happily from private information, " temp.
" Henry VI. tva^ bred w/) John Arundell," bishop of Exeter, "a younger
" son of Renphrey Arundell of Lanherne, esq. sheriff of Cornwall
•" 3 Edward IV. ; ivhere he had his first taste of the liberal arts and
" sciences, and was afterwards placed at E.von college in Oxford ;
" where he stayd till he took his degree of Master of Arts, and then
" was presented by his father to John Booth bishop of Exon, to be
" consecrated priest, and to have collation, institution, and induction
" into his rectory of St. Columb, which" was " accordingly per-
*' formed*." So long did the parsonage-house continue to include
clerks, with others, in a collegiate society and a collegiate school within
it : the clerks A\'cre training certainly for orders, and all the others were
assuredly so. Nor did the school cease entirely at the parsonage-house, as
M'C see from this anecdote ; till grammar-schools (so public and cndo\\'ed
buildings for teaching the two languages of literary antiquity were now
called) arose from the beneficence, and were kept under the patronage,
of bishops or of rectors, by the side of their cathednds in cities, or near
to their parish-churches in towns. Even tlicn the clerical schools,
which in the reduction of rectories into vicaragc'% and the consequent
contraction in the size of the priest's house, must have lx?en frequently
kept in the churches themselves, were in the churches kept still, and
ai"e so kept at various parishes of Co^l^^'all to this day. In this very
parish of St. Columb, where no such reduction has taken place, and
the parsonagc-hoiisc still exhibits its big bulk to the eye, we fnid the
school transferred to the church, and the transfer proved by a melan-
choly incident ; as " in the year 1676," we read in Hals, " the greatest
'* part of tlus<:hurch of St. Columb was casually blown up with guu-

• Hals, 63.
vo{., ij. T • " powder,

138 THF. CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [4:nAP. VT.

** powder, by three youths of the town, scholars therein, who, in the
" absence of their master and the rest of their coinpnmons, ignorantly set
•' fire to a barrel of gunpowder, tl)e parish-stores, laid -up in the stone
" stairs and walls of the rood-loft f." The private schools, too, that
are now kept by clergymen all over the kingdom, are derived equally
from the ancient institution of a school in every parsonage-house ; the
boarders yet forming a sort of collegiate society, and the pupils yet
composing a sort of collegiate school within the walls of the house.
Only the masters are bound down no longer, as the rectors of well-en-
dowed churches were formerly, and as the masters of well-endowed
schools are from them at present, to act " not expecting any reward
*' from their relations, except what they voluntarily give ;" but are
obliged to stipulate with the relations precisely, and compelled to require
remunerations from them periodically.

Such, then, was the college at St. Columb, the parsonage-house of
the parish, a society of clerks, and a school for education ! The name,
however, remains only in the site ; yet the circumstances of the site
confirm the truth of my reasonings. It is about an acre of ground,
encircled on every side hy the glebe, as having been originally the central
part of it ; it lies close along the western side of the churchyard, and is
accessible only across the churchyard itself, or by a lane leading down
to the church-stile. Near the union of this lane with the churchyard,
and pushing up to the college, are the rector's barn and the rector's
fiunchay at present, this for stacking his corn in mows, that for thresh-
ing it out into grain, in the still-existing mode of Cornish husbandry.
These are on the southern side of the college, while on the northern is
what was formerly denominated the college motvhay, what is so deno-
minated in a terrier as late as 1727, but is popularly called the college
rneadoiu at present, a jidd still belonging to the rectory *. The college

itself,

+ Hals, 62.

* The very terms of the terrier are these : " A meadow called the court park, or church
" meadow," now the parsonage meadow ; but by its ancient name evincing the college to
have been aUo called the court, *< bounded with the houses that were lately Geo. Cham-

" pion's.

SECT. 1.] ' niSTORICAILY SURVEYED. l»g

itself, however, is now annexed to the manor; tlie Arundels, I sup-
pose, like some other patrons of churches, having considered patronage
to mean pillage, yet beginning with petty peculations of sacrilege upon
the church committed to their protection ; first leasing the site, probably
from the rector, on a small acknowledgment of rent, as they have leased
some garden-grounds adjoining, and then urging their tenants of that,
as by report they are now urging their tenants of these, to refuse aU pay-
ment to the rector. To know the process used in past depredations
jpon the church, we must look to the course pursued in the present ;
such selfishness always crawling like a snail in one slimy path, }et
moving slowly in its progress from a fear of sacrilege, and generally
skulking under cover in a dread of detection. This house is tradition-
ally reported to have ranged along the southern side of the ground, but
must certainly have covered it all nearly, and could have ranged on that
side merely in the final remains of it : there, however, the remains con-
tinued in a fair form of building, though used only for the meanest of
offices, till the commencement of the eighteenth century. *' It happened,"
adds Hals, " a poor }outh of J3ridport, in Dorset, about eighteen years
" old, in the month of July, anno 1701, travelling into those parts in
" quest of service, applyed to one Mrs. Crews, of Colomb town," then
inhabiting the end house on the west, at the great church-stile, " who
" had possession of those houses" as still several rooms, " for her alms
" and a night's lodging, who accordingly ordered her sers-ant Gilbert to
" place him in so/ne of the college-houses, made sfabks of'; who at
" night, with a lanthorn and candle," though in July, necessary there-
fore from the darkness of the rooms, " conducted him to die same; and
" having some occasion that called him thence, before (he young man
" had prepared his bed, left the lanthorn and candle in the stable, and
" went forth thence, locking the c/onr thereof, and cay-ryhg with him
" the key, and told the youth that in short time he would return tiiithei-
" again, and fetch the lanthorn. But it happened the young man fell
" asleep, and his guardian keeper neglecting to come as he promised,

<* pion's, and the houses of Richard Calloway on the ea!,t, the college mowliay on the $oulh,
" and the gkbe lands on the we.U and north." The knowledge of these 1 owe to the obliging
spirit of the Rev. Mr. Paul, of St. Columb, now rector of Mawgan adjoining.

T 2 " the

MO THE CATHEDRAT. OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. Vt.

" the candle (it seems) burnt through the lanthorn, aud set fire to the
" straiv und haij in that phice, and so kindled into a great flame, a\ Iiich
" approaching the lad as lie slept, awaked him, who in vain ran to the
*' doors and u'lndows, [the latter] barred tvith iron, in order to make
" his escape ; but he could by no means get out at either, neither could
" the townsmen that came to quench the fire at night use laiy viciuis Inj
''force to open the door T only one door now^ noticed, as only one
before, though doors in the plural are noticed bet\\cen, therefore a pair
of folding doors probably ; " the party that had the key, as aforesaid,
"being wanting," and "no person knowing whither he was gone;
" neither did he appear till the ^vhole college-houses ivere in a raging
" Jlame of Jire, which consumed them and the youth together*." That
last remainder of the ancient college of St. Columb, appears from;
this, the sole account which we have of it, to have been a room with
only one door to it, but to have had other rooms adjoining, yet all
accessible only from that ; to have had windows barred so closely
with iron, as to prevent all passage through them ; to have had a door
likewise so strong in its substance, that no violence from without
could break it down ; and to have equally had a lock so massy in its
boltSj with hinges so tenacious in their hold, that the violence which
could not break down the door, could as little force the fastenings upon
it. All these circumstances combine to shew us, that the room, which
from its position appears to have extended cast and west, was what we
shall see in a structure immediately succeeding this, the chapel of the
college, still entered by its original door, now partitioned off in its
length into several rooms, but having its passage into them successively
through the first. Nor do any the slightest remains of this building
now appear above ground, its garden only remaining upon the western
side of the site, there extending along the side with its ancient fence of
a wall, even still exhibiting an ancient face in a part of the \Nall, and in
the relics of a buttress six feet wide f .

Tet when did this college, so turned into stables, and so consumed
by flames, cease to be the parsonage-house ? The very man, who is

* Hals, 63. t From the Rev. Mr. Paul I derive the local notices.

the

SnCT. I.] niSTORICALLT StTRVETED. 1 -1 1

the last known pupil of the college, is the first of the rectors who lived
out of it, bv transferring the parsonage-house to its present site. He
being " resident," says Hals, " upon this rectory [rectory's] glebe lands;"
that is, in this very college in which he was educated, " gave him
" opportumtif to hmld the old parsonage-house still extant thereon, and
♦' moated the same round with rivers and fish-ponds, as sir John jlrundel,
" hnt, informed we*." He thus removed the house from its vicinity to
the church and the town, from its airy elevation upon a height, and
from an elevation rendered more airy by the sweeping of the winds
around the obstructing church, to a position still upon the glebe, stil'.
near to the church, but sequestered from the town, and lying snug in a
romantic valley. This valley is just at the back of the church, narrow
in its dimensions, formed by two parallel ranges of gently swelling liills,
and watered at one of them by a lively brook. Here the rector placed
bis new house, occupying the whole breadth of the valley, standing;
directly at the foot of an oblique descent from the church-hill, and
having the rest of the valley extended in length before it. But lie
" moated not the same round" in a love of pleas/ire, as Willis states
him to have done, " \\ ith rivers and fishpotids ;" nor did he moat it
about, as others may surmise, in a military mode for security ; but he
laid out the ground in that castellated style of grandeur which Avas
adopted by the gentry and imitated by the clergy ; several parsonage-
houses in the kingdom being equally moated, 1 believe, and one at
Warritigton, in Lancashire, being partially moated still, I know, lie
then walled up the sides equally with the bottom of the moat, throwing
(as tradition reports, as symmetry requires, and as the piers still indi-
cate) a drawbridge across it in front, before it erecting a gateway that
remained a few years ago all mantled over with ivy; and deriving into
it, not " rivers," as Hals in the usual exaggerations of childishness
writes, but the lively brook above mentioned. Yet \\ hat is much more
r-<"markable in itself, more level with our present course of observations,
and more striking from the castellated form before, he laid out the house
on a plan of disposition irithin, adapted to all the forms of a college;

• Hals, 63.

and

l-l.-: THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. Vli

and it stands, tis I have noted before, a line model of the primitive col-
leges, or ancient parsonage-houses of this island. In front it has a
porch, not set in the middle, but very much upon one side, the south ;
and a lobby runs from it, leaving tlnee rooms on the left, with a hall
on the right : these constitute two sides of a narrow oblong qua-
drangle behind, of which the other sides are constituted by the old
kitchen, the back-kitchen, the grand staircase, and some rooms above.
The three on the left of the lobby, I apprehend to have been the
school for the clerks or pupils, and the parlour for the rector ; as the
first room, now partitioned slightly into two, shews an old doorway
without in the wall where the chimney is, and as close to the porch
within is a small private staircase in the thick wall, now from the lobby,
but formerly (I believe) from the room, ascending up to chambers over-
head : the first chamber ijito which this brings us still exhibits that large
arch of its original window, which is known to have turned the pipe of
the inserted chimney upon one side. From this we mount by three
steps into the chamber over the porch, as we e([ually ascended once by
a single step through a doorway now blocked up, but still evident, into
another chamber: the first, therefore, was the dormitory of the pupils
or clerks, I apprehend ; the second of the deacon presiding immediately
over them ; and the third of the rector presiding over all. The old
kitchen is still marked out to the e}'e of curiosity by i-ising all open to
the roof, and by shewing a broad tall arch filled up with stone, so rest-
ing upon a thick transome beam of timber, and in the Cornish fashion,
having two divisions below, one for boiling, the other for roasting.
The back-kitchen carries a chamber over it for the only servants then
admitted into a parsonage-house, the men ; ^nd a stone staircase still
remains at one corner ascending up to it. The only side unnoticed is
a square kind of turret-like structure, containing the grand staircase up
to a bed-room that A\as reserved for the bishop or the archdc-acon, pro-
bably at the respective visitation of each. Such was the general dispo-
sition of the house, all collegiate in its figure ! But its figure was more
collegiate still. Tacing the staircase was a few years ago a doorway
into the hall. This room, rising all open to the roof like the kitchen,
was calculated for the dining-rooiu of the house, and by its length be-

5 came

SECT. 1.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. " 113

came the medium of connexion to the whole, that by Mliich the com-
munication between the grand staircase, the kitchen, the batk-kitchen,
and the lobby was kept up. It remains in all its original dimensions at
present, long, large, and lofty ; so seems to give some scope for that
charge of luxury which men sitting loose to religion, therefore sure
lovers of luxury themselves, affect at times to fix u]K)n the richer clerg}^
But such a size of a dining-room is no argument of luxury practised in
it; it only formed a part of the collegiate economy then, as it forms in
our universities now; it was then as necessary for the collegiate family
as it is now ; and it was then balanced, as it now is, by a chapel of
equal dimensions. Up the grand staircase in our present parsonage-
house, and close to the grand bed-room, is a room on the same floor
with it, running east and west, lofty, long, and broad, coved over-
head, pushing up to the front of the house, even projecting a little
beyond it, and having a large window there ; the unknown, the unsus-
pected, yet the certain chapel of the whole. This, therefore, was built
at a period when, as in our colleges of Oxford and Cambridge at present,
religion was considered to be the grand duty of life, when domestic
religion \N'as carefully cultivated in clerical houses, and when this was
tho\iglu to be the most efficaciously exercised by those houses which
could alford the convenience within a room appropriated entirely to the
purpose. But as religion w^as made to stoop from its elevation, as do-
mestic religion became less cultivated, and as the pomp of devoutness
sunk awa\' into tlie pride of life, the chapel either became a room for
receiving tithe-renters, even though the hall presented itself as pecu-
liarly calculated for the purpose, or was partitioned into two bed-
rooms, with a new window struck out on the north for lighting one of
them, or was formed as now into a drawing-room. Thus also has the
school been partitioned into. a parlour and a pantry, while the hall
is modelled into another parlour, the passage through the length of
it being supplied by a lobby at the back of it; the rector's parlour
has been changed into a kitchen, the rector's bed-room into a maid-
servant's, anJ the deacon's into a footman's ; the chamber for the men-
servants being unoccupied, with that for the clerks or pupils, while the
bishop's or archdeacon's bed-room has received two stories of rooms
over it, but btill shews the seam of conjunction on the north Mall with-
out.

144 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

out. In this manner has the ancient and venerable form of a collegiate
house been softened down a little into the fashion of a modern parson-
age, yet still retains enough of its ancient form to be still venerable in
its aspect ; and \\'hen the veil is drawn aside from the glass, as it now
for the first time is, still presents to the eye all the solemn features of a
once collegiate parsonage, such as the college was by the church at
St. Columb, and such as the parsonage-house equally was, we may be
sure by the church at St. German's.

SECTION II.

I HXVE mentioned the southern tower of tlie church a little above, as
the campanile of the church erected before the present nave of Q36,
erected before the present south aile of about 0l4, erecte4 indeed so
early as about 450. Nor let me be supposed, in mentioning this, to be
confounding the order of chronology, and antedating by some ages the
introduction of bell-towers : I am not in my own belief, and here engage
to prove I am not in fact.

"We have been told, indeed, that bell-towers ■s\"cre first annexed to
our churches in the tenth century, or possibly in the nintli ; but we
liave been told so by an author that seems never to have had an}- right
of dictating, that however has been allo^\■ed to do so by the constitu-
tional timidity of scholars, and that I have repeatedly convicted of folly
before. Let me now convict him finally. " It is highly probable,"
says jSIr. Bentham, " that the use of bells gave occasion to the first and
" most considerable alteration that was made in the general plan of our
" churches, by the necessity it induced of having strong and high-raised
" edifices for their reception. The jcra, indeed, of the invention of
^' bells is somew^hat obscure * ; and it must be owned that some traces

* " ^'icIe Spelmannl Gloss, ad Campana,"

"of

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 145

" of them may be discovered in our monasteries, even in the seventh

" century*; yet, I believe, one may venture to assei't tliat such large

*' ones as required distinct buildings for (heir support, do not appear to

" have been in use among vs till the tenth centuri/, about the middle of

*' which we find several of our churches were furnished with them by

<' the munificence of our kings f. And the account we have of St. Dun-

"■ Stan's gifts to Malmesbury abbey by theh' historian," he means that

excellent historian William of Malmesbury abbev, " plainly shews they

" were not very common in that age," of so great size, as he should

have added; " for," he says, " the liberality of that prelate consisted

" chiefly in such things as were then wonderful and strange in England,

" among which he reckons the large bells — he gave them ;}; : but from

" this period," the tenth century, " tiiey became more frequent, and in •{

*' time the common fiirniture to our churches. Bells, no doubt, at fust

" suggested the necessity of towers; towers promised to the imagina-

*' tion something noble and extraordinary, in the uncommon effects

*' they were capable of producing by their requisite loftiness and variety

" of forms : the hint was improved, and towers were built not only for

" necessary use, but often for symmetry and ornament in different parts

" of the fabric, and particularly when the plan of a cross was adopted.

*' — ^Tliis is the short history of the origin of towers and steeples — . Pos-

" sibly these innovations might begin under king Alfred,'' in the ninth cen-

• " Bedae Hist. lib. iv. cap. 23."

t " ' Eihclstaiuis rex (circa A. D. 935) dcdit quatuor magnas campanas Sto. Cuthberto.*
*' Monast. Angl. vol. i. pag. 40. lin. 52. — ' Rex Eadrcdus duo signa non modica ccclcsis
" Eboraccnsi donavit.' Math. West, ad annum 946. — Rex Edgarus, circa A. D. 974,
*' ecclcsix Ramcsiensi dcdit — ' duas campanas, 20 iibrarum prctio comparatas.' Hist.
** Rameseicn. cap. xxii. txlit. Gale."

X " S. Dunstanus, — ' in multis loco [locis] munificus, qua; tunc in Anglia magni mira-
" culi csscnt, dccusque ct ingcnium confcrentis [ostcndcrent], off'errc crcbro; inter qua;,
*' signa snno ct mole praestanlia — .' Will. Malniesb. de Pontif. lib. v. edit. Angl. Sacr.
" vol. ii. pag. 23. — ' Dunstanus, cujus industria refloruit ccclcsia [Glaslon.], — fecit — signa
" duo prtEcipua, ct campanam in rcfcctorio.' Will. Malmcsb. de Antiq. Glaslon. Ecclcs.
" pag- 324* edit. Galei. — Athelwoldus abbas monasterii de Abendonc, rcgnante Edgarb
" rcgc, ' fecit duas campanas, qu:c in donio [Dei] pojuit, cimi aiiis duabus, quas B. Dun-
'' staims feeissc ptrhibelur." Vid, Monast. Angl, vol. i. pag. 995, lin. 42."

VOL. II. u tury.

146 THE CATHEDRAL OF COllNWALL [cHAP. VI.

tiirv*. But tins history of their origin is as untrue as it is contradic-
tory ; Mr. Ccntham having said at the beginning, " I behove one may
*' venture to assert, that sucli large bells as required distinct buildings
•' for their support, do not appear to have been in use among us till the
" tenth centui-y," yet resaying at the close, that " possibly these inno-
*' vations might begin" in the ninth; asserting also that "bells, no
*' doubt, at first Sliggcsted the necessity of towers ;" but instantly add-
ing, tliat " tow^crs promised to the imagination,''^ consequently before
they were built, " something noble and extraordinary in the uncommon
" effects they were capable ot prodaeing,'' not by the sound of the belh
from them, but " by their requisite hyf'tiness and variety of forms ^ he
thus ascribing towers to bells and to necessity, then reascribing them to
an imagined anticipation of their beauty, and bemg grossly erroneous in
all. His very progress of improvement is retrograde in itself; while
his course, cither retrograde or progressive, is all an aberration from the
truth.

The first towers to our churches undoubtedly were towers for bells.
^he very form of these tall and hollow cylinders of stone proves this to
every eye ; nor could any idea of the ornamental nature of towers to
churches ever have been adopted, till towers had been constructed for
use, till the mind had contemplated their utility, and the eye had begun
to perceive their elegance or grandeur: all church-towers, therefore,
•were bell- towers at first, and the origin of these is the commenciement
of those. But when did towers commence at our churches ? in the tenth
centur}', in the ninth, or in what ? To ascertain this, we must recur
to the origin of bells themselves, not as noted by Mr. Bentham, but as
standing on the records of history. These bells do not merely shew
«' some traces'* of themselves, •' in our monasteries, even in the seventh
** century;" they came in with the Romans, were introduced into use
among us from the Romans, and had even towers erected for them at
our churches by the Romans. These will seem paradoxical assertions, I
doubt not, to all those who have only half thought, and only half in-

* Bentham's Ely, J19, 30.

quired.

^ECT. II.] irrSTORICALLY SURVEYED. 147

quired, concerning the origin of bells and bell-towers ; even to the great
mass of antiquaries in the nation. But I undertake to substantiate their
truth, by positive facts.

Suetonius informs us in a passage, replete with intelligence peculiarly
curious to the antiquary of manners, that " when Augustus," in a per-
sonal attention to public devoutness, which appears striking to a religious
mind even at present, " repaired every day to the temple of Jupiter
" Tonans, which he had dedicated to him in the Capitol," at which was
the way of entrance from the low level of the Forum into the raised
area of the Capitol, o/" which some remains still stand upon the ascent
of the Capitoline Hill from the Forum, in three fluted pillars with
a Corinthian capital to each, and with a channelled architrave over all,
forming (I believe) that very portal of the temple through which was
the way of entrance into the Capitol, but supported only in their tot-
tering state by the very ruins, that have successively accumulated from
themselves around the base, even more than half way up the shaft of
the pillars; " he dreamed the Jupiter of the Capitol," on the eastern
eminence of this forked hill, " complained, that Ms worshippers were
** withdrawn from him, and himself replied he had put Jupiter Tonans
*' there, as a mere porter to him." So common was a porter's lodge at
the gate of a superior house in the city of Rome during the days of
Augustus ; even as common as it is among ourselves at present ! *' Au-
" gustus," as Suetonius adds, " in consequence of his dream, imme-
" diatoly hung a fringe of bells round the eaves of the temple," in a
taste surprii^iiigly similar to what we see in Chinese temples at present.
The similarity too is enhanced exceedingly by the use which we find
made of bells, in a building of Italy prior by some ages to Augustus's ;
Porsena, king of Etruria, erecting for hifnsclf near Clusium, his capital.
a funeral monument, which hud, upoji a square base of stone, rive
pyramids, " so finished above," says Pliny, from Varro, " that on the
•' head of each was placed an orb and cupola of brass, from whicli /iiii/g
" bell.'i siisfiemU'd Inf chains, that were shaken with the wind, and (as was
*' former I ij the case at DodonnJ erniitod sounds audible to a ^reat

u 2 " distance"'

1-13 TIIR CVTHEDrxAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. "VI.

*' distance*.'' This is in the highest style of Chinese fatitasticalness.
Augustus's was in a lower degree of the same style. A\'e tlius discover
what we should little expect, not merely the use of bells at Rome ii>
the days of Augustus, at Clusium in the earlier days of Porsena, and at
Dodona in the still earlier days of Grecian antiquity ; but an use of
them with Egi/piian pyramids at Clusium, and in a temple, asserted by
Herodotus to have been founded by, an Egi/ptian, at Dodona, two
incidents that seem to favour the sometimes supposed derivation of the
Etrurians with the Chinese, from Egypt, and the latter an incident,
which would account for " the vocal groves" at Dodona in a manner
jnore strictly historical, than even what history itself delivers to us f^

Yet

* Pliny, xxxvi. 13: " In summo orbis xneus et petasus unus omnibus sit impositus ex
*' quo pcnclcant exccpta catenis tintinabula, quie vento agitata, longe sonitus ref'erant, ut
" Docionae olim factum." But, as Pliny's account of this monument agrees very remark-
ably with what is called the monument of the Horatii and Curiatii at the present day, let me
just note the grand point of similarity ; Porscna's being " monumentum — lapidc (juadralo — ,
"■supra id quadratum pyramidcs stant quinqite," while " the remains oi Jive pyramids
" are," yet at the latter, " — on one large base" (Wright, 372, edit, ad) ; and " this —
*' great mausoleum — is of coarse and rude architecture, Jii'e round broken pyramids spring
*' from 2i hrgs square base." (Mrs. Miller, iii. 1 15.) This, however, being at Albano, to
the south, and that at Chiusi, to the north, precludes all possible identity between them ;
yet shews the present monument to be a structure like Pliny's, about the same age, but older,
and erected by some king of Latium.

t Homer, in Iliad xvi. 233-235, speaks of this temple and its priests the Selii ; but Mr.
Pope has made the bard speak what he never meant, and what he never knew, the oaks
plainlv, from his silence, becoming oracular ajler his time.

Whose groves the Selli, race austere, surround,
Their feet unwash'd, their slumbers on tlie ground.

So far Homer speaks^ but it is only Mr. Pope that subjoins thus:

JVho hear from rustling oaks thy dark decrees.
And catch the fates low-ivhisper'd in the Ireexe,

" Herodotus writes in his second book," says Mr. Pope, " that the oracle of Dodona was
" the most ancient in Greece ; — but what he adds, that it was founded by an Egyptian
" woman, who was the priestess of it, is contradicted by this passage of Homer, w ho shews
" that in the lime of the Trojan war this temple was served by men called Selli, and not by
" women." So much the testimony of Homer proves, but it does not " contradict" the
testimony of Herodotus. The temple had woineo before the Trojan war, but men after it,

and

SECT. 17.] HISTOnrCVLLY SURVEYED. lig

Yet how did Augustus's fringe of bells correspond with anv part of his
dream ? He put up the bells, as Suetonius subjoins, " because bells
"generally hung at great gates +." So derivatively Roman, and
so very ancient is that practice, which has been ever supposed to be
merely a modern refinement, and is yet introduced only into the more
refined parts of our island ; of having a bell at our door and at our gate !
So very common too were bells then at Rome ; however antiquaries
have ridiculously triumphed at finding them, — seven centuries later !

Dion Cassius relates the same story, with a greater circumstantiality
in the whole, yet with a variation in a single particular, that unite
together in one evidence, and shew bells to have been still more com-
mon at Rome then. Having mentioned " that Augustus dedicated the
" temple of Jupiter, surnamed Tonans," he goes on to relate his
anecdote. " Because of the newness of its name and aspect," he cries,
" and because of its erection by Augustus, but principally because those
" who ascended to the Capitol came first to this temple; men generally
" repaired to it, and worshipped in it." Just so persons repair to
churches on the continent, and pay private worship to God in- them,
those temples and these churches standing equally open through the
whole day. Thus our abbe} -church of Westminster stands also open, not
indeed for the purposes of devotion, but for the gratification of curiosity ;
not a man, a woman, or a child, ever thinking of kneeling in any part
of it, or otferhig up any private prayers in it. So much more an alien
to our breasts and to our lives, is the spirit of prayer in our reformed
country of Britain, than it is in the unreformed regions of the conti-
nent, or than it was among the veiy heathens themselves ! " Augustus,

and (as appears from Strabo, cited by Mr. Pope himself) sometimes both after it. Biit the
evidence of Herodotus is too particular to be ever set aside ; the priests of Egypt and the
priestesses of Dodona uniting in one information to him, that tlie temple at the latter was
ordered to be erected by a priestess from the former, even from the very town of Thebes in it.
\ Suetonius, 91, Augustus : " Cum dedicatani in Capitolio xdem Tonanti Jovi astiilue
" frequentaret, sonmiavit qucri Capitolinum Jovem, cultores sibi abduci, sccjue repondisse,
" Tonautem pro janitore el appositum. Ideoque mox tintiunabuh» fastigium Dcdis redimi-
*' vit, quod ca fere januis Uependebant."

• " therefore^

150 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. Vf,

" therefore, dreamed that the Jupiter of the great temple was angry,
*' at being tlnis made second only to the other; and that he himself an-
" swered, he had put Jupiter Tonans there, only to be a watchman
" hefore the temple ofJttpi'cr Capitol/nus." So ready was the ignorance
of heathenism, and from the very consciousness of its own ignorance,
to split the same god into many, to discriminate parts from parts by tlie
mere contingency of local worship, and to set them all in open hostility
against each other ! So peopled with malignity too was the very heaven
of heathenism, and so spiteful were the very gods of its universe ; these
the exact counterparts of the worst of men, the reflected images of
the devils themselves, and turning that into a very hell ! " And," as
Dio proceeds A\ith his narrative concerning Augustus, " as soon as it
*' was day he hung bells round the temple, to realize his dream ; for
'' those who are watchmen by night about great houses, carry each
" OF THEM A BELL, that thci/ mat/ givc an alarm to one another when
" they ti'ill*." So expensively were the great houses of Rome guarded
by watchmen at night, and such danger were they in of being attacked
by robbers ! But Dio has certainly lost the point of the allusion, as the
hanging of bells round the temple bears no similarity to the bearing of a
•bell in a watchman's hand ; as it evidently refers only to the hanging of
bells at the gate of a great house, and under the eaves of a porter's lodge
there. Yet Dio has usefully informed us by his error, that in his time
at least, and (as he himself beUeved) in Augustus's too, a nightly \\atch
was kept about the houses of the great at Rome ; and that these watch-
men, like those in some of our dock-yards, held each a bell in liis hand,
ready to give an alarm to his brethren of the watch.

* Dio, llv. 733. Tov ru Aio;, t» B^o/i^thc crinaXufnya, vao» xaSttjiffs— Tiii» a»6«ai7rij», to /xe» to, Tfo; to fsvoy
x«i Tt c/ofictlci aula xanyu^a;, to Jf xat, olt ttro rnAvyi!<T% iJ^tlo, y-iyta-lcv^'., o7i Vfjilai ot anovlti (if to KairilitXioji
iriluyj^avEn, Tf0£7(f;^0(i»t»»;v Tf aului nai (ribovlwn, 160^1 Tov AiK, tov iv Tif ^syaAw vaw ovia, ofynv u; x»i t« Stvlifot
tivln (ptpofitvov 'rroniirQei', x«» ix t*]s ixfvii ti siffiiv (us iX'.yy), oji ^{0^v^«)^a Toy Bpcvloivla f;^0'. K«(, iTi/^q
nu»a (yfviloi xn'Ju'v* [>ii'Jaiy«,-J ttvlii iTi^irii-ii /3iteai»iv Tr,v ovtiji'J'v. 01 yaj t«; o-uvoixia; nxlx^ iJvXa(r<rovlE{. kuSv
/ofofiwriv, otrui vnfiaivu» (r<f>jan ovolat jSaXtiSicri JvvKvlai. " Puto legendum xaJw/a;," says an annotator J
" nempe nculii su/jkiunt viteres nummi, qui hodieqne exstant, eta doctis viris sunt express!. — Glossa-
<* rium, Insula, vrc-os, awinm." Notei on Suetonius, 91, Augustus.

SECT, ri.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVED. 151

We find even bells used mfcnnilies at Rome. \Mien they were so com-
mon at the outside of the houses, \\c might he very sure thev were not
uncommon within. But we need not leave the point to an inference, as
we have positive proof of it. The Romans indeed, we see from several
passages incidental but significant in their authors, roused their servants
in a morning bv bells, and ordered their servants by bells to bring
in their meals during the day ; just as commonly, as we have the break-
fast, tlie dinner, or the supper bell among ourselves f . So grossi}- lias
the origin of bells been falsified in the conceits of our antiquaries ! The
Romans had them in ordinary use before they settled in Britain, and
introduced them, as they introduced all their implements of use, with
all their instruments of convenience or elegance, among the provinciated
Britons.

Yet where shall we find that thev cast their bells of a larse size,
raised towers for the reception of them, and so made tliem the deep-
toned summoners to devotion in our churches ? This, no doubt, must
seem almost impossible to be found ; as it restricts us to the purely Chris-
tian period of the Roman residence in Britain, and as A\e have scarcely
any memorials of the period among us. Yet we see towers to churches
on the continent, see them equally in every province of the Roman
empire, see them at all the great churches in every province, and see
them considered as ancient, even appearing as ancient, in all. AVe are
therefore very sure, as far as analogy can give surety, that our chiuch-

t " Lucianus de Mercede conductis indicat, ita familiae signum dari solitum aj evigilandum,

*' tiQ'n Ti tTo xiuJmw iJa»a5-*5) cc-zoTiicxuoo; tu vtvh to r.Si^ov, crvfiTfjiGti; a>u> xa/ xa'li- ; ibidem aliOlKUltO
" post, i1' "■'I''' Taola J(a>.07i(cju!»i(, o nuiwn r);(^iTJ, xa» xi'^ '"''* q^oi»j» i^'"^*' "«' vi^noj-ttt. De lloC

'* signo, vel lubS, qu& etiam utebantur, Seneca epistola xcv. ' Transeo pistorimi turbani,
" tratiseo ministratorum, per quos sigiio dato ad infcrcndani coenam disciirritur.' Idem
" De Brcviutc Vila;, ' Quanta celeri tale, signo dalo, g/aiii adniiiiisleria decurrunt'." Notes
on Suetonius, 91, Augustus, Glairi I Were the Honiaii servants shaved like monies upoQ
the crown of the head, and so called colloquially bald-heads ? No ! Thev were all shaved,
Jike the servants in our roval kitchen at present. So likewise were the stage-dancers, and
the Btagc-playcfs. This I'lautus shews in one shurt passage, " Glabrioreni reddes mihi
" tjuain volsus Kidius est." The word " volsus," however, shews the •' baldness" to have
bscn produced by the operation, not of the razor, but of the tweezer.

towers

152 THE CATIIKDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

towers derive not their origin, any more than om* churches tlicmselves
do, or than our very Christianity does, from Alfred or from any of the
Saxon sovereigns. Our church-towers came undoubtedly to the Saxons
of our island, as they came to all the other nations of the empire, from
that full fountain of refinement, which had been laid open by the Roman
emperors, had carried its enlivening waters over all the provinces,
and been peculiarly turned by Christianity into the channel of religion.
The churches of the Romans in Britain must have had towers to them ;
and we fortunately have an account of one church which proves they
load.

That church, which the Romans built within the city of Canterbury,
afterwards became the cathedral of all England under the Saxons, and
continued to exist below the Conquest. We therefore obtain a descrip-
tion of it. From this we find that it had a tower to it, that it had even
TWO TOWERS. It was Consequently in the very style of some of our
grander cathedrals at present. One of these towers was certainly for
bells, the other perhaps for symmetry alone. Yet Mr. Bentham, all
imconscious of the fact, refers the erection of towers " not only for
"■ necessary use, but often for symmetry and ornament," to some iiide-
Jinite period posteinor to the tenth century. But what is still more
exactly in the style of our grander cathedrals, both the towers were at
the very intersection of a cross. Such a position is considered by Mr.
Bentham, as the full consummation of improvement in the towers of
our churches ; he affirming towers to have been built for use and for
oi'nament in his indefinite period, " particularly when the plan of a
" cross ivas adopteil." Yet can my a\crment possibly be so true as I
state it, and have escaped all notice before ? Can the professed historian
of church-building, its first form, and its subsequent improvements in
this island ; one too, who has an oracular consequence given him by
many, because of some supposed intimations from a man of real
knowledge and real genius ; possibly have been so ignorant as not to
know, or so inattentive as not to consider, a description sweepingly
subversive of all that he says upon the subject ? That my averment is
true, whatever imputations its truth may throw upon Mr. Bentham,
3 let

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 153

let tlic tbllowiiig translation, a literal one, of Eadmer's description of
the church at the moment of its demolition, after a continuance of
about se\'en hundred years, testify to all the world. This church,
" constructed by the hands of the Romans," says Eadmer, " — had at
" the MinDLK of the length of the very hall," meaning the nave
and chancel as forming one room, " two toweks, which projected bc-
" yond the ailes of the church ; — o/ic of them, that to the soutli, having
" an altar in the middle of it," under its four supporting arches, " de-
. *' dicatcd to the honour of pope Gregory the Blessed," so dedicated
when the Saxons were converted to Christianity, " and in the side
" of it that principal door of the church, which was anciently by the
" English, and is even now, denominated the South Door ; — but the
*' oilier tow er was built on the northern side, and opposite to that, in
•' honour of the blessed Martin, having the cloysters in which the
"monks conversed around" the projecting sides of " it." We have
thus the bells, the towers, even the double towers, and the very cross
itself, of our present cathedrals, all united together in this Koman
church of Canterbury ; and two towers fully equal in antiquity, even
prior in time, to our own tower at St. German's*.

But

* Twisden, 1291, 1292. Gervase from Eadmer: " Erat — ipsa — ecclesia — Ronianoriim
" opere facta — ; sub medio longitudinis aula: ipsius, dux turres erant, prominenios ultra
♦' ecclesia alas; quarum una, quae in austro erat, sub honore Bcati Gregorii papae altarc in
*' medio sui dcdicatum habebat, et in latere prlncipale hostium ecclcsias, quod antiquitus ab
" Anglis, et nunc usque, Suthdtire i\c\X.\xv ; — alia vero turris in plaga aquilonali, e rcgione
" illius, condita fuit in honorcm Beati Martini, claustra in quibus monaclii conversaliantur
" hinc inde habens." That in this description " Aula" means the nave and t/w chancel at
forming one room, the following evidence will suffice to shew. The description of Eadmer
begins with, " Majori altari quod in orienlali pre^hjterii parte parieti contiguum erat. Porro
" aliud altarc congruo spatio ante positum pra;dicto altari erat — . Ad lixc altaria nonnnllis
" gradiiiis ascendebaiur a choro cantorum." Nor let us fancy this " choru#canl<)itim" to
be that lower part of the chancel or quire, which contains the stalls of the clergy and the
seats of the singers witliin it, and has frequently an ascent of steps from it towards th(' altar.
No! The context expressly forbids us; the words running thus, " ascendebatur a choro
" cantorum (juam cr'tptam — Romani vocant." Then the crypt he describes in general tJius;
" sul'tiis erat — fabricata, cujws fornix eo in ahum tendebatur, ut snpmiora ejus non niii per
^' pliires gradus posscnt adiri.'^ He next diM-iibes it in particular, thus: " ha>c [iripta]
" jntus ad orientem altare habebat," See. *' via una, quani curvatura criptt;r ipsius ad

vol. n. X *' occidcu:em

\5k THE CATHEDnAL OF COn^■M'ALTl [CHAP. VI,

But let me notice a second church, of the same age nearly with that
of Canterbury, certainly l)uilt with that by the Romans, yet existing
even to the present moment. It exij^ts indeed all unknown, lopt in its
remoteness from the capital of the kingdom, and buried in the unfre-
quented wilds of Scotland. There it still maintains a kind of lingering
existence, attracting no foot of a traveller to it, engaging ho pen, no
pencil of a native, and just shewing itself evanescent in its ruins.

^^'ithin that detached and pcninsulated part of Scotland, which forms
the county of Galloway, and was occupied by the Novantes in the
time of the Romans; the geograjiher Ptolemy, about the year Mo,
mentions a town, which he calls Lucopibia*, and ^hich has naturally
been supposed to be \\^hitern there, a town known to have been
formerly considerable, though much reduced at present. V,'hitcrn in-
deed appears to have actually been, what Lucopibia equally was^ the

** occidentem vergentem concipicbat, usque ad locum quictis Beati Dunstani tendebatur,"
who was buried " ante ipsos gradus." And he finally traces it all under the chancel and
the nave, thus : " inde ad occidentem chorus psallentium in aulam ecclesia porrigelattir,
" decenti fabrica," by its underground position, its flight of steps, and its door, " a
" frcquentia turbs scclusus." Having thus described the undercroft frum east to west,
Eadmcr returns up stairs into the chancel. " Delude sub medio longitudinis aula; ipsius,"
he. But he closes all with this account : " Finis ecclesiae ornabatur oratorio Bcatse Matris
" Dei Marix; ad quod, quia slructura ejus talis erat," the chancel being on ihe same level
with the nave, and the ascent being only to a chapel, " non nisi per gradus cujus\is patebat
" acccssus." This Roman church, tlierefore, difiered considerably in its interior disposi-
tion from its successor, the present church ; its chancel floor 7iot being raised upon arches,
and ascended by steps, above and from the level of the nave, to admit an undercroft exclu-
sively below it ; but its nave running on a level with its chancel, and both having one
conmaon undercroft below them. Yet Gostling, 89, Somner, 92, 93, and Battely, 7, all
overlook this striking diflerence, and represent the old church as vaulted exactly like the new.
. Eattcly also turns the undercroft into the nave, because it is denominated the " chorus
" psallentium ;" as if a nave could be a quire or a quire a nave, as if the " chorus psallcn-
" tium" was not the same with the " chorus cantorum" before, and as if the " chorus
" cantorum" was not expressly denominated the " cripta." And Mr. Denne, in Arch, x,
42, has made the quire indeed distinct from the crypt, but carries the crypt under the quire
only; as in xi. 378, 379, he unites with Battely to contradict himself, by confounding the
crypt and the quire together,
* Ptolemy, ii, 3*

capital

SECT. II.] . HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 155

capital of the Novantes in the days of the Romans. Ivicluird of Ciren-
cester, that lately discovered and very happy illustrator of our Britain
during the settlement of the Romans within it, whom / may claim the
honour of placing in his merited pre-eminence of authority over our
antiquaries, writing thus, " the metropolis of the Novantes is Luco-
" phibia, alias AV'hitern *." At this Lucophibia, or Lucopibu, as the
capital of the kingdom, was fixed the scat of a bishopric ; ^\■he^
Christianity came with her wand of power, transformed the idolatrous
fools of the earth into worshippx3rs of the only God, and modelled
realms into sees for their spiritual emolument. This was alx>ut the close
of the fourth century -f-. And Nynian, a native of Britain, but educated
at Rome, became the first pi-ekite of it ;{:. He \\ as born undoubtedly in
the southern parts of the isle, which, in the progress of Christianity
from Gaule, were converted before the northern ; had there been con-
verted, sent to Rome for his full instruction in the new religion, and at
Rome ordained a clergyman of it. Then that holy fire of zeal, w Inch
burned v\ ithin his bosom, pushed him upon an apostolic journey into the
unconverted regions of the north. He came into Galloway, as tradition
liappily unites with history to tell us, and began his work of love among
the heathen Novantes, in the neighbourhood of their capital. " He
" was the first," as Walmesbury reports expressly, " who preached the
" Gospel of Christ to them §." In this work he seems to have encoun-
tered all that opposition, w hich the very apostles themselves, armed as
they were with powers of a miraculous nature, and carrying either life
or death in the words of their tongues, we know to have equally en-
countered. "^IVadition, wluch dwells upon his name with fondness to
the present moment, points at a cave a few miles from Whitcrn. a dark
and dismal hollow, scooped out by the hand of natiu'e, guarded by the
sea at its entrance, and denominated St. Nynian's Cave by the people;
reporting it to be his place of refuge from the fury of persecution.

* Richard, 29 : " Mclropolis horum [Novantiini] Lucophibia, alias Casx Caiulida:."
t Bide, iii. 4.

X Ibid. il)id. " Dc natioiic Biiuonuni, qui crat Roniac rcgularitcr fiilcm ct inystiria
" vcritalis edoclus,"

§ Malmesbiirv, 155: " Primus ibidem Christi prcBdicatioiieiii cvangclizavii.'

X2 The

150 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VI.

The dismalness and darkness of this hollow, therefore, were then re-
lieved to the apostolic saint, wc may be sure, by the happiness which
he felt in his soul from his ministerial labours, from thfj solid, the.
permanent, the everlasting good which he was endeavouring to do for
the people, and from the very persecutions which he was sustaining for
so acting. . It has often re-echoed probably to the voice of prayer and
praise trom this illustrious confessor, while the scream of the sea-gull
near the mouth, and the dashing of the waves at a little distance from it,
precluded all danger of disclosure by the sounds. But the ;ipostles
triumphed at last, over a world contending strenuously for its own
wretchedness ; and our British apostle prevailed finally, in converting
the Druidical heathens of Galloway. A church now stands upon the
sea-shore, much nearer than the cave to AVhitcrn, and only three miles
from it ; which marks the first step of his triumphant advance towards
the capital. It is very small, but built of stone, now lying most con-
fusedly in ruins, yet averred by tradition to have been the first oratory
that was erected for our religion within the present Scotland. Here
then St. Nynian fixed his standard at first, and hence he moved with it
over all the region. All the Novantes became Christians, the residence
of the king was appointed the equal residence of a prelate, and the
converter of the nation was ordained the bishop of it. He therefore
erected a cathedral for himself at AVhitern * ; that ver}^ cathedral which
is now the object of our inquiry. Yet, when he had done this, he was
urged by the heavenly impulse, which had brought him into Galloway,
and carried him in a course of victories through it ; to engage in a new
mission, and to attempt a new scene of success. This kind of impulse
appears very strange to the philosophy of modern times ; and w very
strange to a/I certainly, ?'?? fchoin philosophy has laid its icy hand on the
heart, and benumbed all the livelier activities of religion within it. Yet

Spirits are not finely touch'il.

But to fine issues.

And a Nynian wa§ one of those finer spirits, that could not bear to
think of a large portion of his countrymen lying buried in the vicious

* Bede^ iii, 4 : ** Cujus sedem episcopalem,— ecclesia insignem, &c."

Ignorance

SECT. 11.] HISTORTCALLY SURVEYED. 15 7

ignorance of heathenism, while the sun of Christianity was at once
enlightening and warming the rest of them. He therefore left his epis-
chpal charge awhile, in order to carry that sun with him to the north,
happily as he had brought it already to the south, of the Roman province
between the walls. A mission for the conversion of heathens unthin
our 0W71 island sounds awfully curious to our minds at present, because
we are accustomed only to think or talk of missions into such distant
countries as Africa, America, or the East Indies. He set out from
Whitern for the north ; but by this time all the province of Valentia had
been converted, and there was no scope for his labours short of the
farther wall. He therefore passed the wall, ventured among the Cale-
donians beyond it, but kept to the tribes along the eastern coast ; and
gloriously consummated his progress of preaching there, by the conver-
sion of all between the sea and the mountains §. Thus did his zeal spire
up victorious in a second flame of fire, and ascend in a still nearer ap-
proach to its kindred fires of heaven : this being done, he returned to
"Whitern, closed a life of exemplary greatness, and was buried in his
own cathedral ||.

From this cathedral did the capital assume a new name, even its pre-
sent one of Whitern. Camden indeed had formerly conjectured its
name of Lucopibia in Ptolemy, to be merely a vicious reading in the
Greek of that author, for A;uy.' OikiIw, the original reading, and answer-
ing exactly to JFh'itern in signification*. This conjecture carried such
a fair face of probability with it, that the human mind, which loves to
rest upon certainties, and is always gravitating to them as its natural
centre, adopted the conjecture implicitly in our anticpiaries; even Richard
of C'irenccster seemed to come in lately, and establish the conjecture for
ever : " the metropolis of the Novantes" he calling " Lucophibia, alias

§ Bale, iii. 4: " Aiisttales Picll — multo ante temporf, ut pcrhibent, rdicto crrore ido-
" lairiac, fidcni veritatis acceperaiit, prxdicante eis verbum Nyiiia, episcopo rcvercnlissimo
" ct saiiclissirno viro."

11 Ibid, ibid. : " Ubi ipse ctiam corporo— requiescit."

• Camden, 692, 693,

" CilSW

138 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

" Casae Candiilce f." Yet the conjecture is demonstrably false, and
even Richard concurs to prove it so : the appellation of IFhitern in
Saxon, or of Casa Candida in Latin, is derived solely and purely from
this cathedral ; Bcde assuring us expressly, that " the place is popularly
" called Ad Caudldam Casam,^' or Whitern, " because Nynian built
"there a cliurchXJ" Ptolemy therefore could knowr no more of the
name than he knew of the cathedral occasioning it; while Richard's
repetition of the name in Latin, \\ith only the variation of a single letter
in it, proves it to have been an appellation unvitiated in itself, and
British in its origin: this was superseded so early as the Roman times
by a title descriptive of the cathedral, the to\\n being then denominated
" Ad Candldam Casam" by the Romans, and from them by the Saxons
afterward " At Whitern." Yet how came the cathedral to attract such
a denomination to Itself, and then to extend it over the town ? Eede
tells us that it was occasioned by " Nynlan's construction of the church
"with stone, m a mode unusual among the Britons §." Yet that
churches were constructed with stone before, is evident from the
churches of St. Saviour and St. Martin In the south, and from the
oratory of Nynian himself in the north. For the former half of this
reason, perhaps, the historian Malmesbury restricts the observation
of Bede to the Britons of Galloway alone, and places the unusual-
ness of the building, not In the stone Itself, but in the polish given
it||. And Major, the Scottish historian, varies equally from Malmes-
bury as from Bede, but comes much nearer to a rational account of the
name, by building Nynlan's church of stones, unusual to the Britons,
because tv/iite*. But the fact is, that the stones of the cathedral In the
ruins of It, in the church erected at a small distance from it, and in the
houses of the to\\'n constructed much out of the palace and the priori/,
the latter yet remaining In part, but the former so torn up from the
very foundations as to have corn gro\\ ing upon the site, appear to be
principally of the sort called the common whin, and occasionally of the

+ Richard, 29: " Metropolis Iioruni Lucopliibm, alias Caesae Candidse."

I Bcde, iii. 4: " Viilgo vocatiir ^Id CaiuUdain Casam, to quod ibi ccclesiam — fecerit."
§ Ibid, ibid- : " Ecclesiam de lapide, insolito Britonibus more, fecerit."

II Malmcsbiirv, f. 155: " Ecclcsiani ibi lapidc polito, Briitonibus miraculum, fecerit."
* Major, f. xxiii. : " Ecclcsiaiu de albis lapidibus Britonibus insolitani."

3 free.

SECT. II.] nrsToniCALLY smrETr.D. I.-.r)

free, the fi"ce partly white but parthj red, the whin neither naturall}'
white nor made white by pohshing, and both supposed at Wliitern to
have been brought from the adjoining region of Cumberland. So egre-
giously does every hypothesis fail us in accounting for the name ! Nor
should I have been able to account for it any better than my predeces-
sors in this walk of history, if a custom still retained at "NMiitern had
not suggested an idea, if I did not see flie passage in Bede very capable
of admitting this argumentatively just, and if I had not found this alone
to be capable of giving an import to the passage historically just. Some
of the inhabitants in the town coat over their houses ■without, in a man-
ner well known among ourselves at present, by mixing up coarse sand
with lime, and dashing it upon their walls. This rough-cast, as it is
denominated, is particularly used in Cornwall, for the same reason pro-
bably that causes it to be used at Whitern, as a preservative against the
damp atmosphere of both regions, so sure to be imbibed by wall stones
nndefended, and throws a pleasing aspect of whiteness also over the
appearance of a house. But the practice appears from Bede to have
been uncommon among the Britons of Galloway, of the north, and of
the south, at the time; as he says the town was called AN'hitern,
" because N\ nian built a church at it of stone, in a manner misual to
" tlte Britons"' at large. Nynian brought the practice probabl}- from
Rome itself; first tried it in a coat upon the priory-lioiise of his cathe-
dral, and so attached an appellation of whiteness to it, to the church of
which it was the mansion annexed, and to the to\\n as it stood in a
proximity with both. Nynian's priory-house is mentioned expresslv with
Nynian's cathedral by a very early chronicle; this as '• his ehnrch,'' but
that as " liis mynster* T both, therefore, as built by Nynian himself;
and a mynster or priory-house is so uniform an appendage to a larger
church, that this very chronicle, in its very commencements, speaks of
such a church expressly as a monastery or mj^nster f, gnd we still give
the appellation of mynster or monastery to many a large church among
us. Thus was the priory-house of our large churches the regular dcno-

* Saxon Chronicle, p. 21.

t A.D. 659: " COynj-rcji on to rymbjuanne." Sax. Chroji.

minator

160 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [<:H\P. VI.

minator of the whole ; and it was ver>' particularly so at Whitern, the
prior}--part being the only one capable of being denominated a Casa, an
Eni; or a small habitation.

This cathedral continued to the days of Bode, tliree hundred years
after the burial of Nyniaii within it- Nvnian, he tells us, " built a
'" church >*« which he himself rests +." — " The South-Picts," adds the
Saxon Chronicle, "were baptized by bishop ISinna, — his church and
" his mynst-er is at Whiternc, — u>hcre he xesteth §." Nor was it de-
stroyed so late as the days of Malmcsbury, he speaking of " A\'hitern"
as " a place in which the blessed confessor Ninia rests — ; the name is
■" derived to the place from the work of Nima in erecting a church
" there," not yet destroyed, as it is plain from his silence, and. yet
containing the body of its builder 1|. Malmcsbury even recites the names
of some of its prelates, the successors of N} nian in his see ; Pectelm,
who was bishop when Bede concluded his history %, Frethewald,
Pecwine, Ethelbrith, and Bealdulf *. " Nor do I find any more," he
cries, " because the episcopate speedily failed ff ;" and so makes a gross
mistake in point of fact, Florence adding Heathored to all, and Fordun
even marking the continuance of the see to 1235 ;{:J. In the days of
Bede the bishopric of Whitern had been raised into an archbishopric,
though Malmesbury has overlooked the incident, and Pectelm sat the
first archbishop in the throne of Nynian §§. But the town began to
decline, and the throne was sure to be removed. Tradition says, with
its usual and almost*unavoidable confusedness of chronology, that in
ancient times the trade from England and France, to Ayre and Glasgow,

J Bcdc, iii. 4 : Ubi ipse etiani corpore — requiescit, — ibi ccclesiam fecerit."

§ Sax. Chron. p. 21.

II Malmesbury, f. 155: " Candida Casa vocatur locus — , ubi beatns confessor Nima
" requiescit; — nonien loco ex opere inditum, quod ecclesiam ibi — feceiil."

^ Bede, v. 33. But Malmesbury forgets that Bede hints at other bishops in iii. 4, saying
that Nynian rests at Whitern, " cum pluribus Sanctis."

* Malmesbury, 155.

+t Ibid, ibid, : " Nee praeterea plures alicubi reperio, quod cito defccerit episcopatus."

^J Florentius, 565; and Fordun, i. 520-523; ii. 6r,

§§ Bede, v. 33,

was

SECT. II.] niSTOniCALLY SURVEYED. l6l

was carried on throiigh this part of the country, and Whitern made the
depository of it. But, as the very strong tides of the Mull of Galloway
ceased to be formidable, navigation probably ventured round the INfuIl
with its freight, and the goods were carried to those tow ns by water :
^^^litern thus sunk in its consequence, and the archiepiscopate was
transferred to Glasgow. Yet the cathedral building still continued at
AMiitern very nearly to the Reformation ; Major speaking of it exactly
as Bede speaks, saying in the sixteenth century as Bede says in the
eighth, " Nynian constructed a church, in ivhich Nynian himself rests ;
" which place was then possessed by the Britons," meaning the Saxons
in the days of Bede ; " but now, for many years past, the place and the
" body of the saint have been owned by the Scots ||." It actually con-
tinued to the very Reformation ; Leland speaking of it as " a handsome
" church, built of squared stones, and taking the appellation of Whilern,
" which is even now the temple of Ninian, the capital city of Gallo-
** way ^."

This cathedral, however, appears not to have weathered that storm of
rapacity which was engendered by the Reformation every where, and
which blew with double violence in Scotland ; then the cold and sullen
genius of presbyterianism being averse to the dignity, and dead to the
sanctity of a church built by a saint, a confessor, an apostle, a new
church was erected only about eighty feet in length, with thirty in
width, even standing north and south, carrying a hall for a cross at each
end above, and having neither tower nor bell to it.

" Still so perverse and opposite,

" As if they worshipp'd God in spite I"

The cathedral was thus left in all the dignity of despised grandeur, like
the ruins of Rome amid the pigmy sons of the world's conquerors, or

II Major, f. xxxiii. : " Ecclcsi.-im— construxit, ubi ipse Ninlanns," &c. «' qm?m locum
" Britoncs tunc octupabant, — s«l jam a multis annis — locum et sanctum corpus Scoii
" habcnt."

^ Dt Script. Brit. 57 : " Bella ecclesia, ex quadratis constructa saxis, Candldx Casx
*' nonicn recepilj quod el uunc fanum Niniani, urbs Gallovidite prima."

VOL. II. Y ^'^'^

]C2 Tlin CVTIItDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. Vr.

like the elegant inngnificcncc of ralm}Ta to the A rah pitehing his tent
lor the niglit hcticath it ; to suffer the devastations of time, to be shaken
with the houhng winils, and to be butieted by the driving rains. It is
traditionally said, however, to have hccn four fi/nes as large as the new
c/iurcli ; tliat is, as far as such vague and general mensurations ean ascer-
tain length or breadth, 320 feet long, with ii'o broad, or about one
seventh short of Exeter eatliedral at present*. Yet a few rude vaults, in
oi]f of which I suppose St. Nynian to have been buried, though his
tomb has perished with his church ; some coarse walls at a little dis-
tance, but both (I presume from their coarseness and rudeness) tlie
very relies of the original church, and eight arches out of the whole of
the original number, now compose the remains of this -venerable cathe-
dral. Some of the remaining arches are round, and some peaked ; the
round appearing to be what " the Norman ambition of building," I
apprehend, reconstructed just after the Conquest, because they have
much work upon them ; a ram's head (a signature, I suppose, of the build-
ing bishop) at the top of one of them, and other ornaments of wreath-
ings, all in a good state of preservation ; but the peaked, as ancient,
very plain. And as the whole is found experimentally to have been
cemented with the lime of those shells with which the fields around are
inexhaustibly replenished, so is it known by report from the fathers of
the present generation, to have been as late as their time built in the
VERY FORM OF A CROSS, with a bcU-tower assuredly at the intersection
of it f .

Yet there is one instance more to be noticed by me, one w hich is not
buried in its ovs n remoteness, and lost in its own solitariness of position,
but overlooked from its very familiarity, unseen from its very brightness,
and therefore sure to appear still more astonishing to my reader. We
have yet a church of the Britons existing almost entire near London,

* Willis's Not. Pari. ii. 261.

f For the local particulars I am indebted to the obliging kindness of Dr. J. Davidson,
the minister of Whitern ; a kindness that would have been more obliging still, if he had
answered my second letter as punctually as he anssvered my first, and as readily replied to
the questions which he invited as to those which I obtruded upon him,

existing

«ECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 1^3

existing unrecognised by our antiquaries, even by its very historian, yet
.shewing a British bell-tower and a British cross at the present nionient.
This is the abbey-church of Saint Alban's, of which we have lately
had an historian in a clergyman of a keen eye, an active understanding,
and a lively judgment ; yet the real history of which, as to the date of
ks component parts, is utterly unknown to the public still. The owl,
that legitimate and authorized type of learning in general, but from its
fondness for moping in darkness, for screaming from the ruined tower,
or for fluttering abcnit the ivy- mantled temple, the peculiarly apposite
tvpc of antiquarian literature in particular, is even more confounded by
the effulgence of noon-day about her than by the gloom of midnight.

That in ten or twelve years after the martyrdom of St. Alban, a
church was erected upon the present ground in honour of his memory,
appears evident from Bcde and Gildas together*. This church conti-
nued to the days of Gildas, as he tells us in his lamentation over the
success of the Saxons, that " the place of sepulture for the bodies of the
" holy martyrs, and the scenes of their sufferings ;" meaning, however,
the scene and place only of St. Alban's sufferings and sepultiu'e, as is
evident from the only martyrs that he has noticed, Alban of Verulam,
Aaron and Julius of Caerleon, " if they had not been taken from our
" countrymen in a mournful divorce made by the barbarians, would
" have impressed upon the minds of beholders no small ardour of divine
" lovef." The church of St. Alban, therefore, was not destroyed by
the invading Saxons, as the creduhty of antiquarianism has hitherto
believed ; but, as the language of Gildas proves, was ojily taken from
the Britons. Nor was it destroyed by the Saxons after their settlement,
in any paroxysm of zeal for heathenism : they who spared the churches
of St. Martin and St. Saviour at Canterbury, were not likely to destroy

* Bede, i. 7 : " Redeiinte tcinpomm Clirislianornni scrcnitate ecclcsia c^t — exstructa;"
and Gildas Hist. viii. " Bilustro stipradicti tiirbinis nciduni ad integrum adimplflo, — bas^i-
'• lica? sanctorum martyrum fmulant, construunt, perficiunt."

t Gildas Hist. viii. : " Sanctorum martyrum — corporum sepulture et passionum loca, si
" non iuguhri divortionc barharorum — civibus adimcrentiir, noii iiuiiinuini iiUucnttuni men-
■" tibus ardorem diviivx charitalis iacutca-nt."

y 2 a church

^94 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

a church at St. Alban's. This church actuallv" siirv'ived the heathenism,
as well as the hostility, of the Saxons; became a celebrated church
among them, upon their conversion to Christianity ; and still bore its
original name from the protomartyr of Britain. The fact appears so late
as the eighth century of our tcra, and the days of Bede ; because that
historian gives us a particular account of St. Alban's martyrdom, and
speaks of his church as then existing, as " a chui'ch of wonderful work-
" manship, and worthy of such a martyr*." This church, conse-
quently, lasted to the days of Olfa's visit to Verulam in 790, only fifty-
five years after the death of Bede. Accordingly we see M. Paris, the
private historian of the abbey, though under a gross delusion of belief
that the Saxons had demolished the church before -f ; yet finding f/icn
on the site " a certain church, small in its size, constnicted there with-
" out the walls of Verulam, in honour of the blessed raartjr, and con-
" structed by the new converts to Christianity |." In this church
was the raised body of St. Alban now placed for the first time, and
paintings, tapestries, with other ornaments, were hung upon the walls
to decorate them § : M. Paris, indeed, avers this church to have been so
decorated with ornaments, and so honoured with the body, only till a
larger could be built ||. Yet, as his own account proves it to have been
built by " the new converts to Christianity," so Bede's brief description

• Bede, i. 7 : Ecclesia est mirandi operis, atque ejus martyrio coudigna, exstructa." It
seems a very wonderful want of attention and thinking, that Mr. Newcome, the recent
historian of this abbey, who, in p. 24, refers expressly to B^Jc for " a church — early erected
" here," to St, Alban, " with admirable art, though of t'lmler and plank," which Bede
does not aver, we see, and his very notice of " admirable art," by implication denies; yet
never refers to Bede for the existence of it in the days of Bede, and even intimates that it had
been demolished long before. But Bede evidently speaks from vision, mediate or immediate,
concerning the church; and proves he does so speak, by these words directly following : " in
" quo videlicet loco," at the tomb of St. Alban, " zisque in hanc diem, curatio intlrmorum
" et frcquentium operatlo virtutum celebrari nan desinit."

t M. Paris, 983.

X M. Paris, 984 : " Quandam ecclesiolam, ibidem extra iirbem Vcrolamium a necphytis
" in honorem beati martyris constructam."

§ M. Paris, 984.

11 M, Paris, 984,

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. l65

of the same church proves it vot to have been what Paris presumes to
call it, " a church small in its size," but what the decorations given by
PtFa argue it to have been, " a church of wondertul workmanship, and
" worthy of such a martyr." Nor does even Paris mention any other
church to have been built by Offa for his monastery, or to have been
erected by Offa over the saint's remains ; he mentions only, that " from
" houses of most regular religiousness did OfFa assemble a convent of
"monks to the tomb," and "appoint an abbot over them*." He.
mentions only that Utia, " at his own expense, constructed all the
*' buildings except an old edifice which he found erected formerly out of
" the ancient cdifees of the heathens f; which was plainly as " an old
" edifice," this very church of the Romans, now nearly five hundred
years old, which was only supposed to have been " erected formerly
** out of the ancient edifices of the heathens," because it was composed
of tlie same sort of materials as they ; and which, if so erected by the
Saxons, could not possibly have been " formerly" erected, or be " an
" old edifice" now, the Saxons of Middlesex and Hertfordshire being
even converted to the Gospel merely about one hundred aiid thirty
years before J. And he mentions only that OlFa " in his monastery
" which he had bcgim from the foundations, within four or five years
" after he began the pious work, had in a style of excellence erected
" nearly all the officinal buildings § ;" all the buildings officinal to that,
which was the principal and denominator of the whole — the church ||.
Nor does Paris note any other church to have been built for the relics or

* M. Paris, 986 ; " Monachorum — conventum ex domlbus ordinate [ordinatae] reli-
" gionis — ad tumbam congregavit, ct abbatem eis," &c.

t M. Paris, 986: " .F/Jificia omnia praetcrquain prislinum, quod invenit de veteribus
" aedificiis paganoruiii pridcm factum, sumptibus propriis conslruxit." Mr. Newcome has
totally overlooked this remarkable fact.

X Ijcdc, iii. 30.

§ M. Paris, 987 : " Fere omnia officinalia xdificia laudaliiliter in ccenobio suo, quod a
" fundamcntis inchoavcrat, tedificavcrat infra quartum quintimive annum postquam pium
" opuB illud inchoavcrat." Mr. Newcome overlooks the language here, as he had overlooked
the fact before, though he actually translates the language into " all the offices and necessary
" buildings," p. 29.

H So eccksia is used for the whole monastery in M. Paris, 986, &c. &c.

5 for

l6(5 THK CATHEDRAL Ol- CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

for the convent, by any of the Saxon abbots afterward. Yet he shews
us I'lsin or L'lsig, the sixth abbot, encouraging a town that had now
begun to rise on the outside of tlie monastery, by inviting persons to
settle in it, by laying out a market-place for them, by assisting them
witli money or materials for the erection of houses, and even building
no less than three churches for them *. But what proves Oifli to have
constructed no new church for his abbey, A Id red the eighth abbot
appears only one hundred and lifty years after Offa searching into the
ruins of Verulam, " laying up those materials which he found tit for an
" edifice, and reserving them for the fabric (f the church ; as he had
" dvtermived, if he could be furnished \\ ith the means, to tear dofcn
" the ancient church, and to build it anew-f.'' But, " when he had
" collected a great quantity of materials for the fabric of the church, he
" was prevented by an over-early death, and obliged to leave the work
'■' undone!}:." His immediate successor, Eadmer, " did not disperse or
" consume what Aldred had collected /wr the construction of the church ;"
even searched for more in the ruins of Verulam, and " reserved all that
" were necessary for the fabrication of that church, which he proposed
" to fabricate to the holy martyr A/ban ," yet " did not so far please God
" and tlve martyr, as to erect and finish a house for the martyr hini'
" self^.'^ After him the intention was never revived by any of the
Saxons, and even the very search for materials was discontinued by
them all : yet the intention was never abandoned, as the materials in
general remained entire to the Conquest, and the application of them
vk'as then begun [|,

llius

* M. Paris, 993,

t M. Paris, 994 : " Qiios invenit aptus [aptos] ad asdificia seponens, ad fabricam ecclesiat
" reservavit; proposuit enim, si facultates suppctercnt, diruta veteri ecclesla novani con-
" slriiere."

J M. Paris, 994: " Cum jam multam — ad fabricam ecclesiae coacen-dsset quantitatem,
•' matura nimis mortc praeventus, imperfecto negotio, viam universa; carnis est ingressus."

§ M. Paris, 994 : " Adquisita — ad ecclesiam conslruendam, non dispersit vcl consumpsit ;"
995, *' quae ccclesite fabricandae fuerunt necessaria, sibi reservaret, quam proposuit sancto
•♦ martyri fabricarej" 994, "non in tantum placuit Deo ac martyri, ut domum ipsius
" martyris sedificaret et coiisummaret."

It These remarkable incidents in the history of St Alban's church, so hostile and ruinous

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY ST7RVEVF.D. I67

Thus we have deduced the church of the Britons down to the rera of
Uie Conquest ; when Paul, a Norman, became abbot, brou^i^ht witli him
all the Norman spirit of building, and began the long-intended reno«
ration of the church. " He-re-cditied," says Paris, " this church aud
" the other buildings, except the bakehouse and millhouse, out of the
" materials collected and reserved by his predecessors*." The recent
historian accordingly tells us, that Paul, who became abbot in 1077,

to Mr. Newcome'» notions, are recorded faithfully by Mr. Newcome, in p. 34, 35. But then
he has deprived them of all power of hurting him, by what I must call a little of the craft of
authorsliip, at the very beginning. The words in M. Paris, 993, are uncommonly forcible,
as the abbot's intention is declared to have been, " diruta veleri ecclesia," to pull down the
ancient church, the church which had now lasted about six centuries and a half, which
might therefore with strict propriety he called ancient. Yei how does Mr. Newcome deal
with a language, so pointedlv contrary to his opinions ? lit relates its point, by this too
ainning kind of version ; the abbot being said bv him to have " determined to pull down
" the present fabric, which had served for a church." (P. 34.) Mr. Newcome will not call
it a church, though M. Paris calls it such; says even in contradiction direct to Paris, that
it had only " served for a church ;" and, because it could not be ancient if built by OfTa,
while Mr. Newcome believes it to have been so built, suppresses entirely all Paris's mention
of its antiquity. Such is history in the hands of hypothesis; a torch endeavouring to en-
lighten the stone-blind, a sun attcnijiting to mult the polar ice !

• M. Paris, 995, says, that Lcotric the tenth abbot sold " thesaurum ad fabricam eccle-
'* six diu ante reservatum, cum colunmis, tabulatibus, in terra (ut dictum est) inventis,
" cum materiae [materia] clidm," or with the timber. Yet all so sold could not be much
to the whole, as in looi we find that *' iste [Paulus] banc ecclesiam, c£etcra<)uc asdificia
" prseter pistorium et pinsinochium, re-aedificavit ex — malcric — quani invenit a pra^dcces-
" soribus suis collectam et rescrvatara." But Mr. Newcome adopts both, however contra-
dictory, and even inflames the contradiction between them ; consistent only in following
his author through all contradictions very faithfully. In p. 36, he says, Leofric " sold the
" materials which had been gathered, with all the columns or pillars, and stone-pavements
•' preserved out of the old city." Yet in p. 45, See. unconscious seemingly of his own ter-
giversation, he furnishes Paul with materials for rebuilding the church from what luid been
thus gathered. The " stone- pavements" too, which he (inds in Paris's " tabulatibus"
above, answering to the " antiques tabulatus lapideos" of abbot Eadriier, he himself found, .
in p. 35 before, to be very truly " slabs of stone," as being eqiialfy " cum tcgulis et
*< cohmmis," said there by Paris to be " ecclesise fabritaudte nccessaria." And '• the
" materials which had been gathered" in Mr. Newcome, are merely " the money whichr
" had been reserved" in Paris, " tliesaiirum ad fabricam ecclesis din anlc reservatum, cunt
**coliimnis, tabulatibus," and " c«;» niatcri.^.."

** withii*^

]fi8 THE CATHF.DnAL OF COUXWALL [cHAP. TI.

" within the first eleven years of his government rebuilt the church f ."
Mr. Newcome thus speaks a language as comprehensive as Paris's, and
exhibits Paul for the rebuilder of the tchoL'. Yet he instantly contracts
his own language \\'ith Paris's, and attributes only a part to Paul.
*' When it is said by my author M. Paris," he cries, " that Paul rebuilt
" the church ; this must be understood only of so much of the present
" bui/dijig, as comprehends +" what is in truth and fact no part of Paul's
building. What part then did Paul construct ? This is pointed out to us
by such decisive signatures, that we can only wonder in amazement at
"Mr. Newcome's missing them. " Just below the screen," he informs
us himself, as he goes from east to west, be\ ond the screen, about the
middle of it, " on the south side, are four or five arches and piers of the
" most beaut ful style in the whole building §." These therefore answer
very exactly to that " Norman ambition" of bidlding, concerning M'hich
we have heard so much before. But w^e have another signature, still
more decisive. " As a mark of the antiquity of the — beautiful part," he
adds himself, without perceiving tlie force of his own evidence, " there
" may be seen at the spring of the arches the head of Lanfranc, of Offa
" and his queen, and of Edward the Confessor ; and over their heads are
" the arms of England," &c, ; " all cut in the Totternhoe stone, and
" very entire at this day |j." The head of Lanfranc appropriates this
" beautiful part" of the whole to Paul, because Paul was a near relation
to Lanfranc, even so near (according to the surmise of some about a
century afterwards) as to be his son, and certainly beloved by him with
all the afFection of a father for a son ; Paul being brought into England
by Lanfranc, from his own abbey of Caen, made abbot of St. Alban's
by the interest of Lanfranc, and supplied by Lanfranc with great sums of
money for this reconstruction 5[. Here, therefore, "just below the
" screen," we are certain of the hand of Paul. But can we trace his hand
any farther ? AVe can, by the guidance of Mr. Newcome, yet in con-
tradiction to his purpose. " From the screen before mentioned to the
" great west door," as we are told by him, " we see how the work did
" improve," and in that as well as in the part immediately preceding
*

t P. 45- J P. 45. i P. 94- II P- 94. il M. Paris, looi.

here,

Sect, ii.] historically surveyed. 169

here, behold "all the several specimens o( good and complete huUdlng. —
" Indeed, so complete and perfect is the style of these beautiful parts,
*' that the authors may be thought to have reached the summit of their
*' art: for it is not only calculated for strength and duration, but the
" proportion of the several parts of the arch and its columns is most ex~
" f/uisite, and contrived v^'ith so much Judgment, that they lose nothing
" of their beauty, though placed more than forty feet above the eye of
" the observer. These specimens of the perfect Gothic are equal, in
" themselves, to any tvork in ant/ cathedral ; but yet, as they consist oidy
" of four or fee arches in each specimen, they appear not with that
" commanding admiration [admirablencss], which results from a whole
" and complete building erected in this style *." These fine parts all
unite to attest the fine architecture of the Norman Paul. Yet how the ar-
chitecture of Paul comes thus to be broken into parts, into " several speci-
" mens," with " four or five arches in each specimen ;" Mr. Newcomc
never thinks of informing us, and we must therefore inform ourselves.
The first specimen is " the beautiful part" of four pillars, that exhibits
the head of Lanfranc upon the spring of one of its arches ; and with
this, therefore, as we may be sure, Paul began. He then pursued the
work towards the western door, leaving (as Mr. Newcome's language
implies, and his ground-plan shews) one pillar of the ancient church,
different in shape and size from the others before ; and beyond it form-
ing a second specimen of four pillars, exactly the same as his preceding,
but ranging up to the door itself f. Leaving the door in its ancient
jitate, as 1 shall soon shew, he went on again upon the northern side,
moved eastward, and formed a third specimen of three pillars ];. Here
then we have the whole of w hat was built by Paul ; as the head of
Lanfranc at the beginning, the beauty of the ^^hole, with the separa-
tion into parts, the dissimilarity of these pillars from the others, and
those attestations of history or remains, which I shall now produce, all
unite to evince. Abbot Warren dying in 1 ic)5, after a government of
near twelve years, John, his^icccssor. " undertook the repair or rebuild-
'* ing of ///(• west front of the church," says Mr. Newcome; and then

• l\ 46, 94, ami 95. t See the ground-pl.ln at p. 306, J GroimJ-plan, p. '306.
VOL. II. z puzzles

170 THE CATIIEDR\L OF CORXWALL [cHAP. Vf.

puzzles himself, as he well may, to account for this front being
" ruinated" so soon after he supposes Paul to have rebuilt it§. But the
ruinated state of it in so short a time, proves at once that Paul had not
rebuilt it. Nor v^-as this a mere repair, but a total reconstruction ;
made too, not by Paul, but by John, a hundred years afierv^ard. Ac-
cordingly Paris acquaints us, that John " tore down to the ground the
" wall of the front of our church || ;" the western end being in full
propriety denominated the front, because there, as at our own St.
German's, was the grand doorway into the church, and the buiUling
was entered, as all long buildings should be, at the lower end. Nor
was this front completed again till many years afterward^. This front
then formed a second interruption, in Paul's fabrication of the churcli ;
and, after the next three pillars of the north, came an absolute con-
clusion to it. For after them appear in the ground-plan six pillars
ranging up to the screen, the same in size and form with the one at the
western end of " the beautiful part," first mentioned, and answering
to that as well as to the " four — piers" of this part. " Directly opposite
** to these" piers, says ISIr. Newcome himself, are " on the north side
" five" arches but six piers " of the most rude and ordinary" style*.
These, therefore, like the one pillar, still existing on the south, and,
like the western front, existing for nearly one hundred years after Paul's
^^rection, are parts of the ancient church of the Britons, all left standing
<at the time of Paul's erection, and so remaining all except that front to
this day. The rest are three sets of pillars, four, four, and three, that
" consist only of four or five arches in each specimen," yet are all
•together " specimens of the perfect Gothic," forming " several speci-
" mens of good and complete building," being even " equal in thcm-
" selves to any work in any cathedral," in which " the authors may be
*' thought to have reached the summit of their art-f-."

Thus
§ P. 92, 93.

U M. Paris,- 1047 : " Muriim frontis ecclesii nostrae.in terram diruit."
«f Ibid. 1054, as printed, but 1062 in reality, " Opus frontale," &c.

* I'- 94-

+ Mr. Nevvcome, p. 45, asserts that Paul, " within the first eleven years of his govern-

*' meiit, rebuilt the church and all the adjacent buildings of the monastery, except the

" bakehouse

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SUUVETED. I7I

Thus fur \vc have accounted for all that half of the church, which is
to the west of the screen ! Nor have we }et reached the object and aim
of our investigation. We shall soon reach it, ho\\ever. Ilie same
sort of pillars continues upon earli side to the altar + ; as we have seen
six on the northern and one upon the southern, before. All this half too
being " so much — as comprehends the choir — , the tower — , and the
" cast end called the saint's chapel, where stood afterward the shrine
" of Alban, with the transept north and south, and part of the nave,
" as far only as the screen ; — all — is of 07w uniform style, and in the
*' plainest and rudest form of the Gothic ^^ This therefore agrees
completely in style with the six piers immediately on the north, de-
scribed before as " of the most rude and ordinary" st}'le. And both
combine \\ ith the one upon the south, to prove all of them the grand
remains of that ancient church, which was built by the Britons, which
exists only in a single pier on the south of the nave, ?/'cs^of the screen,
but shews no less than six piers on the north, even exists complete in
the nave east of the screen, in the transept, and in the quire*.

Nor

" bakehouse and millliousc." He thus does wrong unintentionally to M. Paris, who says
merely of Paul, that " iste hanc ecclesiani cxteraque cvd'tjicia," absoUitcly all whether
adjacent or not adjacent, " prxlcr pistorium ct piiishiochium, rc-.xditicavil." Eut that M.
Paris does not mean all which even his words import, is plain from two succeeding passages;
in one of which he repeats, that Paul constructed " ecclcbiam — cum multh aliis ocdificiis"
(p. 1002); while in the other he declares, that Lanfranc died when Paul had been abbot
about twelve years ; but LanFr.inc's successor, Ansclin, assisted Paul 'mjinishiiig the churchy
" quod tmperfeclum crat in xdificiis eccleslce Sancti Albani juvit — cousiimmare," and that
Paul, in I he four remaining years of his life, romplcfed all which he had hcgiin, " omnia
" qi\x iucoppit laudabilitcr consummavit." (P. 1004.) This second operation of Paul's is
precluded by Mr. Neweome above. Yet in the very next page he admits it, as he hints at n
part of the building being raised " in the later years of Paul."
:f Ground-plan.

§ P. 45-

* Mr. Ncwcomc, p. ^6, asserts a part of the church, we^t of the screen, to iiave bcci)
built in the later years uf Paul, or the " legiiiniiig of liis immediate successor *' Richard's
" lime ;" while all is atliibuted to Paul alone, as we have seen in a note before, by M.
Paris himself. Yel, in p. 53 and 93, Mr. Neweome adds, that " abbot Rieliard — built
" the screen," and a chapel ne.ir it; when Paris, who mentions the chapel, says not .a
6\ liable concerning the screen (p. 1006) ; whLH indeed Paris says, p. 1002, thai Paul built

2 % the

J72 THE CATHEDRAL OF COKXWALL [CHAP. V>.

Nor can any allegation from Mr. Nevvcome, as if these speaking
varieties of architecture were produced by the ditference of the materials
used, have the weight of a feather in the scale. " One principal cause
" of the plain and rude style of Paul's building," he cries concerning the
ciistern half of the church, and so mounts into the air instead of mining
in the ground for his diamonds, " was this ; that his materials, namely,
" the Roman tile, would not admit of so many shapes and forms,
" and elegant curve lines, as stone would, being too hard to be cut,'*
when stone was not f ! ! ! So readily can the disquisitivc mind ascribe an
incompetent cause, even to an imaginary principle, what every think-
ing one must refer to a difference of times ; attribute equally rudeness
and elegance of architecture to the Normans ; and impute that to their
use of certain materials, while it refers this to their disuse of them, as
if a difference of materials could ever give a difference of architecture,
and turn nxdeness itself into very elegance ; when, all the while, the

the whole church, " totam ecclesiam," and when the screen, lying so immediately close to
Lanfranc's, with the other heads on the springs of the arches, " about fifty feet lelow the
*' choir" (p. 53), therefore arbitrary and artificial in itself, was apparently set up by Paul
as tlic terminating line betwixt the old work and his new. But, at p. 93 and 52, Mr.
Newcome is imprudent enough to affirm, concerning the dedication of the church under
abbot Richard, in 11 15, that this proves Paul to have " made a perfect new structure from
*' the ground, and not a repair of the old church ;" though the church had been always
dedicated to St. Alban, though it has continued dedicated to St. Alban ever since, and
though the dedication of 1 115, therefore, can mean merely the re-opening of it for ser\'ice.
The church of Ely, which was so burnt by the Danes, as that the clergy, " prout poterant,
" porticus ecclesicB re-sarcientes, divinum officium solvebant;" but which" was so rebuilt by
Brythnoth, that " ex parte — lapsa, velut nova, non sine grandi labore adimplevit, ac deinde,
" tectis yeparatis qua: fuerant igne consumpta, templum rursus cedificatum, non minus
♦' eximium aut eminens quam prius, apparuit;" was yet dedicated anew, " dcdicationis
" diem obtinuerunt," and the dedication was mere^y a re-opening, " juxta ritum dedica-
" tionis templi in hymnis et confessionibus Deum benedicubant, sicque post sancta missa-
•'' rum veneranda officia — festum agebant." (Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 602, 604, 605.)
The same church also has a reconstruction in one part, and an addition in another, yet is
again dedicated. " Ipse — asdificavit," says the same historian, concerning a bishop conse-
crated in 1229, " novum opus ecclesice nostr?e versus orientem a fundamentis — , ipse etiam
" construxit de novo turrim ligneam versus Galilxam ab opere caementario usque ad sum- .
" mitatetn — j novo opere constructor tota ecclesia — dedicaU erat." (Ibid. 636.)

t P. 45.

same

SECT. 11.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYF.D. 173

same sort of materials was actually used in the elegant and in the rude
parts of the building! " Paul's building was not foi-med either wholly
" or principally of the Roman tile." It was formed, as I have already
she^v^l, " of the materials collected and reserved by his predecessors."
What then were these materials ? Ealdred's are declared expressly to
have been " whole tiles and such stones as he found Jit for a huiUUng%'^
Eadmer's are expressly said to have been " ancient slabs of stone, with
" tiles and pillars §." And, when Paul at last applied them to their
destined use, they are noticed as being the " the stones and tiles of the
" ancient city Verolam ||." The Roman tile, therefore, hardly consti-
tuted a part of Paul's materials; as the stones alone are pronounced to have
been " found fit for a building." " This construction," however, cries
Mr. Newcome again, concerning the eastern half of the church, " is
" said to be entirely built of brick, that is, of the Roman tile^.'' By
whom is this said ? By M. Paris, as Mr. Newcome should have re-
ported ; but by Paris in such a manner, as precludes for ever Mr. New-
come's restriction of brick to tile. He who has just before averred Paul
to have re-ed'iied " the church and the other buildings — with the stones
" and tiles of — Verolam," comes again averring Paul to have constructed
" the church — with many other edifices, of b}-ick work *." Tile there-
fore is not all that is meant by such work, as real bricks are at least
included under the name. But in fact they are not merely included,

now appearing to be the very " stones found fit for a building,"

and, as such, opposed directly to tiles. So strangely has Mr. Newcome
applied the assertion of Paris uncited, to a part of the church M'hich
(according to his own account) must be in fact and realiti/ " entirely
•■' built of — the Roman tile,'' because " the rudeness of this work is
" entirely owing to the rude and untractable nature of the materials,

X M. Paris, 994: " Tcgulas — integras, et lapides quos Invenit aptus [aptos] ad xdificia
•' scponens," &c.

§ M. Paris, 995: " Antiques tabulatus lapidcos, cum tcgulis et coluninis."

g M. Paris, looi : *' Ex lapidibus et tcgulis vcteris civitalis Verolaniii."

• M. Paris, 1002 : " Paulus— totam ccclesiam Sancti Albani, cum mullia aliis acdificiis,
" operc construxit latcritio."

" which

174 THE CVTHnDK.VL OP CORNWALL [ciIAP. VI.

" which are wholly of the Roman tUe\\' when Paris actually declares
the materials of Paul to have been brick as well as tile, and when the
\\ hole is therefore denovninated by Paris a pile of bricli-tvork. " The
" slabs of stone" and the " pillars," m hich equally with the tiles and
bricks were collected from tlic ruitis of A'criilam, were 7iot used in the
construction ; because they had been actually sold before, as articles
much more saleable than the others, by Lcofric the tenth abbot |.
Even in those parts west of the screen, which appear plainly to have
been the construction of Paul, Mr. Newcome errs as egrcgiously as
before ; affirming " the beautiful part," which is peculiarly Paul's, be-
cause it bears Lanfranc's head upon it, to have been built " of stone" as
" entirely," as the opposed arches on the north are " of the Roman
" tilc§." But, as the " stone" of Paul appears plainly to have been
mere brick, this substitution of real stone for it cannot be allowed to
INIr. Newcome. The buiUling materials, in truth, are uniformly the
same through the two grand parts of the church ; not desultorily, tile
here and stone there, or stone and tile united at times, as ^Ir. New-
come vary ingly fancies ; not "entirely Roman brick, fetched by the
" abbots from the old city," as Dr. Stukcley imagines, in " the ancient
" part of the monastic church and the steeple || ;" but Imck, fetched
*• from the old city," for the Xornian only, for parts tve-^t of the screen,
not for the steeple, therefore, not for any parts east of tlie screen at
all, and tile used in all " the ancient" or Ante-Norman *' parts." That
the " ancient" were British, is plain from there being no Saxon ; and
that those were formed of tile alone, which had been burned by the
Romans cotemporary with the erection, however strange it certainly
seems to have a church of tiles, is equally plain from the composition of
the western front, which, at the demolition of it, about the year 1200,
is attested by Paris to have been " compacted of indissoluble cement and
*' ancient tiles ^." A\'e thus form a difference of materials very striking

t P. 45.

X M. Paris, 995 : " Anti<iuos tabulatus lapideos."

§ P. 94.

II Slukeky's Itin. Car. 117.

f M. Paris, 1047 : " Murum froatis ccclcsice nostrai, vcterlbus tegulis et cxnicnto In-
** dissolubili coaipactum."

3 'in

SECT, II. J HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 1^5

in itself for the parts, old or new, jiot what Mr. Newcomc has sug-
gested, all stones m the new and all tile.^ in the old ; hut all tiles m the
old, all bricks m the new, and no stones (except on the shields or heads)
in either new or old. Hence does the whole church, in full conformity
with its history, upon chipping away its seeming face of stone, to this
day, shew us the redness of brick beneath ; of brick, either as in its
proper dimensions of brick, or as reduced into the tenuity of tile. Wc
thus sweep away at once with the gigantic hand of history, all that
frivolity of reasoning from, a falsity of allegation, which Mr. Newcome
has repeatedly produced, to account for the rudeness and the elegance
of different parts in the same church ! And we can now say Avith a
triumphant inversion of his meaning, " as to the very rude part of the
*' building, viz. the four piers and arches that support the tower, the
" whole of the choir, the two transepts, and the five arches above
** mentioned," on the north ; " the rudeness" does argue something,
even much, even very much, " for its" and their " antiquity," and for
" its being a mark of originality" severally to all*. Tlie ru<leness of
the plain parts, and the elegance of the beautiful, senc respectivelv to
prove, in union with history, the posterior and the prior parts of the
whole f .

At last then have we found a British church, not hid behind even the
thin veil of history, but coming forward to our very senses ; that has a

* P. 94.

t With this notice of tiles and bricks at Verulam, all confessedly " made on the spot"
by the Romans (p. 27), Mr. Newcome is coiUradiiHory enough to sav, in p. 283, that
" tiles and bricks of clay, and burnt, were inveitti d ahowX. 1440, and not earlier." lie even
adds, in p. 481, that the house at Gorham, close to the walls of yerulam, which in the text
is said to have been " perhaps built when abbot Robert first granted thcsr lands to his kins-
** man from Gorham in Normandy ;" in a note shews *' on demolishing the same a few
"years ago, — tlie walls had been built in chest-work, l<mght:'ioK\\\c hiventwH uf Irkk ov
" regular building in stone." Yd, in p. 502, we find that this antediluvian house is really
later than the coming of the " kinsman from Gorham in Normandy," as " the foundations-
" of the first original house, here built and inhabited by Roiert dv Gorhatn, are discernible
" in the present park, situate eastward of the new mansion." But, in p. 50a, 48 1, we even
find from tradition, and an inscription united^ that this antediluvian, house was actually
finished so late as the tenth oi Elizabeth.

CROSS

i;6 THE eATIir.DIlAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VL

CROSS reaching out its arms north and south, with a bell-towf.r on the
four arches over the very intersection of the cross. Nor is this tower
and this cross merely what had heen built, like St. Saviour's at Canter-
bur>-, perhaps, a Uttlc before the dei);ulure of the Romans out of
Britain; but what the Romans Jmd built at Yerulam a luimbrd and
forti/ years before, in their first transports of zeal for Christianity at the
end of a violent persecution, and in tlieir first effusions of triumph over
the last, the most violent of all which their religion had ever endured
before. We have indeed been long and laboriously employed in digging
down to this mine ; yet the rich vein of ore, which we have found at tlic
bottom of our shaft, has amply repaid us for all our trouble %.

To these accounts of our ancient churches, ho\\ever long the accounts
are, I cannot but add another, Acry short indeed, yet equally unnoticed
liitherto, and strikingly conclusive in itself. AVhen the church of
Ramsey abbey was built, so early as pOc), and " the work," says the
historian, " rises ev^ry day higher; t\\o towers appeared above the

% Mr. Newcome, p. 94, conjectures, from the Saracen captives in the crusades being
once given by the king of Portugal " to serve the builders in the repairs of the churches;"
that " hence" the Gothic " may have been called the Saracenic architecture," wheniit
was so called first on a mere guess, by Sir Christopher Wren. See the Parentalia. On this
guess, however, so many of our best critics, Lowth, Warburton, &c. have grounded the
fantastical humour of denominating the Gothic style the Saracenic ; that Mr. Newcome goes
to search for the origin in the clouds, and very near the fountain of the Nile, to suppose
the Nile derived from the moon. "The crusades," cries Mr. Warton, " — dictated the /)o/«/cd
"arch." (Observations on Spenser, ii. 188.) So have said a hundred others. But they
have all said so from guess at first, and against fact at last. This I have shewn decisively,
in the present work. Yet it is equally shewn by another writer, from an actual survey of
Saracenic buildings. " In the buildings I have had opportunities of examining in Spain and
" in Sicily," says a judicious and observant traveller over both countries, *' I liave?tevcr been
" abl^ to discover any thing like an original design, from which the Gothic ornaments might
*' be supposed to be copied. The arches used in our old cathedrals, are pointed ; those of
•■• the Saiacens arc almost semicircular, whenever they are not turned in the form a horse.
** shoe," (Swinburne in Spain, ii. 262.) Such, therefore, are the airy conjectures with
which scholars, like schoolboys with their paper kites, enlightened perhaps by a lantern at
ihejf tail, delight to amuse their hours of leisure, engage their eye« with a transitory lustre,
jttui attr&ct tte gaze of the public to it I

SECT, n.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. J 77

" very summit of the roof, the lesser of which was in the front of the
" minster to the west, and presented a fine object from afar to the en-
" terers into the aile, but the greater stood in the middle of the four
" DIVISIONS of the church, upoii four columns that were preserv^ed
" from warping with the w^eight, by arches reaching from the one to
" the other." This was " an edifice sufficiently respectable," as the
WTiter goes on with all a Nor/nan's ambition for novelty and greatness
in structures ; " upon that style of building which was used in f/iose
" days of old antiqrnty*.'' Here then we have a Saxon church exhi-
bited to our view by the pencil, in all the pomp and pride of a modern
cathedral ; Avith a small tower at the w^estern end of the front of the
whole, and a large tower upon the intersectioii of the cross ailc, as the
centre of the w^iole, both apparently bell-towers, and both actually
furnished with bells, as king Edgar, the historian subjoins, " when the
" first foundations of this minster were laid," among other presents gave
it " two bells, purchased at the expense of twenty pounds -j"."

But before I close the section, let me make one remark con-
cerning some of these bell-towers, that is necessary to complete the
whole of what I have said. " The towers in Saxon cathedrals," cries
the ingenious INIr. Warton, and ought in propriety to have said the
Norman, as from Norman his proofs are all taken, " were not alirays
" intended for bells. They were \sometimes\ calculated to produce the
" effect of the louver, or open lantern, in the inside ; and, on this
" account, were or'ig'inally continued open almost to the covering. It
" is generally supposed, that the tower of Winchester cathedial,"
which \\'as not Saxon but Norman, as built about the year 1090, yet

• Gale, i. 339: " Oinis iiulics altius consurgit, Diise quoque tnrrcs ipsis tectornm cul-
" minibus cniincbaiit, (juaruni minor versus occidcntcm in I'rontc basilicae pulchrum iiUran-
" tibus iiisulain a longi: spectaculum prxbcl)at, major vero iu quadrifidx struclurx medio
" columnas quatuor, porrectis de alia ad aliam arcubus sibi invicem conncxas, nc laxc
" dcflucrent, deprimcbat. Juxta cam qua vctus ilia antiquitas utcbatur aedificandi tormam,
" spectabile salis xdilicium."

t Gale, i. 402: "Cum igitur prima [primis] hujus basilicae fundamenta [fundamentis]
** illustris rex yEdganis— ilcdii — duas campanas xx" librarum prctio comparatas."

VOL. u. A A . " which

t78 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. Tl.

" which is remarkably thick and short, was left as the foundation for a
** projected spire; but this idea never entered into the plan of the
** architect. Nearly the whole inside of this tov%'er was formerly seen
*' from below ; and, for that reason, its side arches or windows, of the
" first story at least, are artificially luroiight ami ornwnaitcd. With
'• this sole etlect in view, the builder saw no necessity to carr}-^ it higher,
" An instance of this visibly subsists at present, in the inside of the
" neighbouring Saxon church of Saint Cross, built about the same
" time," equally built not by the Saxons, but by the Normans, even
about the year 1132. " The same effect was at first designed at Salis-
" bury" cathedral, built still later by the Normans, even about 1250;
" where, for the same purpose solely, was a short tower, the end of
" which is easily discerned by critical observers ; being but little higher
•* than the roof of the church, and of less refined workmanship than that
" additional part, on which the present spire is constructed. Many
" other examples might be pointed out. 2'his gave the idea, for the
"beautiful lanterns at Peterborough and Ely*." These remarks, as
corrected, are ciitically curious in themselves, and seem to be histori-
cally just, being founded upon actual observation. The concluding
assertion, particularly, shews vis the source and origin of lanterns at
our cathedrals. Yet it wants authentication. The ornamental architec-
ture at some of these towers within, even nearly up to the roof, shews
they were designed to be viewed so high from below. But still where
is the proof, for this transition of the open tower into a lantern ? I have
discovered, I think, what is a decisive proof of this transition, what
had suggested it to me before I observed it in Mr. Warton. Walttr
Skirlaw, made bishop of Durham in 1388, but born in Yorkshire, " at
" the minster of York," says the historian of Durham, " constructed a
" great part of that campanile, which is vulgarly denominated the Ian-
" tern-\.'^ The original name for one of these lanterns or louvers,
therefore, was actually a campanile. Thus also the tower that fell down

* Warton on Spenser, ii. 195,

t Wharton'i Aiiglia Sacra, i. 775: " Magnam partem campanilis, vulgo lanterii, mini-
♦' sterii Eboraceusis construxitj" and Godwin, 751.

5 at

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED, 170

at Ely in 1322, appears to ha^-e had no bells, yet is expressly styled a
campamlc by the historian of Ely ; and the very dome crowned with a
lantern, that was erected in the room of it, is equally styled a campanile,
by him *. The name concurs with the circumstances, to ascertain the
origin of our lanterns beyond a doubt. From an open cylinder, all
pei-vious to the eye l)elow, as all lighted up with windows above, and
therefore shew ing an ornamental architecture through all the ascent
nearly up to the roof; the tower that was not destined for bells, that was
yet denominated a bell-tower from its aspect, was changed into a tower
all windowed round, completely luminous within, and thoroughly
transparent without, a rich addition to the beauty of some cathedrals, a
happy effusion of some architectural genius \. But I can come still closer
to the lantern. We have steeples in Normandy that are bell-toire/'s and
louvers at once. " There are very few towers to the churches in this pro-
" vince," says a late traveller there, who was particularly curious about
church-architecture, " the fashion running almost every where into
"spires or steeples," or (as he should have said) into spire-steeples;
" some of which are so contrived with open-work, as to let in Usht enough
" to see the bells move \y Yet was the lantern formed so late as Mr,
Warton's proofs and mine seem to fix it ? Certainly not. Two churches
in Normandy prove it was not. Tlie abbey-church of St, Stephen, at
Caen, was begun in loG4, and dedicated in 10/7, yet has a lantern,
with a spire in the centre above ; as the cathedral of Rouen, begun
about 990, and dedicated in lo63, has the transept of the cross, form-
ing a " beautiful lantern," wit^ a lofty spire upon it. So nearly coa>val
were lanterns, with bells, with towers, and with spires, among us !

• Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 643, 644 : " Ecce subito ct repente ruit campanile super
" chornm," but the sacrist set to work " novum campanile — constructurus," and so erected
the lantern, " ilia arlificiosa siructura lignea novi campanilis."

t Tlvat at Ely is acconlingly described by the Ely historian, as a structure " summo ac
•* mirabiii mentis ingenio iniaginata." (Wharton, i. 644.)

% Ducarrtl, 97.

A A 2 SECTION

180 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. YI.

SECTION III.

Is this manner was a church erected at St. German's, and dedicated to
the memory of him who had, in this as well as in other parts of the island,
laid himself out in painful and honourable exertions for the cause of sacrod
truth, against the presumptuous absurdity of Pelagianism. Germanus
had thus become another Hercules in attacking another Hydra, had been
as successful as Hercules in queUing it, and then, like Hercules, been
deified after his death by the too lively gratitude of his admirers. Yet he
had a still nearer claim to the admiration and the gratitude of the Cornish
sovereign ; from the zeal which the latter had seen or felt himself pro-
bably, as it lightened in the looks or on the lips of the apostolical
preacher ; and from the general goodness, general devoutness, which
the king had contemplated assuredly with awful veneration, as it played
in a lambent flame of glory around the person of this apostolical man,
during the whole of his residence with him. Both contributed to fix his
name upon that church and parish, which he in all probability induced
the king to build and to form. Nor let such a scrupulosity of caution, as is
ever stopping or starting in the safest course, because it is ignorant of
the way, and finds itself moving in darkness ; alarm us with apprehen-
sions of turning aside into a ditch, or fiiUing headlong into a pit, when
we refer the present appellation of the parish and church, ^o so very
early a date. Facts shall be our guide. We have another church of
Britain, bearing the name of another saint still earlier. When Chris-
tianity came forward in the persons of Augustine and his associates, to
reclaim the Saxons from paganism and savageness ; " there was near the
** very city of Canterbury," let me repeat from Bede, " upon the
" eastern side of it, a church, built in those foriner times, in which the
" Romans yet ijihahited Britain ; and then dedicated to the honour
" OF Saint Martin *." But we can mount with Saint Martin still
higher in time. Nynian, " that most reverend bishop and that most

* Bede Hist. i. 26: " Erat autem prope ipsam civitatem, ad orientem, ecclesia In
" honorem Sancti Martini anliquitus facta, dum adhuc Romaiii Britanniam incolcrent."

" holy

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 181

" holy man, of the nation of the Britons," of whom I have spoken so
largely just before, but " w ho A\as regularly educated at Rome in the
** faith and mysteries of truth; had hi.s episcopal see" at Whitern, in
Galloway, as I have already shewn, " distinguished by a church de-
*' NOMINATED FKOM Saint Martin THE BISHOP," whom hc had visitcd
at his see of Tours, in France, about the year 394 *, and who died a
few years afterward, even in the year 401 f. We thus behold another
bishop of (Jaulc about ffty years before Germanus, revered in his life,
sainted at his death, and, from private or public veneration in the
builders, denominating almost instantly no less than two of our churches
in Britain. Nor is this all the proof that we can adduce. A whole cen-
tury prior to all, even as early as about 312, when the last persecution
ceased ; we see the Britons in general " erecting minsters to their holy
" martyrs," as 1 have already remarked, and those of Yerulam in par-
ticular erecting one " in honour of their blessed martyr St. Alban +."

So named, our church must have been only a small one, as that of
St. Martin remains at Canterbury to this day ; and proportioned in size
to the thin population of the parish. Even when it was pulled down
and rebuilt, to make it the cathedral of Cornwall; it was not made
large. It was still a parochial church, though it was also a cathedral
one ; a full evidence that it existed as parochial before it became cathe-
dral. The rector still continued in his parsonage-house, on the western
side of the church ; while the bishop settled at a house which the king
must have built for him, upon the wooded prominence of Cuddcnbeak
adjoining. " At this day," says Leland, concerning the see of St.
German's, ** the bishop of Exccter bathe a place cauled Chidden Beke,
" joyning hard upon the sowth est side of the same towne §," But " at

• Bedc, iii. 4: " Nynia cpiscopo reverent issinio, ct sanctissimo viro, de iiatione Bri-
" tonum, qui erat Romx rcgularitcr fuleni et tiiystcria veritatis edoctus; ciijiis scdcm cpis-
" copalem, Sancli Martini cpiscopi nomine ct ecclesia insignem," &c. Sec also the note.
^-\ have used pretty nearly the whole of the fact here, in ii. 2, before, for another purpose.

t Usher, 434.

\ Gilda^^, viii. : " Basilicas sanctorum martynmi ;" Bedc, i. 7, "Ecclesia — ejus mar-

<' tyrio condigna ;" and M Paris, '984, " hi honorcm beaii martyris construetani."

§ Lcland's Ilin. vii. 122.

" the

182 THR CATHFOKAL OF Ci':;-\'\VALL [CIIAP. VI.

" the towne's end," as Carew speaks, " Ciiddenbeak, an ancient house
" of the bishop's, iVoni a well-advanced promontory — taketh a pleasant
" prospect of tlie river*." On that fine position, about a quarter of a
ufile to the south-cast of the church, tradition fixes the episcopal house;
and there, to this da}', remain under all the demolitions, tliat even the
memory of the last generation reported, and the tongue of the present
repeats, some buildings which speak their own antiquity, whicli shew
by their closed arches they are only a part of what was once there, and
are believed by all to be certainly episcopal, now fitted up into a farm-
house. The present kitchen of this was -the hall of that, being within
memory all open up to the very roof, and having no chambers over it as
it has now. Upon one side of this is an arched door\\ ay, leading into
what is now the dairy, but was then (I believe) the buttery ; as upon
another side is a second and taller arch for a doorway, filled up with
stone, but once opening (I suppose) into the kitchen, now demolished..
Thence the bishop walked with his chaplain to the church, and entered
it by a door reserved entirely for himself; while the rector (I suppose
from the same principle) entered it by another door, the westerly one
of the porch, as the nearest to his house ; and the parishioners entered
by a third, even the southerly door of the porch. This distribution of
doors is very remarkable, I have observed it practised at another of
our superior churches, though not hiilf so ancient as St. German's, the
collegiate church of Manchester, in the entrances into the chapter-
house, and in the accesses into the quire. I therefore believe it to have
been practised in all, and to be still observable in all to a critical eye on
examination. It shews in a very lively manner that grand system of
subordination among us, which is so necessary to the maintenance of
order in a society of angels themselves, which is a thousand times more
necessary in one of fallen vitiated beings like men, and which our wise
forefathers rigorously kept up injustice to morality, injustice to them-
selves. The westerly door of the porch was undoubtedly the principal
entrance into the parochial church ; the cathedral, with its door, being
not yet built. That the riorch w^as prior to the cathedral, may be

ew, 109.

decisively

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 18*

decisively shewn. There, is a plain line of separation at this day between
it and the south aile, running along the wall at the union of both w ith-
out, and forming a direct pcrpciuhcular there. This proves them to
have been built at ditllrent times, and the south aile to have been an-
nexed to the porch, as well as to ihc .southern tower : the porch is
coceval with the tower, along which it ranges, and combined with it
originally to make the western end of the parochial church, as it after-
wards made of the cathedral.

In this state of the church the body of it was taken down and rebuilt,
rebuilt with a height not so lofty, shrinking down in its roof from the
water-table of its predecessor, but receiving all the symbols and signa-
tures of a cathedral, the cenotaph, the door, or the throne, for the
bishop, and the stall for his chaplain. The chancel was not ascended
by steps from the nave, as it is in our present cathedrals generally, but
goes on in the same level with the nave, as it went in the parochial
church probably, and in the Roman church of Canterbury certainly ;
having only one step of ascent, so slight as to be mis-named a step, and
just serving barely to discriminate the chancel from the nave.

Athelstan then came ; left the parochial, the cathedral church just as
he found it, still cathedral, still parochial ; and left also a part of the rec-
tory-house to stand, but turned it into offices for his new house. Mul-
tiplying the one rector into eiglit, a prior and seven subordinate clergy-
men, he raised his house upon a larger scale, proportioned to the larger
number of incumbents ; he also made a grand addition to the church,
suited to I he grandeur of the new parsonage-house, and appropriated to
the use of the new family there ; a new church uniting with the old,
modelled in conformity to it, thus combining the old and the new bv a
happy regularity of plan into one complete whole. By this act he gave
the solitarv bishop and his chaplain in some measure the dignity of a
chapter; certainly a number of his clergy congregated around him, and
confederated with him in the liturgie ministeries of the cathedral. But
he left the bishop, his chaplain, and the parishioners, to the use of their
old church in their old manner; only constructing another cenotaph in

the

-84 Tlir. CATHEDRAL OV CORVVS' ILL [CHAP. VI.

the southern \s all of his chancel, just as he saw one in the body of the
Ijiitish church, to mark as honourably a place of sepulture tor the new-
bishops as had been previously marked for the old ; and at last came
•' the Norman cmibition" of building, to do what reflects high honour
upon it, to superadd the grand portal with the northern tower to all.

Thus do we mount up at last to the very sources of the several
streams, to the very periods of constructing the several parts of this
church, and to the very epocha of its tirst commencement. I'he southern
tower, once octangular, and so causing the northern, in a judicious ac-
commodation of style, to be made as it still is, octangular too, remains
a striking memorial in its water-table of a church previous to the cathe-
dral, but loftier than it in tlie roof: the porch, too, being evidently-
built together with the southern to\\er, being visibly incorporated into
it at the very moment of building, remains equally a striking memorial
of a previous church, as large in the breadth, and therefore probably as
extensive in the length, as the cathedral. The poixh and the southern
tower are thus two very extraoi-dinary relics of antiquity, each illus-
trating and confirming the other; two monuments of the Romans just
before their departure, or of the Roman Britons just after it. The
cathedral annexed to them is not so old, but still a monument very ex-
traordinary too, being as old probably as the year Ol 4, certainly as old
as the first erection of an episcopal see in Cornwall ; a natural, a signi-
ficant evidence in itself, in the smallness, in the low^ness of the very
cathedral of Cornwall, to how humble a state the Britons of Cornwall,
and of all the kingdom, were reduced at the time of building it. It
thus exhibits also such ancient simple memorials of British episcopacy
within it ; a throne, only an ornamented niche in the wall ; a chaplain's
stall, only another niche ; an arched doorway, for the peculiar entrance
of the bishop ; and an arched tomb, to mark the place of his peculiar
sepulture. The throne, particularly, is such a memorial as is not to be
paralleled in the w^hole island, I apprehend ; yet is so little known,
even within its own region of Cornwall, that the very antiquaries of
the region know nothing of it ; tliat Willis, that Borlase were as igno-
rant of it as the merest peasants of our villages ; and tliat I was all un-«

apprized

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 185

apprized of its existence for twelve or fourteen years of my residence in
the county. The nave, too, the chancel, and the north aile, appear to
be the very fabrication of Athelstan, coeeval with the new church at
Bodmin, or the new church at Padstow, and cojeval equally with those
colleges of clergy which he established at all the three places. Then
the northern tower and the fine portal close the sum of successive addi-
tions to the original building; all bearing, with the original, the name
of Germanus ; all uniting thus to keep up the memory of this saint,
who had been once resident in the parish, who had exerted great zeal
of spirit, and exhibited great holiness of life within it, had even occa-
sioned probably that parish to be first formed, and that church to be
first built, upon their present positions. Thus Romans, or Roman
Britons ; the Cornish dispossessed of East-Devonshire, and confined to
the west of the Exe ; the Saxons, under their victorious conqueror of
AVest-Devonshire, with Cornwall afterwards ; and the Normans, under
another conqueror, with a still higher fondness for enlarging churches,
with indeed the collected refinements of the continent, have all com-
bined their efforts together to produce the present church of Saint
German's.

Tantae 7noUs erat Romanam condcre genteni I

SECTION IV.

There " is a townc cawlcd S. Germayns," Leland observes in a
passage that I must bring before my reader a second time, " ^\hcrin is
*' now a priori [church] of blake chanons, and a paroche cliirche yu
" the body of the same. Beside the live aUare of the same priory
'•' [church], on the ryght hand, ys a tumbeyn the walle with an y mage
" of a bishop, and over the tuinbe a xi. bishops paynted, with tlieir
" names and verses, as token of so many bishops biried theere, or that
" thcr had bcene so many bishoppes of Cornewallc, that had theyr secte

VOL. ir. a a " [seutc]

180 THE CATHEimAL OF COHNWALL [CHAP. VT.

" [seatc] thccr*." This memorable circumstance in the private history
of our church, which has enabled us, in concurrence with other cir-
cumstances, to ascertain the respective ages ot the first and second parts
ot the whole, would have been totally lost to history if Lcland's eye
had not noticed, and Lelands pen had not recorded it. The integrity
of historical truth depends upon such a number of precarious contin-
gencies in a world like our own, as seems to make another history of
human events, one that cannot be affected by the incidents of human
life, one that is drawn from the full annals of every individual of our
species, absolutely necessary to the complete satisfaction of our minds.
The historian of earth will thus be engaged in writing history within
the regions of heaven ; in consulting those records of private plans, and
private actions, which present the soul with the body of public events,
and in writing particular portions of history from them. Thus only
can man ever come, even in heaven, to gain that perfect knowledge
of the human annals to which the inclination of his mind strongly
leads him, in which the \-igorousness of his spirit may be usefully em-
ployed, and by which the religiousness of his atfections may be happily
indulged.

Leland, however, notices " a tumbe yn the walle, with an ymage of
" a bishop." This image appears plainly to have been placed upon the
tomb itself. There was " a tumbe, — with an ymage of a bishop" upon
it ; an image of wood or stone, lying recumbent upon the tomb. And
this bishop was as plainly Conan, the first who was fixed in the see by
the English crown, the first who could be buried in the English chancel
of the church, the first ^^■ho could have his image upon the English
cenotaph \\ithin it f.

• Leiand's Itin. vli. 122. I have noticed the passage also in ii. 4, preceding.

t Leiand's Itin, viii. 8. At Durham cathedral these bishops are buried, " in choro,
*' Skirlaw ad boream sub arcii, Hatfeld ad ausiriim sub arcn ;" ibid. 21, " S. Wilfridi re-
" liquiae sub arm prope mag. altare sepultre, nnper sublatce \" iii. 94, for Salisbury cathe-
dral, " ther is also a sepulchre, with an image i>f 4 fote in lenght oja bishop;" ibid. 124,
for Wells cathedral, " quatuor tumuli et imagines episcoponim Wellen. quae referunt mag-
*' nam vetustalem ; — quatuor tumuli episcoporum Wellensium, quorum Ires imagines habent
*' [tres habent imagines] antiquitutem rcjtreiites."

Yet

SliCT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVEU. 187

Yet " over the tumbe," adds Leiand, by the distinguishing variation
of his lang-uage confirming what I have here derived from his hmguagc
preceding, and shewing the "ymage" to be not oyer but upon the tomb;
are "a xi. bishops," not in images, but "payntedf." These were
therefore posterior in time to the otlier, as the successors of Conan in
the see; all appointed, like him, by the English crown, and all, like
him, buried in the ground adjoining. They had their persons repre-
sented in paintings on the wall over the tomb, but under the arch that
protected the tomb ; they were even " paynted, with their names" to
each, the personal appellation being annexed, in order to appropriate
the painting + : they had even " verses" subjoined, in order to state the
character, and to date the life of each. All shews the painting was
made, the name prefixed, and the verse subjoined at the very sepulture
of each.

Had Leiand, therefore, extended his accuracy of notation a little
farther, gone on to copy what he has thus described, and given us the
names with the verses in order as they stood, we should have been in-
dulged with a ray of light, of %\ hich we must now lament the privation
for ever : but he who was so accurate as to notice, would certainly have
been accurate enough to describe, if he could have read. The antiquity
of the verses and names must have rendered them illegible in his time ;
it had not indeed obliterated them entirely, it had only effaced them
partially. The figures of the eleven bishops remained upon the wall,
still visible to the eye in the outline, yet just fading away into nonen-
tity : the place of the name perhaps was attested only by the traces of a
gilded scroll over head, while the verse existed merely in some half-
perished IcLters at the foot, running in a semblance of parallel lines,

t In Rcculvcr church also " is ihc figure ofahifhop, paynted under on arch." (Iliii. vii.
136.) And at Glastonbury church, " triuui tanluin horuni ubbatuni noniina rcmm prxtcri-
*' tariim recordatrix nianifcstat pictiira, — nomina illoruni ct <Ji|:nitatcs in majori ecclesia,
•' prculcntc secus aUarc /j/c7«»fl, sunt in propatulo." Gale, i. 307, 308, JMalmi.sbury'.

% So, of three totnbs bearing images of bishops at Wells cathedral, *' primus tumulus
«< sic inscriptus cit liVUWOLDVi" (hia. iii. 124), uiade bishop about A. D. 1000
(Godwin, 365J.

3B 2 Wi^l

188 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

and shewing a shadow of evanescent poetry. Nor could any eye, I
suppose, hoM'Cver acute in itself, however exercised in antiquarian
acuteiicss, have known the verses, the names, and the paintings, to- be
what they were, if tradition had not come in to assist the sight, to lend
its useful microscope to the eye, and to make the antiquary behold what
time liad been so long erasing ; yet time had been so far successful in
its operations, that even an antiquary "s eye, so sharp, so exercised,
could catcli only the general fact, could learn only the existence of verses
and names, but could not pretend to copy any one of either; wlien no
less than eleven figures were painted upon the wall, with names pre-
fixed, and verses subjoined to each, within the narrow space of the arch
above the tomb : the figures must have been small, the names in short
scrolls, and the verses in abbreviated inscriptions ; all must have ren-
dered the writing less transcribable in a little time, and wholly illegible,
as the names were generally unknown before Lebnd made his visit to
the church.

In this uncertainty as to the true reading of the inscriptions, and in
that inability of tradition to tell more than generals concerning any of
them, Leland notes concerning the paintings, the names, and the verses,
that they were put there " as token of so many bishops biried theere,
" or that ther had beene so many bishoppes of Cornwalle, that had
** theyr secte [seate] theer." Tradition varied in the lips''of its relators,
as the diamond varies in tlie hand of its shewer ; yet, as the diamond
has a real lustre, however varying, so tradition has a real substantiality
of truth, amidst all its changes in circumstance. But the variation in
this case is actually of no moment at all ; the same rays play only from
different points ; nor is there -«py real difference whether these verses,
names, and paintings were put over the tomb, as a signature that so
many bishops of Cornwall had been buried at this place, or as an evi-
dence that so many had been seated at this church. The conclusion is
exactly the same either way, and the convergence of the two lines in
one centre shews they issued from the same circumference ; the bishaps
that were buried here must have been the prelates that were here seated
before, and the prelates seated here must have been the same as were

here

»ECT. IV.] ■ HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 189

here buried. The position of the paintings and names in the church,
and over the tomb, proves the persons so specified and so delineated, to
have been prelates seated here, and here buried. Accordingly wg find,
in fact, when the names of prelates merely seated at the church were
meant to be recited, they are recited, not over a tomb, but in the
diaptcr-house ; as Lcland himself informs us concerning Sherbome,
equally with our St. German's, a cathedral to the ;sra of the Conquest,'
that " the chapitre house is ancient, and yn the volte of it be payntid
" the images ofbisshops that had their sete at Shirburn*."

Those at St. German ''s appear to have been many in number, and,
could Leland have copied the verses or names, would have appeared
with all their appellations, dates, or panegyrics before my reader.
Malmesbury, indeed, more than six hundred years ago, could now here
find the names of Athclstan's successors in the Cornish episcopate ; as
*' of the Cornish pontiffs" he " did not know, and could not prodiice,
" a regular hst f." But even a Malmesbury could not be expected to
ransack every private or local cell of intelligence ; he could not be ex-
pected, particularly to visit the distant church of ^t. German's, \\ hen
travelling was ht tie practised within our own countiy; to read there
for information any inscriptions that must have been perfectly legible at
the time, and to insert (as he certainly would have inserted, if he had
known) the substance of these as a competent, because a cotemporary
authority, for each of the specified bishops of CornwalL

He did not know, and Leland could not read, the inscription con-
cerning «'ach ; yet others, who pretend not to have read, b^it affect to
guess at wiiat Leland could not iTad, presume to execute what he could
not perform, and pretend to tell the names wliicli he could not deci-

• Itin. li. 78.

■f Malmesbury, f. 146: " Comubii.'nshini sane ponllficum succiclu\un oidini'm iiec scif>
" ncc appoiio." Nor could Ltland have told us, as we Iiavc seen already, even if lie had
executed the work that he once designed. Concerning Anthony Bee, bishop of Durham,
he says, " f'usius in operc, cui tilulus de pontificibus Britannicis, dicemiis ; Qain illoruni
" regcsias magnil curi c.\ciujbivj, et niajori propcdiem in ordinem redigam." (Il'ui.'iy. 3s.)

pher :

IQO THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI'

phcr : thus the nave of St. German's church exhibits in a modern writing
upon the ivesteni wall the very names which the writer supposed to
have been originally near the caster 71. Dr. Borlase also repeats tiieni,
not upon the testimony of the wall, which then perhaps had not learnt
to speak like the wall in Shakespeare ; not even upon the evidence of
Mr. Willis, from whom (I beiic^c) the wall was taught by some anti-
quarian curate to rehearse the names, and into whose work the Doctor
seems hardly to have ever looked * ; but upon the authority of that.
Cresssy, whom Mr. Willis equally adduced for his witness, and of that
Heylyn, who with Cressy knew just as little upon the point as the very
allegers themselves. Heylyn was one of those divines whose learning,
wordi, and spirit, do so much honour to the patronage of the first
Charles ; who actually published his list of bishops at a period peculiarly
hostile to the whole order, as well as to all erudition, that mournful
year of the commencing reign of fanaticism, l04i. Cressy was a divine
of the same period and patronage, whose weaker mind could not bear-
the triumph of presbyterian barbarism, but bent before the pressure of
expanding passion ; who therefore threw himself with disgust into the
arms of popery ; was afterwards employed in defending with dignity
the cause to which he had thus deserted with disgrace, and particulai-ly
published his Church History with that view in 1OO8. Upon this coupled
but slender pillar, nodding every moment to its fall, and ready to sink
at once under the weight of a fly lighting upon it, Dr. Borlase repeats
the names thus : " Athelstan, Conan, Ruydocke, Aldred, Britwin,
'* Athelstan H. Wolf, Woron, Wolocke, Stidio, Aldred H. and Bur-
*' woldf." Heylyn gives them in this form : "1. S. Patroc, he lived
*' circa an. 850, 2. Athelstan, 3. Conanus, 4. Ruidocus, 5. AJdredus,
*' 6. Britwinus, 7. Athelstan H. 8. Wolfi, 9. Woronus, lo. Wolocus,
" 11. Stidio, 12. Aldredus, 13. Burwoldus (or Brithwoldus), the last
*' bishop of Cornwall J." Cressy exhibits only a part of the list, say-
ing, " the first bishop was Athelstan, and after him Conan, Ruydoc,
" Aldred, and Brithvvin §." Cressy has thus shortened the list in

* He cites It only cnce, in p. 385. + Borlase, 378, 379*

J Heylyn, 71, ja. Wright. § Cressy, 8;i2.

Hetlyn,

SECT. IV.] HTSTORTCALLT SmVEYED. JQ\

Heylyn, by omitting eight of the names out of thirteen, as if he had a
violent suspicion of their spuriousness ; but Dr. Borlase, on the con-
trary, as having no suspicion, has lengthened the brevity of Cressy into
all the amplitude of Heylyn again. He has then adhered to Cressy in
preference to Heylyn, and omitted one name that Heylvn has recited •
even his credulity declining to adopt the monstrous fiction, and there-
fore Ms pen dropping in silence from the head of the list " S. Patroc,"
of the year " 850." Thus Petrock, who was only a hermit in a vale
with three others, about 518-538, is put down for a prelate of Corn-
>vall, and the first prelate of it, more than three centuries afterwards*.
Athelstan also is named as the second ])relate, though he lived sixfi/
years later than the vera here assigned for Petrock, and almost four cen-
turies later than the actual eera of Petrock. But this Athelstan is only
named at all, because he was nominated by the English monarch to the
see of Cornwall in 910, when Asser should have been equally named
before upon the same principle. Conan we know to have been actually
placed in the see during the December of gsO ; he was succeeded either
mediately or immediately, but certainly in the course of thirty years,
by one Athelstan, the same probably with Athelstan H. in the list,
as a charter of gOti is subscribed thus : " I, Athelstan, bishop of Corn-
" wall, have given my counsel to this \ ;" and Burwold we shall have
ample occasion to notice hereafter, as bishop of Cornwall in the reign
of the Confessor. Thus does the list appear to have been merely copied
by Cressy in his part, and to have been actual lyyo/v/ie<^ in the whole by
Heylyn, or by Heylyn's authors ; drawn up first from some casual in-
timations of history concerning the names of the first or of the second
Athelstan, of Conan, or of Burwold ; then enlarged by him from some

* Hals, 17, concerning his " Cornish bishops or druids" seated at Bodniiu : " ahhough
" the list or catalogue of their names be lost," judiciously observed ! " except St. I'edyr,"
who was neither druid nor bishop, but " who lived about the 5th century, as tradition
" says," very tndv, " though, «? llarpsfeld and Camfjian sai/i, antio Doni. 850, atul
" llwrtfoiL' is itj them placid as thejint i'uhop among the Cornish," when lie was no bishop
at all. One frequently wants a silly writer to introduce one into the company of writers a»
silly as himself, and so to unfold the origin of notions as silly as they arc popular.

+ Ingulphus, 502 : " Ego Athclstanus, episcopus Conuibicnsis, consilium dcdl,"

3 traditionary

1<)2 THE CATHEDRAL OP CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

traditionary list tliat was circulated about St. German's at the time per-
haps, that was probably false in its original shape, had been certainly
falsified by the rash hand of forgery afterwards, and betrays its forgery
by its folly at present, in transforming a hermit into a bishop, so turning
the date 518 into 850.

But in an author of much higher reputation, and much greater accu-
racy within the province of ecclesiastical antiquities than ever Dr. Borlase
w^as, we find the list repeated, and even authorities pleaded to confirm
it. " Conanus," cries Godwin in Richardson's own edition of his work,
as he cites the names, leaving out very wisely both the Petrock of
Heylyn, and the first Athelstan of the Doctor, " Ruydocus, Aldredus ;"
when a note subjoins concerning the last, " vixit A. / 93, InguL" This
reference must natm-ally startle my reader in his course of conviction,
and make liim shrink back from my leading hand ; yet let him neither
shrink nor startle. Ingulphus, indeed, docs mention an Aldred a bishop
in the year 793, a chai'ter of Oifa's in that year being signed by such a
prelate ; but, by some astonishing deception of the author's eyes, not of
Cornwall, not of West-Saxony, but of Mercia, of Oxfordshire, of Dor-
chester *. The very name of Otfa fixes the chai-ter to be Mercian, and
the very date of the year proves tlie subscribing bishop to be no succes-
sor to Conan ; the latter being bishop in 93O, and the former, with one
prelate interposed, living in — 793, almost a whole century and a half
Jbcforc the man whom at such a distance he foJloivcd. Then came
" Athelstan the 11''." as the author proceeds with the list, " who lived
''in fl(35," as I have already shewn; this author, however, not at-
tempting to slaew, but contrarily remarking in a note, that " he is not
" specified in a very ancient MS. among the archives of the church of
^' Exeter f." So much greater uncertainty is there in this whole list,
and so much stronger are the contradictions in parts of it ! But chro-
nology is again violated, though not so grossly as before, by fixing a

* Richardson, 396, and Ingulphus, 486: « Ego Aldredus episcopus Dorcaslstrens. sub-
*' notavi."

t Richardson, 396: <• In MS. per-antiquo inter archivos ecclesiae Exoniensis non nume-
*' raUir. Le Xeve,"

2 prelate

•SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYKD. 103

prelate at the year 9OO, as a successor to Aldred of 793, to Rnydock

of , and to Cojian of gsO. " Wolfi," adds the contiriuator of the.

catalogue, " Woroiuis, Wolocus," &c. ; of whom he notes, that N\'o]u
" elaruit 105l. Ingulf ^ But Fngulphus is referred to in the very same
blindness of temerity as before, and only gives the signature under thai
year of " Wulfinus bishop of Dorchester* T and Wolock is confessed
to be " also omitted in the MS. commended above f ." So completely
have all attempts to authenticate this catalogue been baffled by the very
sturdiness of truth ! so clearly have the very attempts sers^ed to fix the
stigma of spuriousncss more deeply upon it !

The inability of Leland to read and to transcribe the names over the
tomb has produced all this confusion ; curiosity could not be satisfied
without recovering them ; and tradition has combined with history,
weakness has united with wantonness to satisfy it, to raise up the dead
from their graves, or to make their phantoms appear as their representa-
tives. All these prelates, however, pretend merely to, be such alone as
the English crown appointed to the see of Cornwall : this is plain from
the name of Athelstan standing at the head of the list, and the name of
Conan following immediately afterwards. Thus all the prelates that
M'ere nominated by the Cornish sovereigns themselves, are entirely
omitted in this pretendcdly full catalogue of the prelates of Cornwall.
This was equally the case also in that catalogue of bishops u[)on the
chancel-wall, \\ hich Leland could not read ; these bishops covdd not be
ilderthan the wall itself, and their memorials must have been fixe<l
upon it posterior to the erection of the chancel. Iceland accordingly
tells us in the passage above, that there " ys a tumbe yn the w^alle with
" an image of a bishop, and over the tumbe a xi. bishops payntcd \\lth
" their names aVid verses ;" yet retells us in another work, that Conan
was appointed bishop of St. German's by king Athelstan, but that
" there were successively eleven bishops in the church of St. Ger-

* Ingulphiis, 519: " Ego Wulfinus cpiscopus Dorcaccstronsis ratificavi."
t Richardson, 396 : " f-t hie ctiam omittitur in MS. supra laudalo."

VOL. 1;, CO " man's."

1(J4 XIIIC CATHlU)nAL OF lOHNWALL [CHAr. VI.

" man's ||." Tlic t\\ o passages unite to shew, that Conan liad eleven
prelates in regular suceession after liini.

One of the prelates nominated by the kings of Cornwall, antecedently
to Athelstan'sappointmentof Conan, we know I)}- name, and we honour
from eharaeter. " Rumon," we are informed by ISJalmesbury in his ac-
count of Tavistock abbey, " is there extolled as a saint, and lies buried
"as a Bisriop, being decorated with a beautiful shrine; concerning
" Vv-hom all want of written evidence confirms the opinion, that not
" only in this but in many parts of England, you will find all knowledge
" of events swept away by the violence of hostility, the names of saints
" left naked, and any miracles that may aspire to our notice unre-
" corded*." We have thus the positive attesUition of jMalmesbury,
that Rumon was a bishop. Yet of what see was he ? Of Crcditon, or of
St. German's } Certainly not of Crcditon, and therefore as certaiidy of
St. German's. All the bishops of Crcditon are named in succession by
Malmesbury himself, and there is no Rumon among them. " Here sat
" these pontifis in order," cries ^lalmesbury concerning Crcditon,
" Edulf, Edelgar, Elfwod, Sideman, Alfric, Elfwold, Ednod, who is
" also Wine, Living, — Leofric -j-." liut " of the Cornish pontitFs," he
adds, " I do not know and cannot produce a regular list;};." In fa£t he

II Leland's Coll. i. 75 : " Erexit in ecclcsia S. Gemiani qucndam Coiianum episcopum.
*' — Fueruiit successive undecim episcopi in ecclesia S. Germani."'

* Malmesbury, 146: " Riimonus Sanctus ibi pnedicatur et jacet episcopus, pulchri-
" tudine dccnratus scrinii ; ubi nulla scriptorum fides assistit opinloni, quod non solum ibi,
" sed in niultis locis Anglia?, invcnies violcnlia hoslilitatis abolitam omncm gcstorum noti-
" tiam, nuda ^anctorinii uomina, ct siquae niodo praetendunt miiacula sciri."

t Malnicbury, 145 : " Hie sederunt per ordinem pontifices isti, Edulfus, Edelgar, EI£-
•' wod, Sideman, Alfric, Elfwold, Ednod, qui ct Wine, Li^ingu<, — Lefriciis." But to
shew slUI more than I have already shewn the erroneousncss, wiih which the common
catalogues ot our bishops arc made, even when the makers have only the trouble of transcrib-
ing; let me here adduce a part of Hey iyn's catalogue of the Crcditon bishop?, " JEdnW
" phus I. Pnlta" interpolated; *' jEdu/fus II." equally interpolated, " Ethel earus, Al-
" garus" ctpially interpolated, " Alfwoldus I." " Alfwulfus" equally intc'-polatcd, &c.

X Malmesbury, 146 : " Comubiensium sane pontificum succiduum ordinem nee scio nee
" appono."

produces

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVED. ]r)5

produces no list at all. Rumon, therefore, must fill up one of tliese
empty niches in the temple of histoiy, and form one name more in the
nearly void catalogue of Cornish prelates. What niche indeed he is to fill,
or in what part his name is to be enrolled among the prelates nominated
by our Cornish sovereigns ; must depend upon the period in w hich he
lived, prior to Athelstan's reduction of Cornwall.

Nor is this so dillicult to be ascertained as it seems to be; jMalmcs-
bury, when he mentioned the total want of notices concerning Rumon,
vainly measuring the world's ignorance by his own ; and Leland disco-
vering what jSIalmesbury could not find, even after the lapse of four
centuries betv\'een them. At that -sery Tavistock too, which JSIalmes-
bury appears, from the particularity of his descriptive touches concern-
ing it, to have personally visited; and at which, therefore, he so patheti-
cally laments " all want of written evidence" relative to Rumon ; even
there did Leland find a written account of Rumon *. So strangely negli-
gent at times are the most accurate historians; and so singularly benumbed
do they occasionally appear, by the freezing spirit of indolence ! E^■erv
writer feels it too much in himself, and sees it too much in his own
writings, not to recognise it with tenderness in others. There Leland
met w ith a formal life of Rumon, and usefully made extracts from it.
In these, Rumon appears to have been one of the many saints who
came over from Ireland into Cornwall, in order to court that holy soli-
tude, and to enjoy that heavenly contemplation in oar vallics and upon
oitr shores ; to which they had solemnly devoted their lives, and fiom
which thcv were apprehensive of being drawn aviMy, by the solicitations
of their iViends near them. 'J'hey thus passed the sea to preclude the

* Malmesbiiiy, 146: " Locus amcenusopporlunitate ncmorum, capturi copiosdpiscium,
" ecclesiae congruente fabrica, fluvialibus rivis per officinas monachorum clecurrcntibus,
" qui, suo iinpelu cffusi, quicquid invencnuit superfluum portant in cxitum. — Cernilur in
" eoilcui inonasterio scpulclirinn Ordgari, spcctaculoque ducitur cnorniitas niausolii filii
"ejus." Leland's Coll. iv. 152: " Taveslokc. Kilwardcby super libros priomin : Liu-
"colnicnsis super libros postcriorum eulogiuni Joannis Coriiubiensis ad Alcxandnmi papam.
«' Conslantinus Aphricanus, mouachus Cassincnsis, de re nicdica. S. Rumouiii sepultus.
" apud Tcu'cstoke,"

c c 2 temptation.

IQg THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VI.

temptation, and secured themselves from the danger hv the impossibility
of a trial; wise, however, in their very exercise of timidity, and strong
from the very sense of their weakness. The scene of Ramon's retire-
ment is fixed, by his biographer, in terms that indicate the latter to have
\\')-itten when his names were ^^■cll known in the county. " Tur:
" Nem^an wood, in Cornwall," he observes, " was formerly very full
" of wild beasts ; Saint Rumon made ax oratory for himself in
" THE Nem-t;an wood f ." But \Nhere was this wood, so similarly
denominated with one in ancient Arcadia ? It was not, like that, in
the bosom of the peninsula. It was not in the Arcadian park of Corn-
wall at all. It was on the exposed and beaten prominence that shoots
out into the Lizard; as a single word extracted from the JAfe sen-cs to
shew, and as some loctd notices unite to confirm. Immediately after
Leland has rehearsed from the biographer, that " Rumon made an ora-
" tory for himself in the Nemean wood ;" he sidjjoins, in a distinct line,
this local appellation, " Falemutha," as an equal extract from the bio-
grapher, and as the biographer's notation of the vicinity of the site to
Falmouth |. The harbour of this name has been better known to the
Eno"lish from the numerous advantages which it enjoys, in the narrow-
divided avenue into it, in the broad bosom which it displays within, in
the many creeks that run up into the land from it, in the general depth
of water through all, and in the general security of all from winds;
than any other point in the whole compass oi' Cornwall, I believe,
through all the periods of our history. Just such is the case with Mil-
ford Haven, in Wales, at present. 27iat has therefore borne so long
tlie English appellation'of Falmouth, and this of Milford Haven, as to
have lost all traces, all memory, of their Cornish or their Welsh names*.

vre

t Ltlancl's Coll. iv. 152, 153: " Ex Vita Rumoni. * Ruraonus genere fuil Sco'tus Hiber-
" nicnsis.' — Ncmea S\ Iva. — ' Nemea sylva in Cornubia plenissima olim ferarum. — S. Ru-
" monus faciebat sibi oratorium in sylva Nemaea'."

X Ibid. 153: " Falemutha."

* Lcland's hin. vi. 63 : '*■ Falemoulhe is a mere Englische worde, and bathe the name,*
not " of many naoulhes of crckes that be withyn the havyn," but from its constituent river
the Fal, that there empties itself into the sea. The harbour is accordingly denominated by

Ptolemy,

SECT, ivj mSTOlUCALLY SURVEYED. I97

We thus find a notice of the English title for the Cornish harbour, so
early as the very tenth century. Innnediately to the west and south-west
of this, ranges a long way into the channel, that peninsulated ground
which terminates ia the Lizard. The biographer then, being an English
man of Devonshire, and WTiting where his work was found, at Tavi-
stock, naturally settled the position of the wood for his countrymen, by
referring to a place in the vicinity best known to the English, and by
adopting the English name for the place. He thus intimated the wood
to be not far from Falmouth harbour. In that vicinity, not very near
indeed, but near enough for a man writing at such a distance and to
such readers f, we find two parishes dedicated to St. Rumon at present.
These are Riicw Major and lluan Minor, one formerly included in the
other, but both included once in St. Kevern, both including also St.
Grade and Landewednack once. For the chxirch of St. Grade still tithes
all the estates in St. Kevern, which run from the village of Gwentor to
the borders of Ruan parishes westward; tithes equally one third of the
barton of Erisey, and of the tenement of Trenoon, though at a con-
siderable distance from it, though actually far within the parish of Ruan
jNfaior; and also tithes the tenement of Voge, tliough contiguous to the
old glebe of Landewednack. The reason for all this ])re-eininence in
St. Grade, this sort of seignioral royalty in that parish over the neigl>

Ptolemy, the Mouth of the Cenio; the Fal so called then, and actuallvhaving upon it the
ancient town Ccnia, the present Tre-goncy. The Cornish name of the harbour, therefore,
was in all probability Port Genii/, as Trc Geney (pronounced Treg'ney) is the castle on the
Cenia. " Nonien sumpsissc videtur," adds Lclap.d, in ix. 64, in some measure correcting
himself for what he had said before, "a. Fala fluvio ; — ego tamcn aliquando audivi quendani
*' contendeiiteni, nomen loco ex multis ostiis fuisse iiiditum," an etymon which lie rejects
here, though he was weak enough to adopt it before. Then Leiand speaks in these c^uallv
magnificent and elegant teims of the harbour : " Utcunquc sit, constat seanidum huiic e^se
" a priino," second only lo Milford Haven, " totius Cruannia; portum ; — coMustravi Falen-
" scm, bone Dcus, quanumi ibi fidissimae stationis, quantum rscessuuu), quantum divor-
" liorum, (juantum cornuum ! rursus, quam quieta, quani sccura sinl illic omnia! non
" poleral facili lusisse natura majori in portu (umnwdiiuce."

i Camden, p. 137, does the same, tliougli t.bligcd to miichmorc exactness thm a
biographer; " reducto ab hoc Meneg litlore," he sajs, conccriiiiig the Lizard, " sinus—
" oecurril Vale fluvioKim rccipiens.''

2 bounng

108 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORN^VALL [cHAP. TI.

bouring parishes, results from one simple circumstance, which is closely
connected with my subject. Near the church of St. Grade is an estate,
which is KxowN from tradition to have been the particular
RESIDENCE OF Saixt Rumon, and is therefore denominated Saint Ruan
at present. And as the parish of Ruan Minor is merely a narrow Ivigufa
of land, between St. Grade's tenements on the opposing sides of St.
Kevern and of Ruan Major parishes ; so are both the Ruans, Major and
Minor, denominated expressly " the church of Saint Rumon," in the
\"alor of pope Nicholas *. Here then, though all traces of the name have
now vanished, was the Nemean wood of Cornwall, spreading all over
the broad back of the peninsula, defying by its combined powers all the
blasts that now sweep this region with so much violence, and affording
warm shelter for beast or man in the interiors of it. Here, therefore,
was the oratory of St. Rumon, within the thickets of the Nemean wood.
Ihe thickets, however, had been cleared of the wild beasts, w hen the
biographer w rote the life of the saint ; and the site exists only in part,
with any of its original \\ildness at present. This part is Leland's
" wyld moore cawled Gunhilly, i. e. Hilly Hethe ; wher ys brood of
*' cajtylef." This is a tract of land near three miles across, chiefly con-
sisting of a loaniy soil, but bearing not e-sen copse-wood at present ; on
which those little horses of Cornwall used formerly to be bred ;{:, the me-
mory of whom is still preserved in the remembered appellation of Gun-
hilles, and close to wliicli the church of St. Grade has a portion of its
parish now §. " There is a kinde of naggs," sa} s Norden, " bredd upon
" a mountanous and spatious peece of grounde, called Goon-hillje,
" b'^"S^ betwene the sea coaste and Helston ; which are the hardeste
" naggs and beste of travaile for their bones within this kingdome, re-
" scmbling in body for quantitie, and in goodnes of niettle, the Galloway
" naggs i|." Here, near to the site of St. Grade's church, at the village
still denominated St. Ruan from the fact, towards the southern extrc-
^nity of the whole, and upon the leeward or eastern side of it, in a
position much nearer to the sun than any other region of Britain, and tis

• " Ecclesia Sancti JRumoni.
+ Borlasc's Nat. Hist. 88.
;5 Norden, 20.

+ Lelaiwi's Itin. vii. 118.
§ Large map of Cornwall.

SECT. IV.] . HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. IQQ

SO sheltered hy the woods to windward, very much warmer, did St.
Rumon live ; having a cell for his habitation, and a chapel for his devo-
tions ; regardless of the wild beasts around him, seeing them perhaps in
his walks, hearing them perhaps in his prayers, yet beholding them
probably to flee the face of this strange mtruder on their privacies.

Even the particular position of his chapel and his cell seems to be
pointed out to us by the general appellation of his forest. When we
lind the same sort of appellation occurring in other regions of the Celtic
language ; we know our own to be equally Celtic with theirs. When
we find the fountain of Nemaiisus in the south of France, giving name
to the town of Nemausus, or Nismes, there ; a river in another part of
France, discharging itself mediately into the Moselle, under the title of
Neinesa, or Nyins * ; and a fountain of Spain, bearing in Martial the very
title of our Cornish forest, Nemca f ; we see our title, like that of Nismes,
derived solely from a fountain. Then we irresistibly refer this fountain
to the hermitage of St. Rumon, sensible from all that we have previously
learnt, of the attractiveness of a fountain to a hermit, and of a hermit's
settlement being always at a fountain. And we accordingly see these
circumstances combining with each other, with the notices which I
have given before, and with one or two that I shall give immediately
hereafter, in the present case. About a quarter of a mile to the north-
east of Grade church, is a noted well, from which is fetched all the
water used in baptism at the church. It has also a saint and a hermit
belonging to it, being denominated St. Grade's well; this " Sancta
*' Grada, alias Grade |," settling at it in some later period, when the
parishes of Ruan JNIajor and Minor had been both laid out in one, so
superseding the name of Rumon at it, and even occasioning a new parish
to be formed out of fragments of both, with Landewednack as a

* D'Anvillc in Notice Ancienne de la Gaule, 479 : " Dans le poeme d'Ausone sur Ik
"Moselle, Nemesa ct i'ronea sont deux rivieres qui grossissent cclle dc Sura; cl cn-cfTct
" Nyms reunic a la riviere de Pruni, est re9ue par la riviere dc Sour, qui se rend dans la.
*' Moselle."

t Martial, i. 50.

t So ealled iii Henry's Valor,

chapelry

500 THE CATHEDRAL OF <:onN'WALI, [ciIAP. VI.

chapeliy aften^'a!•^^s to it, now equally a parish-church itself. But it
proves its own relationship to St. Rumon, by lying very near to Saint
Euan village, close on the left of the road, at the head of a little hill,
and fronting the village. It is walled up at the back and sides witli
dense black iron-stones ; but the front, and particularly the arched en-
trance, is composed of coarse granite. The water is very line and pel-
lucid, exactly answering therefore to Ausonius's description of t)ie tbun-

tain at Nismes,

Vitrea non luce Nemaiisiis

Furior. ,

The water too, which is always up to the brim of the basin, is remark-
ably cold in summer ; and thus answers exactly again to Martial's de-
scription of Ills fountain in Spain ;

Avidam rlgens Dercciina placalit s'llimt
Et Nemea (juse vincit nives.

So faithfully represented do w« discern the Nemausus and the Nemea of
the continent, in the Nemea of our own Cornwall ! And so judiciously had
our St. Rumon selected the waters of this fountain for his own beverage!
His hermitage, however, was not immediately upon the brink of it, but in
what is now the village, pleasantly situated upon a little hill, like the well,
and distant about a stone's throw, or rather more, from it. The village
consists only of about half a dozen houses, all mean, except one on the
right hand, just as you ascend the hill. This has a ruinous fence before
it, denominated the court-wall, and built with iron-stones, enormously
large. Tlie house itself was nearly all in ruins about forty years ago,
was therefore rebuilt, but had originally windows and a doorway, aU
arched like the well. Some of the moorstones that composed the door-
way and windows, are still upon the ground ; while the other stones are
like those of the court-wall, iron-stones enormously large. Here then
we have the very hermitage of St. Rumon ; afterwards converted into a
chapel, like St. Mawe's; but latterly, liiough built of materials so strong
and so massy, sinking under the weight of its own antiquity, and crum-
bing into ruins §. Hence,

§ Nairn, Nelnih (I.), brightness ; Neimhin (I.), Niamhaim (I.), to shine or be bright;
Ncimheach (I.), glittering or shining j Ncamhain (I.), a pearl; Neamhonn (I.), a diamond;

and

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 201

Hence, however, St. Rumon must have been taken w ith that holy
kind of violence, which tve, in the predominance of worldly wisdom,
are apt to consider as merely ceremonial, but which must have been
real in such a sanctified hermit as this ; in order to be made a bishop.
That he ivas a bisliop, Malmesbury decisively shews us. But he soon
probably returned from his palace of St. German's, and resettled in his
hermitage at St. Ruan ; because his biographer takes no notice of hi.s
exaltation. From nature and from habit, his relish probably was too
strong for a life of retirement, for the energies of vocal prayer, and for
the ecstacies of mental devotion ; to bear the interruptions of business,
to suffer the intrusions of company, and to endure the impertinences of
conversation. Nor let the modern world smile at this, in its bustling
activities after nothing ; while the ancient knew well the respect that
was justly due to it. He certainly died at his cell, was buried in his
oratory, and then became sainted by the reverence of the country ad-
joining. His oratory thus expanded into a church at some distance, his
wood was formed into a parish, and the wild beasts were dislodged to
make room for human inhabitants. Yet his relics were preserved with
religious attention at his own hermitage-chapel, and his name was
affixed w ith religious veneration to it. The place took the name of St.
Ruan, as the parish-church took the equal appellation of Ruan. But
when " Ordulph, duke of ConnvaW and Devonshire, under the Saxon
sovereigns, ingOl, erected a monastery at Tavistock ; he was so struck
w ith tlieir reverence for Rimion's name, Rumon's relics, and Riimon's
memory; that he took up the bones of the saint, and transferred them
to his new monastery *. There the saint was buried in pomp, with the
ensigns of his episcopal dignity upon his monument, and \n ith tiie ir.i-

and Ntanih (I.), heaven, with Its dcrivailvcs Ncainh-ich (I.}, a heavenly spini; Naomh
(I.), a faliil; N'aonilha (I.), holy; Ncimheailh (I.), glcbc-lanJ. The radical idea, there-
tore, is brightness, and this has gradually shot out intogkbc-Iand. I have traci d the ranii-
fications to shew the necessity of digging down to llic very root in these inqiiiriej, and li>
produce an etvmon coinciding with all the names. Goes Naiinh, Neiitih, or Nciinhcach
(1.), would signify the Wood of tite Bright Fountain.

• Leiand's Coll. iv. 153: «' Ordulphu?, dux Cornnbix. transtulit osia Rumoni Tavc-
*' strtchiani." ,., .; ^

VOL. u. DO dition

202 THE CATIIEDRAI. OV CORNNV'At.L [cHAP. VI.

(ii'tion ot' his f^Mntship attached to it. There, its Wjliiam of Wowrester
a<lditioi>ally informs us, " Saint Ramon, a bishop, an lrhJn}ian, hcs in a
" shrine within the abbey-church ot'Tavystoke, between the quire and
'■' St. Maiy's chapel f." And there also his lite was written, tVom such
memorials as then remained of him at St. Ruan, after a lapse of years so
great} ihat his biographer says his wood was formerly very full of wild
beasts, and thus uses a language which throws us back two or three
lumdred years in time, even nearly to the commencement of our Cornish
see. Thus should Rumon come in, one of the very first bishops of Corn-
wall, and long prior to any of the Saxon prelates |.

But let us try if we cannot reduce the chronology into a shorter com-
pass, by the pressure of some incidents preceding. — "\^''e have seen the
parish of Gerens laid out about the year 650, and the church of it taking
the name of a religious king, who died in the district under the year 5g6 *.
We have also seen the parish of Philley, laid out about the same year §.
The latter, however, we have obser\'ed to have been originally a member
of another parish, Ruan Lanyhorne adjoining; and tliis was therefore prior
to that, as the parent to the child. Yet it was but just prior, I believe.
Originally itself a part of the parish of Ver}-an, that mighty polypus iVom
which have been prodviced so many successively, by the mere act of abscis-
sion; as is plain to the examining mind from several circumstances, the cx-

t W. de Worcestre, 105: " Informacio Thomx Peperelle de Tavystoke, notarii public! :
" Sanctus Ramonus episcopiis, IllberniE, jacct in scrinio, in ecclcsia abbalhix dc Ta\ y-
" stoke, inter choruni et capellani Beatx Marias."

X In Butler's Lives of the Saints, translated into Frencb by abbe Godescard, and pub-
lished in twelve tomes oetavo, at Paris, 1783-1788, is this strange account of *' Saint
*' Rumon, eveque. On ne connoit point le siege, qu'a oecupc ce saint. On n'en sait pas
*' davantage sur le detail de sa conduitc, parce que sa vie a ete perdue durant la furenr des
" guerres. Quoiqu'il en soit, son culte est fort ancien a Tavistock, en Devonshire, ou Ic
" comte Ordulf lui balit une eglise en 960. Son nom est marque mi 4 Janvier, dans la
" second edition du Marty rologc de Wilson, qui avoit tie Instniit par ceua: da pays de cc qui
" coneernoit le saint." (i. 83.) So ignorant do these martyrologists and biographers appear,
concerning their own saints !

• See iv. 4, preceding.

$ See V. I, preceding.

■^ ' -i. tension

SilCT. IV,] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 203

tension of Veryan upon t\Ao sides of it, the separation of Verjan from it
by merely two lanes in general, the interposition of Veryan in a narrow-
tongue of land betv.ixt it and Tregoney, even the actual incorporation
ot Veryan into one manor with it to the present moment ; it became
emancij)ated, when he who held Veryan under the king, retired from
the immediate vicinity of the king at Gwcndraith there, and transferred
his manor-house from the chtrch-town of Veryan to that of Ruan Lany-
horne.. The wliole royalty is now denominated the manor of Elcrkj/
<vi(l Ruan Lani/fiorne conjointly, and tlie primary site of the house is
still knowji by the appellation of Elerky. From this site the lord re-
moved to the northern extremity of the parish, at some distance from
<jwendraith and the sea, yet upon a tide- rivulet, and along its bank
sloping sjiarply to the mid-day sun. On this position he built himself a
liousc, regularly castellated in itself, provided with a dungeon for his
manerial prison, and just resigned up to destruction when Leland came
to visit it ; he saying, concerning the rivulet, that " at the head of thi^
" ereeke standith the castclle of Lanyhorne, sumtyme a castel of an I
" tourres, now decaying for iak of coverture |." Some considerable
ruins of it even yet remain, though the village has been all constructed
of its stones. IJut the church was cojeval with the castle, the lord, in a
just reverence for the rites of religion, enacting a clunch, and stationing
a clergyman b}' the side of his castle, just as he had then by Iiis manor-
house at Veryan, for the spiritual emolument of himself and his house-
hold ; procuring a portion of the old parish to be sequestered from it for
a new one, procuring the tithes of this portion to be appropriated to a
new rector, and liberally bestowing a large compjiss of land upon him
for a glebe. The church being called Lan-y-horne, or the churcli at
the angle, from its position upon a triangular piece of ground, that
comes prominent in a point on the south-west, and louks down from
an elevation of seven or eight feet upon the parsonage-house with it.^
appeiulages, 1\ ing reclined on tlie immediate mrir-;in of the creek § ; il

t Ttin. iii. 29.

§ jMn-hcni, tlic name of ilic nianor-hovoc in Ma" gan ]jari>!i, ntar St. f'.cluuiii, and
o'lKC the nniiic of the parish ilsclf (Cnrcw, 93), like our own l.apyhonic, is t?erived, like
our owji, from tlic angular form of the ground, upon svhich the church certainly sfandi,

1) o 2 bj

20if THE CATHF-DRAL OF CORNWALL [cKAP. V:i.

has ca\isc(W//?> to be denominated Lfiw?///07v?c/>/7/, or creek; (he house
to be entitled (as we have seen) Laiijjhorvc castle, and the district, all
nameless before, to be denominated Lanyhorne parish *. Such a domi-
nion had the ideas of a church, as the temple of God and the house of
his worship, over the fancy and the language of the Cornish populace
then! Thus ^^ e fmd the church noticed in the Valor of 12Q2, as
" ecclesia de Lamfiorn;" immediately after the mention of " ecclesia
" de Eler/iy." But Rumon, the bishop of Cornwall and the hermit of
Nemea, being sainted ; his name was fixed upon it, and the Lan-y-Jiorn
was dedicated to Saint Rnan. Then the two names contended for pre-
eminence through several ages, here as well as at Yeryan ; the saintly
endeavouring to rank with the seignioral, and even to supersede it.
From a principle of religious reverence for the memory of the saint, his
name became popular in conversation for that of the parish ; while the
other was retained in all formal writings, out of a proper adherence to an-
cient and original appellations. But the popular name was sure to prevail
at last, from the continual recurrence of it in conversation. Accordingly
we find the title of Elerky completely sunk in conversation at present,
for that of Veryan. Yet the daughter-parish seems to have maintained
the contest with greater firmness than the mother. Lanyhorne and Ruan
went on for a long time, as equal claimants for the right of denominating
the parish; but the latter was plainly gaining ground upon the former. The

So hink'mhorne, L.ankinghorne in the last Valor, LankenAorn in the first ; PolkanAorne, a
personal name in Cornwall ; TreganAorn, a house so called in Cornwall ; all signify in th*
last syllable what Cornu does in Latin, and what Korncl (W.}, Cornat, Comal (C), Korn
(A.), or Kearn (I.), do, a corner. And that Corn (C.) was occasionally pronounced as its
derivative Horn in English, is plain from the personal and local appellations above, the very
personal being originally local, and from the appearance of the word Sorn (C), a corner,
being merely Horn with the sibilating prefix to it. So Castle lloriiick in Cornwall means,
not the Iron Castle surely, as Pryce and Borlase and Tonkin unite to i-ulcrprel it, but, as
common sense suggests in opposition to ihcm all, the Castle in a Corner.

* Leland's Itin. iii. 29: " From Lanyhorne Pj7/e," not •' Pyle" for casllc, as Burton
reads the word, but Pil (C), a creek ; as we have, p. 28, •' Lanyhorne Creeke or Hille,"
Pille, p. 29, " Lanyhorne Pille," and *' S. Juste Pille, or Crtke." We have even at this
day, and upon this river, the Fal, a creek running by the church of Feotk, and denomi-
nated Pil.

parish

SKCT. IV.] HrSTOTlICALr.Y SURVEYED. 205

parish is called in the last Valor " Ruon or Lanyhornc," the seignioral
and sainted names here standing upon the same ground, but the sainted
taking precedence of the seignioral f , The lord's copse in the parish is at
this day called Lanyhornc Wood, while the rector's is called Ruan
Wood. In this partition of the parish between the two rivals, an even
balance of power was set up; but could not be long maintained, when
the sainted name was supported on the shoulders of the many, and the
seignioral was only " upheld by old repute." Yet it was maintained
more equally than we should expi;ct ; the formal title of the parish being
Ruan Lanyhornc at present ; Ruan as the presiding half of the name,
but Lanyhornc as not extinguished like Elerky ; while, in that predomi-
nance of spirit which originally created the contest, which made Lany-
hornc, like Pompey, object to an equal, and Ruan, like Ca?sar, revolt
against a superior, Coesar's cause has finally prevailed, and Ruan is the
only name in all the country round. Thus does it bear triumphantly
upon its brow, the signature of its relation to St. Rumon; a relation
begun when it begun itself, commencing therefore in the seventh cen-
tury, with Philley and with Gerens, yet commencing some time before
them, even much nearer to the erection of the Cornish episcopate, about
Ci-J, and shewing St. Rumon to have been, in all probability, the very
jirsf hlshop that ever presided over it *.

The

t Not as published by Bacon, where the name is merely " Ruon Lanyhorue," but, as
the receivers of the tenths direct the rector to pay them specifically tor " Ruon or
" Ldnyhorne."

* Sc. Humon became so famous at Tavistock, that Henry I. granted to Tavistock, «' nun^
" ciiuas ad fcstuni Sancli Rumoni per tres dies" (Monastieon, i. 219 and 1000), a fair still kept
on tr.e ninth of Sei)teniber, as the feast of Ruan Lanyhornc is accordingly on the 5cto/iJ Sunday
ill Si-piember; that William Rufus confirmed to the abbey an est;'e " per cullellam dur-
" iieiim," so old is the ivory knife among us! " (]uod in manu lenuit el abbati porrcxit,"
and "qui quidcm cultelliis jacct inferetro Sancli Rumoni" (p. 997) ; that so early as 1193,
tlie church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary alone (p. 996), had associated St.
Rtmion with her in the patronage of itself, *' in honore Reaix Marix et Sancti Rumoni
" confessoris" (p. 998); that, though the i.hurch at times retained the Virgin Mary for its
patron to the last (p. 997, 999, 1003), yet at limes also it did not, and Rumon even so-
perscded ihe Virgin herself, a donation of land " abbati munasterii Sancti Rumoni de Tavi-
»« stock," being dated the 261b of Edward III. (p. looi, J002) ; and that ooe Richard de

Wiche

'20Q THR C4THEDItAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI

The Saxon sovereigns, on the reduclion of Cornwall in ()30, very
naturally nominated Cornish clerpyn^en to be bishops of St. Ger-
man's, in order to conciliate the minds of their new subjects, and to
conceal half of their subjection from them. This principle, however,
would operate only .at first; and Saxons would then be appointed
to this, as well as to every other see of the Saxons, A religious respect
lor the ditlerence of language in Cornwall, should certainly have come
in as a powerful auxiUary to policy, and as a principle of action much
more dignified in itself; to continue Cornishmen in the throne of St.
German's, as educated in the language of the country, as familiar with
the manners of the natives, as therefore most competent to discharge
their high chities towards both. But the interests of religion are seldom
surtercd to mingle with, and scldomer to oppose themselves against, the
advantages of policy, either in private or in public persons; and the
prelates of Cornwall, however Cornish at first, were certainly Saxoa
afterwards. The first who sat under tlie patronage of England, even
Conan, was e\idently a Cornishman ; the name bemg apparently Cornish
in itself This prelate seems to have been a hermit before he was a
bishop, like Rumon ; and in that parish of Roche too, where his
memory is still revered, his name is still fixed upon the church, and his
well, his meadow, with his park, arc still recognised to this day. He
was assuredly the original hermit of that very rock, which from him
has so long lent its appellation to the parish ; to which perhaps he re-
tired occasionally from his house at Trefnmk, for a stricter sequestrai"
tion, a more i-igorous solitude, during the season of Lent ; and from
which his name of Conan has been nearly lost in the descriptive title of

Wiche is noticcil in a confirmation made by Bartliolomew bishop of HxcIlt, to have
granted some tithes to the monastery, " ct banc donationem super aliarc Bvati Rinnoni
*' Tavistochi<e," as now the high altar of the church, " per librimi Evangelioriim manu
" propria obtuHssc" (p. 1002). But the immediate connexion between the pariiih of Ruan
I.anyborne and the abbey of Tavistock, tlu'ough the medium of St. Rumon, is strongly
marked by this incident. "The castellc of Lanyliorne," says Leland, iii. 29, " — lonegid
" .as prbicipal house to the archedecon's;" and one of these, " Dominus Odo Ic arcedcuknc
" miles," in the 17th of Edward I. gave an estate in Devonshire, " Bcatte Maris et Sanclo
■" i?«mo«o ct abbati de Tavistock." (Monasticon, p. 997.)

Saint

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEyED. 207

Saint Roche, or the Holy Man of the Rock. From this hermitage he
was removed to the throne of St. German's, the Saxon king imitating
the Cornish in liis nomination of a hermit for his first prelate ; and on
his death, canonized by the partial veneration of his countrymen. But
his name remains a family-name in Cornwall to this day ; Conan being
only varied into Conon, or lengthened out into Conan/, as it is now
written ; or even vitiated into Gonnet, as it is now pronounced at
Roche *. Thus Rumon is equally a family-name in Cornwall still, with

* TotJtin's MS. : " This parish is dedicated to St. Roche — . It is named De Rnpe in
" Taxat. Ben. 1291, from its remarkable rock," rather from its Saint of the Rock; De
Hiipe in the Valor being the name, not of the parish but of the churcli ; and " ecclesia de
" Rupe," as the appellation of the Valor really is, meaning just as " ecclesia dc Anton,"
or " ecclesia de Macre," or '* ecclesia de Keync," the ciuirch of the saint, St. Roche's
church. It " was then dedicated to St. Conant, whose memory is still preserved by his well
*' on 'I'rcfiank, his park and meadow, corruptly called St. Gonnet's." Mr. Tonkin was
pecniir.riy fortunate in catching these traditions at the very moments of their flight. Tticy
are now all gone, except " St. Gonnet's park," as called, a field about an acre in extent, a
stone's throsV from the rock, and to the west of it. But what is considered as the hcrmiiatre
on the rock, is merely a chapel erected on the site of the hermitage at his death, and re-
erecled so little a time before the Reformation, as to carry an aspect too modern surely to be
mistaken, as 1 have known it mistaken, for a Brilisk antiquity, by any who will use
their senses in contradiction to their opinions. Antiquaries coming into Cornwall to view
its remains, come with their minds all disordered by the expectation of druidical monuments,
and — find these in every relique of antiquity. — We thus discover, and in. the very name of a
parish, a word utterly lost to (he Cornish language, and retained only in the Bretoon, Roche,,
a rock : " Ce mot," savs Ptllclier, " se trouve dans Ics anciens livres, et dans I'usage d'au-
*• jourd'hui." So we have Rockf in French, Roihalle, Rochfort, in France, and Roclte Ailey,
famous for its stone, in Yorkshire. — The well on Trcfrank, colloquially called Tre-rank, is
at a little distance from the rock ; and the estate seems to have taken its name from som«-
cxcniption granted to it, as we have a green by the ancient site of the lord's house at Veryan,
on which a fair is traditionally reported to have been licld formcrlv, denominated Toll-_/h;«A
Green, The hermitage is so entire at one cud, that we niay disctrii its whole form per-
fectly. From two windows there, and a pediment projecting midwav between them, we see
the wliule consisted of two stories aiul two rooms; the upper, from its large and ornamented
window, appearing to have been the chapel ; but the lower, with its petty window, the abode
of the chaplain, almost as much a hermit as St. Roche himself. The lower is the room
into which the ascent leads, and leads by steps formed in the rock; but led, till these very
few vearj, by a ladder brought occasioniUy for the purpose, as the rock then fornud .ai
abrupt precipice,

the

308 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VI.

the pronunciation of it into Roman* ; and seems from the parish deno-
minated Romansleigh in Devonshire, as dedicated to him, to have been
so pronounced by the EngUsh. But the Cornish, using that eHsion
which I have formerly noted in the letter « among the Britons, which
they extended equally to the kindred letter m, and of w^hich the same
signature still remains for both among us, in the omission of the letters
upon paper, and in a stroke over them to note the omission ; Rumoii
was abbreviated, as we have seen, into Ruon, or Ruan. So Rhufain is
Welsh for Rome at present, but must originally have been for Romans,
as Rhufeiniaid is for Romans ; Rhufon, Ruon, the proper name of a man
(says Davies), but a soldier (adds Lhuyd), and both, however contradic-
torily, yet very justly, I believe, as the word is really Rhufon. a Roman,
thence settled naturally into the personal appellation of a man, and as
naturally diverted to signify a soldier; as we have it meaning again, in
Rhyon (Welsh) a soldier, and in Rhun (Welsh) the proper name of a
man, the name particularly of a Wclsli king up in the sixth century f.
In Cornwall we have Reve and Ruan for Rome, Revenuer and Rouan
for a Roman ;};. Accordingly we find Rumon to be denominated Roman
expressly, not merely in the English Romansleigh of Devonshire, but
in an intimation of his burial at St. Ruan, by one of Lcland's English
authors §.

Such were two of the British bishops of Cornwall, one antecedent by
three centuries to the Saxon reduction of the country, and one cotem-
porary with it. To these we are inclined to add the Stidio of the false

* Carow, 63: " John Roman." It is also a name at Tregoney still.

t Richdrds, the Welsh Bible, and Rowlands's Mona Aiitiqua, 148.

% Pryce and Borlase. In Carew, 39, a record 3 [Jenry IV. {livcs us " i'oiraman" in
Lysnewith hundred, and upon the northern coast; the same ajipellation, assurediyj with
" Fol-ruan" on the southern.

§ Lcland's Coll. iv. 81 : " Sanctus — Romanus episcopus, in loco [fcpcHturJ qui dicitur
" Aeyesty-ealum [at West-Wealuni], prope bracliiuin marls quod vocatur licgcsmundi
•' [Hcgel-mutha]," near that arm of the sea which is called Htle or Ilell'ord river; just as
the Hayle of St. he's is denominated Hegel-mitbc, by Malmesbury, 146. In Leiands
Itin, viii. 15, we have " Johan. Romanus" archbishop of York.

list,

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SUUVETED. 20g

list, as a third ; because his name seems too romanized to be Saxon, to
lengthen out in the Roman mode from Stidio into Stidionis, and in this
form to be fixed upon the church of St. Stcdian, alias St. Stjthyan,
witlain our deanery of Kerrier. Yet on full examination we cannot
admit it ; nor can the list receive any support from a coincidence so ap-
posite, and an analogy so inviting. The church of St} thyan is denomi-
nated from a j'cmale saint, and is therefore called in the Valor of po[)e
Nicholas " the church of Sancta Stediana*." Conan was the last
Briton, I believe, who ever sate in the episcopal throne at St. German's.
The rest were all Saxons. So early as the year 96O, only thirty years
after the nomination of Conan to the throne, we find Athelstan to be
seated in it, and we know him to be a Saxon by his name f . In og4
we find Ealdred to be equally a bishop, and know him equally by his
name to be a Saxon ;}:. But we shall soon find another bishop, un-
der the varying name of Brightwold, Biith wold, Burgald, or Burwald ;
evidenced to be a Saxon by all the variations, and standing the very last
of all our bishops of St. German's §.

So apparently Saxon as all these were, let us retrace our steps, and
go back in our quest for Britons. Then we shall find some who were
Britons equally with Conan or Rumon, and were taken too, like them,
from a hermitage. That such men as hermits should be coveted for
prelates, should be allured from their cells, should even be forced out
into active life ; seems A'ery natural to a period, in which goodness was
esteemed superior to learning, the flame of the heart to the light of die
head, a fervent spirit of devotion to adroitness in the management of
business, and the graces of an angel to the virtues of a mere man. The
passions of the public then gravitated generally to religion, as their
common centre. Both king and people there found a reverence for the
clergy, as the official saints of Gop ; and there felt a veneration for the

• " Ecclesia Stx. Stcdianse."

t Iiigulphus, 502.

\ Moiiasticon, i. 227: " Episcopium Ealdredi cpiscopi, id est in provincia Comubiae.''

§ See next chapter, sect. i.

VOL. II. E E bishops.

210 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. "VT.

bishops, as the sancti sanctorum of the clergy. But now opinions are so
changed, that to be a saint would never draw down a mitre upon the
head of a clergj-inan, to be a hermit would disqualify entirely for the
management of a diocese, and learning alone is the ostensible recom-
mendation to a bishopric ; even when our government is not compelled,
as too frequently it is, from its inability of resting firmly upon its own
foundations of power, from its finding principle not sufficiently opera-
tive in favour of allegiance, to higgle and huckster even with bishoprics
for its own support.

Thus we see in the calendars of our Cornish saints, that Saint
PiRAN, who came out of Ireland a mere saint, was, as a saint, exalted
into a bishop in Cornwall ; he being entitled in one of them " Saint
" Picram, bishop," and in another, " Saint Pyram, bishop of Corn-
" ivall*." We find also that Saint Germoch, who came from Ireland
with Breaca, and was then a king, became equally a bishop afterwards;
his name being thus recited, with the supersedence of the royal by the
episcopal title, " Saint Gyermoch, bishop, his day is kept on the day of
" St. John in the holydays of the Nativity, at three miles from Mount
" St. INIichael f ." In the same calendars we meet with a third prelate
of Cornwall, in a third hermit from Ireland ; Saint Cakantoc being ex-
pressly recorded there, as " bishop and confessor," and his day noted as
" the lOth of May, under the letter C ];." And we find even a fourth
of these sainted refugees from Ireland, Saint Erghe, made a bishop ;
as ** St. Her}'gh, brother of St. Yuy [Vny]," bears the title of
" bishop," like Rumon; but, like Rumon, has his remains removed out
of Cornwall, as " he lies in a certain church under the cross of St.

* W. de Worcestrc, p. 107 : " In libro kalendarii principalis libri Antiphaner [Anti-
" phoner.] eccksiae Thcmas, prions canonicorum de Eodman, inveni scriptum de bona
"■ mami, ' Sanctus Pieramus, episcopus'." P. 134, 135: " In ecclcsia de Lauceston. —
" ' Sanctus Pyramus, episcopus de Cornubia,'." See also v. i, before.

+ Ibid. 107 : " Sanctus Gyermochus, episcopus; dies ejus agitur die Sancti Johannis in
•' festo nalalls, pei tria milliaria de Monte Sancti Michaelis." See iv. 7, before.

X Ibid. 108: "Sanctus Karantocus, episcopus et confessor, 16 die Maii, C littcra."
See V. 1, before.

" Paul's

SECT. IV.] HISTOnrCALLT SURVEYED. 211

♦' Paul's at London ||." These, however, being prior to the erection of a
Cornish see, could' mWy have acted in their episcopal office, as suffragans
to the prelate of Exeter; and being many of them cotemporaries with
each other, as suffragans co-ordinate in different parts of Cornwall at
the same time. These, therefore, were never seated on the stone-chair
of St. German's ; that Lias Fail of our Cornwall, upon which the spiri-
tual sovereigns of it had immemoriully used to be enthroned : yet they
zvere prelates of Cornwall, and let us search for more of them.

By the same sort of light, not very strong indeed, but serving happily
to soften the darkness, and hitherto unused for this purpose, we can
just discern the persons of some more of our British bishops. They
have hitherto lain buried in the darkness of their graves, the vaults
being closed oyer their heads, and no memorials appearing to the inqui-
sitive eye above ; but we are now fortunate enough to find their vaults,
and bold enough to break them open ; yet advance into the dropping
damps, and invade the awful stillness, listening with fear to the very
echo of our foot-fall, and holding our little lamp before us with a tre-
mulous hand. In that calendar of the church of Tavistock, which has
particularly preserved the name and title of St, Rumon, are equally pre-
served those of another saint ; " Saint Elidius" being there denomi-
nated " a bishop," his day being said to be " the eighth of August,"
and his remains being stated to " lie in the isle of Syllcy *." The same
saint, under the same appellation, a little varied into " Seynt Lyda," is
declared from the trumpet of tradition at the place, always sounded in
the legend of the saint at the church, to have been " the son of a
*' king," and probably of an Irish king, though our extract from the
legend has here a lacuna m it f . He lived a saint in what was denomi-
nated from him St. Lyde's Isle, contractedly for St. EUd's, and viciously

II Worccstrc, io6: '• Sanctiis Ilcrygh, frater Sancli Vuy [Vny], cpiscopiis, jacet in
•• quadam ccclesiii scila sul> crucc ecckslx Sancti Paul'i Loiicloniaruni." See v. i, before.

* Iljid. 115: " In kalciidarlo ccclesice nionasterii Tavislokc. ....... Sancti Elidii,

*' cpiscopi, 8 die Augusti ; jacet in insiilii Sullys'."

f Ibid. 98 : " Insula ScyutLyda (fail lilius regis )."

E E 2 by

212 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORXAVALL [ciIAP. VI.

hy English pronunciaticn since, St. Helen's J ; was there called upon ta
be the prelate of the province of the isles, was there buried also, and
there had his memory revered with great devoutness for ages afterward.
" Say net Lide's Isle" is noted by Leland as a place, " wher in tymes
" past at her sepulchre," ixland strangely mistaking the sex of the
saint, " was gret superstitioun § :" veneration for a saint and a bishop
in one who was born the son of a king, yet made himself a mere hermit
in a lonely islet, having perhaps risen in a trembUngly aspiring flame of
devoutness into superstition ; but the superstition prohahhj being quite
harmless in itself, and this snrely being infinitely superior to the con-
temptuous neglect which has succeeded it.

We then come to another bishop in the vault, embalmed as he lies
within his cere-cloth ; but must stop a longer time in reading his in-
scription and in surv^eying his features, to distinguish the bishop from
two saints on the right and left of him. " Saint Mybbard, a hermit,"
cries William of AVorcester, from oral information at the parish here-
after mentioned, " was the son of a Mng of Ireland, and was otherwise
" denominated Colrogus ; his body lies in a shrine at the church of
*' Kardynan, two miles from Bodman, and his day is held on the
*' Thursdav before tlie feast of Pentecost*." — " St. JNIancus, his com-
*' panion," and equally "a hermit, lies in tJie parish of Lanteglas," near
Fowey; " but the village is called Bodeknek," Bodinnick, " in the
*• same parish; and his feast," like St. Mybbard's, " is held on the
" Thursday before the feast of Pentecost •fJ' — " St. Wyllow, a hermit,

% Dr. Borlase, in his Sylley Isles, p. 50, has observed this; adding with equal justness,
that in the Monasticon, i. 998, 1002, the isle is called " Insula Sancti Elidii."

§ Itin. iii. ig. The name being written St. Lyda, as it is written by William abwe,
Leland was kd to suppose the bishop a woman.

* Worcestrc, 141 : " Sanctus Mybbard hercmita, filius regis Hiberniae, alitcr dictus
"Colrogus; ejus corpus jacet in scrinio ecclcsise de Kardynan, distat per duo milliaria de
•' Bodman — , et ejus dies agitur die Jovis, proxima ante festum Pentecostes."

t Ibid. ibid. : " Sanctus Mancus, consodalis ejus, heremita, jacet in parcchia de Lantc-
♦' glas ; at villa vocata Bodeknek est in dicta parcchia, et ejus festum agitur die Jovis proxima
•' ante festum Pentecostes."

" was

SFCT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 21*

" was an associate with St. Mancus and St. Myr/bard, and his feast is
" kept," Hke that of both, " on the Thursday next before the feast of
" Pentecost ; and he himself lies in the parish of Aileretew," Lan*
reythowe or Lanreth, " about a mile from Bodennek'iy But of these
three saints, so signally commemorated upon one day in all their three
parishes, which is the prelate, and which the mere saint of Cornwall ?
They are all three assuredly Irish, one of them being expressly recorded
as " the son of a king of Ireland," and the other two being merely his
attendants or companions in his sccpiestration, though they kept much
nearer to each other than to him. One of these two was the prelate, as
William additionally informs us in a distant passage of his work,
" Saint Maxcus," he there says, " was a bishop, and lies in the
♦' church of Lanrctho, near the town of Fowey, within two miles
" from it §."

I have thus disclosed to my reader's eye British bishops of Cornwall^
no less than six in number; yet to all I can add two more. " Saint-
" Barnic [Barric] a bishop, in English called St. Barrc, is buried in the
*' church of Fowey, and his feast is three days next before the feast of
** St. Michael j]." At Fowey he is accordingly recognised for the patron
saint at present, the church being now dedicated to him as St. Fim-bar-
rus; and "the paroch chirch of Fowey," says Leland accordingly, " is
" of S. F//«-barrus^." He Nsas thus denominated, as tv^o confessed

X Worcestrc, 141 : " 3anctus Wyllow heremifa full consocius Sancti Manci et Sancti
«' My^/barcl, et ejus festum tenctur die Jovis proxinia ante festum Pentecosten, et ipsejacet
•• in parochia Aileretew per uniim niiiliare dc Bodennck."

§ Ibid. 115: " Sanctiis JVlaiicus, episcopus, jacct in ecclesia Lanrctho, prope villani de
" Fowey, infra duo milliaria." The licentious use of the word "infra" here, for " intra,"
is common to ail old charters. See. and continued to be used in charters, &c. till the middle
of the seventeenth century. The name of Mantus lias been superseded in the appellation of
his own church, by some saint (I know not whom) of the name of Lanty ; and Lantcglos
signifies the church of Lanty.

II Ibid. 113: '• Sanctus Barnic, episcopus, callid Anglicc Scynt Barre, sepelitur in.
" ecclesia de Fowpv ; el ejus festum per trcs dies proximc ante festum Sancti Michaelis."

f Ilin. iii. 33.

saints

21-1 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VI.

saints of Ireland were, Barrus, Barrocus, Finian, or Find-barrvis* ; was
equally Irish himself with both, therefore, and was so denominated
tindoubtcdly, as we are assured that one of those Irish saints was from
his fine head of liair-|-. His original appellation thus appears to have
been what the tradition of Fowey has carefully transmitted to us, Fim-
barrus, and the others are only abbreviations of it; 7*7??, in Irish, being
the same word as jine in English, while Baj^ signifies the hair of the
head. But let us now proceed to the other in our catalogue of bishops.
*' Saint Hvldren," says our very useful memorialist, from monuments
then very accessible and obvious, but soon whirled away by a tornado
of reformation, "^bishop, Yiqs in the parish of Lausalux" Lansalloes,
alias Lansalwys, " near the parish of Lanteghjs : his feast is held on
" the first day of February, that is, on the vigil of the Purification of
'' the Blessed Mary j;." So many saints and bishops have we now dis-
co\cred in this little, insulated, unfrequented angle of Cornwall, at the
mouth of the river Fowey, and within the compass only of tliree
parishes ! There may the Cornish antiquary, now, for the first time,
with equal curiosity and admiration,

The land of heroes and of saints survey.

Yet I can add one more to my beadroll of bishops. I find this one,
however, in an incidental notice upon a monastic record ; there I per-

* Usher, 493, 494 : at Clonard, " Adamiiano Sanctus Finnio, Findlanus, et Viiinianus
" dicliis ;" 503, " S. Barri (qui et Lochanus et Barrocus et, conimuni cum Finiano Clun-
" darnensi nomhie, Find-harrus dictus est) in Corcagiensi ecclesia discipuli."

+ Lcland's Itin. iii. 196: *' Ex Vita S. Flnibarri. ' Fimbarrus in Durconensi nalus
" oppido. — Fimbarrus in ba|)tismo Joannes dictus. Postea a puhltrltiidlne capUlortim Fim-
" barrus dictus. — Fimbarrus Alhaniam petiit. — Fimbarrus in Hiberniam rediens, fit epis-
<' copus Corcagensis' ." He is therefore the bishop noticed by Usher as at Cork, and not
the l)lshop who was patron-saint of Fowey. Gwynn (W.) is white, F'tonn (I.) is either
white or fine, and the biographer here determines it to mean the latter only.

% Worcestre, 114: <' Sanctys Hyldren, cpiscopus, jacet in parochia Lansalux juxta
'• parochiam Lanteglys ; ejus festum agitur primo dieFebruarii, id est, vigiliae Purificalionis
" Beatae Marije." This saint is not the same that has lent his appellation to the chapel of
Lanhydrock, in the deanery of Trigge Minor; the patron-saint of this being St. Hydrock,
who was no bishop, and is merely mentioned thus by. WorcestrCj 108 : " Sanctus Hydrocus,
** confessor, die 5 Mali, F liltera."

ceivcd

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 215

ceived him from a mere casualty in reading, or (to .speak more properly
perhaps) from a spirit always on the wing, in exploring every corner,
and examining every nook of probable, almost of possible, information
for my purpose. Among the numerous relics once preserved with
serious solicitude at Glastonbury, now dissipated with the unfeeling
temerity of ignorance, even yet considered with a smile of supercilious
pity by the vulgar many, but high objects surely of reverence to the
religious, and of taste to the historical, among the learned, was the
crown of a skull once belonging to " Saint Conoglasus, a prelate of
" Cornwall ^y This appellation is so nearly the very same with that
of a British king cotemporary with Gildas, and addressed by him ||, that
we camiot but believe the bishop to have been equally British with the
king. Nor does the appellation signify what Gildas, in a just indigna-
tion at the protligate king, but in a violent distortion of the word from
the meaning, a distortion so violent that w^e cannot trace the mode of
making it, intimates it to signify — the Yellow-haired Butcher ^. It
means merely the pale (or the white) lord ; Cun being still a lord in
Welsh, and " Conn of the hundred battles" being still celebrated as a
hero in the old annals of Ireland, while Glas denotes only the colour of
either the complexion or the hair *.

Here I roll up my opened record of Cornish prelates ; the record has
hitherto been almost as much unopened as the roll of destiny itself. I
have ventured, however, and with no ill-omened hand, I hope, to ex-
pand it all before my reader ; I have thus produced a long list of pre-
lates, all hitherto buried in the happy obscurity of their Uves ; as men,

§ Joannes Glastonicnsis, 449 : " Dc corona Sancti Conoglasii, episcopi Cornubiac."

II Epistola Giltlx, ig. Gale: " Cuneglesc."

^ Ibid. ibid. : " Koniana lingua, Lanio Fidve."

* From some strange laxity in the old language of Britain, like that strange la.xity in
vision which is afcribcd to the ducal Spencers ofoiir country, in not discriniinaling kindred
colours: Glas in Welsh, Cornish, and Irish, is cither green, pale, blue, or gray ; yet it
never signifies yellow, and cannot possibly therefore signify a deep yellow, as Gildas inter-
prets it " fulvus." This then combines with the absolute want of any word like Con or
Cun for a " Lanio" or buteher, to shew us how de\iouilv Gildas has interpreted the name.

4 not

2l6 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VI.

not blazing forth to the world with the portentous glare of a comet, but
shining usefully like the stars in their little orbs, overlooked like the stars
by the idly busy mind of man, yet remembered by Him who uses the
stars alone for his regular ministers : and all this assemblage of British
bishops have I embodied from various regions of intelligence, to supply
the place of those mere ghosts or shadows which have iilled up the
muster-roll of history so long !

CHAPTER

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED, 21?

CHAPTER S E V E N T II.

SECTION I.

1 HE sec of Cornwall, as I have previously suggested, commenced
about the year 6l4: but it was now hastening to its dissolution; it
actually ended before the Saxon monarchy. Just before and just after
the termination of that monarchy, the tide of humoursome devoutness,
which had been flowing for five ages, and settling sees in villages, began
to ebb down again, and to carry back the sees into cities. Thus both
the sees of Wilton and of Sherborne were transferred together to Salis-
bury soon after the Conquest * ; as those of Crediton and St. German's
were equally transferred to Exeter a little before. The principle which
had planted the episcopate at St. German's ceased to operate, and the
effect naturally terminated with the cause; yet the seat of the bisho]*
was not removed from St. German's as a village, and fixed at Leskard
or Lestwithiel as the capital of the province. A new principle spmng
up in the mind, to give a new direction to the passions, to whirl away
the Cornish episcopate into Devonshire, and to drop it at the Devonshire
capital.

This dissolution of our bishopric at St. German's, however, was not
aliasty stroke of death, but preceded by a kind of preparator}' sickness,
and foretold by some menacing symptoms of speedy mortality. That
passion of avarice, which is so apt to steal over the calm unagitated
breast of age, to degrade even the exalting spirit of literature, and to
disgrace even the refining essence of religion in it, began the Mork of
dissolving, by uniting the bishopric of St. German's witli that of Cre-

• Malmcsbury, f. 141 and 143.
VOL. II. F F diton.

218 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. "VII.

diton. " Livingus," as Malmesbury informs us, " from a monk of
" Winchester becoming abbot of Tavistoclc and bishop of Crcditon,
" was reckoned to possess the greatest power and familiarity with king
" Canute — . lie advanced so higldy in his favour, that on the death of
** his uncle Brithivold, who was bishop of Cormvall, he was to unite
" both the bishoptics under his own authorifij-f.'' But Malmesbury has
mistaken the name of the king, and seduced Dr. Borlase into the same
mistake ; the Doctor has also misinterpreted the meaning of Malmes-
bury, or rather (as he is not much in the habit of consulting original
authorities at this period of his history) has adopted the misinterpreta-
tion of another, and so given a false turn to the history. " lifter the
" death of Bunvoldy he says without one reference, " his nephew
" Livingus, abbot of Tavistock and bishop of Crediton, by his great in-
*' terest with king Canute, prevailed so far as to unite the bishopric of
"St. Germans to that of Crediton, A. D. 104Q]:."^ This passage is
pregnant with errors, and it is my business to point them out. The
plan was, as we have seen in Malmesbury already, for an eventual, not
an actual union ; for one that was to take place tvhen a future contin-
gency happened. Livingus obtained only, that, " on the death of his
" uncle Brithwold, — he teas to unite both the bishoprics :" the plan
therefore was not to be executed till Brithwold was dead, and was actu-
ally defeated for some years by the long life of Brithwold. The uncle
sur-vdved the nephew, and (if the king was Canute) the prelate outlived
the king ; but the king, in fact, was Edward the Confessor. Livingus,
who had become bishop of AVorcester as well as prelate of Crediton,
before the accession of Edward to the throne, and had then been very
instrumental in raising him to it §; however worthy of reverence as a

t Malmesbury, f. 145: "Livingus, ex monacho Wintoniensi abbas Tavistokensis et
" episcopiis Cridiensis, maximae familiaritatis et potentiae apud Cnutoneni regem habitus
" est. — Eoapud eum gratia; processit, ut defuncto avunculo suo Brilhwoldo, qui erat Cor-
*• nubiensis episcopus, ambos arbitratu suo uniret episcopatus J'

J: Borlase, 379; probably from Heylyn, 72.

§ Florence, 400 : " Wicciorum episcopatum Livingo, Cridiatunensi antlstiti, rex dedit
*'Haraldusj" and 404, " Edwardus, annitentibus maxime comite Godwiao et Wigorni-
•• ensi prsesulc Livingo, Luadonise levatur in regem."

prelate.

SECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 219

prelate, was shamefully avaricious as a man, engaging deeply in the
politics of the times ; so being (as all such prelates are sure to be) with
all the traces of literary, of moral, of episcopal dignity much etFaced
from his mind, cunningly selfish, and meanly grasping ; or, in that low
language of the world which has here crept into history, *' a very pru-
" dent man||." To the two bishoprics of Worcester and Crediton,
which he already possessed, he wished to add a third in St. German's :
he applied to Edward for a promise of it, and the easy monarch could
not refuse one to liim. But death, that useful represser of the swelling
eagerness of man for the trash of earth, cut short in the very midst his
long project, of accumulating wealth upon wealth from the pili'crcd altars
of God. Edward came to the throne in 1041 ^, the promise was pro-
bably' made immediately afterwards, and Livingus died himself upon the
23d of March, in 1046 *. So little did " Livingus — , by his great in-
" terest with king Canute, — unite the bishopric of St. German's to that
"of Crediton, A. D. 1049," that Livingus died in 1040, and Canute
ten years before !

" On the death of Livingus," adds Florence, " the pontificate of
" Worcester was immediately given to Aldred, and the prelacy of Cre-
" diton to Leofric, a Brctoon, and the king's chancellor f." The lord
high chancellor of England, who was originally the archbishop of Can-
terbury, as the president of the king's high court of chancery %, who was

II Florence, 394: " VIrum prudentlssimum Livingum."

^ Sax. Chron.

* Florence, 406 : " Livingus, Wicciorum, Domnania;, ct Cornubiae pnesul, decimo
*' Cal. Aprilis, die DominicS, obiit."

+ Florence, 406 : " Cujus post decessum, regis canccllario, Leofrico Britonico, mo.r
•' Cridiatuncnsis — datus est prxsulatus ; et Aidredus Wicciorum episcopatuni susccplt."
Florence, in his mistaken notion that Livingus was really what he calU him, ** Wicciorum,
" Domnanise, et Cornubite prsesul," when we know he was so by designation only, says
that his successor Leofric was made bishop of St. German's as well as ol Crediton, " Cri-
•* diatunensis el Cornubiensis datus ejt prxsulatus."

X See ii. 4, preceding, at the end.

F F 2 still.

220 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORXAVAtL [cHAP. VIT.

Still, and continued to be for ages afterward, a clerg;}'man §, even neces-
sarily one (let me remark), as the professed, the official keeper of the
king's conscience, had many clerks or clerg}^men under him || ; as then
the only students in civil or canon law, those universally considered
institutes of equity, and held therefore what appears so ridiculous under
our laical chancellors at present, many of the king's benefices in his
patronage, for the promotion of those clerks ^[. Leofric was also, adds
an old MS. in the Bodleian Library, " chaplain to the king;" or, as
the Saxon Chronicle speaks exactly to the same purport, " this king's

§ M. Paris, 996: '' Dum adluic stECularh et regis Ethdredl cmicellarlus extltissetj"
that is, while he was a secular clergyman, and before he became a monastic one.

H Sparke, 19, concerning Becket, " quinquaginta duos clericos cancellarius in obsequlo
•* suo habehat."

^ The clerks in chancery, as clergymen, could not marry. This obligation was originairy
binding upon all the clerks ; was first relaxed in favour of the clerk of the crown ; was after-
wards dissolved in favour of the cursitor clerks {the masters in chancery, formerly called
clerks, with the master of the rolls as their principal) ; and was finally taken away from the
only clerks remaining in subjection to it, those who are called the six clerks. " Whereas
" of old time accustomed [it] hath been used in the — court" of chancer)', says a law of the
I4-I5th of Henry VIII. " that all manner of clerks and ministers of the same court, writing
•• to the great seal, should be unmarried, except 072/^ the clerk of the crown ; so that as well
*' the coursetoiirs and other clerks, as the six clerks of the said chancery, were ly the same
*' custom restrained from marriage; — and forasmuch as the said custom takclh no place nor
*' usage, but only in the office of the said six clerks, but that it is permitted and suffered—
" that as well the said coursetours as the other clerks aforesaid, may and do take wives and
" marry at their liberty, — and of long time have so done, without interruption or let of any
'* person/' the six clerks therefore, and •' for that the said custom is not grounded upon
" any law," petition the king for an allowance by statute to marry, have their petition
actually inserted as a law in the statute-book, and by virtue of this insertion, uiihout any
form of ratification ly the king or ly the estatet, have married ever since. There is only a
provision annexed, that " by any thing in this act contained" the master of the rolls is not
to be injured in his patronage of these clerkships, and is still to be attended by these clerks.
We thus, too, account for that seeming singularity still retained, of the master's holding
his courts and keeping his records in a chapel: lie was formerly a clergyman as well as his
attendants, and as well as his immediate superior of the chancery. This superior appears
from his name to have equally held his court in a church, like our ecclesiastical judges, and
within the chancel of it ; and the master of the rolls was merely a masker-clerk to those clerks
the masters in chancery.

4 "priest;"

SECT, r.jlj] HlSTOniCALLY SURVEYED. 221

*' priest * ;" the priest or chaplain of the king being naturally the keeper
of the king's conscience, and therefore chancellor to him. So much
has the profession of the common law usurped upon its once as its natu-
rally superior profession of divinity; rising with the rising attachment
of all ranks to the property of earth, standing now the most lucrative
and most splendid of all our professions ; seating even a common la\\'yer
upon the bench of equity, and thrusting even a layman into the post of
keeper of the king's conscience ! This Leofric, subjoins the old MS.
" after he had received the honour of the pontificate, gxiing over his
** diocese studiously preached the word of God to the people committed
** unto him, enlightened his clergy by his teaching, built churches not
** a few, and strenuously executed the other parts of his duty-f." Soon,
however, " seeing both — Devonshire and Cornwall;}: to be often in-
** fested and ravaged by barbarous pirates, he began — to meditate dili-
*' gently how he could transfer the episcopal chair of Crediton," with
that of St. German's, '* to the city of Exeter, where he could perform
*' his ecclesiastical offices safely, free from the incursions of hostility §.",

Who then were the pirates which disturbed Leofric so much in his
ecclesiastical offices at Crediton ? They are generally considered as
Danes, I apprehend, and were certainly considered as Danes by myself
when I came to explore this portion of our Cornish history. But they
could not possibly be such ; the ravages of the Danes had concluded of
course at the triumphant accession of a Danish king to the throne of
England, in the person of Canute, under the year 1017, or at the fonniJ

* Monasticon, i. 221 : " Capcllano suo Leofrico," and Sax. Chron. 158.

t Monasticon, i. 221 : " Acceplo poniificalus lionorc, ilioccisim suani perlustrans, populo
*' sil)i comniisso verbuin Dti stiidiose pricilicabat, clcricos doctrina inforniabut, ecclesias
" non paucas construebat, et ca;teia quae officii sui erant streniic ammini^trabat."

^,The MS. having previously given to Leofric *' episcopatum Cridionensis fcclesiae atgue
*' Cornuh'temis prov'iiidce," now describes him as " cernens utramque provinciani dioctsis
^' suae, id est, Deveni:.ni et Cornul-iam," ike.

§ Monasticon, i. 2:1 : " Piratarmii barbarica infestatione sepius dcvastari, coepit dill-
" genter mcditari, qualitcr episcopalem calhcdrani Cridionensis loci ad urbem Exoniain
" transfcrre posset j — ubi, ab hostihlatis incursu liber, tutius ccclesiaslica officia dispuncre
<' pos»et.''

establishuicnt

223 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VIl.

establishment of amity in Oxford, under 1018, between the Danes and the
Saxons for ever||. Nor were there any other pirates at this period that
could be called particularly " barbarous ;" or, to speak more definitely,
as the charge of " barbarity" is very vague, that could be said to have
" infested and ravaged" either " Devonshire" or " Cornwall." There
were only in the year 1049, which I shall soon prove to be the year
immediately preceding this, and " in tlie month of August some Irish
*' pirates, who In six-and-thirty vessels entered the mouth of the river
*• Severn, — -joined Grifiin king of South-Wales, did some damage by
•' plundering the adjacent country, — crossed the river which is denomi-
•' nated ^^yc, burnt Dean, and slew all that they found in it. Against
" these, Aldred bishop of AV^orcester, with a few of the provincials of
*• Gloucester and Hereford, marched out in haste;" but were betrayed
by some Welshmen whom they had amongst them, were surprised early
in the morning by the pirates, and dispersed ^. These, therefore, did
not ravage either Corn^^•all or Devonshire ; nor indeed does Leofric
mean to say they did, as he refers only to those pirates who had " often
" infested and ravaged" the western x)arts of England, and as he can
thus indicate the Danes alone.

Such was the reason alleged by Leofric for wishing to transfer the see
of St. German, with that of Crediton, to Exeter, and for thinking to
secure them within the strong walls with ^^'hich Athelstan had girt this
city *. The reason appears to be a very feeble one, when we consider
the sees to have continued at the villages of St. German's and Crediton
through all the long, the comprehensive, the horrible devastations of

H Sax. Chron.

f Florence, 409 : " Eodeni anno [1049], mense Augusto, Hibernienses piratje, 36 na-
" vibus ostium intrantes Sabrinae fluminis, — cum adjutorio Griffini regis Australiiim Brito-
" num, circa loca ilia prxdam agentes, nonnulla mala fecerunt. Dein conjunctis viribus,
" rex et ipsi pariter flumen quod VVeage nominatur transeuntes, Dunedham incenderunt,
** et omnes quos ibi reperiebant perimerunt. Contra quos Wigomiensis episcopus Aldre-
" dus, et pauci de provincialibus Glavornensibus ac Herefordensibus, festinanter ascen-
" derunt," &c.

♦ Malmesbury, f. 28.

the

jSECT. I.] IITSTORICALLY SURVEYED. 223

the Danish wars before ; while the city of Exeter, with its very girdle
of walls to secure it, had been actually assaulted, actually stormed, and
actually plundered, even so lately in them as the year 1 003 -f-. Nor can we
account for this seemingly extravagant conduct, by supposing the pre-
sent period of the Saxon history to be hke a recent one in our own, in
■which a spirit of reformation wildly predominated over the mind, the
slightest objections (such as may for ei)er be made to ani/ system of
government, hoivevcr reformed) w^ere eagerly caught up in the partial
frenzy of the moment ; and all the acknowledged, all the felt, all the
vast happiness enjoyed under our present constitution was to be risked
for innovations, certainly not necessary in themselves, certainly untried
in their efficacy, probably dangerous in their operation. But the ex-
ample of the French before us, possessed with the same rage for re-
formation, yet trying the bold experiment for reasons infinitelv stronger
than any which w-e could have, aiming naturally to rescue themselves
from pressing caIIs, unable however to keep the Avild gas within any
bounds, seeing it break through all confinements, and feeling it at last
burst out in a tornado that s\A'ept away the king with the people, the
church w^ith the Gospel, even all acknowledgment of the very provi-
dence, the very being of God before it ; this happily brought us to
our senses, made us behold clearly the knavery of our political pro-
jectors, and compelled us in our own defence to shrink back from expe-
riments in which we could gain little, yet might lose all. We recalled
to mind the case of that Italian, w ho kindly ordered these memorable
words to be inscribed upon his tomb, words that should for ever be
sounding in the ears of honest reformers :

1 WAS well;

1 WOULD BE BETTER J.
I AM HERE*.

But no spirit like this was then afloat among us ; the English mind did
not then feel a more than ordinary share of sensibility ; nor did the oak,

t Sax. Chron. • See note at the end of the section,

that

22 I THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VTf.

that had stood all the violent hurricanes of nearly two centuries before,
then shake and bow with a breeze.

There is generally some secret principle of selfishness in every public
transartion that begins in a single heart, that assumes the appearance of
a general reason, and thus induces others to co-operate with it. Leofric
had imbibed no little of the selfisliness of Livingus, and wanted to have
that prelacy united with his own, which had been previously promised
to be united with it for LiA'ingus, and which Leofric thoxight perhaps
he merited just as well as he. So he justly thought, I believe; he even
deserved it better, I presume, yet did not deserve it at all. That two
bishoprics should ever be incorporated together, except only when one
of them is not competent to maintain the dignity of a bishop by itself,
is the permanent prohibition of religion and wisdom combined; of reli-
gion solicitous to promote the best interests of man, and of wisdom
providing the best means for promoting them. Leofric, however, had
not elevation of mind to think this, or refinement of soul to respect it ;
selfishness vulgarizes the understanding, brutalizes the spirit, and sinks
even the prelate into a peasant: he only held up before liim a reason
that betrays the purpose for which it was formed, and through the
flimsiness of the texture discloses the nakedness of the figure behind it.
In tliis disguise he applied to the king, and the king suffered himself to
be deceived by it. He who had permitted Livingus to hold the bishopric
of Worcester with that of Crediton, and had even promised him even-
tually the bishopric of St. German's in addition to both, was not likely
to have much delicacy of religion restraining his consent to the project,
and must certainly have had too much ductility of imderstanding to
oppose strongly any selfishness in a bishop. He consented to the over-
ture, and prepared to execute it : he was persuaded by Leofric to think,
in opposition to all the experience of nearly two centuries past, that a
cathedral could be safe only in the bosom of a walled city.

Edward accordingly resolving, as he tells us himself in his charter of
the year 1050, " to consolidate the pontifical chair at the city of Exeter,

«ECT. I.] HISTORICALLY SURVnYED, 225

" in the monastery of the blessed Peter prince of the Apostles, wliich is
" situated within the walls of the same city;" he appointed I^eofric,
and his successors after him for ever, to be bisliops there*. "The
" Cornish diocese," he adds, " whicli had been formerly assigned to an
" episcopal tlirone, in memory of the blessed Gcrmanus, and in vene-
" ration of Petroc, I deliver with all the parishes — belonging to it, to
" St. Peter in the city of Exeter, to be one episcopal sec, and one ponfi-
" Jicate, and one ecclesiastical rule, because of the feivness' of inha-
bitants at Crediton, St. German's, or Bodmiti, " and the devastation of
" goods and persons which the pirates 7mglit have made in the Cornish
" and Crediton churches. For this reason it seemed ejood thev should
" have a safer defence against the enemy in the city of ]">xeter -f. 1 will
" therefore the see to be there ; this is, that Cornwall tr/th its churches,
" and Devonshire with its, be together in one episcopate, and be governed
" bi/ one hishop%y But as the record goes on in a strain of confirma-
tion peculiarly characteristic of the times, and throwing a fine air of
solemnity over the whole transaction, " so do I Edward place this
" PRIVILEGE," or charter, " with my own hand upon the altar of
" Saint Peter ; and leading the prelate Leofric by the right
" arm, and my queen Eaditha leading him by the left, do place
" HIM in the episcopal CHAIR, my dukes and noble cousins, with
" my chaplains, being present §."

In.

♦ Monasticon, i. 229: " Cathcdram ponlificalem consolidare Exoiiix civitatis in monas-
" terio bcali Petri Apostolorum principis, quod est situm infra nioenia ejusdem urbis. — In
*' ptTpcttio tempore constituo — proesulem Leofricuni, ut sit ibi pontifex, et post ilium cjctcri
" afllitiiri."

t Monasticon, i. 229 : " Cornubiensis diocesis, quae ollm, in beati Gcrmani mcmoria
*' atque I'etroci vcnerationc, cpiscopali solio assignata fuerat, ipsam cum onniibus sibi adja-
•' cenlibiis parochii?, — Sancto I'ctro in Exoniensi civitatc iradoj scilicet, iit una sit sedc-s_
" cpiscopalis, imunique poutificiiun, et una ecclesiastica rcgula, propter paucilatcm, atquc
'* dcvastationcm bonorum et populomm, quam piraiici [aj)ud] Cornubienses ct Cridiatu-
" nenscs ecclesias devastarc poterant : ac, per lioc, in civitatc Exonisc tulioreni niunitiontm
" advcrsus hostes liabere visum est."

\ Monasticon, i. 229: " El idi.6 ibi scdem esse vol o, hoc est, in," tlie sense requires
the word should be ut, " Cornubia cum suis ecclesiis, ct Dcv.onia ciun suis, simul in uno
•' episcopatu sint, et ab uno episcopo rcgantur."

§ Monasticon, i. 229: *' Ita hoc privilcgium ego Edwardus rex manu mci super altaie

voi,. II. G G •' Saudi

220 THE CVTiir.DKAL OP COKXWALL [cHAP. VII.,

In this manner was the ancient episcopate of St. German's annihi-
lated for ever, and Cornwall tor evrr deprived of an episcopate within
itseh". Yet even all this would not have been memorable in an}'- other
way, than as exhibiting a strong feature in the comj)lexion of the times,
and as constituting a grand a?ra in our provincial history ; if it had not
been accompanied with the mischiefs, which are usually attendant upon
hasty reformations. Such reformations generally create more mischiefs
than what they mean to remove. In the continuance of our Cornish
episcopate, indeed, was no evil either actual or probable. The episco-
pate had existed for centuries, the child of necessity at first ; but the
parent of blessings to the country. The prelate was immediately present
to his clergy, and his coimexion with his diocese was closely kept up by
liis residence within it. Settled in person at the eastern extremity of his
diocese, and settling his archdeacon near the other extremity, he would
have enjoyed all that knowledge, personal or derivative, of his clergy
and their congregations, which alone can enable any bishop to preside
with propriety of conduct, because with discrimination of characters,
over the persons of his diocese. But now the prelate is thrown to a
great distance, to a distance of forty miles at least, froin the nearest
borders of his new diocese. And in a principle of poUcy superinduced
upon this incident, that of retaining the archdeacon near the person of
the pi'elate, to be his grateful friend in the chapter ; his very substitute,
his very eye in the estimation of our church-establishment, is also re-
moved to the same distance. Thus all personal inspection is impossible
to the bishop, and all inspection by proxy is equally impossible. His
eye, hke the eye of Jupiter upon Little St. Bernard, is wholly detached
from the scene of vision to which it belongs, and lies at the foot of the

" Sancti Petri pono; et praesulem Leofriciim per dcxtrum brachiuni ducens, meaque
»< regina [iaditha per sinistrum, in calliediii episccipali consifto; proescnlibus mels ducibus
" et consanguineii lu.bilibus, iieenon capellanis." This remarkable installation is intended
to be delineated, in the plate of Richardson's Godwin, 395; but by a strange act of inatten-
tion, the king is placed where the prelate should be, and the prelate is exhibited with the
queen leading the king. The sovereign is thus installed, instead of the bishop. He is led
for installation in a form historically wrong, to a common chair, a single one too, placed
above the steps of the altar, even close up to it. The real stalls remain at Exeter to this day;
asl have noticed in ii. i, before.

personage

SECT, i.] HrSTOKlCALLY SURtKTtD. 22?

personage who should be using it. And he himself, as the bishop of
Cornwall, is now hke the great Osiris of Egypt, A\':iYing a secptre of
sovereignty more in repute than in reahty, and having his ty/c, a mere
gem, perhaps briglit in itself, yet still :i mere gem, at the very end of
his sceptre *.

SECTION
* See Course of Hannibal, i. 314-321.

Having spoken a little l)cforc concerning "the partial frenzy of the moment," I \vii,!i

here to add, that I thus allude to the whole of the wjtr, in whicFi refined France has been

resolved into a merely military chaos of society, like that of ancient Gaule, has therefore

been enabled, like Gaule, to pour forth its martial hordes of plimdering barbarians upon the

world, yet had been exerting all the artificial strength of a regular government for their pay,

by coining credit into money, and substituting paper for silver or gold ; has thus appeared in

truth like a Mcgaera, covered on the head with a hair of snakes, and armed \n the hand with

a whip of scorpions, dreadfully tormented in herself, and dreadfully tormenting the nations.

But I allude particularly to the commencement of winter in 1794, a period uncommonly

gloomy to this kingdom ; when the spirit of innovation was wildly afloat among us ; when

reformation had greedily

eaten of the insane root.

Which takes the reason prisoiier ;
and French republicanism, like an ** Ate hot from hell," was rahg'ing the continent with
terror preeedintr, or destruction following it. Then it was that I came forward with my
" Real Origin of Government." This work, so necessary for the times, so boldly chal-
lenging all refutation, and so firmly founded upon thd basis of infallible history, succeeded
beyond my expectations. It became formidable enough, to provoke a public reprehension
from the vtouths of the unblushing TnrnsiTES, and the unprincipled Ckthkgus in the late
House of Commons. From such persons a man of any (irmncss of nerve, of any dignity of
mind, could have nothing to dread — but their approbation ; that approbation, which, like
lisrhtninii, blasted whatever it touched.

It even stimulated their Whig Cluk, as the centre of all the clubs of Jacobin Wliigs in
the kingdom, to enter into a formal denumiation of me ; to proclaim it by the mouth of their
rouge-dragon herald, that simple gentleman the late member for Bridpoil ; to ])ut me into the
inquisiloiial hands of the fact ion's lawyer, and (if he could once more find scope for turning
the law against the constitiilion) to commence a protecution of me, as a writer most "dan-
*' gerous to tlieir principles or practices."

Nay, even that honest but hood-winked friend to religion, wiio has so strangely got among
them, and of whom therefore we cannot

But wonder how the dc\-il lie c.une tlierc,
the papistical Dr. Plowden; who wildly mixes up his republicanism with his popery, and
unites with his spiritual foes for the promotion of his secular purposes; took upon him,
from the mere impotence of party- slander, to brand nic in his Church and Stale, 581, 582,

G c. 2 '^

228 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

SECTION II.

When Edward thus united the episcopates of Cornwall and Devon-
shire togetlier, he resigned up the Cornish, " with all the parishes,
" lands, manors, goods, and benefices belonging to it," into tlie hands
of the bishop of Devonshire, now settled at Exeter *. What these were
it may seem vain to inquire at this distance of time. But curiosity
prompts every lively mind to inquiries, and the attempt frequently ter-
minates in a happy discovery. The manors and benefices thus given,
we may be sure, are all that the bishop now possesses in Cornitall, and

as he had branded archdeacon Paley and bishop Ilurd, in 299, before, for the very syco-
phants of the ministry; just as he published to retract his slanders against them (see errata
prefixed), afterwards to introduce himself into my house, while I was all unconscious of his
charge, there, by artful questions, to find I was as innocent as I was unconscious, and then
to beg my pardon for the public calumny by a private letter.

Who would not laugh, if such an one there be !
Who will not weep, since Atlicus is he !

While indeed I have one spark of religion in my soul, I can never be a purveyor ofprin-
ciples for a minister. ,1 could not, even if I had received particular favours from him, if I
entertained a personal friends-hip for him, or if 1 could buckle my spirit within the belt
of anibilii)us meanness to him. , Still less could I, when I never received the slightest favour,
when 1 never maintained the slightest acquaintance, w hen my life has been always actuated
(I trust) by a proudly virtuous spirit of independency, and when I see in the minister's con-
duct to Mr. Reeves, how little he feels for his friends, even for his and the nation's best
friends; as again I see in his more recent exemption of the Quakers from nearly three fourths
of the pressure of the cavalry act, how ready he is to sacrifice principle to policy, and in the
predominant cunning of his spirit to court those monied sectaries, even at the hazard of
aflVonting, even with the certainty of injuring, the collective mass of his permanent friends,
the clergy and laity of the church of Enoland.

Eiit, while 1 feel one ray of reason in my intellect, I must be a determined foe to an oppo-
sition, the most dangerous in my opinion, as the most flagitious in its views, of any that
ever disgraced our history; the leader of which, a very Catiline, wants apparently to
erect an empire of anarchy, like the French, upon the ruins of all order, all property, all
religion in the isle. The repreliension of such men I shall continue to court, and hope to
obtain. Their censure is my pride. Their proscription is my honour. And the feeble
lighlnings, uhich their hands can dart at my head, will only play in a ghiry around it.

• Monasiicon, i. 229: " Cum omnibus sibi adjacentibus parochiis, terris, villis, opibus,
" bcneficiis."

that

SECT, ir.] IIISTORICALLT SITRVETED. 229

that we find not to have been given since the Conquest, They vi^ere
•particularly those three villages, as bishop Gibson so grossly translates
the " tres villas" of his author Camden, or those " three towns,'' as
Mr. GoLigh still more grossly renders the words ; or those three manors,
in the language of law and common sense; which are said to have been
formerly possessed by the see of Devonshire ||. These indeed are
asserted by the book of AVinton monastery, as referred to by Camden
and the old IMS. in the Bodleian ; to have been given by king Edward

the son of Alfred, about the year go5, to the bishop of Crediton +;

«t a time when Edward had no possessions in Cornwall, and when
therefore he could bestow no manors within it. Yet they were given,
says the Winton evidence, and the Oxford concurs with it ; " that from
" them he might every year make a visitation through the countr}' of
" the Cornish, to explain their errors to them, as they previously resisted
" the truth with all their power, and were not obedient to the apostolical
" decrees §." But, that this notice may no longer impose upon scholars
by its authority, let me fully expose its falsehood.

The donation is averred to have been made to the bishop of Crediton,
and for his episcopal visitations in Cornwall ; the verij year in which
one bishop was settled at Crediton, and another appointed for Cornwall,
by this very Edward*. In the year 905, as we have frequently seen
from Malinesbury before, Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury, " or-
" dained seven bishops for seven churches, — Athelstanyor that of' Corn-

H Camden, 138; Gil)5on, c. 19; Gough, i. 5; and Monasticon, i. 220. So " villls" in
note above, and "villa" in Spelinan.

X Camden, 138: " Edwaidus senior ?cdem — cplscopalcm constituit, coneessitque cpis-
" copo Cridiensi ires villas in hoc tractii."

§ Camden, 138: " Ul inde singulis annis visitaret gentem Corniibicnjem, ad cxprimen-
" dos eorum enores ; nam antea in (|iianUMii potiicrunt vcritali rcsislebant, ct non decretis
" apostolieis obcdiebant." Anil see Monualicon, i. 220.

• Camden, 138: " Cirea annum — salntis 905, — Edwardus senior sedem — cpiscopalem
" consliuiit" in Cornwall, " concessilcjuc cpi^copo," &c. Monaslicon, i. 220: " Anno —
** DCCCCV — Eadwardus — rex cum suis, ct nejinundus arehicpiscopus, — constitucre — vii
" cpiseopos vii ecelesiis — , Aihelstannni ad ccclesiam Corvijienstmj — Eadulfum ad ecclc-
*' siam Cridionensem," &c.

" wall,

230 THE C.\THE5WSAt OP COBNWALL [nHAP. VII.

" wall, — Eidvilph, for thai of Crcditon iu Devonshire f .'* If, therefore,
Athcl^tan became bishop of Cornwall according" to Edward's appoint-
ment, Edward would ccrtaiidy give no lands iu Cornwall, to promote
the vnsitations of the hhhop cj' Credlton in it. i/'Athelstan became not
bJ$lioj), Kdward must have had no power in Cornwall to make liini
^uch, 4«4. cousequently could have no po^er to promote, or to protect,
the visijts of his Devonshire bibhop into (/ornnall. With either menilx,'r
of the alternative, the alleged fact cannot be a real one.

But let me urge another argument, still more decisive against it.
These manors, notes the Winton MS. which is all ('amden's authority,
were given to the bishop of Crediton, that he might visit Cornwall a'cry
year, and explain to the Cornish their errors in some points. This
alludes principally to the general ])ractice of the Cornish and other Bri-
tons, as to the day of observing lilaster. The disi>utcs between the
]3ritons and Saxons concerning this, are well known to the public ; but
the real reason of then) is httle known. This dispute was not the same
vC'ith that between Anicctus the bishop of Rome and Polycarp the mar-
tyr of Smyrna; Poljcarp urging for the ol)servance of Easter with the
Jews, upon the fourteenth day of the moon, \\ hether a Sunday or not,
and Anicetus pressing to observe it on the Sunday immediately after the
fourteenth. This difference Mas debated between them, in the very
temper and spirit of two men worthy to be bishops, with some degree
of earnestness, but without the least animosity. Such, however, we
could not expect to be the conduct of comm.on bishops, common clergy-
men, or common Christians. The dispute grew warm afterwards, be-
tween the Eastern and the Western ghurches; ^//o.s'r' alleging the practice
of St. Philip and St. John, these appealing to that of St. Paul and St. Peter,
as transmitted by tradition to them respectively, yet both perhaps very
truly. But the great council of Nice, among other points of infinitely
greater consequence, attended to this also ; settling the dispute for ever
in that decisive mode, in which half the disputes of man must be settled
for the sake of peace, and by which alone such a dispute as this could

t Malmesburv, f. 26 : " Anno quo a Nalivltate Domini traiisacti sunt anni nongenii
*' quatuor, — rex Edwardus — etepiscopi — constitucrunt — episcopos — , Adelstanumad [cccle-
" siam] Cornubieusem, — Eidulfum ad Cridicnscm in Devonia."

5 e-^'cr

SECT. li."] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 231

ever be settled at all, by making the minority yield to the majority, and
determining for the Sunday next after the fourteenth day of the moon *.
Tlie Britons had always kept their Easter so, and had only to go on in
their old course. We have seen it asserted indeed, by a w'riter of genius
and judgment, in that spirit of refining too subtilly upon little incidents
in history, which seems to characterize the bolder efforts of historical
anti<juarianism at present, and which is apt, in the ignorance of the
antiquary, to lead him wildly astray ; that " the most ancient churches
" of Britain were founded, in all probability, by Asiatic missionaries ;"
that " the conformity of their belief and practice in the affair of Easter,
" to that which prevailed among the Christians of the East, strengthens
" [gives ground to] this opinion;" and that the British churches were
founded probably by Polycarp himself, because " the most ancient Bri-
" tish Christians — adopted Polycarp's system with regard to Easter," as,
" Kke him, they refiised to conform to the custom of the Western
'• church f." But, in all tliis, m'c see the fabulousness of heathenism
realized in reasoning, and the whole weight of the heavens rested upon
—the back of a man. Or, to speak with a more pointed preciseness to
the case, his argument is rested like the real heavens — upon air. The
truth is, that the historical fact is entirely the reverse of what is here
averred, tliat the British Christians did not conform to the sentiments of
Polycarp, but did conform to the opinions of his opponent Anicctus.
This is decisively attested by the emperor Constantino himself, in an
epistle which he wrote upon the subject; because in this he expressly
assures us, that " Easter is used to be celebrated in Britain after the
" same manner as it is at Rovic'^'' The Britons derived their Chris-
tianity, with all their modes of Christian Avorship, immediately from
their miistcrs the Romans. They thus came of course, to keep their
Easter in the Roman form. And nothing but a chaos of confusion,
generated in the mind by a eoUision of ideas, between this and a sub-
sequent dispute about luistor, coulii ever have suggested a thought,

* See Bedc, p. 694-6(;6, for a Icainecl and judicious dissertation on tlic subject, by ihc
editor. Smith.

t Dr. John Macpherson, in his Critical Disscrtationt^, p. 360, 365, 366.

X Smith's Dissertation, p. 696 : " Diseric — tesialiir Consuuilinus, in cpistola qu.iiu (le
" liac re scripsit, eodeni modo ac Konia; in Britannia Paseha cekbrari solituni."

232 Tlin CATHEDRAL OF fOUNWALL [ciIAP. YJI.

of composing; a world in history from such a forced combination of re-
coiUng atoms *. For a dispute afterwards arose, liow the Niceiie rule
was to be practised, and what was the best cycle of }'ears for regulating
the practice. Thus the Britons of Cornwall, of Wales, and of Scotland,
observed Easter upon the fourteenth day of the moon, if it was a Sun-
day, or, if not, upon any other Siuiday up to the twenty-first ; while
other churches observed it, not upon the fourteenth at all, but only
upon any Sunday after it up to the twenty-first f. Nor did our British
ancestors derive even this variation from any commimication with the
Christians of the East. They actually derived it from that very cycle of
eighty-four years, which the llomuvs themselves had used to the days of
Leo the Great ; while the Romans had now adopted the Alexandrian
cycle of 77'nietecji years, and commimicated it to the S;ixons by Augus-
tine :|:. So strangely has the history here been set upon its head!'
Against this Roman custom in the Britons, the Romish Saxons spoke
and wrote. About 710, " Naitan, king of the Picts, inhabiting the
'• northern regions of Britain," as Bede informs iis, " — renounced the
" error in which he and his people had hitherto been held, as to the'
" observance of Easter, and came over himself with all his subjects, to
" keep the Catholic time of our Lord's resurrection, — after the example
" of the holy, Roman, and apostolical church §." About 705, notes Bede

* Dr. Borlase is one who has confounded this dispute with the subsequent one, when in
p. 376, he speaks of that between the Britons and Saxons ; but then, as an explanation of it,
subjoins in a note the nature of that between the Eastern and Western churehes, previously
to the council of Nice. Dr. John Macphersou too has so far confounded the two disputes
again, as to make the confusion the very groundwork of his historical hypothesis. In p. 366,
he observes, that " the most ancient British Christians, — in their disputes with Italian
" viissonarics, always appealed to the authority of St. John and the other Eastern di-
" vines." The words " Italian missionaries," here coupled with " the most ancient British
" Christians," with "St. John," and with "the other Eastern divines," should have roused
him effectually from his reverie.

t Smith's Dissertation, p. 697, 698, 699, 698, and 703.

J Smith, p. 698, 703, and 701, 702.

§ Bede's Hist. vi. 21 : " Eo tempore Nalton, rex Pictorum qui septcntrionales Britanniac
" pla"-as inhabitant, — abrenunciavit crrori quo catenus in observatione Paschae cum sua gentc
<' tenebatur, et se suosque omnes ad Catholicum Dominica; resurrectionis tempus celebran-
*' dum pcrduxitj—ad excmplum sauctae, Romans, et apostolicce ecclesis."

also.

SECT. Tl.] niSTORICALT^Y SLTRVEYEl). 233

alsOj, " Aldhelm, at the command of a synod in West-Saxony, wrote
" an excellent book against that error of the Britons, from Mhich — they
" celebrate Easter at a wrong time ; and brought over manif of those
" Britons who were subject to the \vestern Saxons, by the reading of it,
" to the Catholic celebration of the Lord's Passover *." Or, as i\ralmcsbury
remarks with a fuller attention to the success, because, at a later period of
time, when Aldhelm's " book" had had a longer trial among the Cor-
nish, and the effect of its operations could be more conspicuously seen ;
" the labour of this veiy holy man could not lose its effect, but rather
" received a glorious conclunioii, and converted the erroneous to true
" religion : even at this day do the Britoxs om'e their correction
" TO Aldelm f .*' So palpably false in fact is that assertion demon-
strated to be, which makes king I'Mward, in {)05, to bestow manors in
Cornwall upon a bishop, " that from them he might every year make a
" visitation through the country of the Cornish, to explain their errors
" to them, as previously [and then] resisting the truth with all their power,
"and being 7iot obedient to the apostolical decrees.'' The convincing
work of Adhelm had been addressed to them in a letter to their king,
two centuries before ; had two centuries before " brought over many of"
them ; and one or two centuries before had " received a glorious conclu-
** sion," in '* converting the erroneous to true religion," in making
" the Britons" of Cornwall *' owe their correction" cntirelv " to

" Aldelm %."

Yet

, ♦ Bcdc's Hist. V. 18 : " Aldlielm — , jubcnte synodo sua: gentis, libnini cgrcgiura advcr-
<* sus i-rrorcm Briuomini, quo — Pascha non suo tempore celebrant, — nuiltosque eoriini qui
" occideutalibus Saxonibus subdiii eraut Brittoncs, ad Catholieam Doniinlci i'aschx ccle-
" braiioncni litijus lectione perduxit."

t Malmesbu;y, in Gale, i. 349: " Ncc potuit privari effectu sanctissimi viri labor, quiii
" potiiis, laudabilcni accipieus (Incni, ad viram crrantcs convcrtlt religiouem. Debcnt usque
*' hodie Britanni (.'orrcctionem buam Aldelnio."

\ This was a letter addressed •* to Geruntius, king of the Cornubian Britons" (Usher,
478), said by Malniesbury to have been destroyed by the Coruish, " volumen pessuiidede-
" ruiit" (Gale, i. 349); an assLTiion utterly incredible in itself, that tlie Cornish sliould
destroy what had been the very instrument of their conversion ; and refuted by positive Cict,
as the letter exists to this day, " iuicr Bonifacianas [epislolas] in ordinc centesima vigcsima

VOL. II. u It " nona"

'2.1-1 THE C.«frtK^ftA^ of 'tOT^^jWALI, [c^AP. 'V'n.

' Yet these manor's vVerd nctXiallj' ^ivc^to .'i bi^^h()p,' ' and Wc're-'acf ualty-'a
part of the possessions b«l©ns:^tl^t(>lll^5^tV<)t^St.'Gt^rn1at1'*^ l^y •i;<'erc
•' PoHon," and " Cirling/' and "MLaTittitharji," " PoUoh' is t'xpiedsly
noticed in Doomsday Book, as-'tlsien ah e^itatcheki' under the bis'hopri'c
of Kxeter ; is evch placed 'at the head of ai\ ecclesiastical deanery,, in the
Valor of I2g2 ; and is now the frrcat'in^inor of " Poltoh^ alias. PaWtow,"
m the parish of St. Breock*. .l.an\vitham is equally not iO(;d in Dootti^-
.dny Book, as belonging to the bishop; stands eqUalW the head of a
deanery in the Valor, but was then written ifas it now.Js Lawhit^onj^ 'the
n of Lan being, suppressed in.'pronunciation equally as with I>amo*rmh;
and renjains the property of t^e bishop at present^;- Bnt he Viliy) hUs
supcessfully appropriated both thes<i= natnes, even bishop Gibson, i con-
fesses himself all unable to appropriate CicUng J. From the fflniiliifity
of the names, the only evidenct; that we can have* in' a case Me'thiS) 'I
believe it to be Calling-ton, alias KciHngr-ton ; aJieioated from -the
bishopric before the Conquest, and therefore not included in the kinds
ef it. Two of the three, then, appear deci'si^-ely to have h^cn the pos-
sessions of the Cornish see ; and others appear to have been equally such,
in this extract from the Doomsday Book for Cornwall :

" THE LAND OF THE BISHOP OF EXECESTRE. '. •>

" The BISHOP of Exeter holds Trewel. In the time of king Ed-
" ward it gelded for" one hide and a half. The land is xx carucat&s. In
*• demesne are ii carucates, and iiii servi and xxx villani and iiii bordarii

*' nona" (Smith's Bede, p. 70a). The letter is' also given lis in English, by Cressy, 48 1 -
483. It iiiriis upon other points, beiutes the observance ofEastcr.

Dr. Eorlasc, 378, supposes the errof of the Cornish to I).-ive been, " their refusing to ac-
" knowledge the papal authority;'.' when the very ,cycie,'j^r which the Cornish and other
Britons contended, was' originaity 'Roman itself; and when, thtrefore, th« only contention
could he, for one cycle Roman <7gf«wvf another equally Rom'an. In writing lipon such
points, our authors are almost sure to shew their protestantism al the e.xpense of their under-
standings.

• Gibson, c. 19; and Hals, 32, 33.

+ Gibson, ibid.

% Gibson, ii)id. From this difficulty, perhaps, Mr, Hals, iS, has silently changed
•' Caling" into " Cuddan-Beake,"'amaDor Booh noticed by me.

5 •' with

S^^T'.H*];:)] illSTORieALLY SURVEYED. 285

" with xii c^rucates. There, is a pasture of ii miles long and ii miles
" broad, and Ix acres of wood. Formerly and now it was and is worth
" jiii pounds §." Tliis I take to be Ti;ewella in the parish of Cury, long
s^i)^^ i^^ipnated frow the ^^e.

" The same bishop hoJds INIatele. In tlic time of king Edward
" it gelded for i hide, but yet there is one hide and a half. In
" demesne is. one cailicate,. ^ud iii sej^j^i ,an|l ^y -viljf^ijj j^d iiii bordarii
". Avjtli; viii c;:^rucate9r. ; There, arc^l,aC|if9s ,qf pas(tnre^ :^i|d Ixi acrqs. x)f
" underwood. Formerly and now it was au4 is vyorth xl shillings.
" The market of this manor is held by tlie earl pf ;i)Ioriton, which tlie
" bishop lield in the tinic of kjng Edw^ird^V' rT^^V^fW/fffPi' sepuis to be
MethlcigU, in the adjoining parish of l^r^jagnc, imeptiorijec^ a^s AJethele in
tli^ hundred of Kerrlt-u- by ,a reco^vd the. i;j^h qf ,]i!^»^\^■alx^ |..:|. Byth this
and the other, come ycry early in tlxe endowment of our. Cpiaish,
bisliopric, to shew us the prcdatmy violence of the Normans tjO\v'arcls
the clergy, as \\'cU ^s thtf laity, of the Saxons;. "yVe aee ; ^ip stri^Lin^ly^
CXCiuplilicd in \X\^ church : of , St,. ; fN^Pf^j \y|^iqhjWa& robbed pf all i'js
lands, except a single acre, by the earl, and, to the everlasting disgrace
of the carl, is recorded by this very Doomsday Book to have been thus

§ Vol. i. fol. 120.

" tr.nn.v episcopi' r>E EXP.OESTnE.

" Episcopus ExoxiKNsts tend Trhwkl. T. R. E. geldabat pro i Iiida et dimidia.
" Terra est xx carucalx. In dtiuiinio sunt ii carucatae, ct iiii servi ct xxx vilUuii el iiii b.or-
" darii cum .\ii cariicatis. Ibi pastura ii leucas longa et ii leucas lata, et 1,\ acra silvse.
" Olini ct niodo vakt iiii libra?." Sec Ingiiiphus, f. 516, 517, for llic proper reading of
some of ihce terms at fidl leno-ib, which are so .much abbreviated in t.hc orio-inal. — I have
not translated here or hereafter, the terms " servi," cir " villani," or " b9rdarii j" l^ecayse^
whatever I ma^' know or thipk of ihci.r respective iticapings, happily for oiy present state, of
society we have no appropriate terms to co^ivey tiiosc meanings to the mind.

• Fol. 120: " Idciij cpiscopiis tenet Matkle. T. H. E. geldabat pjo i hidn, scd U;ncu
" ibi una hida et dimidia. Terra est xv cavucatje. In doininin is; i caracula, et ili servi
" et XV viU^m ct ini boppani, pynp vni carivcatis. l.bi xl . ira, et Lc awae silv^^

" tnimitae. .01191 v'tmodo valet x^l spIidO|S. j Foriim huiii,s iHa.ncriihaboi cynics, Moriioi|»ix,
" quod cpiscopus habebat T. IV. E." ' ■ ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^ ,. ^^ .

t Carew, f, 46.

II II 2 r()l)bed

236 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAl*. \'\l.

robljed by him:]:. We see it again, in a lesser degree, robbing the
bishop of the profits of his market at Matelc. Both the injuries are re-
gistered in this grand roll of property, and both without any reparation
intimated to have been made, or evefl hinted to be intended. Such an
evidence; have we here before us, of the oppressiveness of this earl over
the Cornish, and of the connivance of the crown at it.

" The same bishop holds Tregel. In the time of king Edward it
*• gelded for ii hides, but yet there are here xii hides. The land is Ix
" camcates. In demesne are ii carucatcs, and vi servi and xviii villani
" and xii bordarii with xvi carucates. There, is a pasture half a mile
" long and as much broad, a wood i mile long and half an one broad.
" Formerly it was worth c shilhngs, now it is \\'orth viii pounds ||."
This I suppose to be, what is now called Tregella, and lies in the parish
of Padstow. But this estate also, like the two before, thus dedicated to
spiritual purposes, has since become secularized again ; and Tregel has,
equally with Matele or Trewel, been degraded from the office of mini-
stering at the altar of God, into the service of attending upon the
humble board of man.

" The same bishop holds Pautone. In the time of king Edward it
" gelded for viii hides, but )et there are there xliiii hides. The land is
" Ix carucates. In demesne are iii carucates, and vi sen i and xl villani
" and xl bordarii with xl carucates. There, is a pasture vi miles long and ii"
"•' miles broad, a wood ii miles long and one broad. Formerly it was

% F. lai : " Totam banc terram praeter unam acram terrte, quam presbyterl habeiit,
'* abstulit comes ab ecclesia."

II F. 120: " Idem episcopus tenet ~Regel. T. R. E. geldabat pro ii bidis, seel tanien
" sunt ibi xii bids. Terra est Ix carucatce. In dominio sunt ii carucatx, et vi servi et xviii
" villani et xii bordarii cum xvi canicatis. Ibi pastura dimidiam leucam longa, et tan-
" timdem lata, silva i leucam longa et dimidiam lata. Olim c solidos, modo valet viii
" libras." That "Regel is a complication or ligature of letters for Tregei,, though Tr is
used also at times without any ligature or complication ; is plain from '• Abbatia ~Rinita-
•< tis," in fol. 126.

" and

SECT. II.] IIISTOniCALLr SURVEYED. 237

" and now is worth x pounds *." This is the Pawton noticed by me
before, under the name of Polton, and called " Polton, alias PaAvton," at
present ; but equally with Tregel, Matele, Trewel, and Cteling, alienated
from the bishopric. Tins, however, appears not to have been torn away
by the strong hand of sacrilegious power, but to have fairly migrated in
the course of exchange, into hands equally spiritual as the bishop's.
Thus only could it have been, as it certainly was, annexed to the priory
of Bodmin, after the date of Doomsday Book. The prior possessed it,
and had a house with a deer-park upon it. The fences of the latter are
still apparent, as arc also the double walls of the former, upon what is
denominated the Barton of Pawton f .

*' The same bishop holds Berxerh. In the time of king Edward it
" gelded for one hide with xxiiii jjounds. The land is xii carucates. In
" demesne are ii carucates, and vi servi and viii villani and xii bordarii
" with vi carucates. There, are Ix acres of pasture and x acres of wood.
" Formerly it was and now is worth xl shillings;};." This manor is
Burnear, lying in the parish of St. Minver, and still adhering to the
see §. — But I now come to the manor that is very familiar to all my
readers, and the very centre of all my large circle. One leg of my
compasses being fixed at St. German's, I have turned the other with a
sweep over the whole island.

" The same bishop holds the manor which is called the church of
" Saint Geiimax. There, are xxiiii hides. Of these, xii hides belong to

* F. 120: "Idem episcopus tenet Pautone. T- R. E. geldabat pro viii hidi?, sed
" (amen ibi sunt xliiii hidae. Terra est Ix carucatE. In dominio sunt iii carucatae, ct vi
*• servi It xl villam ct xl burdarii cum x! carucaiis. Ibi paslura vi leucas longa el ii leucas
" lata, silva ii leucas longa i-t unani lata. Olini x libra.s^ modo valet."

+ Hals, 32.

X F. 120 : " Idem episcopus tenet Bf.rnebh. T. R. E. geldabat pro i bida p [see the end
" of the extracts for this letter or figure] xxiiii libras. Terra est xii caruraiK. In dominio
«' sunt ii carucatae, et vi servi et viii villani ct xii bordarii cum vi carucali". Ibi !x acrx
" pastnras, el x acrae silvae. Olim tt modo valet .\1 solidos."

§ Hals's MS. at the close, and Norden, 71.

'' the

1'38 THE.CATIinDBAL OF CORXWAl.T- [c^IAP. Ttl.

" the catton--., which never pMded ; and the other xii hides belong to the
" bisho]), and p;elded tor ii hides in the time of kinp; Edward. In this
'< the bishop's part, the land is xx carueates. In demesne are ii caru-
" cates, and iiii fervi and xxx villani and xii bordarii with xvi carucates.
♦' There, is a pasture iiii miles long and ii miles broad, a wood ii miles
" long and \ mile broad. Formerly it was worth c shillings, now it is
•' wortli viii pounds. In the part belonging to the canons, the land is
*' x\ carucates. In demesne are ii c^rucates, and ii servi and xxiiii vil-
'« lani and xx bordarii with xxiiii canicates. There, is a pasture ii miles
" broad [long] and i mile brOild» a wood iiii miles long at»d ii broad.
" It is worth r. shillings to the canons., ,In this manor is a market on
" the Lord's Day, but it is reduced to nothing in favour of the market
" of the earl of Moriton, which is very near to k*." Wc have thus
before us a description of the manor of St. German's, that from its ear-
liness and authenticity is of peculiar importance. We see it partitioned,
as the manor of the church, equall}- between the see and the prior}'.
This evenness of distribution shews it to have been made, by one and
the same person. Athelstan, therefore, was that person. Athclstan
dispensed liis royal manor in exact proportions, to his new priory and
to the ancient bishopric. In addition to the tithes, and to some glebe
probably, possessed by the rector before ; he gave half of the manor,
because he had cut up the single rector, like a polypus, into no less than
ninef. In addition too to the other manors, which had been pre-
viously settled upon the see by the muniiicence of our C'ornish kings ;

* F. 120 : •' Itlera episcopus tenet niancrium quod vocatur aecclesia Sancti Germani. Ibi
" sunt xxiiii hidas. Ex his xii hidre sunt cauonicorum, quce nunquani gcldavenint ; t^t aliae
" xii hids sunt cpiscopi, etgeldahant pro ii liidis T. R. E. In liac parte episcopi, terra ost
" XX carucatce. In dominio sunt ii carucala;, ct iiii servi et xxx villani et xii bordarii cam.
*' xvi carucatis. Ibi pastura iiii leucas longa et ii leucas lata, silva ii leucas longa ct unani
" leucani lata. Olim c solidos, modo valet viii libras. In parte canonicorum, terra est xl
'* carucatx. In dominio sunt ii cariicalx, et ii servi ct xxiiii villani et xx bordarii cum xxiiii
" carucatis. Ibi pa.stura ii leucas lata [longa] ct ui>an) Icueani lata, silva iiii leucas Ipnga
" et ii leucas lata. Valet c solidos canonicis. In hoc manerio est mcrcatum in Dio Donii-
" nico, scd ad nichilum redigitur pro nicrcato comitis Moriionix, quod ibi est pjrQxiniun]."<

t Leland's Coll. i. 75 : " S. Germaiius in Cornubia. i'rior. or. S. Aug. octo canon, ct
'•' prior."

and

SfiCl'. <i.], HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 230)

and lo some kind probably, ranging* close about the palace, the gilt ot'
that king Avlio first fixed a prelate at this church ; he gave tlie other
Iwlf of his manor to the prelate, tor ever. He thus made them co-
partner's in the whole; while the \AhoIc was denominated the church's
manor, as possessed equally by the bishop and by the chapter of it.
But their res[)ective halves are fairly defined, and the reciprocal shares
decisively ascertained. The cliapter's share was wortli five pounds a
year, at the Conquest ; as the bishop's, which had been only five pound?
a little before, from some accidental improvements in value, even under
the rcmovAl of the bishop himself to Exeter, probably from this very
removal, as before occupied, and now set out, had risen to eight pounds.

A town indeed had been built upon the manor, and a market had
been established within it ; a market, to our surprise, held upon a Sunday,
so held undoubtedly at first because of the resort of the parishioners to
the church, but forming surely a scene of business, a tone of clamour,
and a hurr\' of bustle, very incompatible with the religious recolleefedness
of the day. Yet this market had not been, as at first \\c are naturally
inclined to suj>pose it had, the beneficial cause of this improvement in
the bishop's lands. The improvement had been very lately made, even
while the market had been reduced to nothing. So reduced it was by a
new market, which the Norman earl of Cornwall had established in the
ileighbourhood, and which had drawn off the people from their cus-
tomary attendance. The new market was settled by the earl, near his
castle of Trematon, and on the present site of Saltash there ; as this
very record notices his " castle," with his " market" at it, the latter
producing him annually ** three shillings*." Markets were then rare
in themselves, having been introjduc^d originally by the Romans, as their
Jvoman appellation tcstilit;s -j:, and then, settled only at their statioiiiiry
towns; vet were as netessary then as they are now. They tlui^t'ore
operated as so many vortices upon the country round, forming a st?ong
suction from all the contiguous parts, even extending their inMuence
j)ei'ce])tibly to a considerable distance. Thus a new market, about three

' F. 122 : " lh\ habct comes nnani castriim, ct mcrcatuni rciUlcns iii soliJoi-."
I " iMcriatus," I'roin ibe " nKTcatiira" cx(.rciSwU ihi.rc.

miles

I'-IU riu; CATHUDKAL Oi CORXWAT-T. [CIIAP. VII.

miles from St. Gerinau's, under the patronage of the eail^ ajwi nith the
custom of his family within the castle, could counteract the suction
from the market already established, even turn the direction of the
wafers, and bring them all to tlow into its own bosom. What was
thus lost by St. German's was gained by Sallash ; and the tolls, we see,
aiuoimted to " three shillings" a year, a sum that is apt, from its small-
ness, to raise a smile upon the face of a modern reader, but, considered
in union with the value of the whole manor at the time, is not insigni-
ficant in itself. The tow n, therefore, is certainly prior to the Con-
quest, and almost cosval with Athelstan's church, probably with the
erection of the priory, or with the cession of the manor to the prior and
the bishop.

Yet the town, like the manor, was divided betwixt the bishop and
prior, as it remains divided to the present day : w hat is now denomi-
nated the borough, and was formerly the prior's part, does not extend
its limits over the whole, is even confined within narrow^ bounds, and
actually comprehends only about fifty or sixty houses near the church *.
Thus did a great part of the town belong to the bishop, as it still be-
longs to the bishop's lessee ; but only the smaller part, the prior's, has
ahvays possessed the privilege of a parliamentary borough ; not, indeed,
according to Mr. Willis's conjecture, obtaining the privilege perhaps
from Walter bishop of Exeter in the time of Henry III. f , as then the
bishop s part would perhaps have been cxclusivclj privileged ; not, too,
according to jNIr. Willis's contrary supposition, from the prior's co-ope-
ration with the bishop in bestowing the privilege +, as then tJ)e two

* Willis, 147.

t Willis, 148 : " The episcopal palace at Cuddenbeak, — a quarter of a mile above the
♦♦ town, — is stiled in some writings Cuddenbeak borough, a privilege which it might per-
" haps obtain from Walter bishop of Exeter, temp. Hen. III. when Penryn seems to have
" been made a borough." Mr. Willis must mean by his reasoning all the bishop's part of
the town, though in his language he confines himself to the palace alone, a quarter of a mile
out of the low'vt.

% Willis, 148: "From this example" of Cuddenbeak borough, " the prior, with the
" assistance of the bishop, might also »o dignify the vill of St. German's."

parts

SECT. TI.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 241

parts would have shared it equalltj ; not even, according to another
hypothesis of Mr. Wilhs, directlv contrary to both, in that commonly
practised mode ot creating such privileges, by ignorantly mistaking the
import o<" tlie ^^ ord borougli, by wildly imagining every boroiigh, as
such, to have a right of electing representatives, and by thus exalting
many of the civil boroughs of the realm, so diffused over all the face of
it, }et so very ancient in themselves, into that merely modern creation
of boroughs sending some of their burgesses to j)arliament §. No ! The
town appears not to have been ever a civil borough before it became a
parliamentary one. Neither the bishop nor the prior, when they cer-
tify respecti^'ely their claims of liberties or privileges in the 3oth of
Edward I. and when these were recorded for their security among the
pleas of the crown, gave the tov\'n any other designation than that of
the manor of St. German's ||, as a part included in the whole, as a part
luidistinguished from the rest by any burgensic liberties: nor does the
town appear under any other than this general appellation, nor does one
record hint at its incorporation, nor does one authority whisper a single
privilege belonging to it as a town, he fore the very recent reign of — Eliza-
beth ^f. In the 5th of this queen's reign, and to the parliament of January
1503, it ventured to choose representatives for ihc Jirst i\m^. The right
was questioned \\ hen the act was done ; the town was called upon to
shew its authority for the act, and tlien — the whole was passed over in
silence. Such was the loose state of this part of our constitution under
that imperious sovereign I'.lizabeth ! such particularly was the slack and
slight rein which the government, however imperious, then chose to
put upon the presumption of towns, in arrogating the right of election
to parliament! Nothing appears (o have been done, nothing (we may
therefore be sure) was done, and the town (with only one interruption,

§ Willis advances this hypotliesis unknown lo himseU", when he savs " ihe episcopal
" palace at CiicklLnljeak," and means the episcopal part of (he town, " is stvlcd in sonic.
" writings Ciiddcnbeak borough." No part of the town could be called a borough, except
as a civil borough, before a year hereafter mentioned; and Mr. Willis's " some writings,"
so dubiously noticed, are mere nullities in themselves.

II Willis, 148.

fl Willis, 148.

VOL. u. 1 I tor

242 Till". r.vrHr^DRAi, or corxavall [chap. vii.

for the parliamejit iimncdiately succeeding in the 8th of Elizabeth) has
continued to elect ever since *. The Aciy same year did St. INIawes pre-
sume to exercise tlie same right, was questioned in the same manner
about it, and (with the same interruption for the parliament immediately
succeeding) was permitted to exercise it ever afterwards f. Thh indul-
gence 1 have attributed before to the influence of the queen, the pro-
bable jiroprieter of the town at the time ; but that must have been occa-
sioned by a principle very different, as St. German's was certainly not
in the crown ; and, in all probability, by some compromise made by the
royal \vith the private proprietors. 'Unit resulted originally, no doubt,
from the activity of the Champcrnoun, who was heir to the first receiver
of the priory from king Henry in 1542, and who transferred it over to
Richard Eliot, esq. thirty or forty years afterward];. Inheriting the
bold adventurous spirit of such a receiver, he pushed the inhabitants of
the town upon that act of presumption ; he bore them out in it by his
compromise probably with the lord steward, then the sole settler of con-
tested elections § ; and he continued to repeat the unchecked presump-
tion in a third parliament, the 13th of Elizabeth, 15"1 ||. Then came
Mr. Eliot, not so late as 15/5, when Mr. Willis intimates he came, but,
what Mr. Willis's own evidences shew, as early as 1.571-2 ; and so be-
came one of the representatives himself in a fourth parliament, that of
1572 ^. In such an extraordinary manner have two of our Cornish vil-
lages been elevated into parliamentary boroughs ! For this elevation of
St. German's, Champcrnoun gave it a mayor in the first return, and (to
cast a deeper shade of antiquity over his own creation) a port-reve in
the second**, though he betrayed the whole of the imposition by his
variation in the title, and the town has had a port-reve ever since -f-f-.
This otficer he made the jury of the manor to elect in the court-leet of
the manor at Michaelmas ; and all the householdeis who had lived a
twelvemonth in the town, so were competent to serve as jurymen in

* Willis, 146, 147, and Statute Book.

•t Willis, 168. X Willis, 143. § Willis, J46. II Willis, 147 and 15.3.

^ Willis, 153 : " 14 al West. Thomas Ashe, gent. Richard Eliot, gent"

*• Willis, 146, 147. +t Willis, 147.

the

SF.CT. II.] • HTSTORICALLY SURVEVED. 243

the manor-court, he made to elect the representatives |. But he care-
fully confined the privilege of elections to his own part of the town, to
that which he held in fee simple from the grant of (he crown and the
confirmation of a statute; denying it to the his!if)p's part, though great
in itself §. Ijecaiisc he possessed this bv a lease alone. " The division of
" the town into two manors," says iMr. ^\'illis, " — continues at this
" day ; the bishop's moiety being held by lease of three lives by^ Edward
" Eliot, esq. proprietor also of the other manor, whose predecessors,"
Champcruouns as well as Eliots, " have probably ever since the dissolu-
" tion of j/ionasferies,"' and consequently many years before the Eliots
came, " been farmers or lessee-tenants to the see of Exeter 1|." We
thus account for that concession of an elective franchise to the town,
which lias never been accounted for before ; and they suggest the reason
for that confinement of the franchise, which appears so extraordinary
in itself, but which refuted the very conjectures hitherto formed for its
commencement ^.

Yet, to pursue the history of the town a lillle further, the market still
continued in it long after the ('onquest. In the 30th of Edward L among-
the manerial privileges claimed by the bishop and the prior was a
market and a fair* ; the latter recently kept on the 1st of August, but
kept originally on the day of the parish-feast, the day of St. German's
death, the 3 1st of Julyf; the former not annihilated by the market of

X Willis, 147.

§ Willis, 147 : " Great part of whicli [vill of St. German's] is without the borough."

II Willis, 143.

^ Supposivg Mr. Willis to mean wliat lie mentions, that " the episcopal palace" is
" styled in some writings Cuddenbcak borough," and s7ipposivg his " some writings" to
carry any weight with them, then the palace was so called as the borough or castellated
house of the bishop : so we have a parliamentary borough now in Shropshire, from the cas-
tellated liouse of the bishop, yet remaining in its ruins, denominated Bishopscastlc. But
I still believe the " some writings" to be merely an imposition put upon Mr. Willis; such
as I well remember to have heard in his lifetime, as often put upon him by men more winy
than wise, more jocular than good, mischievously sportive, and malignantly tncrry.

* Willis 148.

t Willis, 141.

I I 2 Saltash,

2 1-i THE CATITF-DRAL OT C0R:C'VVALL [cHAP. WX.

Saltasli, but injured essentially in its tolls, reduced almost to a shadow
ludt a century ago, yet obsened no longer upon a Sunday, and now-
disused entirely. It ceased to be observed upon this day so devoted to
religion, in consequence of a general law forbidding any to be kept
upon it; a statute of the 27th of Henry VI. 1448, " considering the
" abominable injuries and ofiences done to Almighty Goo, and to his
'' saints, always aiders and singular assisters in our necessities, because
" of fairs and markets upon their high and principal feasts, as in the
" feast of the Ascension of our Lord, in the day of Corpus Christi, in
" the day of Whitsunday, in Trinity Sunday, with other Sundays, and
" also in the high feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, the day
" of All Saints, and on Good Friday, aecustomably and miserahhj [memo-
" rially] holden and used in the realm of Lngland ; in which principal
" and festival days, for great earthly covetise, the people is more will-
" ingly vexed, and in bodily labour foiled, than in other ferial days, as
" in fastening and making their booths and stalls, bearing and carrying,
" lifting and placing their wares outward and homeward, as though
" they did nothing remember the horrible defiling of their souls, in
" buying and selling with many deceitful lies and false perjury, with
" drunkenness and strifes, and so specially withdrawing themselves and
" their servants from divine service |." The market ^hus appears to
have been kept from the time of Athelstan to the reign of the sixth
Henry, through a period of five hundred years, upon a Sunday. Then
the nation seemed to awake into a general feeling of propriety upon the
point, prohibited all markets for the future upon a Sunday, and even
in the keenness of a new sensation extended the prohibition, not merely
to Good Friday, which we still observe w ith religious reverence, and
must observe while we continue to be Christians, but to Ascension-day,
M^hich we honour only by particular offices in public worship ; to the
day of All Saints, ■vyhich we consider merely as a common holjday ; to
the day of the Virgin Mary's Assumption, and to the day of Corpus
Christi, both \n hich we have long ceased to observe at all. It even, in its

X Cap. V. The law accordingly orders, that " all manner of fairs and markets in the said
" principal feasts and Sundays and Good Friday, shall clearly cease."

new

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 245

new zeal, adduced reasons against the keeping of markets, and the obser-
vance of fairs, those greater markets as merely annual upon such days,
wliich \\ould be equally forcible against the observance and keeping
upon aiiij. The people, says the law, " did nothing remember the hor-
" riblc ueliling of their souls, in buying and selling with many deceit-
" ful lies and false perjury, with drunkenness and strifes," practices cri-
minal upon any days. But, amidst such intemperance, the statute very
soberly and sensibly rests its own prohibition upon this ; that on such
days " the people is itiore willingly vexed, and in bodily labour foiled,
" than in other ferial' or holy " days," as gaining by the markets on
Sundays one day more in the week for their secular attentions, " in
" fastening and making [fast] * their booths and stalls, bearing and car-
" rying, lifting and placing, their wares outward and homeward ;" and
that " so" they -were " specially withdrawing themselves and their
" servants from divine service" on Sunday.

" As to a description of this borough,'" adds Mr. Willis concerning
what he ought to have denominated the town, as he means both the
parts of it, the burgensic and the extra-burgensic, both " called in
" Carew ' the Church-town'," a popular appellation in Cornwall for
any group of houses near the church ; " ' it mustcreth'," as that author
tells us, " ' sundry ruins but little wealth, occasioned (as some coii-
" ceive) by abandoning their fishing-trade, or (as the greater sort ima-
" gine) by their being deserted by the religious' ;" for " its chief support
" was certainly heretofore the priory ; the houses being very meanly
" built, and irregular, and situate on an uneven rock, affording no
" tolerable reception for travellers, or people who come to the market to
*' which this town pretends a title;" pretends one too from a higher
antiquity, and upon a more substantial authority than most of the mar-
ket-towns in the kingdom ; " and has a small pediing one on Friilai/a,
" almost unfrequented. The little trade it drives is by lishiug in Tiddi-

• This is the old and popular sense of the word make ; in Lancashire to this day all ranks
of natives make 6oors, make windows, by shutting them: so in Leland's Itin. iii. 36, " a
" warfe to make sbippcs by."

" ford

21(5 TIIR CATItnURAI, OF C01!NWALT, [CH/Vr. VM.

" lord river, which" a httlc below the priory terminates in the Liner.
as the Liner " about ten [live] miles downwards empties itself into" the
Taniar, (hen on its speedy entrance within " the harbour of Plymouth ;"
the Tiddiford river " washing the lower parts of the town" of St. (ier-
man's, jiccording to ]Mr. Willis, but in fact running at a little distance
from every part, and washing only the lands of the priory, or the site
of Cuddenbeak f , This tone of lamentation over the town of St. Ger-
man's, so natural to an antiquary when lie docs vot tli'mh, u hen he
x>n\y feds, and when in that feeling he reflects only on the dissolution
of the priory, has been echoed from one writer to another, till it has
been taken at last for the very voice of truth. The first note was set by
Leland in this account: " S. Gcrmane's is but a poorc fischar town, the
" glory of it stood by the priory ij;." But Leland had a reason for the
note, w Inch none of the repeaters have had since ; the expulsion of the
clergy from the priory, and the non-substitution of the Eliots in their
room. Since this family has resided in the priory, the town has had
no cause to deplore the absence of its clergy ; the rents of the priory-
lands, the rents of the bishops, and the rents of various estates beside,
have been all expended at the town : much more has therefore been laid
out there by the secular prior than could have been b} the regular. The
trade of fishing, indeed, which might be encouraged by the fasts of the
clergy upon fish, yet was equally encouraged by the fish-fasts, enjoined
in special laws upon all for a long time after the Reformation, cannot
be supposed to have declined while the encouragement was continued ;
and, in fact, is falsely asserted by Carew before to have been " aban-
" doned" in his time, either in 1580, when he w^as writing his work,
or in 1602, when he published it§. "In the church- towne," says
Norden in 1584, "are manic inhabitantes, but (as it seemeth) noe greate
" riches ; it hath bene farr more popidous,'' a declaration supported by
no proot"^ opposed by every testimony, and encountered hy cxeij pro-
bability ; " but the decaye hath grownc by 3 severall meanes ; firste,
" by the discontinuance of the bushopes sea," a discontinuance even

t Willis, 148, 149 ; and Carew, 109. J Leland's Itin. ill. 40.

§ Lifeof Carew prefixed, xvii. and .\x.

5 /I/cn

SECT. II.] inSTOKICALLY SURVEYED. 2-17

i/wn near five centuries and a half before, when the town could have
had no importance to lose; " — the scconde, the subprcssing of the
" pryorie, which was a meane to drawc inhabitantes," but a much
stronger than which ha.s surely been furnished by the residence of the
Eliots here; " and lastly, by their own neglecte of the commodious
" trade of fishinge*." Here the " abandoned" trade of Carew is only
the " neglected" of Norden, and in reality was not either neglected or
abandoned then. Camden, who first published in 1586, after more
than ten years of travels -f- ; who republished in isgo, I5g4, 1G07 ; \\ho
had seen Carew's remarks in manuscript before his first publication J,
and had even seen them in print before his last§, continues in all his
three last editions to affirm the actual prosecution of the fishery, yet to
expose the poor appearance of the town. " At the village of St. Ger-
" man's," he tells us, " — is a small church dedicated to St. German of
" Auxerre, in which sat a very few bishops ; — I say the village of St,
" German's, for there is nothing else there at present but the cottages
*' of fishermen, who carry on a pretty extensive fishery in the ocean
" and in the adjoining rivers ||." The fishery, we see, v^as then prose-
cuted

• Norden, 93. From Carew, 109, has Norden copied this folly, prudently omitting
some strokes in it. Ascribing the supposed declension of the town to the expulsion of
" the religious people," Carew thus subjoins; *' for, in former times, the bishop of Corn-
" wall's see was from St. Petrock's in Bodinyn remooved hither, as from hence, when the
" Cornish dioces united with Devon, it passed to Crediton," an assertion against fact, as
we have seen before, " and lastly from thence to Exccster; but this tirst losse receyvcd re-
" liefc through a succeeding priory," as if the priory begun after the bishopric had been
Icnioved. Such a mere gossipper in antiquarianism is this celebrated antiquary ! in the
infancy of antiquarianism among us, even such a petty narrator of impertinences could gain
celebrity, si dis placet, as an auiiciuary.

t Gibson's Life of Camden prefixed to his Camden.

X Carew's Life prefixed to his work, xvii.

§ In 590, p. 126: " Hxc planius et melius t?offii7 Richardus Carew dc Anthom'c, —
" qui hujus regionis dcscriptlonem latiore specie, el non ad tcnue, elimat." So equally in
15H6. (Carew's Life, xvii.) In 1594, p. 131, as before, but with this addition, " qucm-
" que mihi prxluxisse non possum non aguosccrc." But in 1607, p. 143, " docuit" and
" elimavit."

jl In 1590, p. 122 : " Ad S. German's— aedicula S. Germane Autissiodorensi sacra, in

'• qua

2lfi THE CATHEDRAL OF OORXAVAI.r. [cHAP. VII,

cuted so rtnich with all its original vigour, thai the town was " nothing
" else — but the cottages of fishermen." It was thus also " a pretty ex-
" tensive fishery," not confined to Tidditbrd river, not even keeping
itself within the Liner or the Tamar, but pushing out into " the ocean:"
yet the town, which was " poore" in Lchnd's time, consisted only of
" cottages" in Camden's, and was merely " a village" therefore. The
toM-n thus appears in full possession of all its fishery, and in full enjoy-
ment of all its opulence at that time ; yet both had sunk away before
the davs of Mr. Willis, as " the little trade it drives," he remarks, " is
** by fishing in Tiddiford river." Nor must W'e .suppose, in the fashion-
able strain of refining against the very evidence of facts, that what was
" pretty extensive" in the estimate of Camden, was merely " little" in
the ideas of Mr. Willis, from the rising scale of trade in the whole island
eince the days of Camden. The fishery was apparently decaying in the
time of Mr. Willis, shrinking back from " the ocean" and " the adjoin-
" ing rivers," so confining itself to its ow^n current : even there is it
now discontinued. But tradition still speaks of it in a tone similar to
Camden's, as a fishery cither principall}' or solely for pUcliards, conse-
quently out upon the sea, though merely for a short season. Yet the
shoals of these annual migrants from the south-western depths of the
Atlantic to the coasts of Bretagne and Cogiwall, for the food that they
find along them, which, when caught, used to be presen-ed by smoking,
which were therefore denominated ftimadoes by the Italians, to whom
then, as now, v>e principally sold them, and \\ hich are still denomi-
nated fumades by the very populace of Cornwall, even when they are

" qua cum pauculi sedissent episcopi," &c. " Ininc Gcrmani viculum — ; nihil enim aliud
*' hudie est, quam piscatorum viculiis, qui salis copiosam exercent piscaturam in vicino
" oceano, f^ivero flumine proelciHuente, ei Taniara qui regionis est terminus." In 1594,
p. 126, the only vaiidiiouis '• piscatorum Cusulie" ami " et pmxiinis fluniinibus," the Liner
being previously mentioned thus : " Liverum fluviolum — qui subluit S. Germans viculum."
In 1607, all is just as in 1594. — " .^Edieula" in Canulen here is translated by bishop
Gibson, c. :i, " a little religious house," and by Mr. Gough, i. 6, " a small religious
" house," they fancying it meant the priory, when it actually means the church, and when
the words " in qua cum pauculi sedissent episcopi," shew demonstratively it means so. But
jGibson had made the mistake, and Mr. Gough had not power to correct it.

noAv

SFXT. II.] ' nrSTOBICALLT SURVEVED. 240

now preser\^d by pressing, had long ceased to range so high up the
channel as St. German's, stopped their migration generally about Fosvey,
and so threw the whole fishery into the hands of the western Cornish*.
Tliis was the case within these ^ew years, when a new movement was
made in a government almost as revolutionary as the French republic's,
and tlie pilchards began to- range as high as ever up the channel, even
up to Cawsand Bay, at the farthest extremity of Cornwall on the
east. Yet even thert the fishery was prosecuted, not in the bold mode
in which it ap^t?ar^ from Camdert to have been prosecuted at St. Ger-
man's : formerly, and is prosecuted' by the \^'estern Cornish at present,
by taking the fish oiif at «ert, but by managing a pilchard-seine as
timidly as a ground- seine, dropping it in a kind of half-moon along the
waters of the beach, and then by a rope at ciich end hauling the fish
on shore ; nor is' it more than twtihty-five years ago that the Cawsand
fishers were obliged to procure nets, bbat!>, and men from Vcrvan upon
our own coast, for carrying on the fishtty in the true' rtianner again. The
town (if St. German's, then, was always little andpetty'irt itself, even
vi'hen its fishery was at the height ; nor has either it or its fisheiy been
affected at all by the alienation of its priory-lands to a secular family -f,
however it may be hereafter by the desertion of the site in summer for
some water-drinking place, or by the exchange of its solitude in winter
for the noise and amusements of Londorii"^ ' '

The only alienation \\hich could affect cither the to%vn or the parish
Avas one of a very dilfcrent natm-e, one of a spiritual quality, one therc-

* Gough's Camden, i. lo.

t ■" The marchantes that do deaJe in lhi§ comodiiic" of pilchards,, '♦ as doe divers Lon-
*' doners, vciU them in siindiic places. In Fraunc liity uUcr thi;ir pickled pilchardcs," now
not known but. in d(.)iii.fstic use, " and suche as ihcy pack in hogshcadcs and other caske,
" uhcr they are recCyvcd as A x'erie welcome rclicfe to the sea-coaste of that kingdonie, and
•' Irom the St-oaste revehled to their great profit ifi the inland to\riics." All this trade into
France is now gone. " Tiic iiijcd ware they carrvc inio S]iavnc, Ilalie, Venice, and tVncri
*' pMctH tcitliin the Stra^te}, where they are very v.cndibli;, and i<n tho5(? partes lookc name
"J^iimados, for that they are dryeJ in the smoakc" (Nordcn, 23) : ihen they were prin-
cipally vended, as now, in Italy — the name ofj-uniud"^. shews this.

VOL. n. K K fore

230- THE CATIir.DRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. Vn.

tore too fine for tlic gross eyes of the generality, and never noticed by
anv of these authors, the diversion of the ikiK's from llic maintenance
of a clerical college here, to th^ support of another at a great distance;
and the consequent deficiency of a competent maintenance for him who
is noio to take the charge of tlic parish. " The advowson of this paro-
" chial church," says Mr. Willis, " — together with tlxe rectory or im-
•/ propria tion, late the possessions of the priory — , vakied at Ol /. i 3.s. Ad..
"per annum, were g^-antcd by king Edward VI. to the dean and cl:iap-
•/ ter of Windsop, ia whose, hands they now continue +." When the
lands of the priory were given away to Mr. Champernoun, the tithes of
the rectory were reserved, with some view probably of doing that which
common justice and common sense demanded, of restoring them to the
ghurch to .which, in tt^e person of the rector, they had belonged before
the days of Athelstan, and with v^rhich they still rested in the appro-
priation of them to a college of clergy at it. Had Henry acted up to
this view he, would have done credit to his name, and blotted out one
of the many enormities of sacrilege tliat now stand recorded in black
characters against him on tlie doomsday book of history. But selfish-
ness is a principle ever active in the heart of man; -while the fear of
sacrilege operates slowly within it, is examined cautiously by the rea^
son, to see if there is no possibility in the wide regions of casuistry to
escape from it, and is reluctantly admitted at last to exercise its otiico
among ns. Henry thus died with the tithes in his grasp, and sunk into
the grave one of the first of human sinners, loaded with an accumula-
tion of iniquities, each of which was sulficient to press a single head
into perdition. The tithes, however, were resigned up by Edvsard, a
young prince, whose principles were religious in themselves, yet whose
understanding- had not time, even if it had power, to unfold itself in
worthy exertions ; and whose understanding, whose principles were
generally perverted by the ininisters about him, all birds of ravage fea-
thered under the wings of Henry, ctU ready, with an eagle's swiftness, to
fly upon the exposed body ©f the church ; all eager,' with a vulture's vio-
ience,.to.rend it in pieces as their prey. Edward, however, resigned them

i Willi?, i5^/i53v- •

Up,

SECT. U.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 251

up, not to their original and true proprietor, the church of St. German's,
but to a clerical corporation at one of the king's own palaces. Thus the
church, deprived of its college of clergy, with its half of the manor by
the dissolution befoje, had now all the endowment of the rectory torn
away from it for ever, and was turned out totally naked to the weather.
While an ample income and an ample house were originally provided
for its rector or its college, no income, no house remained for the
curate. He has only a stipend at present, scanty in itself, yet even
constituted chiefly by the mere fees of his personal offices ; and only a
house bequeathed him lately by accidental benevolence, but unfit from
its poorness to admit tlic residence of any gentleman within it.

" The same bishop holds Laniierwey. In the time of king Henry
'' it gelded for i hide, but yet there are iii hides there; the land is x
" carucates ; in demesne is i carucate, and iiii servi and viii villani and
*' vi bordarii \\'\\h iii carucates. There, is a pasture ii miles long and
" one mile broad : formerly it was worth c shillings, now it is worth
" 1 shillings. Fulcard holds it under the bishop*." In the parish of
St. Allen near Truro, was formerly a chapel dedicated, like the old
church of the Romans at Canterbury, and like another of theirs at
Whitcrn in Galloway, to the honour of St. Martin, yet still preserved
in memory by the names of St. Martin's fields, St. INIartin's woods
there. Local appellations are the connnon property of a -whole neigh-
bomhood, so bec:ome frequently unalienable by any length of time, and
still continue steadily faithful to tlicir original places, when even records
have deserted them for ages. A house at it is denominated Lanher, in
which, says Hals, " the bishops of Cornwall, and afterward the bishops
" of Exon, had one of their mansions or dwelling-houses for many ages ;"
even " till bishop Voysey, temp. Hen. Vlli." constrained by that vio-
lence in the tyrant-father which the tyrant-daugliter repeated when she

• Foi. 120: *' Idem cpiscopns tenet Lanheuwey. T. R. E. geldabat pro i hida, scd
" lanien sunt ibi iii hidae. Terra est x canicatrc. In doniinio est i carucata, ct iiii servii et
" viii villani et vi bordarii eiim iii caracatis. Ibi pastura ii Icucis IdJnga ct unam leucani
" law, Olinvc solidos, modo valet 1 solidos. Fulcardus tenet dc cpiicopo."

K K 2 swore

252 niE CAT^ICORAL OF COBNWALt [oiIAP. VH.

sicorc in a letter to unfrock a bishop it' he ix-fiised, " leased these manors
" [this manor] to Clement Throckmorton, esq. cupbearer to queen
*• Catharine Parre, from -w hoin it passed by sale to Williams, and so
" from \\'illiams to Borlase, by whom this manor or barton of Laner
*• was left to run to utter ruin and dilapidation, having now nothino;
•' extant of houses bnt old walls, stones, and rubbish f ." Yet the name
has no, relation to the chapel, as Hals states it to have; saying " Laner
*' or Lanher, i. e. Templcr," was " so called, for that long before that
" time," the Conquest, ." was extant upon that place a chapel or temple
" dedicated to God*." This he infere from the initial sellable of the
name Lan, which oi'dinarily signifies a church, but originally signified
only the churchyard, as it still signifies any enclosure in Yd-lan
(W.), a rick-yard,; Per-llan (W.), an orchard; Gwin-llan (W.), a
vineyard; Cor-iaii (W.), a sheep-fold; or Corph-lan (W.), a church-
yard, because a burying-place ; as it stiil signifies in marty of the local
appellations of Cornwall, Lan-dew i within Lezajit parish, or Lan-leake
■within St. Petherwyn ; and, as it signified from the very first ages, in
jNIedio-lanum, Croco-lana, Uro-lanium, 6r Veru-lam, the names of mili-
tary enclosures within Britain and Gallic Italy. The name therefore is
derived from another circumstance, and took its rise before the manor
was ceded to the see, before the chui'ch of St. Martin was erected by
the bishop as a chapel to his house. Lanher, notes Hals himself, was
" formerly in a wood or forest of trees ;{:," and the name testifies to the
fact. Lann-erclr (W.) is a. yard teahouse, a void place, a green, a
bare open place in a wood ; Laaherch (jG.),i* equally abare place in a
wood, but thence ascends to import a wood itself, it standing in com-
jnon acceptation at present for a grove or a forest § ; and in thin accepta-
tion it is used here, Lanher-wen being merely Lanherc Cnievv, and
referring to the fti'st plain field that was made in the wood here ||.

'• Kichard

t Hals, 4. * Hals, 4. ^ Hils,; 4. § Prycc and Richafcls.

|[ " Gc\v," says Pryce, " stay, support-^. Oiv many estates, especially in the \vebt,

'', one pf the best fields is chilled the geus,; probably from heiice, .as being the stay and.supr-

" port of the estate." ,yhis,is a striking. inslaace how uuforiunatc Pcjce wa^iji,n<^ adoptjing

•■ ' * " ' all

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 253

" Kichard holds under the bishop Thintex. In the time of king
" Edward it gelded for half a hide. Yet there is i [whole] hide tliere.
" The hind is xl carncatos. In demesne is a carucate and a half, with i
" servus and v villani and ii bordarii with iii carucates and i acre of wood-
" Formerly it was and now is worth xxv shiUings j." This I take to
be the manor of Tinten in the pari.sli of St. Tady, which was held by a
family of the same appellation, in the 17tli of Edward II. and in the 3d
of Henry IV. * ; but which has been long torn from the see.

" The bishop himself holds Laxgvitetone. . In the time of king
" Edward it gelded for iiii hides, yet thei'e are xi hides there. The land
" is xl canicates. In demesne are ii carucates, and vii scrsi and xxvii
" villani and xx bordarii with xxix carucates. There, are viii acres of
" meadow and c acres of pasture and x acres of underwood. Formerly
*^ it was worth viii pounds, now it is worth xvii pounds -f-." This is the
manor of Lawhitton, written Lanwitham before, and here "written cor-
respondently L;ingvitctone ; originally, therefore, Lan-whitton, and

all the words of Borlase's Vocabulary. There he would have found this very word, in its
true orthograpiiy, and in its genuine signification, ♦' Guew, a ■plum field." A field in my
own parish is denominated the Guew. And " from Agnes," one of the Sylley Isles, says
Boriasc^ 39> 40, " we came across a bar of sand, — till we got to the G2//h', a part of Agnes,
" and heVet divided from it but by high and boisterous tides : here, on a plain, we found a
" large stone erect — , but at present there is neither corn nor field, this Guclu (in Cornish
" signifying, a plain field) serving only as a croft or coarse common to Agnes." Hence we
see plainly, ?'% " on many estates;" not "especially in the west," but equally in the
east, " one of the best fields is called," not " the Gews," but the Gcw; not as being'
«' the slay and support of the estate," an etymology singularly harsh and violent ! but as a
plain amid the h'dh of Cornwall, and thervfore " one of the best fields" upon an estate.

J F. 120: <| Richardus tenet de cpiscopo Thintjen. T. R. E. geldabat pro dimidia
" hida. Ibi tamen est i hida. Terra est vi carucatx. In dominio est carueata ct dimidia,
*' cum i servo et v villanis etii bordariis cum ii carucatis et i acra silvx. Olim tt niodo
" valet xxv solidos."

• Tonkin's MS.

t F. 120: " Ipse cpiscopus tenet Laxgvitetone. T. R. E. geldabat pio iiii Indis, ibi
'"' tamen sunt .\i hid;e.. Terra est xl carutalx. In dominio sunt ii carucatx, et vii servi tl
«« xxvii villani el xx bordarii cum xxix carucatis. Ibi viii acrse prati et c acrae paslurae el x
♦' acrai "siivte minuta:. Olim viii libras, modo valet -wji libras."

now

254 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAl'. Vll.

now vitiated into Lawhitton, bv that elision in speaking which I have
previously noticed,

" f^olland holds under the bishop Landicle. In the time of king Ed-
" ward it gelded tor i hide, yet there is i hide and a halt' there. The land
" is xii carucates. In demesne is i carucate, and iii seni and xiii vil-
*•' lani and iiii bordarii with iii carucates. There, are ii acres of meadow,
" and a pasture ii miles long and one mile broad. Formerly it was
" and now is worth iii pounds :|:." This I apprehend to be that manor
of Landegey, in the parish of Kea, near Truro, upon which the ch.urch
Avas originally built, and from which, therefore, it carries the appella-
tion of Landelegh, or Landegh, in the Valor of 1292, and of which,
with the patronage of the living, the bishop is still possessed §.

"-Godefrid holds under tiie bishop SANvtuNUEc. "in the time of king
" Edward it gelded for i hide. The land is v carucates. In demesne is
*' i carucate, and ii sei-vi and v villani and vi bordarii with ii carucates.
" There, is a pasture half a mile long and as much broad, a wood half a
" mile long and one quarter broad. Formerly it was worth -xl shillingSj
'* now it is worth xx shillings ||." This is apparently the manor bf St.
Wvunow, originally (we see) belonging to the bishop, but even at the
Conquest held only under him, with a reservation of rent, merely half
as much as the manor used to pay, merely twenty shillings when it used
to pav forty, and, from the same power of violence that took it out 6f
the bishop's own possession, never raisable afterwards. The marior ^\'as

X F. 120: *' RoHandus tenet de episcopo Landici-K, T. R. E, geldabat pro i liida, ibi
" tamen eist i hid;i el dlmidia. Terra est xii carucatx. In dominio est i carucata, ct iii sern
" et .xiii villaiii et iiii bordarii cum iii carucaiis. Ibi ii acras prati, et pa?tura ii leucas Ipnga
" et unam leucam lata. Olim ct modo valet iii libras."

§ Tonkin's MS. an inqnisition, 5 Car.: " The manor of Landegey and Laner cum per-
" tiaenliis in paroch. de St. Key ct alibi," &c. In tlie Valor of 1292, the church appears
called " Landelegh," or "Landegh."

II F. 120: " Godefridus tenet de episcopo Sakwinuec. T. R. E. geldabat pro i hida.
" Terra est vi carucatns. In dominio est i carucata, et ii scrvi et v villani et vi bordarii cum ii
" carucatis. Ibi pastura dimidiam leucam longa et tantundem lata, silva dimidiam leucam
•■" longa et unam quadrantem lata. Olim xl solidos, modo valet xx solidos/'

then

SECT, n.] IIISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 255

then possessed by a fcunily, that from it adopted the appellation of De
San. ffl/tinoJiO. Thus Philip de San. Wynnoko was one of those who
arc speciried in the 25th of Edward 1. as holding twenty pounds or
more a year in lands and, rents within this county*. Lcland calls " S.
" Winnous an abbate chirch," as appropriated to the abbey of St.
Peter's in Exeter, now to the dean and chapter there ; then adds, that
" by the — chirch of old tyine inhabitid a genlilman, Joannes de S.
" Wynnoco ;" and finally subjoins, that there " is much good wood at
" S. Ginoke's-f." The manor, the church, and the parish, derive their
common appellation from a saint of Bretagnd, who, about 582, went
into France, then a distinct kingdom, and into that part of Flanders
which is now incorporated into France equally with Bretagne ; esta-
blished a monastery in the latter, at a place near Dunkirk, since deno-
minated Berg St. Vinoc ; and was adopted as a saint by the Cornish as
well as by the Flemings 'I. — But we now return to St. German's ao-ain.

" From THE CHURCH OF Saixt German has been taken away i hide
" of land, which paid by custom one cup of ale and xxx pence, in the
" time of king Edward, to the same church §." This is one of those
jocular tenures that make such a figure in an antiquary's view of our
tenures, and exhibit the manners of our ancestors in a peculiar light ;
naturally grave in themselves, hardly ever sallying out into the vivacity
of humour, yet even then sallying only amid the formalities of law, and
in the cessions of property. But, what distinguishes this very strongly
from the rest, it is certaitdy prior to most of them, probablv prior to all,
and confessedly Saxon in itself " From the same church has been
" taken away i acre of land, and it is the land of one carurate. From
*' the same church has been taken i virgate of land. Perlin [held all

• Carcxv, 52.

+ LtKiiul's Itin. iii. 36.

J Usher, 533, &c. and Ltland's Itin. iii. 61 : " Ex Vita S. WiiiRoci. < Qiiadanociis,
" Ingenocus, Madocus, ct IPt-nocus, Britones, monachi in Sithni nionaslerio, cui prxcrat
" Bcilimis'."

5 K. 120: " De ffioclesiA S. Gcrinani ablafa est i liida terrsc, quae rcddcbal per consuctu-
'* dincm imam ciipam ccrvisx ct x.nx denarius T. l\. E. cidem atticsiic."

''three

^5(5 THE CATHEDRAL ClF COHNAVALL [ciIAP, VH.

*' three] under the earl of INIoriton. 'J'licsc were in the time of king
" Edward, within tlie demesne of the same ehurch. Now Rainald and
" Ilame hold them," This completes the picture of Norman oppres-
siveness in Cornwall. In the insolence of a riew-acqnired sovereigntv-
over the country, and in the exorbitance of unprincipled passions o^e^
the heart of the earl, he had laid his hands upon the very patrimony df
the church, robbed the very Cion at whose altars he bowed, and defied
the very thunders at which he shuddered. Such is the peculiar stupidity
of sacrilege *.

But the record closes its whole account in this retrospective and com-
prehensive manner : "all these lands were held by bishop Leofric,
" in the time of king Edward -f-."

We -thus survey the list of those manors, which belonged to the
bishop of Exeter before the Conquest, and were actually held by that

•^flT •
* '' F. I20: ''Deeadeni xcclesia est ablata i acra terrae, et est terra icarucat^c." How
" i acre of land" could be ■" the land of i carucale," will naturally puzzle my reader to ascer-
tain. But the passage proves an acre in Doonisday Book, occasionally to be an acre in
iiameonlv, and much larger than an acre in reality. Here an acre is declared equivalent to
acarucate. But the very declaration shews it not to be so, ordinarily in the record. Here,
and here only, as we have the declaration no w here else in Cornwall ; does the record adopt
the Cornish largeness of measure, for an acre. " Every ancient Cornish acre," Hals ob-
serves in p. 159, is " sixty statute-acres of land." Bui Carcw, 36, says, " Commonly
" thirty acres make a farthing land, iihie farthings," or two hundred and seventy statute-
acres, " a Cornish acre." And " in the register of Lacy, bishop of Exeter, A. D. "1420,
" the Cornisli acre" is found far below Carcvv's account, though much above Hals's, even
as it is found in Doomsday Book; appearing to have " contained fottr fcrlings-, alias far-
" things, each fcrling consisting of thirty acres, statute-rjieasurc," and each Cornish acre,
therefore, " containing — one hundred and twenty statute-acres" (Borlase's Nat. Hist. 319),
the very amount of a carucale. " De cadcm tecclcsia est al)hta i virgata terrse. plinus
" [tenuit] de coniite Moritonia;." What does this figure or letter m<.an, /9? 'We had it
before under Bcrnerh, thus, " geldabat proi hida p xxiiii libras," where it obvjnusly
means per; and we have it here again, where I therefore suppose it to iriean p^r again,
forming the first syllable of the personal name, so leaving the second to begin with-
out a capital letter, " Ilae erant T. R. E. in douiinio ijusdem a:cclesjce, modo tcncnt
■" Kainaldus et Hame,"

t F. 120: " Omnes has terras tenuit Levric cpiscopus T. R. E."

1 very

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 257

very Leofric the bishop, who transferred his see of St. German's %\ith
all its possessions to Exeter. They therefore were plainly the posses-
sions of his Cornish sec. lie particularly held the manor of St. Ger-
man's, and the lands of the priory were in liis manor ; as being noticed
imder '• the land of the bishop of Excestre." JJut while we thus behold
the first bishop of Exeter possessing the manor of St. German's, with a
variety of other manors, as bishop equally of Exeter and St. German's,
we find him not possessing a single manor, as bishop equally of
Bodmin too. The property of the church of Bodmin is exhibited in the
same form as that of the bishop of Exeter, but as totally distinct from it.
" The church of Saint Petroc," says the record, " holds Bodmixe.
" There, is i hide of land which never gelded. The land is iiii carucates.
" There v villani have ii carucates with vi bordarii. There, are xxx
" acres of pasture and vi acres of undei-vi'ood. There S. Petroc has Ixviii
*' houses and one market. The whole is worth xxv shillings*." Not
a single house in the town, not a single acre in the manor, does Leofric
hold at the very manor and town, from which he derived one half of his
double title as the prelate of Cornwall, and in which his predecessors
have been hitherto believed to have had their sole seat originally. At
St, German's he possesses the whole manor, at Bodmin he possesses not a
particle of it. At St. German's he shares the very extensive land within
the manor, equally with the canons of the church; at Bodmin he has no
share with the church at all. At St. German's he has a regular demesne
of ii carucates, with iiii servi and xxx villani and xii bordarii upon xvi
carucates besides ; but at Bodmin he has no demesne, no ser\ us, no
villanus, no bordarius, and no carucate. In St. German's he appears at
home, at his see, at his palace ; but in Bodmin he appears without a
palace, without a see, without a home. 1 dwell the more circumstan-
tial I \- upon the point, because it has never been observed before, because
it is the result too of all that I have previously remarked, and linally

* F. 120 : " Lcci.EsiA S. I'lrrnoc Itnet Hodminh. Ibi est i hida lerrai qux minquam
*' o-cldavit. Terra esl iiii carucat.-E. Ibi v villani liabcnl ii carucatas cum vi bordariis. IM
" xxx acra: paslurx ct vi acrx silvx niiiuua:. Ibi habcl S. I'clroc Ixviii domus el uiunn
" niercatiim. Ti)tiiin v.tlet xxv solidos."

VOL. II. L L conliims

258 niE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

confirms the whole. The see of Bodmin, vvc now bcliold decisively in
the mirror of Doomsday Book, was not the original see of Cornwall, was
never the sole seat of the bishop, was never the 7-ca! seat at all ; and at
last, when it was associated with St. German's, became only the nomi-
nal, the titular, the conjunctive see of Leofric. Nor had Leofric one
more inch of ground tlaere for the endowment of his bishopric, than he
had at any of the other churches in his diocese.

In a seeming opposition indeed to this plain tiiith, " the manors of
•' Cargoll and Ryalton" have been said to be " given by our earls of
" Cornwal before the Norman conquest, to the bishop of Bodman or
" Cornwal, or the prior thereof* ;" Lanhcr, in St. Allen parish, is
declared to be " the capital messuage of the bishop of Exons manor of
" Cargoll, whereimto it is annexed f ;" and " the great lordship and
" manor of Ryalton, heretofore pertaining to the prior of Bodman," is
declared to be " held of the bishop of Exons manor of Penryn, and pays
"yearly lo/. high-rent to the same; from whence I gather," notes
an author, " that formerly both pertained to the bishopric of Cormvally
" afterwards concerted into Kirton and Exeter," luith Kirton into
Exeter:}:. That all this, as an intimation of the endo\\'ment of our
Cornish see previoxisly to the Conquest, is absolutely false ; we know
from the roll of Doomsday itself. There Cargau, there Ryelton are
expressly specified, not as the manors of the bishopric of Exeter, but as
entirely distinct from them, as exclusively the manors of Bodmin priory.
" The church itself [of St. Petroc] holds Rieltone," but " the earl of
*• Moriton — holds under 8. Petroc Cargau §." Ryalton appears from
its name, to have been a house belonging to the king of Cornwall;
claims accordingly a jurisdiction over the whole hundred of Pyder ; has
also a strong prison still attached to its ancient royalty ; and shews a
TOansion-house, much beautified as well as enlarged, almost indeed re-

* Hals, 74. t Hals, 4. % Hals, 68.

§ F. 120: '• Ipsa cccclcsia tenet Rieltone — ; comes Moritonire — tenet de S. Petroc
«« Cargau."

5 built.

SECT, ri.j HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 250

built, by that prior of Bodmin, Vivian, who died in 1533 ||. Yet this
\ery manor, so plainly annexed to the priory, pays lo/. yearly (it seems)
to the bishop's manor of Penryn. But it evidently paid nothing at the
Conquest. It vs'as not held then, either inediately or immediately under
the bishop. It was Iield by the very prior himself. This we see at a
glance, when we consult Doomsday Book, when we behold Eyalton
possessed by the priory, and find no paj-ment accruing from it to tlie
bishopric. Doomsday Book indeed draws a strong broad hne of dis-
tinction for us, between the ages antecedent and the centuries subse-
quent to it. Adhering to this line, we are not bewildered in the mazes
of sliifting property, but walk steadily with the clue in our hand
through all the windings, and reach the termination of the whole
sec»n-cly. We particularly see the lands of the priory of Bodmin, and
the lands of the bishopric of Cornwall, as distinct as the persons of tlie
bishop and the prior ; the bishop not having one atom of property in the
lands of the priory, at Bodmin, at Cargoll, at Ryalton, or at any of its
manors ; yet possessing a manor at St. German's, sharing the lands of it
in an even proportion with the canons of St. German's priory, enjoying
even a part of his share as the demesne of his palace, and even cid-
tivating it by his servi, his A'illani, his bordarii. At St. German's the
bishop was demonstrably an inmate, at Bodmin he was absolutely an
alien ; and legal evidence is now superadded to historical %.

H Ilals, 68, 69, 20.

^ Leiand dc Script. Brit. 61, says thus, as I have already noted in pari, under!. 4:
*' Conies Moiiduncnsis et Corinianus, fralcr uteriniis Gulichni Prinii, regis Angliie, fanum
" Petroci prcedUs spoliavit onuubus ; Algarus nobilis, ct Gulichmis Guarvestiits episcopus
•* Iscanus, fundos — solicili injjis pristinum reduxerunt." But that this is all a slander upon
the earl of Mortaigne, Doomsday Book proclaims with a loud trumpet ; reciting all ihc landu
of Hodmin priory, as still to an atom nearly attached to it. Yet " Liland informs us," we
arc told by an author equally ingenious and judicious, but borne down by a testimony so
weighty in Itself, " that he seized — on all the lands belonging to the monastery of St. Pctroc
"in Bodmyn; the restilutixiri of wliich, jWgar, a nobleman, and Gulielmus Giiaivettiiis,
** bishop of Exeter, afterwards procurvd," (Some Account, p. 3.) Algar only rebuilt the
church (Hals, 19) ; and " W iiliani Ifurlcwisl, bishop of Kxccstrc, crcctid the last funda-
'* tlon of this priorv, and" instead of restoring, " had lo hymsflf pari nfthauncienl lamtes of
•' Bodmijn monasleric," (Leiand's Ilin. ii. 115.)

L L 2 Tims

20O THE CATIir.DRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. \TI.

Thus, however, was the bishop of St. German's, or (as merely
entitled at last) the bishop of St. German's and of Bodmin, provided
with an income fully proportioned to his dignity, and amply competent
for his expenditure. The sound of the names of liis manors indeed is
greater to our ears, than ever his income was to his own purse. But
then the mode of hving at the time and the relative cheapness of the
country, must have made a short income run out into a long expen-
diture. Nor had the prelate of Cornwall any reason to complain of the
too restrained bounty of his sovereign towards him. " The lord bishop
" of this diocese," sajs Hals (as cited by Dr. Borlase), from an estimate
formed in lOo2, " is lord of several manors and lands in Cornwall, worth
" AXisUALLY, if they were not leased, twelve thousand pouxds*."
Or, to cite the A^ery words of the author immediately from himself, as
more particular than they appear in Dr. Borlase ; after a calculation of
the respective values of our Cornish rectories and vicarages, formed
much below their true values at present, as made " accordinge to the
*' computation of Edward Herle, of Prideaux, esq. anno Dom. iOo2,"
■who in the male line was descended from a Northumberland family,
thouo-h in the female from a Cornish one f , and who, from his residence
in Cornwall, had every advantage of information, is subjoined this con-
clusion : " Soe the bishop of Bodman [St. German's] or Cornwall, now
" Exon, longe before tJie Norman conquest, as he still is, teas possessed
" of eight greate manors of land, by the bounty and piety of the carles
" of Cornwall and kings of England, given and appropriated to his see ;
" viz. Cudan Bcake, La?Avhitton, Lanher, and Cargoll, Peniyn" given
since the Conq\iest, as Doomsday Book shews, " Burnear, Elerchy," of
which merely the great tithes belong to the bishop, " Tregare," equally
with those tithes given since the Conquest, as Doomsday Book again
shews for both, " and j^or^ of Pavston," the whole indeed, as Dooms-
day Book shews once more; " the lands of all which, if they were not
" leased, are worth above twelve thousand pounds per annum J."
The addition of several manors, which were donations posterior to tlie

* Borl-ise's Nat. H'st. 313, from Hals's MS. + See i. 4, a note.

J Hals's ISIS, at the close.

Conquest;

SECT. II.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 26l

Conquest, and which raise the episcopal revenue of course beyond its
real heiglit ; is balanced by the omission of many more manors, which
are specified by Doomsday Book as prior to the Conquest, and therefore
ought to be taken into our account. These are Trewcl, Matele, Tregel,
and Thinten. But to these must bo subjoined another, even Frobus,
given since the Conquest, as Doomsday Book finally shews, unaccount-
ably omitted by Mr. Herle, and yet of so much value in itself, that the
late bishop Ross got eight thousand pounds for the renewal of a lease
upon it. Thus, if the patrimony of our Cornish bishopric at the Con-
quest is diminished by the suljstraction of the posterior manors, it is
also augmented by the addition of the prior ; the reduced stream of
endo\\ment is again s\^■elled to its full size; and at a gi'oss estimate, ia
a general valuation, the revenue of our Cornish see may be still fixed,
if' the leases were annihilated that now exist, and that now produce
perhaps not a tenth of the income, at the extended simi of twelve

THOUSAND POUNDS A YEAH*!

* Gibson in Camden, c. 19, cites an inquisition, 9 Edw. II. which specifies the Cornish
manors of the bishop of Exeter thus, " Law hitton, St. German's, Pawton, Pregaer, Pen-
" 71/71, and Cargaul." The former of the 7>iarked manors should be Trcf^nTc, as in IJals
above, situated in Gercns parish, and said by Hals, 138, to be called in Doomsday Book
Tregara-du, which would very aptly signify God's Trcgare ; but falsely said by him, as the
name never occurs in the book at all. The mist.ikc arises perhaps from another name, nearly
similar in form, and therefore fancied to be the same in reality, "Ragarad-duc, read as
Tregara-duw; yet one of the manors belonging not to the bishop, but to the earl. (See v. i.
f. 124.) So he says, in p. 145, 146, concerning Penryn, that " this to\»n — was a privi-
" legcd manor — icforc the Norman conquest;" and that " by the name Pc-u-rin it was
" taxed, as the vohe lands of a considerable manor, in Doomsday roll;" when it is not even
mentioned in the roll. So he equally says, p. 8 aiul 140, that St. German's is called there
" Abbictown," or " Abbie-tone," or " Cudanwnoid ;" when we have already seen, that
not one of the three names occurs in it. He adds loo, in p. 7, 14, 39, 59, 8cc. that no
Cornish saint is mentioned in the book, except St. Wene, or St. Wcna; when St. Wcnnc
is not mentioned once, and St. Mawan, St. German, St. Michael, or St. Stephen, St.
Petroc, St. Achebrann, St. Probus, St. Carentock, St. Pieran, St. Berrione, or St. Mcot,
with St. Constantine, are all mentioned expressly by name. So little cm we depend upon
any one reference to Dooujsday Book in his actounts !

Sr.CTIOX-

202 THE CATHEDRAL OV COn^rv^•\LL [cHAf. YII.

SECTION HI.

Notwithstanding this ample endowment of the prelacy of Cornwall,
the last prelate evidently complained of his income, as too scanty for his
necessities or too diminutive for his merits. Lcofric, whose affected
timorousness and real avarice occasioned such an ecclesiastical revolution
in our little empire, whose name is thus connected for ever with the in-
ternal history of it, but ^^■hose motives have never been held up to public
reprobation before ; though a Bretoon by birth, was " a man bred up and
" taught among the Lorrainers," as Malmesbury informs us *. He there-
fore introduced a custom from Lorrain, upon this occasion. He found
the church of St. Peter in Exeter, the intended cathedral of Cornwall and
Devonshire, appropriated to a society of monks. He considered monks
as improper clergjmen in attendance upon a cathedral. He therefore
dislodged the monks, and placed what were then and are now denomi-
nated CANONS, in their roomf.

The first monk was a hermit, renouncing society, and confining him-
self to solitude. This kind of life, hoM'ever, presented such a dreary
vacuity to the mind after a little experience, and impinged so strongly
upon one of the first principles in the human soul, the ruling principle
of communication ; that it was soon exchanged, for a more comfortable
sort of solitude. The hermit became social, and the hermitage expanded
into a monastery. The moral principle of cohesion in man was not ex-
iifigiiished, as before ; but the centrifirgal power, if I ma}^ use the
language, was now counteracted so far by the ccntnpetal, as to produce
a third from the union of both, that should be better than either. I'he
love of society was to be indulged, but indulged so as not to break in
upon religious retirement. Hence monks were incorporated into colleges,
and, what is more wonderful, monks actually lived in families as mar-

* Malmesbury, f. 145 : " Lcfrlcus apad Lotliaringos altus et doctus."
t Malmesbury, f. 145: " Lefricus, ejectis sanctimonialibus a Sancti Petri monastcrio,
** episcopatum el canonicos slatuit."

ricd

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 203

ried men. Even such monkery was confined entirely to the la'itij ; the
clergy having cures in villages or in towns, and being therefore pre-
cluded from monastic sequestrations. In time, however, monkery
found its way among the clergy, as the coUegiated monks Avere wildly
obliged to be all ordained. Yet these were confined in their clerical
offices, to the walls of their monasteries ; and did not, as th genuine
clergy did, engage in the parochial cure of souls -f-. Thus a distinction
naturally arose between the latter, denominated the secular clergy, and
the former, entitled the regidar ; tliosc, as employed in the secular con-
cerns of parish-cures ; these, as living under the regulations of monkery.
These particularly distinguished themselves now, by rejecting matri-
mony, and binding themselves under solemn vows of celibacy. Man
can easily conceive a state of spirituality, which he can never realize.
He thus proves himself to be designed for a higher rank in the creation,
than what he can ever reach upon earth. He is unwittingly anticipating
that "consummation" of his being, so " devoutly to be wished ;" in
which " we shall be as the angels in heaven, neither marrying nor
'* given in marriage." Thus in the tenth century, when the cathedral
of St. German's first received an addition of a chapter to it, and in the
eleventh, when the see of St. German's was transferred, with that of
Crcditon, to Exeter, the clergy, who had been embodied so long at all
the greater churches of the Saxons, in what were laxly called monaste-
ries, as \evy earlj- to lend those churches the actual appellation of min-
sters* ; v^ere divided into monks renouncing matrimony, and canons or
(as they were still known by their original ajipellation at times) clerks,
using or not using matrimony as they pleased, in common with all the
laity. Thus also of the secular clergy in the church of Ely, prior to the
settlement of monks at it, one of them is recorded bv the historian
of Ely to have been too curious, too much actuated by the .'■plrit of a
modern anti([iiar} , in examining whether the remains, or the grave-
clothes of St. I'Uhcldreda, reposited about two ccnlurics bcfuro in their

t Bingham's Ant. iii. 13-27.

* S:ix. Chroii. p. 40, so early as A.D. 669: COjnpreji on to Tymbjiianne. Hence Yoik
minster, Rippoii miiisltr, Wimbuinc iniiutcr, Wi:il- minster, Sec. popularly among us to
this day.

unburicd

25l THE CATHEDRAL OT CORNWALL [cHAP. VIT.

iinburied coffin of stone, yet remained entire ; to have thus taken a stalk
of the fennel, that was grcwdng in great abundance upon tlie pavement
of the unroofed church, to have thrust it through a hole which had been
made by a Danish battle-axe, and so touched her body ; to have then
introduced a candle's end at the point of the stalk, which dropped ofl'
upon the grave-clothes of the saint, and there burned out, without
setting lire to clothes so damp ; but to have finally shaped the stalk into
a crook, to have hooked the clothes, to have drawn them up to the
opening, and to have cut off a slight particle from them ; yet for these
innocent, these antiquarian, these religious acts of curiosity, to have
been miraculously punished by the saint, not indeed at the moment, but
some time afterwards, as then " a very great plague invaded the house
" of that priest, which struck his iv'ife and his childreu m ith a speedy
" death, and utterly destroyed his v/^hoX^ pro^^eny -j-."

The first of these churches in monkery was the first in dignity, even
the cathedral of Canterbury. The conversion of all England originating
from Augustine and his brother-monks of the continent, he and they
formed the first archbishop and the first chapter. All the archbishops
afterward, in reverence to this fact, became monks (if they previously
were not) before they were enthroned archbishops ; and at last, below
the Conquest, the monks trembled to receive ^^^illiam de Corbuil as
archbishop, because he would not become a monk ;|:. I'his establishment
of monks in the metropolitical church of all England, must have greatly
encouraged the settlement of them in the other cathedrals. Yet so
strong was the prejudice of good-sense against them, that I know not

t Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 6o2, 603 : " Mox ingciis pestis arripu'it domuni illius
" sacerdotis, quae conjiigcni ejus ac libcros ejus cita morte pcrcussit, totamque proi^enicin
" funditus exlirpavit."

X Bede's Hist. i. 23, " Augiistiniini et alios plurcs cum co nionaclios;" Malmesbar)-,
f. 114, " NulUim ad id tenipus [Odonis] nisi monachiii schemate indutum archiepisco-
" pum fuisse ;" f. 115, " Constat— monachos in ecclesia Sancti Salvatoris," at Canter-
bury, " fuisse a tempore Sancti Laurcntii archiepiscopi, qui primus bcatissimo Auguslino
" successit ;" and f. 125, " Willielmus de Corbui!,— defiincio Radulpho Cantuaria: arehie-
" piscopo, in ilium honorem cvcctus est, qucni quamvis monachi trepidassent suscipere
" (juod esset cltricus," &c.

any

SECT. 111.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 205

any of our present chapters beside, to have been composed of them
originally. Rochester, the second cathedral of England in point of
time, which liad Justus, recommended by Augustine himself to tl)c
see § ; wdiich had also " Ithamar, — an Englishman by birth, who
" wanted nothing of perfect holiness in life, nothing of Rom mi elegance
" in knowledge, thejirst tv/io hrotight inlo his own countnj the ornament
" of the pontijical honour in the person of cm Englishman, and so lent some
*' dignity to his countrymen || ;" but which had equally Thobias, " who
*' had drunk deep of the knowledge of letters, even to an extreme satiety
*' of them, having not only the Latiii but the Greek so familiar to him,
" that he could express in them equaUtj as in his ow?i language rvhatever
" he ivished, and not less elegantly than readily * ;" yet at the Conquest
w^as merely " a church, miserable and empty, wanting every thing
" within and without, as there were scarcely four canons in it f ." St.
Paul's cathedral, in London, cotempoiary with that of Rochester in its
erection, had Erken\\ aid for its bishop, about 0/5 ; and he, as Malmcs-
bury remarks, " is considered in London as a man peculiarly holy, and
" as meriting no little the favour of the canons ; for his readiness in
"giving them aiulience'l" York, the next cathedral in lime to both,

§ Malmcsbiiry, f. 132.

II Malmcsbury, f. 132: '* Illianiar, — Angliis quidcm ortn, sccl in quo iiilii! perfectK
*' saiiclitalis quantum ad vitani, nihil elcganliae Romanas quantum ad scientiam, desidc-
"rares; ita primus in patriam pontificalis honoris iu Angli personiVferens gratiam, pro-
*' vincialibus suis nonnullani dignitatem adjccit." Ncnniii?, c, Ixiv. seeminsly as.-ens F.<'.-
bcrt, made archbishop ol' York about 743 (Godwin, 656), lo have been llic first Englishman
ordained a bishop; " Eghirlh cpibcopum, qui tuit primus de nalionc eorum." But 33
Bedc, iii. 14, confirms the assertion of Malmesbury, concerning the English descent and,
the episcopal dignity of Ithamar ; so Ncnnius must mean Egbert to be the first I\'ori,ltuinlr'uin
made a l)i»hop, " dc nationc eontm," while Ithamar was ji KciU'ish nia,n. (Ikde, iii. 14.)

* Malmcsbury, f. 132: " Thobiam sciciitia literarum (lU licd.'t dicit) exlrcma satietsft!
" imbutum, quipj/c qui iion modo l.atiuanj scd et Cirqecam lingtiam ila familiarcs habcrcJ,
'* ut quodcunque vellct, c:quc ut propria, non minus lacetc quam e.xpcdiit; prot'errcl." bee
also Hcdc, V. 23.

t Malmcsbury, f. 132: " Ecclesi£i miscrabili ct vacuft, om:iii;m rcruni indigenlia [indi-
" genii] intusct extra, vi^ccniin qualuor cauonici erant.'?;!') •' ■ ' -i

■^ Malmcsbury, f. 134: •' llabetur— Eikcnwald.uo j[/)ndi>nw maSiiWj^.' sftticlus, at pro
*' exaudjlionis ccicritatc favoreui cauoaicorum nonnihil cmcriliiS."

VOL. n. M M had

206 THE CATHEDRAL OP CORNWALL [cilM'. \U.

had equally its mwows ; Thomas, appointed archbishop in loro, being
" distinguislicd by elegance of person as an object pleasing to be con-
" templated, in youth enjoj'ing a fine vigour and pro})ortion of limbs, in'
" age being ruddy, with a vivid glow of countenance, and white as a
" swan in his locks, — yet never aspersed by any sinister report of any
" violation of celibacy ; — only throwing an air of sadness over his suc-
" cessors, by his liberahty, by squandering away a great part of the epis-
" copal lands, in too much prodigaUty (as is said) towards tlie clergi/,
" and so attracting a clergy of competent incomes and learning aromid
"him§." But to come towards Cornwall, Sherborne cathedral, that
mother to Salisbury, had canons to the tenth century ; w hen jjishop
Wilfsin " ejected the clerks from the episcopal church, and fixed monks
" in their room*." Yet the daiighter-cathedral itself had clerks or
canoiTS afterwai-d, " clerhs distinguished by their literature, — cations
*' more celebrated than any others for their literature and their music f.'"
Even Crediton cathedral appears from the conduct of Leofric, in expel-
ling the monks from St. Peter's in Exeter, and in replacing them*
with canons on his settlement of the cathedral in it ; to have equally had
canons itself. And the very cathedral of St. German's appears, from a
fact which I shall soon produce, to have equally had canons from the
days of Athelstan, the founder of its chapter, to the daj's of Edward, the
dissolver of it.

Cut, in the time of Edgar and Dunstaii, " the order of monks" was
thonght " not to neglect in any jiart of tlie country, a lite emulous of

§ Malniesbury, f. 155: " Thomas,^ — elegantia pcrsonatus specfabilis, dcsiclcrio videnlibusr
" erat, jiiveiiis vigore et xqualitate membrorum coniniodus, senex vivido faciei riibore, et
" capillis cygneus, liberalitatc sui successores suos contristavit, ut qui multam episcopalium
" teirarum partem in clericoruni usiim, nimie (ut dicunt) prodigus, distraxerit, clerum
'* sufficientem opibus et literis adunavcrit; — coelibatum ejus nunquam sinister rumor
*' aspersit."

* Malniesbury, f. 141 : " Wilfsinus — in sede episcopal! monacbos, clericis rejectis,
" inslituit."

t Malmesburv, f. 142: " Clerici — literis insignes — ; emicabat ibi niagis quam alias
" cancnicorum claritasj cantibus etliteratura juxta nobilium."

" their

JBECT. 111.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 207

" their profession ; because they had rulers over them, religious in
" life, famous in knowledge, whom idleness did not make slow, or con-
" fidencc render precipitate*." A resolution was therefore taken up bj
the archbishop and the king, to change all the canons into monks, with
or ivitlwiit their own consent ; as such puritanism of principle did not
admit much moderation in practice. " The clerks of many churches,"
says a monlc, " having the option given them, cithei- to change their
" dress or abandon their preferment; gave way to better men, leaving
" their places vacant ^.'^ So large and so resolute was the opposition
of the clergy, to an innovation fantastical in itself, unmitural in its
operation, and very dangerous in the experiment ! For that scry reason
assuredly the experiment was not pushed on to any great extent at this
period. The man}' churches, which- I have already noticed as clerical
or canonical; and the many more that I could notice ;};, shew this.
Such fortitude in resisting was sure to awe the soul of fanaticism itself,
and to make it shrink into its cellula adiposa again. The monks indeed
were frequently disliked by the bishops, even below the Conquest.
Thus Walkelm, or Walkelin, who mms nominated to the bishopric of
A^'inchester by the Conqueror himself, " being a. foreigner, and new to
" the monks," that had been violently thrust into the chapter a few-
years before §, and that must have been then unknown in their rigours
to the continent in general, as confined to Lorraine entirely, " hated the
" 7nen ||." Thus also, when John, bishop of Wells, " a physician by

" profession,

' • Malniesbury, f. 115: " Ordo monasticus tcinulam profcssioui* siiie vitam per omnia
" loca non ncgligcbat ; proptcrea ijuod habereiU rcciores, viia religiosos, scieiilitt claros,
** quos ncc desidia lardos i\cc audacia prascipites faccret,"

t Malmesbury, f. 115:. ** Clerici multuruin ecck'siariini, data optioiie ut ant amictuin
" inulareiit aut locis valediccrent, cessere nielioribus, habitacula vacua facienlcs."
' X Malni'isbiiry, f. 139, Winchester caUicdral ; f. 153, Worcester; f. 161, Gloviccster;
f. 165, Chester; f, i66, O.xfurd ; and Fbrence, p. 417, Hereford.

§ Malmesbury, '-139: " Clerici episcopaius,^-data optione ut aut vitam mntarcnt ant
loco cederent, molliorem partem cligcntes, cxturbati sunt nionachis intrudiiciis."

11 Malmesbury, f. 140: " Advena novus, nionachos cxosui." M:dnu•^^bury represents
Jiim indeed, as afterwards altering in his opinion of them ; " facile corrcclus, umhralicum
*' illiid odium sape deplora\ It, deincops foveas eos ut fillos, diJigens ut fratrcs, honorans ul

M M I " duhiinos."

268 THE CATIIF.DKAL OF COR^-^TALL [cHAP. Tir.

" profession, who had acquired no little fortune by his practice,'' being.
" a physician of high character, not tor hnowledge but for experience, as
" fame (I know not whether truly or falsely) has reported," Iiad trans-
ferred his see to Bath, in the reigii of Rufus, and lixed it in a church of
monks here; " he behaved harshly to the monks," says a monk himself,
" because they wcxcblocliheaih,Vir\'\\i\ his estimation ()arburians; taking
" from them all the lands that were to supply them with victuals,, and
" slendcrlv furnishing them by his lay-servants %\ith a little food*."
Just so wr behold Leofric disliking the monks, at the equal translation of
a sec to Exeter ; and v, ith a bolder liand, because perhaps with a greater
authorit}-, sweeping them away from his intended cathedral at oncef .

Rut the tide still ran so strong in favour of monks, -witli Leofric
equally as ^ith the nation ; that he, with all his authority and boldness,
bent before it, even while he resisted it; bent in reality, even while he re-
sisted in appearance. The grand distinction between the clerk, the canon,
and the monk, as I have repeatedly observed before, is the vow of celibacy

" dominos." Yet even Mai mesbury allows, that he was still, " nihil minus, pro dissimi-
" litucllne vesfis, cxhibcns eia vcl adjutorii vel familiaritatis." And, as is wcU observed in
Godwin, 213,," rdonei certe sunt autliores, nionachos ilium ubiciinque data esset fiiciiltas-
" (vid. Eadmer, 1. i. p. 10), coenobiis expulissc, et sccuiares presbyteros introduxisse."

* Malnicsbury, f. 144: •'Joannes — , profcssione uiedicus, qui noii minimum uuassfum
" illo conflaveral arlilkio, — mcdicus probalissimus,. non scieutia scd usu, ut fama (nescio
" an vera) di^pcrsit, — dure in monachos agebat, quod cssent hebetes et tjus aestiniatione
" barbari, et omnes terras victualium ministras conferrcns, pauculumque vielum per laicos
*' siios cxiliter inferens." Nor w as he the onlv bishop who had previously been a physician.
We find a bishop of Durham, who had been the queen's physician; as the prior of Durham
** fabricavit ecelesiam Dunelmenseni de novo, adjuvante Nicolao Fernham episcopo Dune!-
" mensi, prius reginx medico" (Lcland's Itln. viii. 12). Godwin, 741, 742, fixes Fern-
ham's nomination to the see in 1241, the 25th of Henry III.

t A ridiculous talc is floating loosely in conversation at times, as if Bath and Wells were
first united in consequence of a blunder; a divine being offered either £a//i or Wells by
James 1. the di\ine in his acceptance pronouncing Bath as Both, both being therefore united
jocularly in his person, and so continuing united ever afterwards. The union, we see, was
actually made no less than ^t^e centuries before the accession of James. And let historians
beware from this instance, how they engraft traditionarj' anecdotes upon the stock of historj*.
Such anecdotes are generally, as here, the mistakes of ignorance, or the niiscreations of
fraudidcncc,

formally

SECT. in. J nrSTORICALLY SURVEYED. 2C)Q

formally made by the monk, and not made by the canon or clerk. But
let me here prove the point again, for the further illustration of my present
subject. A few years after the Conquest, pope Hildcbrand, in a synod,
" by a curse interdicted the clerks, especially those who were conse-
" crated to the divine minister}'," some clerks being not clergymen, but
the same as our parish-clerks at j)resent, not ordained, yet subsei-vMcnt
to clergymen in tlie offices of religion, " from having wives or inhabit-
*' ing with women *." The year following also, finding his interdict
of no avail, or (in the words of the historian, another monk) "because
" the clerks chose rather to lie under an anathema than be witliout
" wives, pope Hildcbrand, in order to chastise them (if he could) by
" the hands of others, commanded that no one should attcad the mass
" of a married priest f." This command, and that interdict, indeed,
refer erpially to the parochial as the conventual clergy ; because the
celibac}' of the monk Mas now attempted to be forced upon every
clergvman. The command of Hildcbrand, therefore, ran in these com-
prehensive terms : " if tliere are any presbvtcrs, deacons, siibdeacons,''
the clerks not in orders, as mentioned above, and the very fathers of
our parish-clerks, " w ho lie under the guilt of fornicatiou ,'' that is, of
matrinwmj, now for the first time impudently and impiously denominated
forincntion, as forbidden by these ridiculous laws of man, though allowed
by the very laws of God himselt', though indeed appointed b}"^ the very
system of his pro\idencc, and enforced by the very necessities of our
original creation, in the transmission of mankind through a course of
descents from a single pair; " wc interdict tliem — any entrance into t!ie
" churcli, even till tliey repent and amend ; but if any choose to persist
" in their sin, let none of you prcsumt; to attend tliem as they ofH-
"• ciatc;};." And " one Athclstan," notes ]Maimcshury in that, very

language

■■* Florence, p. 439: " Ilildcbrandus — papa, siiuulo cclcbrata — , br.iino iiiterdixil clericis,
" niaximi cliviuo ministcrlo consccralis, iixorcs liabcrc vtl cum mnlicribus liabitarc."

t FloreiKc, p. 441 : " Dimi cleric! iingis digcrent anathtmati siibjaccrc quani uxorihus
" carcre, liildebrandus papa, ut per alios (si poiscl) casiigaret, prncccpit; ut millus aiidircL
" niissam conjugali prcsbytcri."

; Florence, p. 441 : <* Siiiui sur.l prcsbjtcri, diaconi, sabdiacoiii, qui jacent in criminc

•' foniicationi?,

270 THE CATIIF-DRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VH.

language of Hlklebrand's monkery, which buids the incidental remark
close to my present reasoning, " apostatized from his monkish dress,
" despised celibacy, and expired in tlie embraces of a" wife, abusively
called a " whore*." In this state of the human mind, when with the
best itentions it was opening a way for the worst vices ; when it wa3
certainly introducing into the church, and placing at the altar, that very
fornication with which it dared to cluu'ge matrimony ; when religion
w as thus mounting to the sky in its Ixilloon- of fire and smoke, before it
sadly found itself all in flames from its very means of mounting, and
he/ore it came hurrying to the earth again with destruction all around
It ; Leofric began a kind of mixed discipline among his new canons of
Exeter, that should make them monks in reality, though canons in
name,, even more than monks under the very name of canons. He obliged
them, eavs ^Nfalmesbury, " confranj to the manmr of the English, but
•*' conformably to the custom of Lorraine, to eat in one hall, to

" fornicationis, intenVicimus — introitiim ecclcsiae, usque dum paeniteanl elcmendtntj siqui
'i auteni in pcccato suo perseverare malucrint, millus.vestium officium coram auscultarc
" prjESumat."

* Malmesbury, f. 138: *' Qucndam Ethelstanum, qui — monachicae vestis apostata,

»' ccelibalu contcmpto, in nieretriciis amplexibus vitam effudit." Giraldus Cambrcnsis

:tclls us, what sufficiently explains the opprobrious terms used here and before; " Notum

" in Ifidlia niniis est atque notoriiim," he erics cniuplaining, " canonieos Mcnevc-nscsjm

*' cuncios, maxime vcro Walensicos, yivA^Wcos, fornicarios nl coiiciihmarios e%s^ sub aliseccle-

*' sias caihedralis, et lanquam in ipso ejusdeni gremio, J'ocarias suas cum olstetridhus ct

" nutr'uihus atque ciinaliil'is in larllus ct pif?icl rail bus cxhibentes." But in another work he

extends the complaint to E/iglund. An old clergyman there, he remarks, " ecclesiamjf//o

" Mio cesserat — presbytero — ; (ilius autcm, more sacerdotum paiachialium AiigUce fers

'> ciinclorum, — seeum habebat coniitcm iiidiiiduam, et irifocojocmiam, ct in cuhkulo con-

" aitivnm," whom the old clergyman called " Filia," and who called him again "Pater."

Accordingly he adds, concerning the Welsh, what appears, from his own account, to be

equally true concerning the English, '■' ut sieut patres corum ipsos ibi gemierunt et promo-

" veruiit, sic ct ip^i more consimili prolcm ibidem smdtant, tani in viiiis sibi quam boneficiis

^' succedancam ; fiUis namque sttis, statim cum adulii fucrcnt ct pienc pubcrtatis annos

" c.\ces.serint, coii-canicorum monnnJiUas, ut sic firmiori focdcrc sanguinis scilicet ct nflhii-

*' talis jure jungantur, quasi maritali crpuli Cislt'i procurant." Wliarton's Anglia Sacra, ii.

1525, 526. So in Simeon Dunc'mcnsis, 35, \vc see a clergyman noticed, as " non lono'c

" ab urbe ccclcsiam habens," yet " luror} of^itaias,'" and so leading " indignam sacerdutii

«' officio viram/'

" SLEEP

SECT, III.] HTSTORICALLr SURVEYED. 2/1

" ST.EEP IX oxE DORMITORY ||." This precluded all possihUity of mar-
riage. They could neither " have wives" nor " inhabit with women."
They took no vow of celibacy indeed, but were cut off from all use
of matiiinony. They were thus kept in the cage of celibacy, not by
any bond of voluntary obligations, but by the much stronger bars and
bolts of an imprisoning necessity. They were therefore acting really
under all the rigours of monkish celibacy, even v% hile they apparently
gloried in their liberty under the appellation of canons. They were
even doing more, and compelled to be sirklei- than the very monks
themselves, some monks avmcedly marrying; as Herbert the bishop,
who transferred the see from Thetford to Norwich, and in logG began
the cathedral at th.e latter, A^as known at the time, and is therefore
declared by history without hesitation, to have had for his father,
" Robert, the ahhot of Winchester*." Thus did that practice, which
is known to have been universal in our conventual societies, be<r'in iirst
at Exeter, begin under the auspices of a continental divine, made prelate
there, and begin by his introduction of it, not fram the continent at
Large, not from France, not from Italy, those special regions of refine-
ment to our isle, but from Germany, from tlx least rejiued part too of
that unrefined whole, even from Lorraine ! But, thus begun at Exeter,
by Leofric, " the rule A\as transmitted to their successors," adds
IMalmesbury, plainly implying it to be peculiar to this chapter of canons
even then ; " though, in the luxuriousness of the times, it has been in
" some degree relaxed," the good sense of the head revolting against
this severity upon the heart. " But these cler/cs,'' as Mahncsbur\-, with
equal impropriety and contradietoriness, calls them now, " liave a
" steward appointed by the bishop, who supplies them every da) w ith

II Malmcsbury, f. 145 : " Canonicos statiiit, qui contra morcm Aiiglorum, ad formani
" LotliarintTorutn, iino Iriclinio comcdcrent, uno cubiculo ciibilarcnl."

• Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 407 : " Et pater suiis, Robcnus abbas Wintonise." Nor
is this testimony to he eluilod by what we Icani from Malmcsbury, f. 136, that the father
became abbot by tlie simony of tlic son ; as he equally became bishop himself, ailds Malmcs-
bury, bv the same means, " etiam abbaiiam cpisoopatumquc nummis aucopatus." Tiic
new abbot must have been a mouk before.

*• the

272 THE CATHEDKAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. Yll.

*' the necessaiT food, and eycvy year y^'iih the proper clothing -f-." And
in order to shew how rigorously this interdiction of female company
was maintained among all the canons of our cathedrals, I need only cite
tlie conduct of those at Durham in 1333. Edward III. came then to
spend some duys with the prior, as Philippa his queen came the daj'
afterward. She, ignorant of " the custom of the church of Durham,
*' entered the gate of the abbey to the chamber of the prior, supped
" with the king there, and after supper retired to sleep there with the
*' king. Then a monk intimated to his majesty," who had not yet
retired, " that .S7. Cuthhert did not love the presence of tcomen :" the
king therefore went to tell the queen ; " the queen rose at the hwgs
'* command, in a petticoat only, covered with a cloak, returned by the
" gate at which she entered, and so repaired to the castle, beseeching
'' the saint not to punish in wrath what she had committed in igno-
■" ranee J,"

In this mainici* was the new chapter fonncd at Exeter, consisting
<^qually of canons as the chapter of St. German's, but of canons imder
the iron joke of celibacy. The canons of St. German's, in the mean
time, escaped the hand of this wildly-reforming J^orrainer, who seems
to have shared equally the insensibility \^■ith the covetousness of age, to
Jiave lost all his finer feelings in one crushing hug of avarice, and to
have been thrown into a mental as a\ cll as moral kind of apoplexy by
it: those of Exeter w<n-e like the monks or regulars, as ] have already
observed, and therefore denominated expressly canons regular ; these

t Malmesbufy, f. 145: " Transmissa est hujiisccnioili regula ad pos.tcro?, «]uanivis pro
■" luxu tcniponim, nomuill^ jam- ex parte decidtrat; liabeiitque clerici ceconoinum ab
" c)iiscopo consiitiitum, qui cis diatim ncccssaria victiii, annuatim aniiclui coinnioda,
•'• suirgerat."

|. W'hartdii's Anglia Sacra, i. 760: " Piiilippa — , iguorans coiisiictudinem ecclcsise
" Diir.Llmeniis, per porlaiii aljljalhisc ad eaincrani prioris dcseeiKlcl)at, et ibi cum rege
" cu:nabat. Et cuui coena facta cubasset, iiitimatiun est regi per quendam monachuni,
•*' quoiiiodo S. Cutlibertus mulieruni praesenliam non amahat. Ad pr;vccptum i<;itur recis
" siurcxil rcgina, et in tunica Foia, co-opcrla clamidc, jur pnitani quaui inlravii rcdiit, ct
" sic ail eas'irum se eonli lit, roe,aus sanctum ne <niod i"norai;ter t"eetr;it vindiearet."

2 of

6ECT. m.] HisTonirvLLY suRVF.rED. 273

of St. German's were like the secular clerg;}', as I have equally observed,
and therefore denominated as expressly canons secular. " The see and
" SECULAR CANOKs" of St. German's, says Lcland, " were translated to
*' Exeter*." The canons, however, were still continued at St. Ger-
man's, equally secular as before, and, like the parochial clergy, still
maintaining their liberty unshackled by the fanaticism of monkery;
tliey thus maintained it amid the growing encroachments of tyranny
aroimd them for more than one hundred years. In this interval of time
the Conquest took place, and the fanaticism of Lorraine was carefully
fostered bv the hand of Nwniandv. William Warle\^ ast, who became
bishop of Exeter in ii''*/, and held the see twenty years, two before
his death modelled that younger sister and once assuming rival of St.
German's, the priory of Bodmin, into the form of the abbey at his
cathedral f. So likewise "one William Warwick, bishop of Exeeester,"
says fycland concerning tlic very same prelate, at Plympton in Devon-
shire, " displeasid with the chanons or prebendaries of a fre ehapelle of
*' the fundation of the Saxon kinges," even of Athelstan himself pro-
bably, as I have formerly remarked, when I noticed the rectory of

• Lcland's Coll. i. 75 : " Scdes et canonlci secularcs Iranslati Exon."
+ Godwin, 401, 402. Lcland's Coll. i. 75, 76: " S. Petrocus de Bodmync or S. Aug.
" Elhflstaiius rex iiionachos hie posuil primum. Posli'a introducti sunt canonic! seculares.
" Tandem vcro canon, regular." The first assertion is not strictly true ; the first members
of the priory were only called monks, in that laxer sense by which all greater churches were
called monafteiios or 7111/nsters : they really were what they were more justly denominated
afterwards, canons secular. And of these it is that Leland speaks with all the bitterness of
a real monk, derived with the mistake in point of fact from the succeeding regulars
a>surcdiv ; " vtorluis tunc ibidem monachis, in sortes ilcricoriim," nicknamed as having
children " hercdipetarum, max'n'na pars reddiluum ccsserat." In " 25 re^is Hemici i"","
A. D. 1 125, " quidain Alo;aru&, cum conniventia episcopi Exon. Gul. VVarwcsl, obtmuit
" licentiam a r<:ge, ut eaileui ceclcsia rcgul. diearetur disciplina;; qua obtcnia, incepil ordo
" canon, regul. H per^everavit in hunc diem. Cui episeopo rex fuudalionem hujus monas-
" ter. coniulit, cum situ el lerris vicinis." (Itiu. ii. 115.) " 'rhcre hath bene monkes,
" then nunnys, then secul.irc prcstes, l|n;» monkes agayn, and last canons regular, in
" S. IVtrokcs chirth vii liodmvue, " when ail ihc while there have been only canons secular
and canons regular. So iiroercaiivc i> error ! and so necessary is it for a modern aulitpKiry
to lliiiik as he moves, even when he moves with the be>t of the aiicieut .uili>iuaric» for his
guides !

VOL. II. N N St.

2;4 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VIU

St. Anthony in Rosclaml to be annexed to it, probably by Athelstan J,
" because they would not Icve theyr coucuhincs' or irives, " found
" meanes to dmolve their college §." This forms a striking instance
how Jorcthly this prelate aj)pl!ed to their passions, overcoming the
honest instincts of nature, overpowering the honourable suggestions of
morality, by a tyrannical appeal to their worldly solicitudes. Accord-
ingly we find that an archbishop of York, " sooue after the Conquest,"
got " the coUedgc [or priory] of St. Oswald," at Gloucester, " impro-
" priate to the seat of Yorke," then " practized with the prebendaries
" [to be} of a new fundation, and that they should be chanons regular ;
" some were content, some ivould not, but the bishop brought his pur-
" pose to passe by poiver, and there instituted a house of chanons 7-egu-
*' ler ||." But what glaringly marks the conduct oi some at least among
these wild reformers, that bishop of Exeter " Jiad to liymself part of
*' thauncient landes of Bodmyn monasterie ^ ;" and this archbisliop of
York " instituted a house of chanons reguler" at Gloucester, " impro-
" priating benefices unto them, and giving them coyletts \or quillets] of
" land, reserving the goodly landes to the church of Yorhc, that at this
" tyme be yet possessed of it *." These puritan prelates, in the midst of
their zeal for heaven, attended carefully to the good things of earth, and
took them from the very priories that were the objects of their zeal. So
coolly selfish could they be, like our modern Quakers, under the ver_v
calenture of fanaticism ! Yet their selfishness, let it be noted to their
Cfedit, was not of the gross, grovelling, and earthly kind. No ! It was
of a refined and delicate nature, such as never yet has been noticed in
the history of man ; they plundered not for themselves, not for their
relations, but — for their churches, and so avoided all that consumma-
tion of guilt in robbery which we denominate sacrilege -f-.

\ See V. I, before. § Itin. iii. 45. |{ Itiii. iv. 82.

f Ilin. ii. 115. * Itin. iv. 82.

+ What " part" of " thauncient landes of Bodmyn" theliishop took, may seem impos-
sible to be ascertained, yet is not ; it appearing plainly to be that Cargaul, or Cargau, which
in Doomsday Book belongs to the priory, but in a record so early as the 9th of Edward II.
is the property of the see, and remains the property of the see at prtsent. (See the last section,
a note at the end, and the text near it.) Even this I would gladly presume not to have been

absolutely

sr.CT. III.] HisTonir.vLLY stnrvEYED. 275

At the end of this interval, however, Bartholomew bishop of lixeter,
who was made bishop in 1 lOi, and died in ll84f, came with all the
monkery of his own and the other chapters, but with all the authority
of the archbishop and the king, to model the priory of St. German's
into the same form. " From a view to religion and piety," says the
prelate in liis charter of backward reformation, meaning ver}- sincerely
(1 believe) the interests of piety and religion, but wandering wildly
away (I am coiivinced) in the pursuit of them, " I have changed the
" church of St. German in Cornwall, which was acting with little of
" ecclesiastical strictness, and almost w ith a secular kind of laxity, into
"the life of canons regular '\,." What this want " of ecclesiastical
" strictness," what this aliundance of " secular laxity" really '\\-ere, we
are not now to be taught ; we have seen sufficiently before, that the
" laxity" means only the Christian liberty of marrying, and the " strict-
•' ness" signifies merely " the doctrine of devils forbidding to marry."
This doctrine was now established in full form of practice within the
priory of St. German's, standing sternly victorious over all opposition,
and savagely trampling human nature in the dust. Thus did a monkish
celibacy go on under the compulsion of vows, or under the restraint of
iinpossibiUties; the conventual clergy being all (I believe) reduced beneath
the yoke at last, but the parochial still struggling for their freedom,
tVom the advantages of their position, and still maintaining it in spite of

absolutely taken away by the bishop, to have been Indeed taken only in exchange for another
manor; as, while one of the prior's manors in Doomsday Book appears to have passed into
the possession of the bishop ; one of the bishop's appears also to have migrated into the hands
of the prior, Polton, iilias Pawton, thus answering to Carg-aii], alias Cargaii. See the last
section for I'avvton. Yet Cargaul was certainly not taken in t.Nchangc for Polton, because
they are both specified as equally the possessions of the see in the record of Edward II. Sec
the last section in the note at the end.

t Godwin, 403.

X Leland's Coll. i. 75: *• Ex charia B. cpiscopi Exoniensis tempore Hcnrici Sccundl.
" « Ego ecclesiam S. Cerniani in CornubiA, parum ccclesiasiicc ct pcnc seculai iter convcr-
" santeni, in vilam canonicorum regularium, religionis ct pictatis intuitu, converii,' Rarp-
*• tolomcus cpiscopus Exoiiicnsis, ijui fiiit faniiliaris Balduino archicpiicopo C'antuaricnsj.
" Balduinus arehicpiacopus Cantuar, factum .ipprobavit. — Epi-^copu.-; Exonitiisis — canon,
<• reg. induxit aucloriiaic regis."

K .N 2 ail

2;6 THE CATHEDRAL OF COT?V\\A[X [ciIAP, VTI.

all invasions from their dispersion over the countiy§, till the Reforma-
tion happily came to restore the Gospel to man, and man to the Gospel,
to free those who were pccidiarly worthy to he free, and to replace
nominal canons, hut real monks wi(:h canons at once nominal and
veal 11.

Before

§ The parocliial clergy continued to rnarry in defiance of all canons and interdicts, down
to the Reformation. (Hist, of Manchcsterj il; quarto, 458-460.) In them nature, as formed
bv GuD, and as conformed to Scripture, was in fact or in figure llie " Ponteni indignatus
*' Araxes" of Virgil.

H That much inegul.irity of practice might naturallv be expected from, and would surely
be imputed to, a compelled celibacy, wc are ready enough to believe : accordingly numerous
have been the protestant falsehoods that have passed current against the popish clergy since
the Refornialinn. " I have seen in the Augmentation-oflice," cries Ijurnct with autho-
rilv seemingly decisive, " the original surrender of one of those ho'dses," in '* which" the
monks " cmijrsi tliemselves to have been guilty of iodomy, and other hwdnessei therein par-
" ticularlij mimed; and I k?wu' no reason they had to subscribe with their own iiands to
" such an accusation, if they had not been guilty of those wickednesses." Why then were
the\' not hanired upon their confessions ? Only because they must have been tried, in order
to be hansed, I suppose; and then the violence which liad extorted the confession.-, or the
forgery which had fabricated them, would have been (li>elosed. " My lord of Sarum — in
<' particular — says, that Christ-church in Canterbury was represented as a little Sodom."
Here the charce becomes particular, and may therefore be refuted at once. On new-model-
lius the priorv into a college, " there were eight prebendaries, ten pelit-canons, nine scho-
" lars, and two choristers, being in all twenty-nine, admitted into this college, who had
♦' been jnemiers of the dissolved priory, besides several others, as Dr. Goldwell and William
»' Wynehepe, who were marked out and assigned for preliends in this new church, but did
" not accept thereof: others were preforred in other churches, all of them had pensions and
" rewards." If Burnet's account be true therefore, Henry, the very charger of monks with
sodomy, was C(jually the vciy patron of the sodomite monks. But, as " my lord of Sarnni
" has truly and fairly reported — all foul stories that could be found out were puhlishcd, to
"defame the religious houses," and so to "give some colour to justify the pulling of them
♦' down." The man whose wealth composes his guilt, who has also power for his examiner,
his condcmner, and his confiscator, is sure to be found guilty; he will be made to confess
falsehoods for his own crimination, either by the force of violence, or by the fraud of for-
gery. Thus " the priory of Christ-church in Cantcrlniry," so reprobated for an actual
Sodom, " seems not in the least to have been guilty of any immorality or lewdness;" and
indeed appears plainly to have not been, from the very rewards assigned the monks by
Henry." In fact, "the prior — was a learned, grave, and religious man — ; the convent
♦' was a society of grave persons:" yet this very coixveat, and that very prior, arc repre-

senteil

SECT, ni.] HISTOKICALLY SURVEYED. 2']7

Before this blessed event took place, the wliole plan of Alhclstan's
provision for St. German's parish was superseded entirely ; his colkgc
of clergy was turned into a society of fanatics, fanatics in fact, though
not in will; too much puritans to engage in the secular, in even the
^])iritual concerns of the parisli, to converse with women, to visit the
sick, and to pray with the dying. These, if not the very offices of reli-
gion in the church, were actions indecorous for such prudish divines;
all were certainly, devolved upon some secular clerg}inan, as a deputy
to the convent, now apj)ointed to this church for the lirst time. The
whole extent of revenue lor all the members of the convent, even so
late as the Reformation, was valued only at 243/. 8v. in all, and
22//. As. 8(1. clear* ; but in the Valor of 1292, two centuries and a half
before, it was rated merely at 10/. f. What proportion to either of
these smns the allowance to the secular cU'rgyman bore, we cannot
a.scertain ; because no vicar was a])pointed with a stated proportion of
the tithes, and the olliciating divine was a simple stipendiary. Hence
also we find not any secular divine appointed to the church, even a
A\ h(dc century after the introduction of monks into the priory, as late as

scntcd l)v the eflrontcry of falsehood as forming a very Sodom. This reprcsent.ition, there-
fore, stands for all. See also Newcomes Abbey of St. Alban, 434. And I only add, that
Burnet in the crcduHty of his weak mhid, and in the malignity of his protestant spirit, says
*' these houses," in general, " became lewd and dissolute, and so impudent in filthincss^
" that some of their farms were let for Iringing in a yearly trilute" of iihoies " to their
" lusts." See Battcly, 118, 119, 120. Monasteries were thus w kiioitledged bawdy-hou3es,
like the one still seen in ruins at Pompeii, and shewing equally engraved in front tliat ensign
of their business which has puzzled sir \V. Hamilton, in Arch. iv. 169. Even another
writer, and .1 writer entitled to no little share of reputation for the judiciousness of hij eccle-
siastical or political opinions, whom I may therefore, in his own language, characterize as
the " celcbrious" historian of Somersetshire (sec the word in his i. 52, iii. 132). h.is carried
the calumny so far, even without seeming to intend it, as to tell us that " in vhc fiiciy at
" Ivelchester was Lorn — Roger Bacon — ." (Collinson, iii. 304.) Frierics thus appear again
to have been made by the monks nothing less than lying-in hospitals.

• •' The priory of St. German, in this deanery ['^f East], was returned by the commis-
" sionerrf to be worth, in temporal and spiritual property, the net annual sum of 227/. 4$. Sj/."
(Bacon's Liber Regis, 300.) See alto Stevens's two volumes additional to Monaslictn, i. 3^3,
" Friorat. dc Se)nt Germain — , summa inde 2^3/. 85. ; summ.i clara 227/. 4<. St/.'

t Pope Nicholas's Valor, " Ecclcsia Sancti Gcrmani ,\ li."

the

278 Tim CATIIEDnAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

the Valor of pope Nicliolas ; even find none as late as the Reformation
itself, and the very A^alor of Henry VIII. :};. The parish was thus tlirowu
back in provision for its spiritual necessities, even in provision for its
secular prol^ablv, as tlie want of personal intercourse with the pa-
risliioners must e(?rtainly have obstructed the current of charity from
the monks, into the state in whicli it stood hrfhrc the church was col-
legiated bv Athelstan ; and indeed into a state so much worse than that,
as a stipendiary curate was less capable of cliarity than a rich rector:
nor did the Reformation, Mhich removed that exorbitant evil of com-
pelled celibacv, remove this. The Reformation, we must confers M'ith
a sigh, was ^^•ith the gross multitude, M'ith the great vulgar as well as
the small, little more than the selfishness of sacrilege, taking care to
continue every abuse which would minister to its profit. It thus conti-
nued the fanatical practice of monker)', ])y seizing upon all the recto-
rial income as well as the conventual endowment, and so leaving only
the popish curate for the church, with the popish stipend for him §.

But, at the original introduction of monkery into tlie parish, as great
an alteration was made in the interiors of the conventual house as was
"in the canons inhabiting it. To shew this, I must take a survey of the
liouse as it was disposed within, even down to the days of Mr. Willis.
I shall thus lead my reader by the hand, walk with him into the rooms
of a convent, not nodding in ruined walls over our heads, not deprived of
its several partitions, and presenting merely one indiscriminated, one in-
discriminable scene of confusion ; but now or lately existing in much of

X Bacon, 302, " St. German's curacy."

§ Hals, p. 140, cites in form the Valor of 1292, for a vicar here at xl shillings a year:
but this is all a mistake, as the vicar in the Valor belongs to Lanrake, named immediately
before, and not to St. German's, named before Lanrake. He also speaks of the revenues
" being, lefore the fifteenth of Richard the Second, wholly impropriated to St. George's
" chapel at Windsor, and only 14/. per annum deducted towards the maintenance of the
"two vicars to serve the cure;" when the tithes alone were, when even these were not
given till the days of the Reformation, the reign of Edward VI.; and when no provision
was made at the time for the maintenance of two vicars, of one vicar, or of a mere curates
the provision has been made since, the church of Windsor charging its tithes with a volun-
tary payment to the curate every year.

its

SECT. III.] HISTOUICALLT SXTHVEVED. 2^9

its conventual form, with many of its convcntnal rooms, and with
some even of its conventual furniture ; all inhahited erjuiilv as in the
days of its monkery, all prcser\'ed in a condition even ??i07C comfortable
than in the very merulian of ifs splendour. Such a walk has never }et
been taken by any author, and 1 glory in being the lirst to take it.

The house is handsome, large, and lofty, turning its front to the
river, and presenting its back to the church. The front is composed of
a narrow body, and two v^ings prqiecting broadly from it ; the back is
nearly all flat : but this being built close up to the tall bank, on which
the parsonage once stood, and the church still stands, the otfices are all
upon the ground-floor, and the first floor is level behind with tiie surface
of the bank. From that bank we enter into what was still denominated
THE GREAT HALL, in Mr. Willis's time; then extending over the two
bed-rooms, with their dressing-rooms, &c. on the right or left, and
with them forming originally the dining-hall of the prior, his eight
brethren, their officers occasionally with them, and their servants after
them ; just as we see still practised in the halls of our colleges at Oxford
upon those gaudy or festival days which shew us the ancient modes of
collegiate dining in their fullest form. So our kings at their coronation
dine in the old hall of Westminster, because it is the hall of their old
palace there, and because they used to dine in that, when they resided
in thbt. 80 " the great hall at l^ltham," in Kent, *' probably built by
" Edward IT. was also the common dining-hall of that palace ; and is in
" point of magnificence and unpoli.shcd grandeur but little inferior to
" that at Westminster. — The several kings, Richard the Second, Henry
" the Fourth, Henry the Sixth, and Henry the Seventh, resided at this
" palace very much : and it appears from a record extant in the office of
" arms, that even the last of them most commonly dined himself in the
" great hall, where his oflieers also had their respective tai)les *." On
this account also was it that the windows of these halls were decorated
so much with paintings on the glass. " The his^h-Jiuic/ed architects of
" our ancient churches," says an ingenious gentleman in a manner pc( u-

• Arch. vi. 366.

liarh-

280 mil rvTIir.DKAl. of CORNnVALL [cil \r. VII.

liarly higcniuu.^, '' probably never thought of erecting a place tor rcli-
" gious worship, \\ ithout giving it the devol'ional glow ot" painted glass.
" Whether cnir ancestor'sjudged as well in painting the windows of their
" halls with ro:its armorial, may admit of a doubt. If we consider them
'• as entrances fo [rdthcr principat parts of] their stately mansions, the
" richness of coloured windo\\ s has a good erlect ; but there is a gloom
■^ belonging to them which seems not to suit well with apartments ot
** convivial festivity *." Our ancestors were a serious, thoughtful race
of men, and tJierefore loved to see the " dim religious light" diti'used
over their dinners as well as their prayers; they kept up all the forms
of domestic (levoutness in their houses; the chapel, the chaplain, and
the graces at meals ; even their "convivial lest ivity" was thus attem-
pered with religion in design, whatever it might be in practice ; the
■liahlts of their minds were religious, however they might occasionally
dei'iate from them in acts; and their halls, which were their daily
dining-rooms, \\hich therefore resounded daily to the voice of prayer
before and after dinner, analogously received through the paintings on
their windov\ s, a light softened down into a shade, that, like the moon's
veil of light, at once obscured and set oif the whole. This principle
we tind carried to such a luxurious and prodigal extent in one instance,
that the lord who erecttxl Sudeley castle in the reigns of IJcnry V. or VI.
actually glazed the windows of the hall \\'it\\ those transparent gems the
BERYLS, which must have cast from their small, rouudingl}' flat, but
irregularly disposed taces, a deeper kind of " visible darkness," a " light"
made more thoroughly " to counterfeit a gloom," in the tinge of blue
and green reflected together upon all within -f. But to descend in

our

* Some Accoiuitj 9, 10.

t Lelaiui's llin. iv. 75 : " One thing was to be noted in this castle," of Gloucestershire,
" that part of the windowes of it were glased \\ ith herall ;" \ iii. 32, " the liaivle of Siidley
*' castle glased with rownd beralls," not beryl- crystiils, called simply beryls by our la])idarics
attunes, because these are always columnar in their form, but actuallv beryl-gems ; because
the beryls of Sudeley castle are said expressly to be " rownd;" and because bcryl-crcms,
though most commonly columnar like the crystals, are yet at times in the form of a round
pebble. These gems are brought from India, from Teru, and from Silesia; the worst fronj
the last. " The lord Sidelcy th.U buildid the castle," says Ixland, and thus accounts uncon-
fviously for the beryls, '•' was a famous m:in of v.arrc in king Henry 5. and king Henry 6.'''

" daycs.

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEVED. 281

our assimilation of manners, so as to come nearer to the level of a
priory, we find even in iOO(), and at the palace of Lambeth, the com-
pany that came early to dine with the archbishop were shewn into the
gallery, and entertained themselves in it till the archbishop came,
" when they all went down with him into the common hall, where
** were divers bishops and persons of quality ; — and — there was a lush
" fable [which] went across the upper end of (lie hall, and tables on each
"side, as in college-halls*." But this mode of dining every day in
public began to be disused by some a few years before; grandeur retiring
from the wearisome pomp of a dining-hall, to repose in the ease of a
private eating- room ; and at the earl of Worcester's, in the reign of the
first Charles, but before the Rebellion, the gates of Ragland castle (that
castle which is ever memorable for the gallant defence of it by this very
nobleman afterwards) lacing shut at eleven, the tables were laid " two in
" the d'lmng-room' for my lord's family, his noble or his knightly guest.s,
" and tliree in X\\chair for inferior guests, gentlemen-waiters, or pagesf.
Such, therefore, were the original uses of this hall at the priory of
St. German's ; then not glazed indeed with beryls, but decorated with
paintings, probably in the windows ! It then was very large and ample
in its dimensions, extending the whole length of the house behind ; but
it has since been curtailed in its proportions by the innovations of man-

" davcs, and was an admirall (as I have heard) on sea ; whereupon it was supposed and
" spoken, that it was partlv," in the windows of the hall, " l)iiildcd cr spolUs Gallonim"
(iv. 75), or, as viii. 99, says more particularly, " Sudelcy castle — was builded, as it is
*' there commonly sjioken, ex spoliis noh'iUnm hello Gallico caplorum." But beryls seem
to have been more frequent formerly in this island than they are even at present. So, among
the articles stolen from convents and chnrclus by Hcnrv N'lll. and delivered to him all in
oHf dav, is "a mounslrame of silver and gilt, {i.irnishcd with couiilcrfcit stones, with two
" great glasses of lirrall in ihe middes, a small chest of reliqucs for showing them to the
*' people," and " another moiiiislrancc silver and gilt, garnished throughout with great
" lyrralh," and '• a atp of lynall garnished with silver, and two candlesticks of birrall
" cjarnishtd with silver." (Slwcus's Adiiilions to Monasticon, i. 85.) So, likewise, of
thectfeets of the attainted sir Ailrian Fortcscuc, is " a ]iair of candlalkks of iinal, garnislad
" with silver." (Ibid. ibid. 84.)

* Arch. vi. 369, 370; and Wood's Life, 221, 222, in v. ii. of Lives of Lcland, Wood,
and Heanie, Oxford, 1772.

t .Arch. vi. 370.

VOL. II. o o ncrs

282 ~ THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. \H.

ners or the variations of taste, and has thus been reduced very consider-
ably in its size.

On the northern side of that apartment is a smaller one, vvhich, in an
anticipation of modern refinement from the mere desire of religious
sequestration, was afterwards made what it was very recently denomi-
nated, THE DINING-ROOM of the priory, now called the eating-parlour,
with " a bow-window of ancient work" in it, at Mr. Willis's visit to
the house. That I'oom was apparently an original part of the priory,
as the priory must always have had such an appendage to a mansion-
house, for the reception of its whole family to dinner : but this was
certainly constructed by bishop Bartholomew, when he converted the
canons secular into regular canons ; discarded the pomp of dining in
public, so obliged them all to eat in one room, smaller in size, more
retired in site, and wholly appropriated to themselves. It was accord-
ingly remembered by an old man lately in that ancient condition, which
the great hall must have once presented in its aspect, and which the
hall of a college at Oxford still presents ; a round grate for a fire stood
in the middle, and the cupola for the discharge of smoke from it still
shews its mouth in the ceiling, closed with a circular board painted.
" One thinge I muche notyd in the haulle of Bolton," says Leland con-
cerning that castle in Yorkshire, which was for so many years the prison
afterwards of the injured Mary queen of Scots, " how chimneys were
"conveyed by tunneUs made on the syds of the tvaiils hytwixt the lights in
" the hauU; and hy this meanes, and by no covers,'' that is, by no cupolas
covering the vents in the roof, " is the smoke of the harth in the havvle
** ivonder [wonderous] strangely convayed*." This is the first intima-
tion in all our historical notices of our present chimnies ; it is therefore
very valuable in the history of manners, and for this reason we ought
to ascertain the date of the chimney, if we are able to do so. We are
able, even from our very informant, as we knoAV the castle itself to
have been built by " Richard lorde Scrope, — chauncclar of England in
*' Richard the 2. dayes — . It was a makynge xviii yeres, and the chargys

* Itin, viii. ig.

" of

SECT, in.] niSTORICAT.LT SURVEYED. 283

" of the buyldjnge cam bv yere to looo marks*." The modern chim-
ney, therefore, was first formed in England between the years 1377 and
1399. Yet whence was it derived into England? From Normandy
beyond all doubt ; it actually appears in Normandy within a hall erected
before the Conquest, and used for a grand dining-room hv the Conqueror
wliile only duke of Normandy. " On the north sides" of the great
guard-chamber, within the old palace of William at Caen, Dr. Ducarrel
tells us in terms, but means assuredly both the north a7}d south sides,
" are two magnificent chimnies in good preservation f ," Thus does
our present disposition of chinmies appear, though Dr. Ducarrel passes
over the evidence with an unnoticing pen, to have been practised even
by the Normans prior to their descent upon our island ; they of course
brought the disposition with them ; yet we do not find it used in any of
our halls before the builder of Bolton castle copied it : even so late as
1.540, Lcland shews us in his admiration of the chimnies, that the dis-
position was then very rare in England, and not known by him to exist
any where else. The disposition, in fact, was not adopted M-ithin our
college halls, even nearly to our own times ; and, in one of them at
Oxford, actually to our own : all our halls there, though altered upon
the plan of Bolton castle, that first-known house of the whole kingdom
for lateral or tunnel chimnies, still shewing (like the dining-room at
Port Eliot) that they had very lately none but the cupola chimney.

At the head of the dining-room was a raised platform of Ijoards along
tlie whole, with the bow-window above mentioned at the higher or
northern end of the table, for receiving a sideboard into it : the bow-
window is now destroyed, but some sliglit remains of its " ancient
" work" are still visible on the wall without. And tliis sort of window,
so frequent in the grander rooms of our ancestors, has been recently
adopted by ourselves for the pleasing ornament of our own parlom's or
our own drawing-rooms |. In that window, says Mr. Willis, are
" these arms in a — shield, viz. argent, three hcJh, or, which T conjcc-

* Iiiii. vlii. 13. t P. 5Q.

% It was foraicrly called a ro?n/jaif- window. Sec Lcland's Itin. i. 107, 8cc.

002 " ture

28-t THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VII.

" ture to have belonged to Robert Swimmer, last prior of this monas-
" tery," and the only one that he knows, " in whose time this window
" is supposed," by whom ? " to have been glazed ; and in all proba-
" bility that part of the house built, and these arms then put up*."
This " part of the house" was certainly built by bishop Bartholomew,
and his arms are certainly to be expected in the window. Other arms,
indeed, have been given him, but given by an author who has annihilated
his own credit upon the point, by asserting his sepulchre to be in
Exeter cathedral, and so leading us to suppose he saw the arms at it -f ;
though ti'here he died, or where he \\ as buried, is utterly unknown |.
The arms naturally refer to the building, and the erector of tliis has a
natural claim to those ; they were his own famil}' arms, I believe, and
not united with the arms of his see, probably because he erected it, not
from the revenues of his bishopric, but from the funds of his private
fortune. This reason will account satisfactorily, I think, for omitting
the arms of the see ; and the omission we shall soon lind repeated again,
in the arms of an undoubted bishop painted upon this very window.
Of bishop Bartholomew, therefore, \\e may with some improvements
say justly, what Mr. Willis, in the mere temerity of ignorance, says of
the only prior knov^n, that the former is the man " in whose time this
" window is supposed," on the best grounds of historical analogy, " to
" have been" made and " glazed;" and not merely " in all probability,"
but clearly, certainly from the very conversion of the canons secular
into regular canons, " that part of the house built, and these arms then
" pot up §."

On the iDCsfern side of this dining-room is what was denominated to
the days of Mr. Willis the portal || : it was the original portal of the
priory, and actually formed tlie grand entrance into the house within

* Willis, 149, 150. -st Izacke. J Godwin, 403.

§ Willis, 149, 150: "In the dining-room, which you enter at the north side of the
*' great ball, — in a bow-vviiulow of ancient work, yet remain in painted glass — these
•' arais," &c.

I \^ illis, 149: " In the dining-room,— are several arms of the matches of the Eliots,.

<' painted in the portal."

these

SECT. III.] nrSTORICALLY SURVEYED. 285

these few years; a flight of stone steps mounting from the court in
front, and IcaiUng up to it. But, as the back-front has become the
princi])al one, the steps have been removed, the doorway at the head of
them has been turned into a window, and the portal has been trans-
nominated into the saloon.

On the eastern side of the dining-room, and in the range of the
eastern wing, was what has been lately rebuilt upon the old founda-
tions, and is intended to be the best eating-parlour and the best drawing-
room. In apartments of so modern an appellation, I beheve, had the
monks that common dormitory, which bishop Bartholomew must have
built at the same time with the dining-room, as he made it equally
necessary with this to the completion of his new establishment. At the
northern end of the wing, the prior is known from tradition to have
had his lodgings; and, in forming a water-closet, a httle without the
dining-room, on the cast, was tound a passage to his cellar below, that
had been long disused and at last forgotten. The monks, we may
therefore presume, had their dormitor}" near, in what is intended to be
the best eating-parlour, the southern end of the wing. But, as the
nature of monastic dormitories is almost wholly unknown to us, and as
our only dormitories at our great schools are somewhat ditferent from
these, let me give my readers a peep into one of them, that of Oseney
abbey, near Oxford. " It was a long room, divided info seirtal parii-
" fions," says Wood, in manuscript, from the records of the abbey ; " in
" every one of which [partitions] was a bed. — Every one had his bed to
" himself, and that also ope // at the feet towards the common -pa^ssage,
" that the praefect, as he \\ cnt by, might sec whether each kept his
"place — . After every one of them was reposed, there teas a candle
" set up, to burn for the most part cA the night, or at least, to serve till
" the time of performing their nocturnes — ; the candle being lighted,
•' the kci/s — were carried to tlic pnel'ect, or liife vicar, hy the ser^■it()ur
" belonging thereto, and hi/ hiio again [the doors viere] at the appointed
" time opened; then each monk, iTceiving their summons to rise, had
" ha/J'un Jiour or thcreabonl.^ allowed them, both in making up theniselres

" and

28(3 THE CVTHRDRAL or C()T!KVl'\IX [c HAP. VII.

" and their beds *." This ghes us a full view into the inside of our own
dormitorv ; even after it has ceased to exist. Yet let me add to the view-
in tliis little-explored region of antiquities, what may serve to complete
it; that " the monks" at St. Austin's in ('anterbury, had each of tiiem
only " a mat and a hard pillow to lie down upon, and a blanket or rug
" to keep them warm;" that " they slept in their clothes, girt with girdles,
" and thereby were" sure to suffer in their health, that they might be " al-
'« ways ready to attend their night-devotions f ." But, as the dining-room
was called in some monasteries the //•af'Wa, the f ratty, ov the f rat/ ter-
house ; so was it placed, as here, close to the Jortor, as the dormitory was
equally denominated. Thus " the fratcry" at Canterbury, " in Mr. Som-
" ner's manuscript-book called the tratria, was the refectory or dining-
" room of the monks;" in 1517, the lead, timber, and other materials
" of the late frater-house," were given to one of the new prebendaries
for the erection of a prebendal house ; and another prebendary received
an assignment for his house, of the whole lodging " through the fratery
" to the cloister, and all the fratery to the dortor-wall X"

Just by this fratry, as we see from a drawing of the convent at Can-
terbury, made even in the twelfth century ; was the locutorium or
PAHLOIR §. ITiis was a constant appendage to all our convents, and is
at present to all abroad; the ver}- original oi parlours, in our own
houses II . Yet it did not, as at first we are inchned to suppose it did, an-
swer to the comirvon or combination rooms now used in our colleges at Ox-
ford and Cambridge ; as 7iot being the apartment in which the monks met

* Stevens's Additions to Monasticon, 11. i2i.

t Battel)', 96.

X Gosiling, 175; so in Leland's Itin. Hi. 119, theyi-a/evy at Glastonbury.

§ Gosiling, 175.

II How old these are in our own houses, I know not ; but see them in Leianil, and sup-
pose them not very old. In Itin. ii. 34, we read of " the mancr-place of Ewclme," in
Oxfordshire, that «* the haul of it is fair, and hath great barres of irea overthuart it instede
*' of crosse beames; the parler by, is exceding fair and lightsum." In iii. 83, we find, that
the genealogy of a family " be yn glass windows in a parlow, in the manor-place at Est
" Lllleworth." And at Salisbury " bishop Beauchaump made the great hauUc, parler, and

** chauinbre of the palace." (iii. 97.)

together.

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 28/

togetlier, engaged in conversation, and displayed their learning, their
liveliness, or their amiableness, in a free communion of souls. Society
was not cultivated so much in those days, as in these ; and that genial
current of the soul, conversation, was generally frozen up by the cold
rigours of discipline in monasteries. Even our locutoria in the universi-
ties, appear to be all extraneous to their original institutions, and in
many of the colleges the very rooms are mere appendages to the original
buildings. Yet the natural force of the current was so great, that it
defied all the rigours at times, flowed on unarrested by the icy hand of
this artificial winter, and vented itself into reservoirs very nearly similar
to tho.'^e in our colleges. We know the outbreak from the repulsion.
"That parliament,'' says a rule in 1238, using for the intercourse a
name peculiarly dignified in its sound to our cai"s at present, " which in
" some cloysters of Benedictines hath been accustomed to be held after
" dinner, is to be interdicted wholly *." The monastic parlour, indeed,
was destined merely for any casual intercourse between one of the
members of the society, and such of his relations or intimates as called
upon him. This is evident from the monastery of Abingdon, which
(like ours) had no cloyster, but " near the gate had a room for a par-
" lour, in which the monks conversed with their acquaintances and
" friends, if they happened to come-f-." Here we see the parlour
" near the gate" at Abingdon, as we have previously seen it "just by
" the fratry" at Canterbury ; and these two positions unite to fix our
parlour in the portal, at the door of the house, and by the side of the
dining-room.

But canons regular were also obliged, like monks, to perform nightly
offices of religion in the church. Their very appellation of regulars,
ijidc^d, resulted principally from their observance of the regular hours

* " Pari lament II in, quod po.U prandiiim in qiiibusibm [Bencdiclincnsiuni] claustris fieri
" consucvit, pciiitus iiUcrdicatur." ^Ncwconic's liist. of St. Alban's Abbey, 13.^, 144,,

536-)

+ Monaslicon, i. 98: "Nee habebant clausum — sicut nunc habent — pro claustroj—

" habcl)aiit juxta portain domuin pro locutorio, in quS cum nolis suis ct amicis, si forte
" vcnisscut, loqucbantur."

5 (J'

288 THE CATHEDRAL OP COnNWALL [cHAI\ VII.

of'proycr bv iiight and by day |. Those hoxirs were nine in tlic evening,
twelve at night, three in the morning, and six. And as we have just
seen the very canons of Oseney abbey, when hiid in their beds, having
" a candle set up" in the dormitory, " to burn for the most part of the
" n\^\t,ov at least to sen^c A^iW the time of performing their 7?oc///n?r',s;" so
\\'e mav further see the canons of Ely, " having just made their proces-
" sion to church in the night, having just returned into their dormitory,
" and a few of them just entered their beds," when the bell-tower fell
down upon the quire §. This was therefore a performance, for w liicli a
common dormitory seems to have been almost equally calculated, as for
the preclusion of matrimony. Yet tjie going for this purpose to the
church, however near, must have exposed the persons of our canons
dangerously, to winds, to rains, or to snows ; thus aggravating a dis-
cipline already very severe, into a rigour intolerable in itself. For this
•reason, even that fond presumption, aa hich hoped to raise the body in
its present state, into a superiority over half the demands of nature ;
would be obliged to shrink a little in its views, to make its philosophy
bend a little to sensation, and to form a chapel within the priory for
these devotions.

The original language of Italy has stamped itself in a thousand signa-
tures, upon the languages Celtic and Teutonic of this island. The ex-
tension of the Roman victories, the ditFusion of the Roman refinements,
the conveyance of Christianity from Rome to tlie Britons, and the con-
veyance of it from Rome to the Saxons again ; have all united to fix
those signatures deeply on the present dialects of Britain. ]3ut the lan-
guage of religion has them imprinted most deeply ; every appropriate
term in it being apparently Latin. Ilence our c/iape/ is only the capella
of the Romans, is even their capsella, freed from the sibilating letter,

X Ingulphus, 500, speaking of some who came with him to the abbey, yet were
*' rigorem religionis abhorreutes," he adds; " hos omnes — ad orientalem partem monasterii
" manerejussit — ; fabricansque, illis ibidem capellam, horas regulares iixn nocturnas quaixi
*' diurnas tempore quo monachi persolvebant, el ipsos persolvere jussit."

§ Wharton's Angiia Sacra, i. 643: " In nocte — facta — processione — , et convcntu in
" dormitorium regrcdiente, vix paucis fratribus in leclalis ingrcssis."

and

SECT. Hi.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 289

and therefore signified originally a mere case for relics. Thus an an-
cient author mentions " a silver capella," or chapel, '■ in which teas a
"portion of relics T as an ancient formulary orders some persons to
swear, " upon the chapel of sir Martin, " the shrine of a saint by the
conrtesy of some university in the collation of a bachelor's degree
created a knight *. Such a shrine is described in the tenth century, as a
" capsa" or case " of solid gold, — stored with the choicest relics, and
" modelled in the form of a chapel \y But what was this form ? It
was merely the figure of our Saviour upon the cross, with relics reposited
within the one or the other. A prelate of Ely, even as late as the reign
of Stephen, carried with him in a journey " a very fine chapel Mhlcli
" was ta/cen out of the chvrch T but w^as " a silver cross," made bv
Brithnod, the abbot in the tenth century, " on which the bodv of our
" Saviour was, by an ingenious artifice, left hollow, ta contain the relics
" of the saints Vedastus and Amandus |." But the appellation of chapel
soon ascended much higher, and fastened on all the other furniture of a
" sacellum ;" the principal communicating its own appellation to its
subordinates. Thus Charlemagne is said in his will to have ordered his
" chapel, that is, his ecclesiastical ministery, which came to him by
" inheritance, to be preserved whole ; excepting whatever he himself
" had added to the same chapel, in vessels or in books, which who would
" might buy §." From relics in a " sacellum," however, the emigrating

* Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 633: " Capsam cum dcnte S. Petri." Spelman's Glos-
sary : '• Evodius de Miracitli.< S. Sttphani, lib. i. » Capella argeutea, in qna erat reliqniarum
" portio'." Marcul. lib. i. formul. 38 : " Super capellam<loniini Martini."

t Spclman : " Ekkciiardus junior, qui obiit anno 996 ; — ' Capsa solide aurea, — rciiqniis
*' sunnnis rcfcrta, in forniani capellae creata'." These " capsx," or cases, were so (iiiciy
engraved, that, as the word forms chasse- in French for a shrine,, so has the thing produced
enchasser to enchase.

X Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 622, " Capellam optimam, qnam — de ecclesia tulcrat
" [Nigellus] ;" and i. 606, " Grucem fecit argenteam, — in qua forma corporis Christi^
" ingenio artificis cavata, sanctorum reliquias Vedasti et Amaadi conlinebat, quam Nigellus
" cpiscopus dc ecclesia asportavii."

§ riorcnlius, 284: " Capellam, id est ecdcsiasticum ministcrlum, quod per ha:reditatcin
" sibi venit, integrum serv;iri decrevitj cxccptis siqua ipse capcllw cidcm in vasis aul libris
" addidisset, quae qui vcllet enicret."

VOL. II. p p name

290 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VII.

name verv naturally passed to the " sacellum" itself, and so completed
its progress. Durandus repeats \\ itli a tone of dubiousness from others,
what is certainly true in itself, and highly to the honour of the parties,
that " anciently in military expeditions, a small room ivas formed in
" a tent,'' the general's tent, " and covered v\ ith goat-skins ;" that
" u'lthhi this was inass eelehrated, and to tins teas the name of chapel
'' £riven\\." An incident of history, of early history, of our own,
reduces this intiuiation into reality, and exhibits the reality in its full
lustre. The great Alfred, in the ninth century, " commanded his chap-
" /fl//?s," says Asser, his cotemporartj, " to keep candles burning day
" and night before those holy relics of many of God's elect, which
" alicaijs accompanied, him wherever he went ; though the candles v\ere
" exposed to the blowing violence of winds, through the thinness of the
" tents %.'' Here then we behold reUcs attendant upon the king, and
attendant under the coA^er of a tent. But we find the evidence of Asser
consummated, by a writer of the fftecnth century; Rudborne expressing
the same command with greater brevity, yet M'ith fuller exphcitness,
thus, " he placed a candle of twenty-four divisions in his chapel*."
A most memorable event in the private life of Alfred, is thus explained
satisfactorily for the first time. But we may illustrate it and our subject
by more incidents of a similar quality. " Amberbachius testifies," cries
an author who never thought of tliis application of the testimony, " that

II Spelman : '*' Duraiickis in Rationale, lib. ii. cap. lo: — 'Sunt qui cJicunt, quod anti-
*' quitus, in cxpedilionlbus, in tentorio fiebant domunculae de pellibus taprarum supertectas,
*' in quibu-3 missae ceiebrantur, et iiide caDcllce nomen tractuni est'," Tiic ignorance of
Durandus has given an inaccuracy to liik language, thus made the *' domuncuioe" more than
one within one pavilion, " in tentorio," and then derived '• capella" ridiculously from
" pellibus caprarum," But we see the object distinctly enough through the mist; and I
have accordingly translated his " indc capelloe nomen tractuni est," merely into what
must be certainly included in the meaning, " to {his was the name of chapel given," but not
into ail which is included, that " hence the very name of chapel was derived."

^ Asser, 68 : " Suos capellanos imperavit, — coram Sanctis mullorum eleclorum Dei
•' reliquiis, qua; semper eum ubique comltabantur, — vcntoruni violentiil inflante — per—
" tentoriorum tenuitates," &.c.

• Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 208 ; " Posuit in capella sua candelam vigmti qualuor
•*' partiuin."

S£CT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 291

" ill the monasteiy of St. Emeram he saw the altar, which Charles the
" Great carried about with him, and used in his tent, upon his warhke
" expeditions -f." A prelate of Ely also \mis buried, in 1478, "with
" torches, and horses, and one horse bearing his chapel with its oi^na-
" ments trndjurnifure,'' a small tent with its " furniture" of relics and an
altar, as well as with candles, plate, and book for the " ornaments" of
the latter;}:. A bishop of J)iu-hain also was buried in 1333, when for a
burial-fee was claimed '' the chapel, namely, the horses carrying the
" shrine, the wax-eandles, and the rest §." A second bishop of Dur-
ham was interred in 1359, when with greater explicitness the author
mentions " two great horses bearing his body in a litter, and one mule
"bearing his chape/ \\;^' as in 1381, "the body" of a third "was
" brought in a chariot,'' while " the chapeV still attended the proces-
sion ^. And, to run back into a very early period of Saxon antiquity,
Ina, king of the AVest-Saxons, in the seventh century, " caused a
" chapel to be formed of silver and gold, with oriKimcnts and vases
" equally gold and silver; ^nd placed it within the great churcli' of Glas-
tonbury ; "delivering two thousand six hundred and forty pounds oi
" silver for forming the chapel, as the altar was two hundred and sixty-
" four pounds of gold, the chalice and patin often pounds of gold, the
" censer eight pounds and twenty mancuses of gold, the caudlestic/is
" twelve pounds and a half of silver, the coverings of the hooks of the Gos-
" pel twenty pounds and sixty mancuses of gold, the water-vessels and

t Staveley's Hist, of Churches, 215, from " Vit. Anibcrbach. ad liu. Constitiil. Car.
•' Magni." .

$ Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 673 : " Cum torchis, et ctjuis, ct iino cquo portanle
•' tajicllam suani cum ornamciilis ct apparatu."

§ Ibid. i. 761 : " Vcndicabat si!)i sacrista capellam, scilicet, cquos fcrctruni dcfcrentts,
*' coram, et alia."

H Ibid. i. 766: " Duos magnos cquos portantes corpus ejus In lectica, et imum equuin
" muUiui porlanlem capellam."

^ Ibid. i. 771, 772: " Vcredam, Anglice chariot, in (jua dicti cpiscopi corpus fuerat
" dcportatum, — imo et capellam." In explanation of carrying a corpse ina chariot, which
may sound strange to the nice ear of criticism, let me remark, that llie corpse was carried,
merely on the wheels of the carriage, the body being taken olT; ami that funerals of a superior
sort, if coming from a distance, arc thus conducted in Cornwall to lliis d.-\y.

p p 2 " Qthcr

2C)2 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [rilAP. VIl.

" other rases of the altar seventeen pounds of gold;" water being even
now used by tlic Papists and some Protestants of our own ch\n-ch, as it
was equally used by the primitive cliurch, to make the wine of the
cucharist more truly ^^inc — by the infusion of water, " iMsi/m'^ tor the
offertory " seven pounds of gold, vase for the holy water twenty pounds
" of silver, an image of our Loi^d and of the blessed Mary and of ///e
'' twelve apostles a hundred and seventy-five pounds of silver and thirty-
" eight pounds of gold," the apostles being in silver, bat our Lord and ihc
Virgin. Mary in gold, " the pall for the altar and the orjuiments for the
" piiests being artfully woven on both sides with gold and j)rccious
" stones*." This is such a chapel of relics as antiquity cannot parallel,
for expensivencss of fabrication and costliness of decorations, worthy of
the monarch that had it formed, and worthy of the church to which he
gave it. Thus did tlie Latin appellation for a case of relics gradually
extend itself to v\hat it always accompanied, the moveable " saccllum"
of a king or a bishop in their travels, the portable and private " ark
" of God dweUing within curtains f." Thus too it came to fix finally
upon those " ecclesiolce" of stone, which were erected for oratories
and tomb-houses at greater churches, or were attached as oratories
merelv to palaces, to priories, and to mansion-houses ; because these
were, equally w ith those, the repositories of relics.

7 Tow soon these chapels began to be built, \\ ho can pretend to ascer-
tain ? Facts alone must do this, and let facts therefore do it. Eishop

* Gale, i. 310, 311 t " Fecit etiam idem rex construerc quandani capellani ex auro ct
" arofento, cum ornamentis et vasis similiter aiireis et argciitcis ; ac infra" for iji/ra " ma-
" jorem [ccclcsiam] collocavit. Ad capellam itaque constniendam duo miiliaet se.\ccnta ct
" quadraginia libras argenti donavit, el allare ex ducenlis et sexaginta quatuor libris auri erat,
" calix cum patenii de x libris auri, incensarium de viii libris et xx Tiiancis auri, candelabra
" ex xii libris ct dimidio argenti, cooperturia libroruru EvangeJii de xx libris cl ,!.\ maiicis
" auri, vasa aquaria et alia vasa altaris ex xvii libris auri, pelves de viii libris auri, va» ac!
«' aquam benedictam ex xx libris argeuti, imago Domini et Beatas Marix ct duodceim apos-
" toiorum ex ccnlurn et Ixxv libris argenti cl xxxviii libris auri, paila altaris et ornamcnta
" sacerdotalia undique auro et lapidibus pretiosis subtiliter contexta."

t " See now," cries the dignified because devout David, '< I dwell in an house of cedar,
-*' but the ark of God dwcHeth witiiin curtains." i Sam. vii. 2.

iivmon,

Sr.CT. Mil] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 293

Synion, of Ely, died in 1344, and was buried at Ely in the new chapel

of Sf. Marj/, before " the altar of the same chapel, on the fabric of

'^ which he had laid out very great sums X ;" as Crandene, a prior of Ely,

who died in 1341, " caused to be erected at the prior's lodging a 7ieta

" chapel of wonderful beauty §." That new chapel we find mentioned

as the old, a few years before ; when one, who became l^ishop of Ely

in 1290, and sat seven }"ears, was buried " on the south side of the

" church, between the two pillars near the high altar, at the entrance

" of the old chapel of St. Mart/\\.'' AVe here see a chapel by name

attached to the cathedral, attached even to the prior's lodging, so early

at Ely ! But much earhcr, even in or about 1133, St. Etheldred, the

founder and patroness of the church at Ely, was said to have been

" seen praying in a certain chapel" of her own church, " holding the

" psalter in one hand and a wax-candle lighted in the other ^." Onlv a

few }cars later we find two chapels more in the church of Ely, called

Clietesham and Dounham, and one in the very infirmary of the priory *.

About 1 130, Malmesbury mentions "the chapel of St. Andrew," " the

" chapel of the Holy Trinity," and " the chapel of St. Martin," each of

which is denominated an '* ecclesiola" by another author in the Monas-

ticon ; and as haA'ing given the names of Andrewesie, of Godney, and

of ^fartcncsie, to the isles on \\ Inch they respectively lay, within the

jurisdiction of Glastonbmyf. Bishops, we may be sure, had chapels

I Gale, i. 652 : " Sepultus est apud Ely in nova capella S. Mariccj coram altarc cjusdem
" oapellx, circa cujus fabricam siimptuosas fecit cxpcnsas."

§ Ibid. i. 6^9 : " Fabricari firit ad bospitiuni prions novani capellarn niirandi dccoris."

(I Ibid. i. 639: " E\ parte auslrnli ccclcsias, inter dua» cokinipnas juxta magnum altare,
" ad introilum veletis capcllap. B. Marian."

fl Ibid. i. 618 : " B. Elbddreda visa fuit orarc in qiiadani capel!*i, in una nianu psaltc-
" rium icnuii, in alia vcro ccreumaccensum."

• Jbid. i. 633: " In etcie.-ia Elycnsi — caliecs — , ijuorum iinus luit in capella infirmo-
" rum, — unu.s in capella de Clietesham, ct alius in capella dc Donnbam."

t Ibid. i. 330: " Andrcwcseie — sic cognominatur a Sancto Andrea, cujus ibidem
«' habetur capella, siciit et Godenix propter capellam Sanctx Trinitatis, cl Martcncseic a
" Sancto Marline, cujus ibidem est capella." Monasticon, i. 2 : " Ecclesiola dc Sancta
'• Trinitatc," " ccclcsiolam Sancli Andrcne," " •ecclesiolam Sancti Martini." Hence
Gedncy appears to be more truly denominated Godney, and ibc vulgar prove belter etymolo-
gists than the learned,

2g4 THE CATHEDKAL OT CORNWALL [cHAP. Yll.

at their palaces, as we have seen a prioi- have one at liis lodging.
Accordingly Walkelin, who died bishop of Winchester in lo<)», is
noticed " as often as he celebrated the solemn service of the mass in his
" cliapcl at Jf'iiichester, to have had a deacon and subdeacon from the
'' monastery I-" Kings also had their chapels, as Edgar is attested to
have " given out of Jiis chapel cases and philateries" of relics, " with
" the reUcs of some saints §." We have even seen chapels to large
churches before, under the appellation of porticoes ; as early as the days
of Bede, as early as the days of Eddius ||. And in a charter given by
Ina, but recited by INlalmesbury, we find even the rural chapels in
the jurisdiction of Glastonbury, mentioned as early as 725 ; the
charter forbidding the bishop to fix his episcopal chair, or to do any
otFicial act, without invitation from the abbot, " in the very church of
" Glastonbury, or in the churches snhjecfto it, — or in their chapels %."
Chapels, therefore, are very old among us, were very early denominated
" ecelesiolae," or little churches, by our ancestors, and in tlicir origin
are nearly as old as our churches themselves.

Such- an ccclesiola we know to haA^e been formed in St. German's
priory; as tradition says it contained that very series of paintings^
AAhich ranges along the side of the new room called the gallery. These
are paintings finely executed, though not artfully designed ; not sutfi-
ciently attentive to the principles of perspective, but very pleasing to
the eye of a surveyor, from the lively brilliancy of their colours, very
affecting to the mind of a religious man, from the sacred nature of their
subject, and Acry striking to the imagination of an antiquary, from their
age. The series comprehends the venerable history of our Saviour's hfe,

X Wharton, i. 296 : " Quoties cclcbrabat niissariim solenuiia in capella sua Winto-
" niensi, diaconum ct subdiaconuni nionachos habebat."

§ Ibid. i. 604: " Dedit — dc sua capella capsides et philateria, cum nonnulloruni sanc-
*' toruni rcliquiis."

II See ii. 3, prcciding.

^ Gale, i. 312 : " Ne in ipsam Glastoniae ecclesiam, nee in ecclcsiis sibi subditis, — nee
•' in earum capellis." See also Edgar's charier in Monasticon, i. 16, as fuller still, yet less
true.

1 from

SKCT. Iir.] , HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 3Q5

from his nativity to his crucifixion, in fourteen tablets, twelve on boards
and two on canvas's. The late lord's aunt was actually offered five
hundred pounds for them ; and, as an ancient monument of the art of
painting, they are (I suppose) much moi-e valuable. They are, how-
ever, beginning now to chip with age; and may well do so, though
they were pr(\scrved with all attention by my lord, being hung upon a
southern wall, on each side of a large fire-place, well supplied with fuel.
Their age we /niow to be prior to the Reformation, and they are certauily
more than two hundred and fifty years old. But what is their certain
age to their probable ? Upon every principle of historical probability,
we must refer them to a much earlier date, to the days of bishop Bar-
tholomew, the founder of the chapel, and consequently the decorator
of it. Thus they are more than six hundred years old ; the oldest set
of paintings, I presume, in the whole kingdom. Yet that antiquity
which gives such a dignity to them, requires they should be preserved by
being copied ; and the present lord \n ill have them copied, I hope,
before the very vividness of the colouring has proved perfidious to the
duration of it, or age has robbed the paintings of more of their original
lustre. But the chapel, which they so richly decorated, is pointed out
by the finger of tradition to have been in the body-end of the eastern
wing, between what arc reported to have been the lodgings of the prior,
and \\ hat I suppose to have been the dormitory of the monks, upon
what is now shrunk up into a narrow passage, betwixt the best drawing-
room and the best eating-parlour, yet terminates in a w indo\\- with an
open pa^ ifu)!! to the cast "■■.

These

• Mr. Willis, in a gross barbarism of taste, lias omitted all mention of these paintinsrs,
and in a gross mifi'dingncss of anlii]iiarianism, all designation of the rooms occupied b\' the
chapel, the dorniitorv, the parlour, or the portal of this prioiy. I had originally rccom-
jnended the care of the paintings above to the late lord, and to his oldest son ; many monihs
before the premature and sudden decease of him who was characterized by me as «' the
" singularly worthy heir" of the late lord, the honourable Edward James Eliot, in Septem-
ber 1797. But though I could not leave this to remain in the lext, I cannot but recite it in
a note, as the strongest signature of my respect for the memory of a person, whom evtfry
good husl)and and e\cry good man must long continue to respect; who, by the indulgence
of habitual sorrow U)x the loss of a beloved wife, had contracted such a tendency to spasms

5()6 THE CmiEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cilAV. VIV.

These were the parts of the priory, which bishop Bartholomew must
have constructeti, "when he introduced canons regular into it in the roon>
of the secular before ; Avhen he therefore compelled them to cat toge-
ther in one dining-room, to sleep together in one dormitory, and to pray
together every third hour of the night in one chapel. Such constructions
undoubtedly form a very considerable portion of the priory. The bishop
was accordingly considered, on account of them, and of his establish-
ment of monkeiy in them, to stand in the very relation of Athelstan to
the priory, to supersede indeed the honour of Athelstan in founding it,
and to rank as the very founder himself " There was here," says
Leland from the records of the priory, " an episcopal see in the time of
" Ethelstan, which was afterwards transferred to the church of Exetciii
" by St. Edward the Confessor-king ; and afterwards Jjartholomew,
" then bishop of Exeter, hew founded a monastery of regular canons*."
His arms therefore were sure to be painted, if any were, in the bow-
window of the dining-room. T^or let me rest my general reference of
these arms to the personal constructorj upon, any notions however com-
mon in themselves, upon any principles however apparent of good sense.
Let me appeal to authority,, because in antiquarianism, as in law,
authority is considered to be of more weight than reason, even the
authority of the first of our English antiquaries, Leland ; ^^•ho says
bishop " Skirlaw made all or. a peace of the lanterns at York minster, —
" for there be his amies scttc\'' Skirlaw's own historian says accord'
ingly : " he built a gvcdXpart of — what is \-ulgarly called the lantern, at

in the heartj according to the accounts of his physicians, as made him at last a martyr to
that best of all earthly loves, the conjugal ; but who, still more to the honour of his head
and of his heart, confessed privately to a friend many years before his death, even in the
first paroxysms of his sorrow, that he could find no relief front it except hi the Book of God.
" Vivat post funera virtus !" May such virtue stilHive in the remembrance of the religious,
as live it certainly doe? and will in the unperlshing records of God !

* Lcland's Coll. i. 75: " Fuit tempore Ethelstani sedes episcopalis, quae postea per S.
" Edwarduni Confess, regem translata fuit ad ecclesiam Exoniensem. Et post B. tunc.
'■' ej^scopus Exon. hie fundavit monaster, canon, regularium.'^

T liin. viii. 9.

" York-.

ancT. III. J nisTonicALLY survf.yed. 297

" York minster; vi the middle ofivh'ich u'ork, he placed his m^msX"
In the " bow-window" also " yet remain, in — painted glass," says Mr.
Willis, concerning his own time, " the arms of Arundel, viz. six
" martlets or, quartering Carminow, azirrc, a bend or" These belong to
John Arundel, the xcry builder of the ancient parsonage at St. Columb,
who was made bishop of Exeter in 1502, and died in i.';04 §. He was,
as I have noticed before ||, of the Anmdels of Lanhern in Cornwall, and
his great-grandfather John had married Ehzabeth, daughter and coheiress
of sir Oliver Carminow, knight. His own private arms only arc exhibited,
just as 1 have noticed those of bishop Bartholomew to be before ; iust also
as those of bishop Skirlaw are upon the lantern at York, six rods inter-
lacing one another in the sliape of a sieve * ; and just as those of archbishop
Sudburv, sable a talbot seiant within a border engrailed argent, with
those of another benefactor not known by them now, a text jVV crowned
or, on a cross az.ure, are still seen in a window of the chapter-house at
Canterbury % ; for one and the same reason, their construction of these
respective buildmgs out of their private fortunes. The bishops of Exe-
ter indeed might naturally consider themselves as officially the patrons of
St. German's priory, from the refounding of it by one of their predeces-
sors in the see. Yet this alone could not have produced a selection of
bishops, to be recorded upon glass. It could still less have produced so
scanty a selection. It could, least of all, have marked the persons of
this selection by their private arms. The distinguishing though frail
memorial for bishop Arundel, therefore, was occasioned by the same
principle as bishop Bartholomew's own was; and the honour was paid

% Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 775: "Hie — magnam partem vulgo lanterii, miiiistcrii
*'-Eboracensis construxit; in medio cujus operis, arma sua posuit."

§. Willis, 149, 150; and Godwin, 415. He had the custody ol' the temporalities, 22 Feb.
1501, that is, 1501-2, and the investiture of ihcm, 5 July 1502. He died 15 iMarth 1503, ,
that is, 1503-4.

II See vi. i.

• Wliartou's Anglia Sacra, i. 775. Skirlaw built, besides the lantern at York, a great
part of thg cloystcr at Durham, ixc. " De quibus oninii)us a;diliciis arnia sua, viz. 6 virgas
" vicissim flexatas in forma cribri, imposuit." Thiskiud of bearing, in the mystical language
of heraldry, is called y/e//^,

f Gosiling, 399.

VOL. II. Q Q 10

208 THE CATHEDRAL OF COnXWALL [ciIAP. VII,

to beneficence, by gratitude. Ai-undcl was a benefactor to the priory,
in rebuilding probably some part of the original structure, tliat had now
grown ruinous; and so was commemorated in this ever-open, ever-
legible book of benetactors. But, as he died in two years after liis
coming to the see, he assuredly did not live to perfect what he had
begun; and his immediate successor, Hugli Oldham, who died in 1519,
completing the work for him, became entitled to a pane with him
in this perishing register of honour. Hence vse have in tlie bow-
window " likewise," adds Mr. NN'illis, " the arms of this priory, as I

" suppose, being (i sword and tiro keys endorsed in saltire

" , impaling Ouldham, bishop of Exeter (as I judge by the

" mitre over it), sable, a chevcron or, betucen three owls proper, on a.
" chief of the second three roses gules *." Mr. ^^'illis mistakes the
impahng arms for those of the priory, when the mitre shews them to
be those of the bishopric. They arc indeed a little different from the
present arms of the see ; the sword of these being in pale or placed
erect, and of those in saltire or placed oblique. But the priory-arms
have been accidentally discovered, since Mr. Willis wrote; where the
ditierence between them and his appears much greater. In digging
among the ruins of the chancel a few jears ago, along with the seat for
a stall was found a rounded piece of oak, black in colour, but about
fourteen inches and a half in length, with two feet in circumference ;
charged with a sword and one key in saltire. This was one of the two
pillars at the sides of the stall, being fluted in front, yet flat at the back,
having all its original length, and therefore shewing the sword with the
key about the middle of it. It hence appears, as the very existence of
arms on such an object witnesses, a pillar to the stall of the prior ; the
only member of a monastery also, as I have shewn before, who sat in
the chancel f. Thus we have three stalls of stone in the cathedral of
Rochester, one of which is marlied by the arms of the see to be the
bishop's'^. The arms then of " a sword and ttvo keys endorsed in sal-
" tire," impahng what are certainly the arms of Oldham, as they are
equally displayed in stucco over the chimney-piece of a room, that was

* Willis, 150. t See ill. 3, before. J Arch. x. 267.

formerly

«"

SECT. III.Jl HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 2Q9

formerly the principal part of the president's lodgings in a very respect-
able college at Oxford, to which Oldham was equally a benefactor, even
Corpus Christi, that

Pyrgo, tot Priami natorum regia nutrix ;
and are again displayed upon the tomb of the bishop, in the cathedral
of Exeter ; amite with the mitre to shew Oldham was bishop of Exeter,
and to tell he was a benefactor to the priory. The arms of Sudbury, the
archbishop, appear on the eastern side, and the arms of the archbishopric
on the western, of a door in the chapter-house leading into the cloysters at
Canterbur}' *. And as to the sword with two keys endorsed in saltire,
however unnoticed the incident has hitherto been by the crowd of our
heraldrical or local writers, they were certainly the arms of the see down
to the death of Oldham f .

We thus lend an historical consequence to these arms in the bow-
window of the dining-room ; yet give them only as much as the arms
on the stucco or in the windows of our colleges at Oxford, and the arms
on the windows, the doors, or the stalls,, at Canterbury, or at York, are
known to have. V>"e even find there were arms on the same principle,
within the church of St. German's; the benefactors to it being recorded
at if, in tlie same manner. " There yet remain," adds Mr. AVillis,
concerning the church of his time, but without the slightest application
of the fact to history, so much quicker is the eye than the intellect in
most persons ! " some arms in the windows, with carvings on the scats,
" particularly of Statford and Courtney, bishops of Exeter ; and the
" aforesaid arms, viz. a sword and two keys endorsed in saltire, pre-
" sumed to be those of the priory, are frequently repeated +." Petc^
Courtney was made bishop of Exeter in 14;8, and Edmund Stafford in
1395 before §. 'Hiese must both of them have been considerable bene-
factors to the cliurch, and therefore had their memories presented with-
in it in this emblematical maimer. They probably were the repairers
of the church, in two important points. The roof of the nave, as I

• Goslling, 399, 4001 t Tanner's Nolitia by Nasniitb, p. xxix,

X Willis, 152, § Godwin, 41401111412.

Q Q 2 have

300 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII,

have formerly observed, was all can'cd originally, and still remains so
from the western end to the fourth pillar eastward. This shews the
roof to have been repaired, and with less than royal munijiccnce, at
some late period. But there has been a renewal in an adjoining part of
the church, still more remarkable. The three next arches to the east,
but on the south, are more ornamented than the four to the west, the
curves of them are less sharp, the pillars are of a slenderer bulk, and
the stone of Tarton Down is suddenly exchanged for moorstonc.
Tradition also tells to the present day, of some grand reparation made
of these arches of the church, it knows not when, but in conse<juence of
some destruction, it knows not what. These renovations of the church,
therefore, aj)pear to correspond with the suggestions of the arms, and
to shew StalFord, to shew Courtney, thus recorded on account of these
renovations. But the same arms appeared ^^■ith carvings upon some
seats, if ,we consider the words of INIr. Willis in a sense strictly gram-
matical; or, in that laxer sort of interpretation, which alone (I believe)
is suited to his loose mode of writing, carvings appeared \\'ithout any
ai'ms; to mark some one seat Avith distinction, and to make it considered
by Mr. Willis as erected by one of these bishops. One accordingly
remains, and only one, Avhen the arms of the windows have vanished
■with their glass ; a tall, large, antique pew in the parochial, and not
the priori/, part of the church, the chancel of the old cathedral, worked
all over with carvings, once the seat of the rector assuredly, then that
of the steward of the rectory, and therefore that of the lessee of the
rectory at present. But the arms of the see we find " a sword and two
" keys indorsed in saltire," Avere " frequently repeated" inthe windov\'s.
These Avindows, hke.that seat, must have been in the parochial part of
the church ; as (except a skylight recently opened) there are no A\'in-
dows in the priory part, either large or lightsome enough to receive any
painting of arms upon them. The very windows therefore concur Avith
the evidence before, to prove the arms were emblazoned upon them, as
the ensigns of the bishopric, and not of the priory. And the latter arms
combine with the former, to shew those of Courtney and of Stafjbrd
were, ,Avhat we have seen episcopal arms twice before to be, merely the
priA'ate and family ai'ins of those bishops ; yet to indicate their episcopal

dignity.

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED, 301

dignity, by their episcopal arms repeated on the \\'i!ido\vs. So, at
Canterbury, " in the great western window of the chapter-house, are
" four shields supported by angels, which are evidently intended to
" commemorate the builders of the nave, cloisters, and chapter-house;"
one, Sudbury's, another unknown, " the third, Courtney, the fourth,
" Arundel — . The same arms," Sudbury's, " and those of Courtney
" and Arundel arc often repeated in the vaulting of the na-^c, the
" chapter-house, and cloister*."

Coats of arms were originally the cognizance of military men alone.
But w ar becoming \^•hat it is dreadtul to think, the general profession
of man, the chief object of his passions, and the principal ground of his
glory ; these cognizances grew so extensive in their use, and so honour-
able in their nature, that all the professions of peace itself, the
lawyers, the physicians, even the very clergy, took up the symbols of
war, either as private persons or as public functionaries, to mark their
pride of family, or to shew their dignity of office. Hence priors and
bishops had their coats of arms, equally whh warriors themselves.
Such a practice would be sure to arise soon, upon the general use of
such badges; and, as the badges have already appeared to be \cry
ancient, the practice must be ancient too. Those I have proved to have
been long prior to the Conquest, and this seems to l)e also prior ; the
arms upon the oaken pillar ])cing probably as okl as the stall, as the very
chancel itself, and consequently coieval with Atlielstan, the constructor
of both. Hence Bartholomew, the bishop of Exeter, so earlv as liOl,
could have his arms put up in the bow-window of that dining-room,
which he erected for his regular canons ; as a signature of his erection of
it. Hence also we find the prior of Bodmin retaining to the Reformation
those arms of his office, which must originally have been assumed bv his
predecessors, irlicn the church had ecpially a prior and a bishop ; prior
Vivian, who died in 1533, appearing to this day in the church with
these " the arms of the prior," upon his tomb, " in a field St. Pedvr
" [St. Pctrock] sitting in Jiis chair or throne of state proper, ^\■ith ///*•

• Goslling, 399, 400.

" crosier

302 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VII.

** crosier in his hand and mitre on his head;'' arms, evidently those of
the bishopric at first, as evidently tiiose of the priory afterwards, and
stin remaining as both, with a little variation, the arms of the town at
present *. The prior of 8t, German's, in the same mode of acting as his
younger brother of Bodmin, adopted the arms of the bishopric for the
arms of the priory, and continued the use of them probably after the
seat of the bishopric was removed to Exeter. The removed bishop also,
like the town of Bodmin, retained the arms of both with a little variation;
doubling the kej's to signify the double sees, indorsing them to make
them more distinguishable, but still keeping the sword in saltirc with
them ; and having erected the sword since, to discriminate the whole
perhaps from the nearly similar arms of Winchester sec.

Malmesbury intimates concerning the regular canons of Exeter, as I
have noted before, that their strict discipline, " in the luxuriousness of
** the times, has been in some degree relaxed ;" by permission probably
to the canons, under pretence of sickness, to sleep and to eat occasionally
in other apartments. There must therefore have been an iNFiRMARr
for them, in the priories of Exeter and St. German's ; at which they
were discharged from the nightly offices of devotion in the chapel, and
even indulged with better dishes of meat. 'Jo gain such an indulgence,
and such a discharge, under such a severity of discipline; pretences would
naturally be made of sickness, often. But, with such a severity, nature
would frequently furnish a just plea, and sickness visit their macerated
bodies in reality. What their prescribed rate of living was, we know
too well in general. Yet it may be requisite just to mention one or two
circumstances in it, to fix the whole more livellly on our minds, and to
repress forever that wanton impotence of prejudice, which at one time
is looking down with pity on the pious absurdity of monks, in denying
themselves the common comforts of life, yet at another is flourishing
in gay sarcasms upon the luxuriousness of their lives, the " pontificuiii
" ccenie" of a monastery -f-.

Bread,

* Hals, 20 and 19.

t The common topic of invective against monkish luxury, among the more literary
lavcighers, is one lent by Giraldus Cambrensis, that professed foe to the monks : " De
■3 «« ferciilis

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 303

Bread, (hat great corrector of all the humours of the body occasioned
by animal food, that principal supporter of human life, in any form of

feeding,

*' ferculis, ct coram niimerositate, qiiitl dicain," he cries concerning the monks of Canter-
bury, " nisi quod ipsiim [GiraidiunJ iiiultotics diccnteni audivi ; quia sedecim aut plura per
" ordinem — sunt apposita, valde sumptuosa." Even if this account be just as a censure, it
apj tics only to the members of one monastery. Yet \\ hat were tiiesc dishes ? Only of fish,
dressed in various manners. •' Tot enim videas," he adds, " pisciiim genera, assa quidcm et
" elixa, farta et frixa, tot oywet pipere cibaria eocorum arte confecta, tot.sapores el salsamenta
" ad gulam irritandam ct appetitum excitandum eomndem arte composita;" to subdue the
natural insipidity of fish, and by variations of cookery to nuillii)ly one dish into many. So far
the intentled censure is refuted by the facts tlicmselves. Nor is the eating luxurious, even in
this richly endowed monastery. But perhaps the drinking is ; for, as Gervasc goes on, " ad
" hxc etiani in tanta abundantia vinum hic videas et siceram, pigmetiUim," a mixture of
wine, honey, and spices, " et clurelum," is not this the earliest mention of claret in all
histor_y ? " mustum ct medonem atque 7nore/a?«," what liquor? mulberry wine ? " atque
" onme quod inebriare potest ; adco ut cerevisia, qualis in Anglia fieri solet optima, ct
" prrccipue in Cantia, locum inter cetera non haberet." This seems a formidable arrange-
intiit of liquors upon the table of a monk. But it is not so formidable as it seems. Even
Giraldus pretends not to notice any abuse made of these liquors by the monks. And the day
was a high festival, even Trinity Sunday, the very name-day of the church itself; in which
aljlnniousness might innocently indulge, and even self-dtnial should in reason relax into
some luxury. Such indeed are the rules, by which the most self-denying and most abste-
mious always act in the world, of which reason suggests the theory, and in which innocence
approves the execution I On such a day, therefore, and with such a practice, the liquors
appear not loo luxurious, and the dishes even seem to icant variety. Yet tlic mode of a
monk's living is to be estimated, not from what it may have been occasionally upon a festival,
but from what it was regularly and ordinarily through the year. Take then " a short bill
•* of fare" for this very monastery, " such as was allowed" by the standing orders of the
liouse : " to every tuo monks, when they had soles, there were Jour soles in a dish; when
•' ihcy had j)laisc, tiro plaisc; when they had herrings, eight herrings; when they had
•'whitings, cj^/j/ whitings; when they had mackrels, /«ro mackrcls ; and when they had
" eggs, /era eggs; if they any thing wore allowed them beyond" this *' their ordinary fore,
"it was either f /(ewe, or fruit, ov the like." (f:5attely, 96.) Co now, thou snecrer at the
luxury of monks, and sit down with them to thy banquet of five eggs or of one mackrcl for

dinner.

I nunc, et tecum niusas mcditare canoras.

" Quid autcni," as Giraldus goes on in a strain of impertinent interrogation, " ad lixc
" Paulus Ercmita diceret ?" &c. &c. &c. Such arguments would preclude all possibilitv of
a feast ; they, therefore, can never prove the luxuriousness of any. Sensible of this, I
tuppose, the author comes to an anecdote, tliat fashionable supplement for a reason at pre-
sent,

304 TTIF. CATIinDR.VL OF COR?rVVALL [CHAP. VII,

feeding, was dlspcnced to the monks in angular pieces, denominated
can/lcs. These ho\ve^■er were luilves of loa\es ; as tlic lepers of Mary
Magdalen, in Reading, had every day from the abbey tliere, " a cantlc,
" containing half a loaf of ])read *," half of such small rovmd loaves as
arc still common in our colleges at Oxford. From this application of
the word, Shakespeare makes Percy to say of the Trent ;

See how this r'rvcr comes me, craiikhng in.
And cuts me from the best ot all my land,
A huge halJ-inooTi, a monstrous canlle out.

Even lately the parishioners of Childrey, near "^^'"antage, in Berkshire,
having been long in the habit of eating and drinking upon one day m
the year, within the house of the rector; this feast of bread and cheese,
as I believe it to have been, was popularly entitled Childrey cantle \.

sent. " Monachi S. Swithuni Wintonix," he tells us, " cum priore suo coram Anglorimi
" rege Henrico II. ad tcrram in liilo prostrati, cum lacrhnls et luciu conquesti sunt ei,
" quod eorum episcopus Ricarcllis, quern ci loco aiiatis halehant, tria cis fercula subtraxerat."
The tale, we see, is recited in an invidious style of aggravation. It thus loses much of its
weight. Nor is it possible to be true as related. The bishop was not the abbot, and so could
not cut off any dishes as abbot. About two centuries before, an abbot had been appointed
by the bishop himself, even by the very bishop who changed the clergymen of the church
into monks ; " Ethehvoldus, canonlcis expulsis, "monachos posuit, prasficiens eis abbatem
" Edgarum nomine." (Maimesbury, f. 140.) Yet the author proceeds with his story thus:
•' ct cum rege inquirente quot eis remanserant, rcspondcrent decem, quoniam ab antiquo
'Mredecim habere consucverant j et ego, inquit rex, in curia mta trilus ferculis con~
*' tentiis sum ;" a position so apparently false in itself, as unites with the utter incredibi-
lity of the complaint, and the certain falsehood of the inference, to fix a brand of repro-
bation on the w hole for ever. With such ingenuity of malice, such sophistry of reasoning,
■ and such forgery of facts, liave the monks been condemned for luxuriousness of living by
Giraldus ! And with such inattention to the forgery, to the sophistry, or to the malice,
has the passage been cited, referred to, or hinted at, by the enemies of monks for a cen-
tury past ! See the passage in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 480. But we shall now hear of
it no more, I believe.

• Monasticon, i. 419 : " SinguU cantelli dimidium panis habentes."
t So in a pamphlet of 1636, we read " not so much as a canlh ofcheeseot crust of bread."
(Shakespeare, viii. 493, note.) This custom had been so long observed as a kindness from
ihe rector, that it was atlast demanded as a righl by the parishioners. These evea proceeded
10 such lengths of violence, as to burst open and beat down the door of the parsonage, when
barred against them, on the accustomed day. The rector of course appealed to the law, and
the law abolished the intrusion by commuting the charity. A punster therefore exclaimed
that the rector had made the parishioners '* rccinere cantilenam,"

Childcwic,

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 305

Childewic, which v\as given to St. Alban's abbey by Aildwin and his
wife Aillieda, under the license and at the persuasion of king Ethelred,
says M. Paris, " as both the king and the givers interpreted the name,
" derived it from the children, because the land was bestowc^d to pio-
** vide food for those younger monks, aa ho were to be kept upon a milk
" diet:]:." With this they were allowed the use of flesh-meat at times.
So far the discipline of a monastic table was like some of our own, sober,
just, and mild. B\it the affectation of rigour prevailing as powerfully
then, as the ambition of indulgence predominates now ; this mildness
was soon changed into harshness. Paul the abbot, as Mr. Newcome
tells us, between the years 1077-1093, " made many regulations in the
" diet of the monks, restraining them from immoderate use of flesh-
*' meat, and causing them to live on pickled herrings;" then (as a
note subjoins) " called by the Normans /laren-pie^." But the harshness
was not at all -w hat Mr. Newcome makes it to be ; being confined to
the younger monks entirely, and therefore more harsh; but not restrain-
ing them merely to " pickled herrings," and therefore less unkind ; nor
yet forbidding them " the immoderate use of flesh-meat," acting even
with higher rigour, and forbidding all use of it. " To the young
*• monks," as Paris really tells us, " who, acccording to their custom,
" lived upon pasties o{ flesh- meat," a food very common with the richer
labourers in Cornwall to this day, " he prevented all inordinate eating"
by stinting the quantity; "and he heaped up a dish for them all in
"common, of which the mere appellation remains at present, made of
" herrings and sheets of cakes," or, in other words, of herrings utider
covers of pastry, which was therefore " called by the Normans," that
is, by Paul himself, the institutor, the first Norman abbot of St. Alban's,
" haren-pie," or, as Paris himself says more precisely, " which he, in
" the sophistical pronunciation of the Normans, denominated ciir-pie for

:f M. Paris, 1002: " Sicut tarn rex qiiani datorcs intcrprctatl sunt, a pucri? Iraliit locus
" vocahulum, quia ad alimciUa nionaclioruni juniuruni lacliciniis alciid«ruui coiili-rcbaUir,
" unde et Childewica nuncupatiir." He also mentions "aliud vacajtcrium, quod antiqnilus
" Childel-angelcia vocabalur."

§ P- 49.

VOL. II. R a *' karen-

300 rWK CATUKDRAL OF COHNWALL [CMAP. VII.

" kareii-/>;V*." When such rigour was exercised upon the palate of the
voun^, more (we may he sure) was exerted upon that of the manly and
midtlle aj2;cs of life. These accordingly lived almost entirely upon fish.
We indeed, in our use of fish at times only, or with rich sauces, or as
jntroductoiy to flesh-meat, are apt to smile at statutes or canons enjoin-
ing us to fast upon jish. But to cat fish alone, to cat it almost con-
tinually, to eat it too as robbed of all its nutritious juices by age, as only
preserved from putrefaction by being embalmed in salt ; we should
think the most painful of fasts. Yet, as Paris tells us, abbot William
of St. x\lban's, in the reign of John, " bought a house at Yarmouth,
** for storing fish, and particidarly herring, when bought up at
" the proper season ; to the invaluable advantage and honour of St.
" Albun's house : and made to it also an expensive addition f." Thus
was the young monk trained up to the almost constant use of herrings
as a man, by being kept upon herring-pies as a child. Pies indeed of
all sorts seem to have been formerly more frequent upon our tables than
they are at present. Pies of fish, particularly, appear to have been very
fashionable formerly ; as the twenty-four pies or pasties of the first fresh
herrings, sent by Norwich every year to the king, according to charter,
very significantly shew us. These are now eaten, I believe, by the
very menials in the royal kitchen. Even in Cornwall^ where the use of
pies is so generally preserved, that the English have marked the natives
in derision, as men who would put the devil in a pie, if they could
catch him ; where even fish-pies are sometimes eaten in the parlour, and
often in the kitchen ; I, who have naturalized my appetite, as a

* Paris, 1003 : *■' Minutis — , qui de sua consuetudine pastilHs carneis vcscebantur, esus
" subtraxit inordiiiatos, el, pro came, de allece et liborum cedulis," cedulis for schedulis,
as schedule is occasionally pronounced cedule at present, '* congcstum, quoddam fcrculum
/< (cujus solum remansit nomen) ipsis in communi cumulavit; quod more Normanorum
" karpie, quasi karenpie, sophistice nominavit." Mr. Newcome did not understand the
*' liborum cedulis," and therefore omitted it entirely, though so requisite to the explanation
of his own " haren-pie."

t Paris, 1057 : " Comparavit — unam domum apud Gernemuthani, ad piscem et prae-
•* cipiie alec, in tempore opportuno comparatum, reponenduni ; ad inaestimabilcRi domiis
*• S. Albani utilitalem et honorem : cui etiam sumptuosam addiditemendationem."

2 . foreigner,

SECT, 111.] HISTORICALLY SUaVEYED. SO/

foreigner, to almost all the peculiar dishes of the country, have never
been able to relish a pie of fresh fish, and never attempted to taste what
is not uncommon among the labourers or servants, a pie of salted pil-
chards. Yet salted herrings, in pies or out of them, we see, were the
standing dishes of the monk ; mocking his appetite with a fare luisub-
stantial, unj)leasing, unnourishing ; and fixing our national ilisease, the
scurvy, in full tyranny over his frame. Thus was all fiesh banished
from his table, and interdicted to his palate, from the years of child-
hood to the very vei^^e of life ! No rest, no respite was allowed to
health or strength, exjcept at Christmas, Easter, or the festival of the
abbey's saint, when fowls, eggs, and pork were allowed J ; or i7i occa-
sional visits to the injirmary.

Where then, in the priory of St. German's, was the infirmary of it ?
It was, I suppose, at the western end of the building, in what appears
to have been an addition to the rest, as it did not line behind with the
back-front of the building, but receded considerably from it, and then
pushed forwanl to form a western wing to the whole. In this was a
narrow passage, along the northern side of what is now the gallery ;
whicli ran along the side beyond the present fire-place, and, by a low-
door, still remaining there, communicated with a structure as long as
the gallery, now forming my lord's bed-room to the east, mv lads 's
dressing-room to tiie west, and a small room of communication between
them. The passage and the door unite to shew, that the structure was
formerly entered as it now is, in the middle room ; having, as it now
lias, a room tp the right and left of this. There then the invalids, real
or pretended, of the priory, I suggest, had one apartment for their bed-
room, another for their dining-room, and each upon each side of their
room of entrance, that bed-room probably of uti olficial attendant*.

Other

I Paris, 1007,

• hi many particulars have occurred above in reference to herrings, which nrc directly
opposite to some authorities truly respectable in themselves; kt inc confirm in u note what
I have advanced in my text, and add oilier evidences from history to those above.
" Halcces," says Camden, 584, " — temjiore quo; pvoavoruni seculo [a word here suptr-
'* fluous]," in it passage too literally rendered by bithop Gibson, " in the time of our gr.ind-

R R 2 " fatlurs"

;Ml8 TIIR CATIIF.DnAI, OF COIJXW "ALL [CHAl". \I1.

Other parts of the house wore laid out in rooms for the deacons, as
one deacon wc shall soon find here, sub-dcaeons. or others, and in a

kitch(."n,

" fathers" (c. 905), l)Mt " i" tlic time of our fortfatiicrs," more justly, by Mr. Gough
(iii. 17), " tantum ad Norwegiani sua quasi stativa li.>t)ucrunt ;" inelegantly translated hy
the bishop " swamied only about Norway," as inelegantly, and very ialsely, by Mr. Gough,
*' seemed to confine themselves to the coasts of Norway," where the " quasi," which refers
merely to the " stativa," and is only meant to qualify a little the poetical tone of the expres-
sion, is applied to " habuerunt," and the author made to speak that dubiously which he
avers positively, '* [secidoy a word here wanted] noslro Britanniam nostram, non sine
" divino consilio, nuracrosis examialbus quotannis circumnatant." Camden thus asserts
the herrings to have formerly migrated no lower to the south than Norway, but in hrs time
to have come as low as the British Channel. What scope of past time he comprehends in
his " tempore proavorum," is not immediately apparent ; but, from the opposition made
between that time and his own, he must point at the period directly antecedent to his. This,
therefore, as contradicting my text, I Sm studious to refute. It was not bi his editions of
1590 or 1594, and ought not to liave been in any. Leland, who wrote within this very
period, lends us two notices in direct refutation of it ; saying, in Itin. v. 55, 56, that
" about the shore of Wyral on Mersey side to Walesey village, on the very shore, — men
" use much to salte herring taken at the se by the mouth of Mersey ;" and savinc also
concerning Lanunda parish, near St. David's in South Wales, *' here about is hering
"Jishingf" ibid. 29. " The method of packing and salting of herrings was not known," Mr.
Smith ako Icllsus, in his History of Cork, ii. 309, " till 1416," and therefore was known
as early as 1416; "Mr. Willoiighby observes, that William Buekelz, a native of Bier
" Uliet, has rendered his name immortal, by the discovery of the secret of curing and pack-
" ing herrings ; he adds, that the emperor Charles V. coming into the Low Countries, with
" his sifter the queen of Hungary, they made a journey to Bier Uliet, on purpose to view
" the tomb of this barreller of herrings." So early were herrings even salted for their pre-
servation, on the coasts fronting our own ! But they were actually salted long before,
upon our own. " A record, i Edw. III. 1368," Mr. Gough remarks, p. 79, from the
same Mr. Smith, in his subsequent History of Down, p. 243, " mentions a duty on them
*' in Ireland ; which proves they had a method of pickling and preserving them, ffly years
*' sooner than is generally thought." So much at random is immortality of fame dispensed,
by the misuiken voice of man ! In the same reign of Edward III. but in a much earlier
year of it, 1332, the king granted a charter to the town of Great Yarmouth, which notices
its present fishery of herrings, in mentioning its vessels laden either with herring or with
other fish, «' sen de ullece seu de aliis piscibus." (Brady on Boroughs, Appendix, 3, 4.) I
have thus carried the fishery up to a period, much beyond all possible reach of Camden's
pretended notice ; but I can carry it still higher. Anthony Bee, who became bishop of
Durham in 1283, and died bishop in 131 1, but who seems to have been as stately almost as

Wolsc^

SiK T. ITI.J nrSTOniCALLY SURVEVED. 30^)

kitchen, al;irder, a cellar, a shaving-room, with a bath on the ground-
floor belo\^'. The shaving-room seems a singular apartment to the mind

Wolscy himself, having ihe liveried army and therrienial lord in equal attendance upcm him;
" once in London," says his historian, " paid down forty shillings for forty fresh
" herrings, when other nobles, tlien in parliament with him there, did not choose to pur-
*' chase because of their over great dearness" (Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 746, " pro xl
" halecihus recentibiis xl solidos Londonioe semel solvit, aliis niagnatibus, tunc in parlia-
♦' mento il)i consislentibus, pro nimiacaristia emere non curantibus"). The dearness must
appear astonishingly great, even to the judgment of the present age. Yet many years
before, in 1238, we find Yannouth pursuing the herring-fishery with all the celebrity that rt
does now, and the very neighbours of the Norwegians, the very borderers upon their seas, the
very inhabitants of Gothland in Sweden, with the very Dutch themselves, coming to the fish-
fair at Yarmouth every year. That year, savs M. Paris, news came into the west of Europe,
that the Tartars, under their lean, had overrun all the E;ist, and ravaged Hungary ; " unde
" Golhiajn et Frisiam inhabitantes, impetus eorum pertimentes, in Angliam, ut moris est
" eorum apud Gernemtte, tempore halecis capiendi, quo mas naves solebant onerare, non verie-
" runt." (P. 398.) So great too was the demand from these Dutch and Swedish vessels,
that, the exportation being thus prevented by accident, " kalec, eo anno, in Anglia," by
a change in value strikingly the contrast of the rate above, " quasi pro nihilo prse abun-
" dantia habitum ; sub quadragenario vel qninqnagenario numero, licet optimum esset, pro
" uno argento," for one silver penny, •' in parlibus a mari etiam longinquis vendebatur."
Herrings thus appear to have caught upon our own shores, salted by our own hands, and
eaten by our own mouths, even sold in vast quantities to Friezelanders and to Swedes,
before the year 1238. But in a still earlier year of that century, the 7th of king John, 1206,
the townsmen of Dunwich, in Suffolk, had a remission of forty pounds forever, of the fee-
farm rent, paid by them before for their town, " to wit, out of a hundred and twentv
" pounds, and twenty-four thousand herrings, and one mark ; so that they render to us and
" our heirs for the future in every year, eighty pounds, a7id twenty four thousand herrings,
" and one mark" (Brady, ibid. p. 11, '* viginti quatuor millia hallecum"). Even at the be-
ginning of the very century preceding, Henry, the first bishop of Ely, who became bishop in
1 108, on his partition of the abbey's properly between himself and hismonks, gave the monks
" thirty thousand herrings of Dumvich" (Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 617 : " xxx millia
" allccum de Duncwycs"). So little reason is there for the rash assertion made by Camden, or
even the soberer one made by Smith, in his History of Cork ; that " the Hollanders were
" the first people in Europe, who observed the difl'erent seasons and returns ot" the herring
" fishery ;" and that " the first regular fishery began as early as the year 1 163 !" We have
seen the Friezelanders already coming to our herring-fishery at Yarmouth, and the Irish
already salting their herrings before the Dutch. The herring-pies of my text carry the
catching and the salting of herrings upon our own coast, as high as 1093-1077, even near

a full

310 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP, VU.

of a modern in a community of monks. We sliould almost as soon expi'ct
to hear of what the use of tobacco had a little while ago introduced into
the houses of our gentry, a smoking-room ; or what lias been more
recently introduced in supersedence of the other, a poM'dering-room.
Yet the shaving-room is clearly noticed in one of our monasteries:
*' Even to the time of this abbot Roger," says the Chronicle of Thorn,
concerning St. Augustine's at Canterbury, in the reign <jf Henry III. ;
:^tithe brethren shaved one another in the cloi/ster ; but he, on account

a full cenUiry above the reported commencement of the fishery among the Dutch. But, to
fix the point heyond all possibility of doubt, let me observe from Camden himself; that the
town of Dunwich, which we have just seen paying twenty-four thousand herrings to the
king, in 1206, and thirty thousand to the abbey of Ely, in no8, appears from Doomsday
Book to have actually paid the king at the makuig of it, sixty tkomand herrings, " sexaginta
" millia allectum [allecum] de dono" (Camden, 339, translated by Mr. Gough himself,
and even with a strange .exaggeration, •■' nine hundred thousand herrings," ii, 76). I have
thus traced the herring-fishery up to the Saxon period, and there I leave it.

In this argument I have not noticed, because I saw to be false, that " the herring-pies,
" which the lord.of the manor of Carleton is bound to carry to court," as notes Mr. Gough,
ii. 103, " are ike fee-form rents of the city of Norwich before it was incorporated f" a fee-
farm rent before incorporation ! ! ! " when it was a grcut place, before Yarmouth was
"founded." Yet this very rent is instantly »aid by Mr. Gough himself, to have arisen from
*' the city having purchased the manor of Carleton." It was therefore no fee-farm rent for
Norwich, either before or after it was incorporated, either before or after Yarmouth was
founded. And at the close, we are once more told by Mr, Gough, that '♦ the town of
" Yarmouth is by charter bound to send — these herrings." Sucli a jumble of inconsistencies
have we here ! The truth is, undoubtedly, that Yarmouth, not Norwich, is obliged by a
charter, not made before Norwich was incorporated, because it had plainly been iucorpo>
rated when Doomsday Book was written (Brady, 4, 5], but later than Doomsday Book
itsi If, w hich menlions no such obligation on either Norwich or Yarmouth } lattr even than
the Yarmouth charter of 1332 above, which equally mentions no such obligation ; to send a
fir^at hundred of \ls Jhst and fresh herrings (as it still sends them) to the city of I^orwich,
tiiere to be baked (as thcv are at present) into twenty-four pasties, " pastcllos centum
" halecum de primis" (Camden, 347), or " centum haleces recentes in viginti quatuor
" pastelUs" (Gough, ii. 103), and thience to be conveyed (as they equally are at present) by
the lord of Carleton to the kincc (Camden, 34.7 ; Gibson, 458, 459; Gough, ii. 103, 104).
On the whole then the herring's, those Huns and Vandals of tlic fishy generation, appear to
have always issued, as they still issue, from their retreats under the polar ice, in quest oi
food among freer seas ; and to have always returned, as they now return, to their beds of
reposc, or breeding, during their polar length of nights.

"of

SECT. III.] JITSTOHICALLT SURVEYRD, 311

" of the aits and various dangers which ihey frequently suffered, because
" they were rude and ignorant in the office of shaving, with the con-
" sent of the convent ordered, that the shaving^ should be performed in
" a room close to the bathing-room, and by common barbers, whenever
** it was requisite; and that, on the dat/s of shaving, three collects should
** be added to the convent's devotions, in memory of Roger's kindness
" and for the salvation of Roger s soul*" So roughly did these monks
exercise their usurped office of barbers one upon another ! such wounds
did they mutually give and receive in their exercise of it! and such a
real kindness was it in Roger to shift the scene of painful, even of dan-
gerous operation, from the open cloyster to a retired room, and to call'
in the safe, smooth razors of professed barbers for the work ! Priests,
either regular or secular,, always shaved, as appears from the anecdote
so strikingly descriptive in itself, of Harold's spies before the battle of
Hastings reporting ^ViUianf s army to be an army of priests, because the
soldiers had no beards apparent f . Thus did our priests very early intror
duce among us the fishion which lias now at last triumphed over the
"bearded majesty ;J:" of our Saxonized warriors, by converting us all

• Twisden, 1915: " Usque ad tem pus hiijus Rogeri abbalis, radebant se mutuo fratrw
"in clauslro; scd istc, propler Ixsuras et diversa pcricula quas frequenter contigerunt inter
" cos, quia rudes et neseii erant in officio radcndi, ordinavit cum consensu conventus; quod
*' rasura fieret in camera juxta balncatorium per secutarts, quocirns opus esset ; et quod,
•' diebus rasurae, post Ferla niea in capilulo dicantur tres collectaR, — in memoriam illin<<
'* bencficii, et pro anima Rogeri abbalis." The " collects" were to be read " in eapltiilo,"
in the congregation at church. In the History of Evesham, by Mr. Tindal, 1794, p. 193,
" post capituhim conventus" are supposed " to mean either a mass jierfovmed in the chapter-
" house, or perhaps merely the greater mass, at which the whole convent was present."
They appear from my passage, they still more appear from JVIr. Tindal's own, as ordtrin"-
what was to be done " on each day" by his monks to mean merely the convent prayers.
Mr. Tindal argues convincingly against his former interpretation, that " one cannot suppose
" a chapter was held every day;" and he might have argued as convincinglv, that "a
" mass" can equally not be supposed to be every day celebrated, and that " a gre.ucr mass,"
ftill more strongly, cannot. Authors often hobble upon the crutchVs of learning for want
of resolution to use their natural ItK";.

t Mat. Westm. 436: " Onines de exercitu illo presbyteros videri, c6 quod facicju
" toiam cum utroque labio rasani habcrent ; unde Angli, nisi presbiteri, consuetudinem
" non habebant."

J Gray's Bard.

(in

312 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

(in the language of the Saxon spies) into a nation of priests. The new
fashion, equally sacerdotal in its origin and elegant in its aspect, com-
menced in the fourteenth century, and so provoked an order against it
from the founder of New College in Oxford, one of his statutes expressly
"prohibiting the custom of shaving the heard ^^ But at St. German's
was no cloyster, and the shaving must therefore have been performed
from the beginning within a room. St. German's, indeed, had no city
near it, as St. Augustine's had, to furnish its corps of barbers for the
large multitude of monks ; yet had a small town, one barber from
which would be fully competent for a community so much smaller.
This town, too, could then support a mucli better barber than it can at
present, because he would have all that attendance at the priory whicli
is now cut off by the introduction of servants formally taught to shave
their masters ; and that very convenient practice of self-shaving, vhich
has been lately introduced by our military gentlemen (I believe) among
us, was never attempted then. Close to that shaving-room, we see,
was the bathing- room at St. Augustine's. This will perhaps seem as
extraordinary as the other, to our modern ideas. It seems in fact to be
calculated for a climate much warmer than our own ; and may reason-
ably therefore be argued, to have been derived M'ith monkery itself
from Eg}pt, that parent region of all monkery. Bathing, however,
was assuredly enjoined, like a low diet, frequent fasts, and repeated
blood-lettings, as an act of monastic discipline, as an operation of useful
severity to the body, and an exertion of Avholesome rigour upon the
spirits. At one time, says accordingly a biographer of St. Neot, the
saint was " standing in the well, in which he was daily wont to repeat
" the irholc Psalter throughout *." He is therefore represented in those
windows of his church which exhibit his biography visible to the eye, as
actually in the well up to the knees. But what carries assuredness into
certainty at once, Adhelm, the famous founder of Malmesbury abbey
in the end of the seventh century, and the first Saxon who wrote Latin

§ Life of Hearne, 103 : " Statutum illuil collegii Novi, Oxoniscj in quo prohibctur
" coiisucluilo raclendi barbas."
* Sonic Account, 20, 21.

verses

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED, 313

verses in (his island, on becoming the prior of his own abbey, " used to
" plunge himself up tf) the shoulders," says his historian, " into a well
"very near the monabtery, to cut short the power of' his rebel body ;
" there he continued unshrinking for a whole night, minding neither the
" icy rigours of winter, nor the vapours exhaling from the marshes in
" summer; and he never terminaied the discipline till he had chanted his
"Psalter throui'-houf*." So very similar was the conduct of both!
But anotlier of the monks practised the same severity, at the same time.
" In another part of the town," adds the historian, " is what is called
" Daniel's Well, because Daniel, who was afterwards made bishop when
" Adhelm was, used to keep these heavenly watches in it by night f."
The severity of discipline in these was greater than in Neot; he sitting,
in the -well by day with the water up to his knees, only, but they stand-
ing in it up to their shoulders by night. Either way, however, such a
situation in the act of prayer seems amazing to the mind and astonishing
to the spirit of an age like our own, peculiarly distinguished by its
attention to bodily ease, and its repugnance to bodily rigours. But the
high tone of devoutness in these hermitical or monastic men, considered
severity to the body as a stimulus to the soul, as, therefore, an accom-
paniment serviceable to prayer, and as presenting the body with the
soul, an agreeable oblation to God. Equally at Litchfield, as Lcland
informs us, " is St. Chadde's well, a springe of pure water, wheere is
" scene a stone in the bottome of it, on the whiche some save St. Chadde
" was wont naleed to stand in the tvafer and pi^aye. At this stone Chad
" had his oratory, in the tyme of Wulpher kinge of the Merches," or
Mercia;};. So plainly were the baths in monasteries, calculated merely
for a monastic exercise of discipline! Kor let us smile at tlie supposed

• An"lia Sacra, 11. 13: " Ut vim rcbdli corpori conscinderet, font!, <[ui proximus mo-
" nasteiio, sc himicro leuus inimtrijebat ; ibi nee glaclalum in hyceiie ligorcm, nee estate
" nebulas ex locls palustribus halanies, curans, iioctes durabat inufllnjus j linis duntaxat
" percantati I'saltcrii tcnniniini imponebat labor!."

t Ibid. Ibid. " In alia pane urbis, Ions Dauielis dicitur; quia in eo Daniel ccelcstes noc-
" libus dueibat cxcubias, (pii cum Aldelmo pontilkalts accepit infidas." Daniel's and
Adhelm's wells remained witb' ibeir names respectively annexed, to the days of Iceland ^De
Script. Brit. 92).

J Itin. iv. 117.

VOL. II. ?= s folly

314 THE CATllKnn.Vl. OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VIL

folly of this practice, either iVom such indulgence to our bodily feelings,
as shrinks before all austerities however requisite; or from such an igno-
rance of the views of religion, as knows not it is calculated for the
recovery of a fallen being; or from such a poor, creeping philosopliy
as is too ignorant and too indulgent to wish for any recoveiy at all,
hating, therefore, the very sun of Christianity over its head, and earth-
ing from it in the very darkness of deism*. Such strong self-denials as
these, indeed, could never be j)ractised by the generality even of real
Christians. They have been alv\-ays rescn-cd for the tew wlio wished
to work up their souls into a religious abbtraction from the body, in
order to mix more freely in an union of fraternal devoutness w ith the
angels, and to enjoy more fully an union of fihal aficctionatcaess with
God himself.

But, above all, a literary mind is strongly impelled to inquire, tvhere
was the librarv of this incorporated society of scholai-s. Yet, on such an
inquiry, perhaps, the credulity of protestantism will stare with an air of
foolish wonder at the simplicity prompting it. Monks, indeed, had
their ignorance and their illiterateness as well as our own clergy, and
even as much as our most protestant ministers of the dissension havef.

Yet

* I here allude to a speech, which Deism may well make to Chriitianity :

To thee I call,

But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,

sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state

1 fell,

+ Leland's Coll, iv. 60 : " Apud Franciscanos," at Oxford, " sunt tela araneanim in
" bibliotheca; prasterea, tinea et hlattce : ampliiis, quicqitid aliijactent, nihil, si spectes
" erudites libros. Nam ego, invllis Jratribus omnibus, curirise bibliothccce forulos omnes
" excussi." This passage is as curious as it is unknown : but the pointedness of it is in-
creased in his wofk De Script. Brit. 286: " Id temporis fui Oxonii," he there says, " ut
" copiam petereni videndi bibliothccam Franciscanorum ; ad quod obstupuerunt asini aliquot,
" rudentes ^lulli prorms morlalium Ucere tarn sanctos aditui et recessjis adire, et mysteria
" videre, nisi gardiano, sic enim pr.T^idtm suum vncant, et sacris sui coilegii baccalaureis.
*' Scd ego urgebam, et principis diplomate nninitus, tantiim 71011 coegi ut sacraria ilia aperirent.
** Turn unus ex majoribus asiais, niulta subrudens, taiidein fores cegre reseravit. Summe

" Jupiter 1

SF.CT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 315

Yet we find them, not perhaps as generally learned as our own clergy
arc at present, and not oven as the ministers of the dissension arc; but
still exhibiting some individuals as learned as any of either; as much
practised too in the arts of composition, and as ready to inform their
cotemporaries by their pul)lications, a Bede, a JNIalmesbury, and a
Paris. When such men could be formed in the bosom of a monastery,
the monastic libraries must have been furnished with books, in quan-
tity and in quality almost equal to our own. Tlie late historian of
St. Alban's abbey, therefore, argues in the very face of fact, when he
savs, a " desire to excel" in studiousness and in learning, " could not
" be cultivated with effect in the monasteries, because the continual
" duly of the choir occupied their trhole tune, and allowed no vacant
" hours for private study^.'' The existence of his own historian, Paris,
decisively proves tlie cuntiary. The great length, or the frequent re-
currence of the church-ser\ices, indeed, hardly occupied more of their
hours in a day than our morning walks, our morning rides, or our morning
calls, our dinner-visits in the afternoon, our tea-drinkings in the evening,
our clubs or our plays at night, occupy with ourselves at present. Yet my
late unhappy friend INIr. Gibbon, who first solicited my acquaintance from
my publication in I7;i,by a letter amicably controA'crting some posi-
tions it; with whom I al'terwards spent many an hour, and exchanged
many a letter of literary friendliness, during an intercourse of four or
five years; by whom (let me assume the honour due to myself) the
poor scepticism of his spirit was caretully kept a secret to me all the
time, though I began to suspect it at last; from whom I even received
the favour of perusing, at my own leisure, his History in manuscript,
then prosecuted into a part of the second volume, but industriously
gutted of every thing very oficnsive; and to whom I remonstrated upon
his sending me the lirst vuluinc printed in 1776, so boldly and so keenly

" Jupiter ! quid Cfo illic invcni ? P«Zi'ercm autcm iincni, tdu.t uravcmum, tineas, llutta^,
" ■iilum dcniqiie et s<iualorem. laveni ct'iani ct libros, setl qiios trilui obolis lileiiter rion
»' emerem, — Robcrli cpiscupi voluminacl cxeinplaria omnia, ingeiitiolim preiio comparata,"
by bishop Grostest himself, and left in his will to this library, '' fuilo ab iptis Frantiscanis,
'< hue illiic ex prcescrij-'to conimisiranlibus, — suiliila siait." Yd this very society, let us
remember, had previously produced Koger Bacon.
§ Ncwcome, 231.

s s 2 in

3lO THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciTAP. VII.

in a couple of letters, on his impious effrontery against Christianity, as
broke off our friendly intercourse for ever ; he M'ho laid out his splen-
dour of talents peculiarly in the self-deceptive glitter of eloquence, thus
overpowered the solar light of his own judgment, and caught himself
as larks are caught in France and in England at times, hy the dazzling
reflection of a mirror*; who therefore, from principle, wandered away
into popery at first, then from sensuality turned off into jNIahometanism
(I believe) afterwards, but at last retired into a Roman kind of frigidly
philosophical heathenism, and settled finally (I fear) in the central dark-
ness of atheism itself; who, in this fluctuation of intellect and conduct,
began to write his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em-
pire, so burst out like a comet upon the world of religion,

And from his horrid hair

Shook pestilence and war,

that w^orst of pestilences, infidelity, with that worst of wars, one
against God himself; under all this wildly devious eccentricity of his
spirit, and amid all the common or the parliamentary avocations of his
mind, did he compose no less than six volumes, or nearly four thousand
pages in quarto. And with the monastic avocations did a Paris, moving
like the sun in a regular orbit, never glaring, always shining, with an
attachment to truth, to principle, to utility, infinitely greater than Mr.
Gibbon's, draw up his Latin histories of the kingdom and the abbey,
in nearly twelve hundred pages folio. " Quantum ceteris ad suas res
*' obeundas, quantum ad festos ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias
" voluptates et ad ipsam requiem animi ct corporis, conceditur tem-
" porum; quantum alii tribuunt tempestivis conviviis, quantum denique

* '< We travelled part of the way," says Mr. Swinburne, on his return from Spain, ii.
415, and in an excursion from Nismes to Aries, " in a rich plain, where a great number of
" fowlers were stationed, turning small mirrors in older to dazzle the larks, and draw them
" down within reach of their guns." Nor is the practice confined to France; Spenser
alludes to it as English, in his Fairy Queen, vii. 6, 47 :

Like darred larke, not daring up to looke
On her whose sight before so much he sought.

And a gla?"^ made use of ia catching larks is called " a daring-glass" (note to Church's
edition, in 1757).

" aleae.

«ECT, III.j HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 317

" alcce, quantum pilie ; tantum iiiihi egoinet," might such a monk, ex-
claim with Cicero, " ad hajc studia recolenda sumpsif ."

Yet " it is to be observed," cries the historian of St. Alban's again,
" that, among ail the rooms and buildings belonging to the abbey, there
" was none called the library ; the scarcity of books rendered this un-
" necessary." All, however, is inferred merely from one notice thus
taken from the original historian; that abbot Symond, in the twelfth
century, " provided a great number of very fair and reputable books,
" among others the Old and New Testament much embellished;" and
" caused a place to be made for these books, called the almonry, oppo-
" site the tomb of Roger the hermit, somewhere within the body of
** the church J." But the inference is unjust in itself, and the observa-
tion is void of truth. That the inference is unjust, a similar account of
a former abbot shews us; who " gave to this church twenty-eight
" notable volumes, and eight psalters, a collectary, an epistolary, a book
" containing the Gospel lessons for the whole year, and two texts," or
complete volumes of the Scriptures, " ornamented with gold and silver,
" and gems; besides ordinals, consuetudinaries, missals, troparics, col-
" lectaria, and other books, ivhicli arc kept in presses," within the
church, for the immediate use of it; " and besides relics, philacteries,
*' palls, copes, albs, and various other ornaments," equally kept in the

f Oratio pro Archia, 13.

J Newcome, 75. The words of the original are these, p. 1036: " non desiit libros
" optimos, et volumina authentica et glossata, tarn Novi quam Veteris Testamenti (quir
" bus noil vidimus nobiliora);" not, as Mr. Newcome has vaguely rendered the words,
" very fair and reputable books," but " the finest books ;" and not, " among others, the Old
*• and New Testanunt much embelhshcd," but, still referring books and volumes equally to
the Bible, " volumes autiientic" in ihtir readings, and " glossed" upon their margins,
<• being the Old Tcstameni" in on€ volume, and the " New" in another, " than which I
"never saw nobler" volumes; " scribere, et ad unguem irrcprehcnsibiliter proeparare;
*' quorum numcrum, longuni foret cxplicarc." That the " libri" and the " volumina" refer
to the tianie object, a plain from p. ioj8; where the expression is simply this : " lilrorum
" optimorum copiam impreliabileui ad unguem jjixparavit," But, as the author proceeds in
the first passage, *' <jui eosdem idros videre desiderat, in almario picto," or, as in p.
1038, " in special! almario — pkluralo," not, as Mr. Newcome speaks, " in a place— called
" the Almonry," a version egregiously absurd, but " in a painted press," or book-case,
** quo«i est in ecclesiu."

churcl^.

313 THE C.VTUEDIIAL OF CORNWALL [cUAr. VII.

ciiiirch for use*. The other books were reposited in another pUiee,
and this place was the hbrary of course. Thus Iceland speaks of the
canons of Barnwell, near Cambridge, and notes " the library at
" Barnwell;" then mentions " the Ubrnn/ of the Austin monks" at
Cambridge, " the librari/ of the Dominicans, and the library of the
" Franciscans," there; specifying under each some of the books.
He thus proceeds to mention a monastery at Thetford, and to specify
some books in its library, does just the same at Norwich, at U al-
singhain, at Croyland, and at Peterborough; but occasionally varies his
manner, -notices no library, but speaks under each monastery of some
of its books, " with the friers preachers" at Norwich, " w ith the Fran-
*' ciscans," and " with the Carmelites," enumerating several books, as
in tlieir respective libraries, of coursef . Thus, at " Hely" we have
*' liiber Yariarura Caj^siodori," &c. ; at " Walden" we have " Beda super
*' Cantica Canticorum," &c. and at " the abbey of St. Albans, Alex-
*'.ander Necham," &c. &c. &c. ;{;. We find even the very appellation of
library applied to a room in this abbey; and the public collection of books
for the use of the whole society, expressly mentioned upon one occasion,
even a Very early one. Paul, who was made abbot in 10/7, " when he
" had liberally bestowed upon the aforesaid warrior," says Paris, con-
cerning one who had given some tithes to the abbey, and on whom the
abbot, in return, bestowed his libhary, previously furnished; " imme-
" diately caused some peculiarly chosen books to be written §." The

* Palis, 1003 : " Dedit — huic ecclesiae viginti octo volumina notabilia, et octo psalteria,
" collccuriuni, cpistolariiini, et librum in quo contiiieiUur Evangelia legenda per annum,
•' [et] duos textus auro et argcnto et gtmniis oruatos; sine ordinalibiis, consuctudinaiiis,
" missallbus, tropariisj collectariis, et aliis libris, qui in aluiariolis habentur; et absque
^' reliquiis, phylacteriis, pallis, capis, albis, it aliis variis ornamentis."

•)■ Leland's Coll. i\'. 14: " In bibliotheca Bernwellensi," "in bibliotheca Auguslinen-
•' sium ;" " in bibliotheca Donnnicanornni ;" p- I 5, "in bibliotheca Franciscaiiorum j"
p. 25, " Teoforde — , in Libliotheca;" p. 27, " in bibliotheca Christicolarum Nordowici;"
p. 29, " Walsinghani, — in bibliotheca," '•'Croyland, — in bibliotheca ;" p. 31, " PeteF-
" burg, — in bibliotheca;" p. 28, " apiid praedicatores," " apud Francistanos," " apud
" Carmelilas."

X Coll. iv. 163. " Hely, Liber Variarum Cassiodori," and " Walden, Beda super Can-
" tica Canticorum," and " Ccenobium S. Albani, — Alexander Neeham super," &c.

§ Paris, 1003: " Postquam — ^ixxhro m\\\i\ librarium suum, prinio paratuni, libcraliter
" conlukratj continuo — librosprje-clectos scribi fecit."

5 " library

SECT. III.] IIISTOnrCALLY SURVEYED. 310

library given was equally belonging to the whole society, as the books
ordered to be written v\ere, and as the tithes for which the return was
made. All were the property of the abbey ; the abbot therefore had the
same power over them, as he had over the other property ; and (he nevr
books were to supply the place of the old. This passage however, ex-
plicit as it is for the existence of a library even so early at St. Alban's,
with an astonishing dexterity of negligence has Mr. Newcome sup-
pressed entirely in the main point ; even though he mentions all the at-
tendant circumstances -f. Nor is this tlie only mention that we find
made, of the library at St. Alban's. Mr. Newcome himself, with an
equally astonishing Ibrgctfulness of all that he has said before, in another
place says of an abbot, that he " made great addition to f/ic lihrcny, by
" the acquisition of many books |." And, what aggravates the incon-
sistency, the principal word in the original is f/ie very same, which he has
translated olmonnj before, and on the authority of which he has denied
the very existence of a lihranjhcre§. His own evidence, therefore, is
decisive against himself. .But let us turn to others.

Even in the Monasticon, even in its brief account of this very abbey,
we find an ancient manuscript of the Bodleian actually reciting the Latin
verses, that were inscribed upon the windows of the abbey " in the
" library -room*.'' So careless has Mr, Newcome been, in overlooking
<he notices given by two works, that must have been ever before his eyes,
ever in his hajids,

Noctuma versata roanu, versata diurna,

while he was writing his history ; and even speaking himself, in full
contradiction to them ! We can tlie less wonder therefore, that he has
overlooked another work, v^hich was not so immediately requisite for his
inspection, but whicli o\ight to have been particularly consulted. That
" Coryphieus" in o\u- ecclesiastical antiquities, he who seems as a giant in
our sight, while tie arc as grasshoppers before him, even Iceland, speaks of
Lliis library also, and in moments just antecedent to the desti-uctionof the

+ P. 48. t Newcome, 121. § Paris, 1058: " AJmariolo."

• Monaslicon, i. 183 : " In fcncsiris in domo libraria monastcrii praidicti."

abbey.

320 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

abbey, " About ten years ago," he tells us, " I repaired to Verulam, for
'' inspecting with a curious eye tlie ruins of the old municipiiun of the
" Romans ; which when I had done, I turned aside to St. Alban's abbey,
" near to the walls of the fallen city. Here, indeed, a monk elegantly
*• learned, whose name was Kingsbury, a man very fond of all antitjuities,
" with great attentiveness shewed me the parchment treasures of this vast
" monastery; among which appeared f," &c. Or, as the passage may
not seem sufficiently explicit to the anti-monastical reader, let me recite
what Leland says in another place concerning this visit to the abbey;
" I w as several davs at St. Alban's, a monastery situated near the walls
" of the deserted Veruktm, that I might extract some notes of the anti-
** quities of Britain, from the treasures of the celebrated library which is
" there X" So expressly is this very library mentioned ! So expressly is it
pronounced to have been very celebrated too ! And so very grossly mis-
t;dten is Mr. Newcome, in denying its existence !

This great, this mitred abbey, was sure to have one, when its very cell
of Tinmouth had §. There was, we may be sure from such a cell pos-
sessing one, scarce any monasteiy so insignificant in itself, as not to con-
tain a library within its walls. Malmesbury expressly informs us of con-
ventual " churches, in which were contained ^'/om ancient days libraries,
" stocked with a number of books, but burnt with their books by the

+ Leland De Script. Brit. 317 : " Annis abhinc plus minus decern, Verolamium me ron-
" tuli, municipii veleris Romani ruinas curio?e inspecturus ; quod cum fecissem, diveiii ad
•' Fanum Albani, muris collapsae urbis vicinum. Hic me [superfluous !] quidcm mon;<chus
" eleganter eruditus, cui a regia. curia nomen, vir antiquitatis omnis studiosis.simus, thesau-
'♦ ros pergamenicos monasterii ingentis officiosissimus mihi ostendit. Inter quos et," &c.

I Leland De Script. Brit. 166 : " Agebam dies aliquot apud Fanum Albani, monasteriuni
•' propter mures dcserti Verolamii situm, ut aliquid antiquitatis Britannicae e thesauris bibli-
*' othecae quae ibidem Celebris est, eruerem."

§ Leland'sColl. iii. 403: " In bibliothec^ Tinemutensi." That this was a cell to St.
Alban's, even Mr. Newcome informs us ; as " at this time also," he says, p. 47,
«' Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, caused certain monks of this church" of St.
Alban, " to dwell in the church of St. Mary at Tinmouth, — and there constitute a cell siib-
•« ordinate to this church."

" Danes."

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY, SURVEYED. 321

" Danes \\." We even observe books bro/ighi into England for sale, so
early as the year 705 ^. So early as that very century too, the eighth,
we see learning to have been prosecuted more successfully in England
than in France, at York than at Tours *. Then did the archbishop's
library at York accordingly contain within it, the Fathers Greek and
Latin, the Latin and Greek Classics, the Commentators, the Gram-
marians, and moderns ; all collected in journies upon the continent.
And as far as we can judge from a poetical catalogue of it, the oldest
catalogue perhaps existing in all the regions of literature, certainly the
oldest existing in England, yet drawn up at the very time by a first-rate
scholar, of a name still retained in the north, Alcuin or Alkin ; Trogus
PoMPEius, that Augustan writer of an Universal History \n Jive-and-forty
volumes -f, who is ranked by such as had read him with Sallust, Livy, or
Tacitus, who is cited frequently by so late a writer as Orosius, but is sup-
posed to have been lost soon afterwards, and has actually disappeared
with all his volumes to these later ages, was plainly preserved in this
library, as he is expressly specified in this catalogue ; being specified
equally with Livy himself, equally without any reference to their respec-
tive epitomizers .Justin or Florus, and equally without any dismember-
ments in themselves. It is mournfidly pleasing under the loss of such
- historians in part or in whole, to point at a period in which they were
not lost, to continue it as long as we possibly can, and to shew how

y Malmesbury, f. 24: " Ecclesiae, in qiilbus numerosae a prisco bibliolhecas contineban-
** tur, cum libris a Dauiii incensac."

fl Gale, i. 355.

• Alcuimis alias Albiims, a native and scholar of York, but invited over to Tours in France
by Charlemagne, in a letter to this monarch, desires, " ut aliquos ex pueris nostris rcniittam,
" qui cxcipiant nobis inde necessaria qua3quc, et reveliant in Franciam flores Britannia: ; ut
*• non sit tantuminodo in Euborica civiiate ortus concKisuc, sed in Turonica emisscincs Fara-
" disi cum pomoruiii frucllbuSj ut venicns Austcr perflare [possit] hortos Ligeri fluminis."
Lclaiid's Coll. ii. 399.

t Praefatio Justini : " Vir prisca; eloqiientir, Trogus Pompcius, Graecus et totius orbij
" historias Latino sermone composuit. — Ilorum igilur quatuor et quadraginta voluniinuni
« (nam totidcm cdidit), — cognitione qiixfjiic dignissima excerpsi."

VOL. II. T T near

322 THE CATHEDRAL OF COKNWALL [CHAP. VII.

near they were transmitted to our own times by the libraries of the
clergy I . We

J Gale, !. 730. This catalogue Alcuin himself calls in a letter (Coll, il. 399), " exqui-
** sitiorcs scholasticos emditionis llbcllos, quos habui iu patria per bonam cl (.Icvotissimam
" niagistri niei industriam, vel eliam mel ipsiiis qualcnicunque sudorcni;" Ethclbort, master
of the school at York, afterwards archbishop of the see, having formed the library, and leav-
ing it at his death to Alcuin. (Gale, i. 730.)

ll!ic invenies veternm vestigia Patrum,
Qiiidqiiid habet pro se Latio Romanus in orbe,
Graccia vel quidqiiid traiiiiiiisit clara Latiiiis ;
Hebraiciis vel quod populus bibit imbre supenio,
Africa lucifluo vel quidquid liimine sparsit ;
Quod pater Hieronymus, quod sensit Hiiarius, atque
Ambrosius prsesul, simul Augustiuus, et ipse
Sanctus Atbanasius, quod Orosius edit avitus,
Quidquid Gregorius summus docet, et Leo papa,
Basilius quidquid, Fulgentius atque, coruscant,
Cassiodorus item, Chrysostomus atque Johannes ;
Quidquid et Athelmus docuit, quid Beda Magister,
Quae Victorinus scrips^re, Boetius atque;
Historic! veteres, Pompeius, Piinius * ipse;
Acer Aristoteles, rhetor quoque TuUius ingens ;
Quid quoque Sedulius, vel quid canit ipse Juvencus,
Alcuimis, et Clemens, Prosper, Pauhnus, Arator,
Quid Fortunatus, vel quid Lactantius, redunt;
Quae Maro Virgilius, Statius, Lucanus, et auctor
Artis Grammaticae, vel quid scripseje Magistri,
Quid Probus, atque Fotas, Donatus, Priscianusve,
Servius, Euticius, Pompeius, Comminianus,
Invenies alios perplures, lector, ibidem,
Egregios studiis, arte, et sermone magistros,
Plurima qui claro scripsere volumina sensu ;
Nomina sed quorum praesenti in carmine scribi,
Longius est visum quam plectri postulet usus.

These books were what he had purchased abroad (p. 729) :

Non semel externas peregrino tramite terras
Jam peragravit ovans, sophixdeductus amorej
Siquid forte novi librorum seu studiorum,
Quod secum ferret, terris reperiret in illis.

» Livius.

Sr.CT. in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 32 S

We find also other libraries in otht;r ages of our monasteries,
dispensing, like so many moons, their collected illuminatiou through
that (as vulgarly reported) polar night of darkness. Thus we find the
library of the Carmelite or AVhite Friars to have had, besides divinity,
besides Giraldus's Topography of Wales, and besides Higden's History,
" a very ancient copy of Soliiuis," Frontinus's Book of Stratagems, and
Macrobius*; that of Ely, besides divinity, besides history, to have had
Yitruviiis's Architecture and Antoninus's Itineraryf ; that at Colchester,
to have had "almost all the Latin poets:}:;" that at FMmundsbury, " a very
"ancient manuscript ofSallust," the Architecture of Vitruvius, and the
Laws of the Lombards §. ^Ve lind also the Categories of Aristotle, and
the Umanis of Plato, at Glastonbury || ; "a very fair manuscript of
" Terence," at Wells % ; some of Galen's writings, and a treatise trans-
lated out of Arabic into Latin, at J^ath ** ; and " an ancient manuscript
"of Terence," at Lanthony f f ; with a variety of others, specified by
Leland himself, as rare even in his age, and singular even in his eyes. But
to raise our view above that minuteness of vision, wliich diminishes the
size of the object even in shewing it more clearly, and to present it in its
full volume of magnitude to the eye ; let me produce some general ac-
counts of the frequency or the largeness of these clerical libraries. Even
common churches, such as St. Peter's on Cornhill in London, St. Mary's
in Warwick, and Ponicfract in Yorkshire; Sherborne in Dorsetsliire,
Cirencester in Gloucestershire, Abuigdon in Beikshire, and Coggcshall in

In Coll. iv. 36, we find this account of the library, as it was in the days of Leland : "In
" bibliotheci S. Petri, quam Flaccus Albiniis, alias Alcuinus, subinde miris laudibus cxtollit
" propter insigncm copiani libroruni, tuni Latinoruni, turn Graeconini ; jam foi lonorum
*' librorum niliil est : cxhaiisit cnini hos thcsauros (ut pkraqiie alia) ct Danica inunariitas ct
" Gulit'lmi Nolhi violevtia."

* Lcland's Coll. Iv. 53, 54 : " Solini vctnst'isimuin exemplar." '

+ Ibid. 163.

J Ibid. 162 : " Omiits fere Lalini poetre."

§ Ibid. 162, 163: " N'etustiss. codicc Salluslii."

« Ibid .55.

% Ibid. ibid. : " Tercntius piilchcrrinius."

** Ibid. 157.

tt Ibid. 159: "Tcrentiiis, vctiis codex."

T T a Essex •

324 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VII.

Essex ; AVoburn and Warden in Bedfordshire, Windham near Norwich,
Bridlington in Yorkshire, with Stratford-Bow ; had all their respective
libraries ."|:+. Nor let all for the sake of these be thought, in thc.violence
of prejudice struggling against conviction, to be mean and petty libra-
ries, the mere stuciin of our schools at present. Some of them were so in
their origin, as the seven-mouthed Nile issues from a small spring, and
flows in a little rill, at first. Thus, at the Franciscan friery of London,
more than a century before the erection of its libi'arij, " Bogo Bond,
" herald, king at arms, builded the mtisamin,'" or in Stowe's language,
more humbly as it sounds to our ears at present, yet very apposite as it
is in itself, " the studies,'' for what is denominated still the study in the
language of the judicious, but arrogates the title of library from the silly
and the vain, even for a room full of books among the middle ranks of
life *. Some also of those libraries which have been mentioned last, we
actually know to have been well furnished with books ||, and others we
find to have been still better furnished. Tlie abbey at Leicester, and the
priory at Dover, had each a library of no mean or petty size; we can ap-
peal in proof to the best of all testimonies, the very catalogues of their
books yet remaining in the Bodleian f. The library of the Augustine
monks at Canterbury, as Leland expressly informs us, was " a rich ma-
" gazine of ancient volumes;" because, as he adds, " Augustine collected
" by his friends in Italy many volumes both Latin and Greek, and took
" care to have them sent him, all of which he left at death to his monks,
" as pledges of his kindness towards them ; the Greek are lost partly by
" violence of times, partly ,by fire, partly too by theft ; but as to the
" Latin, turitten after the manner of the ancients iri the large kind of Ko'

XX Itin. vii. 131 ; viii. 28 ; and De Script. Crit. 400, 165, 213, 238, 212, 405, 343, 334,
202, 249.

* Leland's Coll. i. 108 : " Bogo Bond, heraldus, rex armoriim, coiididit muiseum."
Stowe's London, 341 : " Mr. Bevis Bond, herald, and king at amies, builded the studic,."

II De Script. Brit. 343: " Ad Trlburnani coenobiuni Bcrnardinorum, — t/iesauros perga-
" wdnitoi paulo ante igne consnmptos;" ibid. " V eiodunum, ubi ct monasterium (juoqiie
" Bernardinorum, ac bibliothcca antiquis refertissima exemplaribuS)" 334, " Bibliotheca
" Viroduncnsi, o/ilimis refertissima exemplar iiiiS."

t Tanner, preface, p, xxv. xxvi.

" man

SECT. III.] HISTOniCALLY SURVEYED. 32.5

" 7nnn' characters, these even now remain, presenting an incredihhj ma-
*' jestic air of antiquity in their aspect, namely, two vohimes containing
" the four Gospels-, but in a version different from that of the Fidgate, a
*' Psalter dedicated even by Jerome himself to Damasus the Roman
" pontitF, which I would willingly believe to be indeed the very oi^iginal,
" besides two most elegant commentaries on the Psalms, which from
" their too great age admit no reader, except one that is very keen-eyed ;J;."
So careful were the monks in general, of preserving their literary trea-
sures, concealing them from enemies, rescuing them from fires, and vin-
dicating them from moths or worms § ! \¥e have even another in-
stance of their care, and I note it to carry on the chain of intelligence
down into later ages. " A few years ago," as Leland tells us, *■' I was
" in the library at Bath ; where I found some books not void of learning,
" the treasures of venerah/e antiquity, given (as appeared from the in-
" scriptions) in presents from king Aihelstan himself to the monks ; o^e
" of them, because it was upon papal synods, and I was struck with the
" antiquity and majesty of the work, I transferred to tlie royal hbrary of

" the most illustrious king Henry Yill. H."

But

I De Script. Brit. 299, 300 : " Augustinianam bibliothecam, id est, dlvitem veterum ex-
" cmpliirioruni oiHcinam — : Augusliiius — niulta cum Latina turn Graeca excmplaria per
" aniicos in Italia coniparavit, ct ad sc dcferenda curavit, qiuc omnia nioricnsj tanquain vir-
" tiitis pignora, monachis suis reliqiiit ; Grseca paniin violentia teniporis, partim igne, par-
" tim eliam furto siiblata sunt; ex Laiinis autem codicibiis, majiiscuiis literis Romanis more
" vctcriini scriptis, hi etiani nunc extant, incrcdibilem prap, sc fcrentes antiquitjtis niajcsta-
" icm, vicidicit, duo vr)lnmina qnaUior ENangclia coniplcctentia, sed alius quam vulgaris in-
" tcrpretationis, I'saltcriuni etiani abipso Hicroin uio, Damaso pontifici Romano dcdicjium,
" quod quidcm vel arclielypum e?sc iibenter credidcrim, insuperduo elegantissimi in Psalmos
" conimenlarii, qui prx nimi;1 vetuilatc lectorcm non udmittiuit nisi oculatis^iu urn."

§ Leland, in p. 300, blames the very monks of Canteriniry for parl'cuhir wasiefuloess,
concerning the books not pre.-ii.rvcd ; when surely ilie ]ireservation of these amidst those
ravages of war, bv whicii the monastery was burnt in 1 168, " qu.-e calamitas," says Ltlnnd
himself, *' ma<Tnam vim honorum autonim, ut idem [rtiornus] est testis, abstulii," is a
sufficient justification of ihem.

II Leland, 160: " I'aucis abhinc annis fui in Baduncnsi bibllotbce/l, ubi rcptri aliipK t
*' non indocto^ libros, voiierandr \etu3tatis tliesauros, ab ipsi Kthelslano, ut ex insrrij>uo-
" nilms appiruit, mon-ichis dono datos ; ex illis ununi, captus cum antiquitate Jium majestale
•' operis, crat cnim de syuodis ponliticiis, in p;Uaiinam biblioiliecum illustrissimi regis Hen-

" r.ii

i^C) THE CATIIKDHAL OF CORNWAIX [CHAP. VIl.

But (lie monks were not only careful of what thoy had got, they actu-
ally travelled abroad to procure more, lluis Thomas Walden, a Car-
melite, who went by the order of Henry V. to the council of Constance,
who was equally present at the council of Pisa, and died in M3o: had
collected such a number of books in his travels, that " he bequeathed to
" the Carmelites of London as many volumes of excellent authors,
" iirittciiinthc larger ki ad of Romun characlen, as f/iat «^<? estimated at
" two tlwusavd poutnh in the least : whence it comes, however the num-
" ber of books be remarkably diminished at present, that there is yet no
"■ I'lhra)'!) in fjondon ^^ hich can vie with the CfiDnc/ife, citlicr in the niid-
*' tifude or in the antiquily of its volumes *|[." But let me recite another
fact of the same nature, as (hey serve to open a new world of notices upon
our Protestant eyes. AN'illiam Tilly a monk of Canterbury obtained
leave frotn his abbot to travel into Italy ; set out, studied the civil and
canon law at Bologna, formed a friendship with Politian there, and
" never remitting for a moment his efforts of industry or his measures of
" expense, collected many volumes of Greek ; nor was he less vigorous in
" purchasing Latin manuscripts, yet on\y those of ancient dale ; which
" he brought %\ irh him to Canterbury not long afterwards, as treasiires
" phiinh/ unparalleled. — Kfew years ago one Leighton a pettifogger, ac-
" companied with a lewd and rash rahble, came to quarter at Canter-
" bury, and \\ as received hospitably by the abbot. But at midnight,
" from the negligence and drunkenness of Leighton's servants, the abbey

" rici Octavi transtuli." So in Coll. iv. 154, we have at Glastonbury, " Gramniatica Eu-
" ticis, Uier oUm S, Diinslam." Tluis were kept to the Reformation in several libraries,
translations from Latin into English made under the countenance of king ^//rt J; " vel
" hodie hujusmodi translationes in non paucis bibliothecis extent, veneraiidam prcc seferen-
'' tes antiquitatem." (De Script. Brit. 100.) And at Malniesbury was kept equally to the
same period, " Davidis Psalterium, Uteris Saxonicis," that is, the Roman letters disfigured
into Saxon (Hist, of Manchester, ii. quarto, 331, 332), '* longiusculis scriptum;" which
had belonged to Jdhdm, a scholar much earlier than either Dunstan or Alfred.

fl De Script. Brit. 441; "Tot nobiiium autorum volmnina, majusculis Uteris Romanis
" scripta, Carmelitis nostrse urbis ex testamento rcliquit, quot ilia astas duobus ad niininiUMi
«< aureorum niillibus cestimavit ; unde, quamvis jam insigniterdiminutus sit hbrorum nume-
" rus, nulla tamen est Londini bibliothcca, quae, vtl multitudine vel antiquilate excn)plario-
** rum, cum Carmelitanii confcrri possit."

tr.CT. ni.] HISTORICALLV SURVEYED. 327

" was siuUlenly set on fire and burned ; in the highest story of the house
*' was Tilly's treasure ofboohs reposited, and now% to the very great in-
" jury of the studious, destroyed. In this destruction, they say the

" LOXG-LOST TliEATISE OF TuLLY De RePUBLICA WAS KEDUCED TO

" ASHES *.

Thus ranging actively abroad in quest of books, the spirit of the
monks (we may be sure) was doubly active at home. AS"c accordmo-ly
iind a remarka})lc instance of this. The library at Ramsey, a place nov\'
almost unknown to the topographer of England, was celebrated for what
we arc amazed to hear of either there or then, its stock of Hebrew books,
and merely from an attention of this nature. The Jews, being for the
first time permitted to pass over from Normandy into England by the
Conqueror, spread in a short time over the kingdom, just as they are now
spread, and had, as they now have, a synagogue in almost every great
town of it; but, in the reign of Edward I. idl their property A\as tyran-
nically contiscated, and they themselves were barlxirouslv banished.
" Then, the synagogues at Huntingdon and Stamford being profaned, all
" their furniture came under the hammer for sale, together with their
" treasures of boohs -f. But when Gregory" Huntingdon, a monk of
Ramsey, who had been studying the Hebrew language for some time
before, and been checked in his studies by^ the want of Hebrew books,

* De Script. Brit. 482 : " Et industrire et inipensis nullum ccrte locum rcliuquens, Grseca
** c.xcmplaria mulla conquisivit ; ik-c minori ullii ciiru in conradeiulis Lr.tinis, stJ aiUiiiuK
" notac, codicibiis usus est ; qiios iicc loiigo post ttniporc, tanqiiani tlicsaurus plane iiicom-
" parabilcs, secum deduxit, Durovernum repetcns. — Anais abhinc paucis Legidimus le^u-
" Iciiis, iniqu& ct temerariii coniitatus turbii, Durovernum hospps venil; iiuniaiiissinic a
** prresidc fani scrvatoris acceptus est. Sed node irtempesta, negligentia et tenndc:uia ejus
" scrvorum, aides snbito igne correptx conllagraverunt. In qiiaruni supremo tabiiiatii the-
" saiirus librorum Tillsei reconditus unaque cxhaustus, maxinio sludiosonim incommodo.
" Ftriint hAc clade Ciceronis desideratissimum De Rt-pulTica volnnicn in eiucres rcdactum
" fiiisse." For the last incident we liave another evlilence : " In those da\es — did utterly
" perish — at Canltriury — that wonderful work of the sage and eloquent Cicero De Btptib-
" /icfl." (Dr. Dee to Q. Elizabeth, 1556, in Joannes Glastoniensis, ii. 490.)

t De Script. Brit. 321, 322 : "Turn, synagogis prc<fanatis Venanioduni ct Sicnofordai,
•' fupcllcx onmis iub liastd vcnum cxpositaj un.\ cum librorum ihesauris."

5 " understood

328 TITR CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VII.

'* understood of this auction, he hastily repaired to it from his adjoining
"' monastery with a good sum of money, and readily at the fixed price
" purchased their gold for his brass, and returned home in high spirits.
" What did he do then ? Night and day he turned over his Hebrew
" vohinies, till he had drawn from the very fountain-head a more inti-
" mate knowledge of the language. He left also to his colleagues many
" excellent annotations from his own pen, which a learned posterity
" might read with pleasure. The catalogue of Ramscif library makes a
*' specific and an honourable mention, oithc Ilehrew books most diUgentiy
" collected by him J." He thus begun that cpllection, which afterwards
received considerable additions from Robert Dodford, another monk of
the abbey §; and had even vl Hebrew Lexicon compiled from both, Ly
a third. Laurence Holbcch, in the reign of Henry IV. " lighting upon
" the Hebrew volumes, vihich had been rescued from destruction as
*• purchased with money formerly by the remarkable care of Gregory — ,
" and which exhibited all the glorious majesty of the ancient synagogue ;"
he resolved, that " what Gregory had happily licgun in the Hebrew
" language, he would more happily complete," and therefore " formed
" in an elegant manner a Hebrew Dictionary, a work at once refined and
" learned ; which was carried away a few years ago, by the wicked in-
*' dustry of a purloiner, Robert Wachefeld. John Child, lately a monk
*' of Ramsey, when the abbey and its jwble library were sinking in one
*' common vmn, preserved the Hebrew boohs jrom destruction*.'' Such

t Dt Script. Brit. 322 : ** Ubi autem Grcgorius banc auctionem faclatn esse intellexerat,
" vicjmis atque idem nunimatus festinanter accurrit, ac, dato pretio, aurea pro sercis facile
" comparavit, et laetissimus domum rediit. Quid turn illc ? Nocturn^ versabat manu,
*■■ versabat diurna, Hebrjea exeniplaria; donee peniliorcni linguae cognitioncm ex ipsis
" exhaiisisset fontibiis. Reliquit aiiteni siiis symnilstis niuita egrcgi^ calatno annotata,
" quiB docta cum voluptaie Icgeret postcritas. Librorum Hebraicorum ab eo diligen-
*' tissinie coliectoruni, catalogus bibliothccae Ramesegana: luculentam juxtaac honorificam
" mentionem facit."

§ Ibid, 322 : " Sed ct idem catalogus accurate rccenset Hebraicos thesauros, divina
" volumina, a Roberto Dodefordo, monacho Ramesegano, religiose comparatoa."

• Ibid. 452 : " Incidcrat m exeniplaria qiiajdani Hebiaica, synagogas vctcris majcsta-
*' tern eximiam illa:n rcfereiuia, eomparata quidem et ab interitu olim conservata insigni
•' iiidustria Gregorii.— .Cum hoc seriptore fuit pia quffidam Laurenlio invidia, ut quod

«' illc

SECT. Iir.] HISTOniCALLV SURVEYED, 320

an illustrious society of Hebrew scholars, was this sequestered ahbey^of
Ramsey; and such a Christian Sion was raised, amidst the eastern lakes
of our island ; till the Reformation swept away this Sion, and made that
study of the Hebrew, which seems to have begun with the beginnings of
the Saxon church*, which was now culminating rapidly to its zenith,
to set in the ocean for a century and a half afterwards f.

Having thus shewn the numerousness and the valuableness of the books
reposited in our monasteries, let us throw open the doors of the rooms
in which they were lodged, dart our eyes of curiosity down the length
of them, and then estimate the consequence of books to the society from
the reception of these guests within it. " Thomas Bubwith," says
Leland in his Itineraiy, but means Nicholas Bubwith, who became
bishop of Wells in 140/, and died in 1-42J, " made the est part of the
" cloyster, -with the litle chapel bcncth, and the great librarie over it,
" fiavi/ig tu'e?ifij-fiiie whiduivcs on ech side of it §." Such a magnificent
room was this for books ! nor was it, we mav be sure, a bodv without
a soul. We even know it was not. " When some years ago I was at
" Glastonbur}', in Somersetshire," cries Leland in his other work, so
often quoted here, so little kno\vn in general, yet so replete with intel-
ligence of men and things that have been long forgotten, " 1 turned to
" Wells, in order to clear up a point of deep antiquity; I therefore
" entered the Ubrarij, which had been formerly furnished icith no small

" illc videlicet in Hebrsea lingua felicitcr inchoassct, hie fdicius absolvcrct, — elcganter coii-

" cinnato Dictionario Hcbraico, opere tuni eliniato tmn docio, quod aiinis abhinc paucis

" Robcrti Waclicfeldi polypi niniia diligcntia siiblatuni est." There were literary thieves

then as there are now. " Joannes Infantilis niiper nionachiis Ramesegaiius, qui et libros

" Hebraicos, corruente una cum nobili bibliotlicca cccnobio, ab inlcritu coiiscrravit, ca

" mihi — rclulii." ,

• Alcuin, ill Gale, i. 730, informs lis, flial there were the Hebrew Scriptures in the

library at Yock:

•' Ili'hraicus vcl qiKiJ popnlu'? bibit imbre siipmio.

t We even find translations out of Arabic, made by monks. " Vidi etiain opus, cui
" titulus Erilh Alcherelm'i, c>; Arabico m Lalinuui al en [Ethelard of Balh] iranslatum, ct
" Euclidis Geomctriam ex toilcm J'oiite in Lalium derivalani." (Dc Script. Biit. 201.)

§ Itin. iii. 122; see also I2ij 122, 123; and Godwin.

VOL. ij. u u " numher

330 •rnZ CATHEDRAL or CORNWALL [CHAP. VH.

" numher of booh, in a vcn/ viagmficcnt numncr, by the bishops and
•' canons of that city ; M-here I found imiricnse treasures of venerah/c
*' antiqiiUy^y In the fire at Croyland abbey, so early as the year
10()l, " our whole library perished," says Ingulphus, then abbot,
*' which contained more than three hundred o/igiria/ volumes," manu-
scripts of high antiquity, I suppose, from the appellation of origi?icd,
" besides lesser," and more modern " volumes, which were more than
"four hundred'^.'' There were even no fewer than seventeen hundred
manuscripts in the hbrary at Peterljorough f . But, to keep closer to
the room itself, " Richard Whitington in the yere 1429," Stowe tells
us, concerning the Franciscan or grey friers, near Newgate in London,
*' founded the lihrari/, ^^ hith was in length one hundred iirenty and nine
"foot, ajid in breadth thirty-one, all seeled [ceiled] with wainscot;
" having twenty-eight desks and eight double settles o{ wainscot ; which,
" in the next yeere following, was altogether finished in building, and
" within three yeeres after furnished with bookes to the charges of Jive
" hundred ffty- six pounds, tenne shillings |." This is a pleasing view of
the manner and form in which the interior of a monastic library was
laid out. And, at the close, let me repeat what Leland speaks concerning
one library more. " Some years ago I was at Glastonbury," he notes,
" — where is an abbey at once the most ancient and the most famous in
" all our island, and by the favour of Richard Whiting, abbot of the

H De Script. Brit. 387: " Cum aliquot abliinc annis essem Glessoburgi Somurotrigum,
" Fontanctum divortebam, ut aliquid peiiitioris antiquitatis eruereni. Intravi igitur biblio-
" tbecam, quae ab episcopis et canonicis ejusdcin urbis non parvo librorum numero
** olim magnificcntissime perornata fuit, ubi imnicnsos venerandae antiquitatis ihesauros
" inveni."

* Ingulphus, p. 98, Oxon : " Tola quoquc bibliotheca nostra periit, qujc amplius quani
«' ccc voiuuiina originalia contini-bat, pra£ter minora voiumina, quas aniplius erant quani
" cccc."

t Tanner, preface, xxv. from Gunton, 173.

X Stowc, 341 : " From an ancient manuscript delivered to me by a friend," but previously
seen by Leland, who makes large extracts from it in Coll. i. 108, 109. Leland uses the
words " ligno iiites/ini operis," which \vc should not have known how to translate with
certainty, if Stowe had not explained them to mean uai/iscol. The very (eiling was of
wainscQlj with the deska and seats.

" place,"

*ECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED, 331

" place," who was judicially niiinlercd afterwards by that saiigiiinaiy
tyrant Henry, " refreshed my mind after its hitigue from long and
" laborious studies, till some new ardour for reading and learning shoidd
" inflame me. This ardour came sooner than I expected. I therefore went
" immediately to t/w library, which was not accessible to every body ;
" that there J might very carefully turn over those rcma'ms of very sacmt
" aniiqiilti) which are there in stick niiDthers as arc hardlij to he jmmd
" any ivhcrc else i/i Britain ^ [Or, as Leland speaks of them in another
place, *' tJiose vast treasures ofboohs, the truly venerable monuntcnts ofan-
" tiquity.^'] " But scarce had I fairly entered the doorway, when even the
" view alone of the very ancient books threw a religious awe over my mind,
" or rather raised up a ivild astonishment in it ; and I therefoi-e stofit short
" awhile. Then, after a salutation to the genius of the room, for some
" days I ransacked the shelves with great curiosity §." This is the finest
compliment that ever Mas paid to a library by a man of genius and learn-
ing ; nor could either the Bodleian or the Vatican ever receive a finer,
than what is thus paid to a library merely monastic.

But let us not suppose, in the readiness of prejudice to accumulate
supposition upt)n s\ipposition, and bury truth under the hills of its own
piUng ; that the monks made as little use of these libraries, as many of
our lay-gentlemen do of theirs at present; and that those, like these.

Unlearned men, of books assum'cl tlic care,
As cunuclis are the guardians of the fair.

No ! ^^'e sec the very reverse. We have indeetl an evidence just as good

§ De Script, Brit. 41 : " Erani aliquot abhinc annis Glessoburgi Somurotrigum, ubi
" antitiuissinunn siniul ct famosisslmuni est totiiis insulx nostrx coEnobium, aniniuniqiie
" longo siudioruu) labore fcssuin, favi-nte Kichardo Whitingo cjusdcni loci abbatc, recrca-
" bam, donee novus quideni cum legend! turn discendi ardor me inflammaret. Supervenit
" autem ardor ilie citius opinioue ; itaque statim me contuli ad bibliothccani non onmibus
" perviam, ut sacrosanctx vetustatis rciiquias, quariim tanlus ibi niinierui quanlns nullo
" alio facile Britannia loco, diligenlibainie evolvercm. \'ix certc limen intraverani, cvmi
" aniiquissimorum lii)r'>rum vql solus conspectus religionem, nescio an stuporem, animo
" incuterct nu'o; caqucde cau<a, pcdcm paululum sislebam. Deinde, saUitaio loci nuniinc,
" per dies aliquot omncis ferules curiosissimc excussi." Ibid. 131: <' higcnteis librorum
" thesaurus, vcneranda plane antiquilalis nionimcnta."

U V 2 foi-

332 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [ciIAP. VIT.

for their use of their libraries, as we have for our own; a number of
scholars and of publications. From the scholars let us select one or two
of the best, but all Saxon. Dunstan, says the historian Malmesbury,
" under the tuition of these," the monks Irish and English of Glaston-
bury, " took in the very marrow of Holy Scripture to an extreme
" satiety. Of secular literature he thought there was somewhat to be
*' neglected, and somewhat also to be desired. For he listened with a
" passing ear only to those writings of the poets, which dwell upon
" fables, and those of the arts, which furnish the weapons of eloquence
" without doing good to the soul. But arithmetic, with geometry,
" astronomy, and music, which have all a mutual connexion, he learned
*' with satisfaction and cuki^ ated with industry ; because in these was
" both a great exertion of science, an unviolated purity -of truth, and a
'' not unprofitable consideration of the wonderful works of God. The
" knowledge of these is held out in high promises by the Irish, v\ ho arc
" otherwise less adapted to teach the forms of the Latin language, and
" the purity of speaking in it. Wherefore, being struck with a love for
" all, but particularly for music, he delighted both to play himself upon his
" instruments, and to hear others playing. At every interval of leisure
" from his studies, he loved to take the harp, and to touch the sounding
" strings into harmony. He thus, by the grace of God, had gained a
" large stock of learning ; as he had a vivacity of genius predoniiiiating,
" to enliven an intensity of studio usn ess. And he had two endowments
"ministering to his learning; an eloquence polished but unlaboured,
" and a practice prompt but full." One of his puj)i!s was Ethelwold,
who in early life " selected Dunstan out of all mankind, for the counsel-
" lor of his life, wishing to war under his command and to lodge in his
*' tent, longing with him to live and with him to die. He therefore
" went to Glastonbury, was there taught grammar and prosodv, then
" was admitted a monk." When he became bishop of Winchester,
" he did what was greatly to his honour; a scholar himself, he prized
" scholars very highly ; among whom Alfric the grammarian, Wolstan
" the praecentor, and Ethclgar, abbot of New Minster at Winchester,
•" became celebrated. But he himself, being not slightly skilled in
" mathematics, left a work polished and perfect concerning the planets,

5 " the

SECT. HI.] HISTORICALLY sbnVEYED. 333

" the regions and the chmates of the world, as a surviving monument of
" his genius to posterity." And Ethelwold's life was v/ritten by " Wol-
" Stan, the chanter of Winchester, his pupil and scholar, in a style
" moderately good. But Wolstan wrote another, a Acry useful work
" upon the harmony of tones ; in which he appears a man of a good
" life, of a correct eloquence, and of inucli erudition*." Such a train
of stars docs Dutistan, that Hesperus, lead on to illuminate the darkness
of the Saxon hemisphere ! We particularly find the very colour of the
clerical libraries, under one department of learning, reflected in the hue
of the clerical pubUcations. Thus astronomical studies appear at once

* De Script. Brit. 162 : " ' Horiim ergo disciplinatu (Hibernos et Anglos Glcssoburguin
" frcqucntaiucs iiUclligit) Sacrani Scripturam niedullitiis ad cxtrematn satietateui exhausit.
" Saeculanuin liicrarum quldiJani neg'igenduin, noniiihil cliam appetcnduni, putavit.
" Poitariim sifjuidem scrijita duiUaxat, quae fabulas strepunt, et artcs, qua: citra utilitattm
" aninix armant eloquiuni, transeunter audivit. Arithmcticam porro cum geometriaet astro-
" nomia ac musica, quae appundent, gratantcr addidicit et diligenter excoluit; ct quippe
'' in illis, et magna cxtiiitaiio scieiitue, et vcrilalis Integra castita?, ct mlrabilium Dei non
" vana consideratio. Haruin scientiam Hdieniicnses pro magiio pollicenlur, cEcterum ad
" i'ormanda Latine verba, et ad inlegre loquendum, minus idonei. Quapropler, ciini
" cxtcranim turn maxmie mnsiecs didccdine captus, instrumcnta ejus turn ipse exercere, turn
" ab aliis cxtrceri, dulce liabere : ipse cilharam, si quando a iiicris vacaret, sumere; ipso
*' dalei strcpitu resonantia fila quatere. — Doctrinam miiltam, sicut ante dictum est, per Dei
" graiiam hauserat ; quia in ejus cum strenuilate studii praDcclIebat vivacitas ingenii. Doc-
*' lrin« horrorcs diia; admmiculibantur, eloqucntia elimata sed illaborata, dictorumque
" execulio pronipta tt Integra'. " Ibid. 163 : " ' Solum omnium mortalium Dunslanum suas
" vitae consiiiarium elegit j iilius commiblium, iiiius coiitubv.ruium desiderans, ei convivcre,
" ei commori cxaestuans. Venit igitur Gleseoniani, elibi grammaticam metricanique artcm
" cdoctus, po-itreni6 etiam monachus fiictus'." — " lUud eximias plane laudis erat, quod
•' literalos, literalus et ipse, maxinii fceerit, inter quos et Alfrlcus granimalieus, Wolstanus
" prajcentor, et Ethelgarus — Novi nionaslerii quotl Ventte Simenonim eniiuit, fundatore
" AllVcdo Miigno, abbas, clari fuerui\t. Ipse vero, in niatliesi non leviicr erudilus, opus
" elimaiLim el rotundum de planctis, r'gionibus et cliniatibus mundi, tanquam vitturuni
" ingenii monumentum, posteritati reiiquit." Ibid. 165 : " ' Hujus vitam Wolstanus quidero
" eantiir VVinloniensis, discipuius ejus scilicet et alumnus, eomposuit stylo medioeri.
" Tecit et aliud opus de tonorum harmoniA, eruditi Angli judicium, bomo vilse bonx et
" eloqiienli.x castigata;'." Malmesbury's Life oi' Dunst.in is one of ibt many pieces, bin-
graphical or historical, that still want an editor of s, iril under a patronage from the public.
The account of Wolstan is in Savilc, 31, " caldc utile, eruditi Angli indicium."

replenishing

3:n rut. cATiiEDR.vr, of Cornwall [chap. vii.

replenishing their libraries with ancient works, and generating an addi-
tion ot' modern books to them ; in the eightii and some sncceccUng een-
turies*. Eut, that we may not ditRise ourselves over too ample a
space, let us fix our eyes upon a single century of this lower period,
and (as in the higher) upon a single group of persons within it. The
famous Roger Jjacon, in a letter which he sent with some of his works

• Leland's Cy!l. ii. 400, from a letter of Alcuin's to Charlemagne : [QuoadJ "chartulas
" — .calciilalionis cursus iunaris, vel biscxtilis rationis, quas nostrsc ilcvoiioni trailidistis ex-
" plorandas ; invenimus — in eis rationcs diligenlissimc exquisitas, aeutissimc inventas,
« nobilissimc prolatas. — Direxi excellentiie vestrs stamen quarundam supputationumj dc
" solis lunsque per signiferum cursu — :

" Vivere me terris vix vix slnit improba febris,
" Descripsi paucis partes et sydera ccnli."

Gale, i. 728. Alcuin says thus concerning the archbishop of York, when he was master of

the school there :

" Ast alios fecit pracfatus nosse magister

" Harmoniam corH, solia lunseque laborea,

" Quinque poli zonas, erraiuia sidera septera, -

" Astrorum leges, ortus, siiuul ntqiie recessus,"

Leland's Coll. iv. 17 r " Tractatus Jo. Pecham de sphasra. Thcorica Lincoln, dc latitudini-
** bus planetannn. Tractatus pjusdem de sphxr^. Alfraganus de motibus ccelestiutn cor-
" porum." 19: " Alk'indius de juditiis astrorum. Tabula: magistri Simoriis Breclon de
<* rebu$ astronomicls. — Mkhidus dc radiie. — Conmientum Simonis Bredon super aliquai
<' demonstrationes Almagcsti Ftolemafi." io : " Introductorium Alcuhiiii cum commeato
" Joannis de Saxo. — Gebar in speculativa astronomia. — Tabula latitudinis quinque planeta-
" rum, autore Simone Bredon, — Theorica plan^taruni in fronte adscriptus Herfordevsj, in
•'fine Lincolnkim alias Groitesf. Sequitur ibidem ef alia Theorica; forsan ilia [ha:c]
•* Lincolviensem agnoseit autorem. — Odyngtim de motibus planetarum, et Almanack re-
*' versionis corum ; quidam annotavit in margine, ' Fuit monachus, ut putatur, de Evc-
" sham,' Leiandus, Est autem libellulus vrlut theorica Almanack ProJ'acii Jiidcai. Tabula
" motus octavse sphacrx, autore Profacio Judcco. Tabula xqnationis domoruni, cum canone
*' praecedcnte, per magis. Joannem fVaie." 22 ; " Tabula: a:quationum planetarum, autore
" Simone Bredon. Astronomia calculatoria. Astronomia judiciaria. Perspectiva Alaceii."
23: " Commciuarii et arculi rerum astronomicarum ad miraculum docte picti," which
" preeferebant Brightferd, monachi Ranicsiensis, nomcn," &c. &c. &c. One monk, even
a poetical one, yet a severe student, in the reign of Richard f. attempted much to square the
circle; " nullum non niovens lapidem, quo tau'em, si id fieri quidem posset, ciraihm ah-
<' solveret." (De Script, lint. 227.) See also Johnson's Canons, A. D. 957, for Alma-
nack a2;ain.

SECT. III.] niSTORICALLT SURVEYED. 335

to pope Clement, says he sent them by " a young man, whom I ha^e
" caused to be instructed in five or six languages, and in the mathematics,
" and in perspectives, in which lies the whole difficulty of the pajjers
" that I send ; as undoubtedly there is no one among the Latin scholars,
" who ih all that I write can ani.\ver so many points as he, because of
" the method which 1 observe, and because I have instructed him,
" though he is only twenty, or at most twenty-one years of age. There
" was not one at Paris, who knew more of the foundations of philoso-
" phy, though he has not yet produced flowers and fruits because of his
" youth. He has brought with him a crystal sphere to shew some expert-^
" men's, and I have instructed him in the demonstration and Jigu rat ion
" of the secret point ; nor is there one in Italy, nor are there two at Paris,
" who can assign a competent reason in this matter." But " in the two
" years, during which 1 have been particularly engaged in the study of
" wisdom, neglecting all vulgar attentions to money, I have expended
" more than two thousand pounds in books of secrets, in a variety of
" experiments, and in languages, and instruments, and fables, and other
" means of obtaining the friendship of the wise, and of instructing the
" minds of my hearers*." So expensively was a Roger Bacon reared,
into all his eminence of learning ! So high-set was the soul of this
monk, in its aspirations after knowledge ! And to such heights did it
actually soar, by throwing off that clog to all literar}' enterj)rise at
present, the love of mouey ! But, as Roger informs us additioniilly
concerning his cotemporaries, " of Christians the most famous for

* Leland's Coll. iii. 334: " Unum adolescentem — quinque aut sex instrui feci in Unguis,
" ft inailieniaticis, et pcrspectivis in qiiibus est tola diflicultas earum [corum] qiiE mittoj
" nam proculilubio nuUus est inter Latinos, qui in omnibus qure seribn possit ad tot
" respondere, propter modum quern tenco, et quia eum insiruxi, quamvis viginti annorum
" aut 21 ad plus. Non remansit unus Parisiis, qui plus novit de philosopliije radicibiis,
" quamvis flores ct fructus nondum produxerit propter juveuiiem setatem — . Portavit cry-
" siallinii sphericuin ad experieadiun, cl instruxi cum in demonslralione et figuralionc rci
"oceullx; nee est aliquis in tot;1 It.ilia, aut Parisiis duo, qui possunt dare causain sufli-
" cieniem in hac parte." Ibid. 333: " Nam per duos annos, quihus spccialiter laboravi
" in studio sapieiitix, negleclo ce.isu vulgi, .plus quam duo miilia U!)rarurn ego posui in
" iiis projiter libros secrclos, expcricniias varias, et liuguas, ct instrumenta, ct tal)ula?, et
" alia tum ad quareudum amiciiias sap'.entuni tuni propter instrucndos audilores."

" wisdom,"

338 THF. CATHEDRAL OF COHNWALL [cHAP. VII.

" wisdom," ot" Chrisfia)is as opposed to Saracens, " one is friar Albert,
" of the order of preachers, another is William de Shirwoode, treasurer
" of the church of Lincoln in Eng/and," a notice that implies the Ibrmcr
to be no Englishman, " a man far wiser than Albert. — For there
•• are but tw o perfect, namely, Mr. John London and Mr. Peter de
" Macharii C'uriii in Picardy." London was the young man whom
Bacon sent with his letter to the pope, and of whom he wrote so higiily
to him ; " though he came a youth of fifteen to me," says Bacon,
" and poor, as having no livelihood f ." — " No one," as Bacon subjoins,
*' knew the sciences, except lord Robert bishop of Lincoln ; because
" from the length of his life and experience, from his studiousness and
" hi.s diligence, he knew mathematics as well as perspectives, and could
♦* know any thing ; together with this, that he knew so much of lan-
" guages, as to be able to understand the saints, the philosophers, or
*< the wise men of antiquity. Yet he knew not languages Aveli enougli
" to translate, except about the close of life; when he invited Greeks
" into this countri/, and caused l/ooh of Greek granunar to be collected in
" Greece and other 7rgions*," Or, as Bacon enlarges his catalogue of
learned English in another ^^ork, plainly posterior, " some of the wise
*' men of ancient times we have seen in our own days, as lord Roly?rt
"formerly bishop of Lincoln, lord Thomas bishop of wSt. David's in
" Wales, and friar Adam de Ma-risco, and Mr. Robert de Marisco, and
** Mr. Lu ," Mr. John London abo^•e mentioned, " and W^illiam de
" Shirwoode, and others JV Such a train of stars appeared equally led

t Coll. iii. 333: " Sapientes famosiores Christianos, (juorum unus est frater Alberlus
" de orcline prpedicatoriini, alius est Willielmus de Shirwoode, thesaurarius Lincoln, ecclesiai
" ill Anglia, longc sapientior Alberto. — Non sunt enim nisi duo perfecti, scilicet, Mr.
" Joannes London, et Mr. Petrus de Macharii Curia Picardus." Ibid. 334: " Juvenis 15;
" annorum venit ad me, ct pauper, non habens unde viveret."

* Leland's Coll. iii. 334: " Nullus scientias [scivitj, nisi dominus RoberUis, episcopus
" Lincoln : per longitudinem vitx et experiontiae, et studiositatem, et diligeiuiani, quia
•' solvit inalhematicam et perspectivam, et potuit omnia scire; simul cum hoc, quod tan-
" turn scivit de linguis, quod potuit intcUigere sanctos et philosophos et sapientes antiquos.
" Sed non bene scivit linguas ut transferrct, nisi ciica ultinium vits suds; quando vocavit
" Graecos, ct fecit libros gramniaticx Gtxcx, de Grreciii ct aliis [regionibus] congrcgari."

X Coll. iii. 335 : " Antiquorum sapientum — aliquos vtdimus nostri temporis, scilicet

" D. Robertuni

SECT. Ill,] JUSTORJCAtty SURVEYED. 33?

by Roger Bacon as by Dmistan before ! But to both these constella-
tions let me add a single star that is little known, yet by its light dis-
plays the A\ onderkd keenness of a monk for mathematical learning.
'."Daniel, denominated iSIorley from his native village," says Leland,
•• in his youth attended the schools of Oxford very studiously ; in his
" raaturer years went to Paris; and at last, inllamed with an xniusual
" thirst for mathematics, turned his thoughts to the Arabs, the first for
** erudition in that age, whose discipline was then flourishing greatly In
" Spain, at Ih^ij; very a,mpleLcity of Toledo. Going therefore to Toledo,
" he ransacked the shelves of the Arabs, and at last found what he had
" so solicitously sought. Ilcncc feeling a desire for revisiting his country.
*' in his return he meets with John of Oxford, bishop of Norwich" from
1175 to 120Q, •' by whom he was received with great liberality, as John
"himself was studious of mathematical knowledge. In convenient
" Jtirpe,) therefore, IDaniel published two books, one upon the inferior
" part of the world, the other upon the superior, and dedicated them
" to the bishop Ij." Such an amazing range of light did the eometary
mind of this monk take, to return with augmented lustre and regain its
goal

The superior, and oven the common monks, came at last to have their
private or personal libraries ; a fact that is the consummation of evidence
in favour of ^their fondnes^ for literature, A point, indeed, so minute

" D. Robertum quondam episcopiim Lincoln, D. Tliornam cpiscopum S. David in Wallia,
•' et fraircni Adam c!c Marisco, ct niagistnim Robertum dc Marisco, et Mr, Lu, et Gul.
" de Shirwoode, el alios."

. H Dc Sci'ipt. Brit. 244: " Daniel, Morilcgus a natali villa dicUis, Isiacas juvenis sciioins
«' stiidiobissime cxcoluil; maliirior annis factus, T.utetiani Parisioruni invisit. Postrcmo
" matheniatieas artis cupidi;alc insolitx lactus, animum ad Arabcs, ca Ktate imprimis crii-
" ditos adjccit ;" quorum et disciplina tunc laic in llispania, qua stat Toletum cuius am-
" plissima, floruit. Proftctus igitur Toletum, Arabum si.riuia e.xcussit, ci quod quircUal
•."maximc, tandem invenit. lliuc enala rcpelendi patriam cura : cui dum subservit, inter
<• rcdeimdimi iii (ibvium Joanm O^onienii, epi»eopo Mordovitano; a quo liberalissiiuc
'< aeceptus est, studebaX tnim ct ipse rgi iiiathunaliex. Undc, nact.n temporis o])porimii-
" tate, duos libellos, unum de ialcriori, allenirp de superior! parte mundi, edidit, ac .!oaimi
" Nordovicano consccravit."

vol.. II. XX HI

338 THE CATIIF.DnAL OF CORN'WAtL [CIIAP. VII.

in the domestic economy of a monastery, we cannot expect to see exhi-
bited often in the " crystal sphere" of history ; but it is exhiliited, ami
that is bulKeient : we see it fii-st in a form very humble, yet at a period
very early, and with the person of a common though very dignified
monk. Bede, that prince of historians concerning our isle, and that first of
religious men born within it*, ap[)ears to have had his study in a build-
ino- erected for the purpose, detached from the monastery, and therefore
furnished with his ow n collection of books. It is a singular incident in
the history of this saint and historian combined, that not the rude bar-
barity of the Danes, not the headlong violence of the Normans, though
both were exerted about his monastery, had destnncd his study : it
remained entire to the very days of Leland, a building low in its pitch,
small in its size, and vaulted in its roof In this state it \\'as his oratory,
as well as his study; being remembered peculiarly as his oratory by the
tradition of Iceland's da} s ; and having even then what served to give
the rel'/gious part of the tradition a predominance over the literary, " an
" altar within it, but neglected, yet bearing in the middle of its front
" a piece of serpentine marble," a marble of a dusky green in the ground,
and of a lively green in the spots, " inlaid into the substance of it-j-."
This, therefore, was the altar at m hich Bede, equally devout and learned,
happily sensible amidst all his learning that he derived his intellect and
the illumination of it from the awful " Father of lights," kneeled down
every morning and evening to him. Nor had he this altar, as we are
naturally induced by the circumstances to suppose at first, merely be-
cause he lived out of the abbey, and was therefore precluded from the
public prayers of the chapel; he carefully attended the public, we may
be sure from this very attention to private. But he had an altar for his

* See iv. 2, a note at the end.

+ De Script. Brit. ii8 : " Illiul eerie propius ad miraculiini accedit, quod nee Dacoriim
*' violentia, nee fcrocia Guliclmi Magni Nortmanni, ita Girovicensls ccenobii, quod vulgo
"nunc Jarwe vocatur, aedificia omnia concusscrit; quin adhuc Bcda; oratorium cxtet,
" humile quidem opus, et cameratuni, utcunque tamcn integrum ; iu quo et hodic altare
" est, sed neglcctuni, et in altaris medio crusta ophiutici marmoris. Hcbc nos in gra-
" tiam lectoris antiquitads siitdiosi." It is also called " casiila" and " mansiuncula"
hereafter.

private

8ECT» II r.] niSTOIUCALLY SURVEYED. 339

private devotions in addition to tlic chapel for his public ; and a similar
incideat in the biojijrapliy of a similar saint, shews this evidently tQ be
tlie reason ibr both. Adhelm, the founder, as well as abbot of Mahnes-
bury, had equally an altar for himself, and equally left it a relic to pos-
terity; the abbey shewing equally to the eyes of Leland himself Adhelm's
*' altar, a very small one, made" wholly " of" that " serpentine marble,"
which was only inlaid in a small piece into the otlier, " but bound about
•' with a belt of silver, on which appeared an inscription in Latin|;" but
the same room was also that in which he slept, and in which lie died.
During his last moments he is described by the narrator of them, a per-
son actually attending; upon him at the time, as desiring to be lifted out
of bed, and to be rested sitting upon the floor at the opposite side of the
room ; that, as he expressed himself, " on the holy spot at which I
"have been used to pray I may now invoke my Father." Thither he
was carried accordingly, and rested upon a rug; from thence he invoked,
and there he died invoking*. Such was the happy, the glorious con-
clusion of life to this first of scholars ! " Let mc die tlie death of the
** righteous, and may my last end be like his !"

The cliamber where the good man meets his fate

Is privilcg'd hcyond the common walk

Of virluoiii lite, ijuitc in the verge of heaven.

Yet this chamber has been destroyed since the da}s of TiCland, and Avhat
had been spared for its sanctity (I suppose) by Normans, by Danes, has
fallen under the hands of ignorant reformers. Camden notes it not ;.

if. De Script. Bnt. loo: " Altare, scd minutitum, ex ophintico marmoie, argento
•' revinctnm, in ipio Latina inicriptio apparel. ILxc," this and other relics, " ego iiupcr
" Mcilduni vidi."

*" Leland's Coll. iv. 79: "' ' Multum me dclcctat sedcre ex adverse, sancto mco loco io
•' quo orare soleham ; ut ct ego scdcns I'atrcn-. nicnni invocare po.ssim.' Et sic in pavimentu
•' sua? casnhe decantans — spirituni — snimi e corporc CKliaiavit." The pas.-agc i.^ als>> in
.Simeon Duni'lnicnsis, i. 15, Twisdm, and in Sniilli's Bcdc, with this useful addition from
IMalmcsburv, that Rede was rested sillinrjon the floor by the altar, *' cilicio subjccto dccnni-
" bens, illibato sensu et hilari vuhu." (P. 803.) So a bishop of Durham, '♦ inio fcnuc
" antecjuam niorerctur niense, sc in ecclesiam jusjiit transpoilari ; ubi rcsidt-ns conlra altare,
" ex prufunilo cordis ennupi.-ii-. in gunituiu," Sec. (Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 7C9.}

X X 2 IJU

940 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VII.

no traveller, no biographer has noted it since; but Simeon, the his-
torical monk of Durham, had noticed it before, and (what is very
remarkable) noticed it only as his study. " Even the place," he cries,
without seeming to know what fve know from Leiand, '* is shewn at
" this day, where he hAd hisliifle im'insion' of stone, and, free from all
" disturbance, Mas accustomed tO' sit, to meditate, to recul, to dictate,
" aiid to n'rite'\-'' Tlie very chair, too, in which he 'used to sit for
that purpose within this room, " a rude oaken chair called Bcde's," is
presen'ed to this moment, thotipfli the room itself is gone ; being
" carefully locked up" in " the vestiy" of the old monastic chapel, conr
verted into a parish-church, but very recently rebuilt |. And this was
the very object, as I remark with satisfaction, that lirst served like a
soliciting wire to call forth the dectrical: Sparks of antiquarianism, then
l}ing latent in my soul, even to call them forth with a liveliness so
bright, or with an explosion so loud, as to be recollected with great
vi"v^icity by me on this occasion. 'J'he chair being mentioned in a pro-
vincial newspaper of 1/45, as seized for a popish relic, and for a popish
relic intended to be burned by a mob of protestant fools ; even then,, at
ten years of age, my mind fastened upon the fact, and my memory
retraces it now in the impressions made then. Such was the study of a
Bede, once furnished with a variety of books, and so enabling him,
with an occasional reference to the; library of the abbe}', to follow his
variety of pursuits inJiterature ! This, however, ^Aas a bedchamber,
an oratory, and a study in one. The next step in improvement would
be to appropriate a room entirely for a study ; even while the less
rich or the less refined continued to study in the open cloysters,
had some of the windows to them occasionally gla/cd for their con-
venience in studying, and even had books appropriated to the eloys-
tersj.w'ith desks fastened on the walls for their studying there §. But

Eede's

+ Simeon, i. 14: " Ostenditur eliam locus hodie, ubi de lapide m.insiiinculam habcns,
" ab omni inquieviidlue lil)cr, sederc, mcditari, Icgere, dictare cobsiieverat, ct scribere."
% Goiigh, iii. 124, from Grose.

§ Ducarrcl, 29, for '• old stont desks," at the cloysters of St. Audoeu 111 Roue.n, and for

the

SECT.' Ill;]] IIISTORIC/VLLY SURVEYED. 541

Bede''?;: model of a study was not much altered for ages afterward,
even .with bishops themselves. Richard Bury, who became bishop cf
Durham in 1333, who was so dignified in mind as against all advif:e to
retrain from all solieitations for this or for any bishopric, who was like-
wise so prodigal of spirit as always to wait upon the po])e, or even the
cardinals at Rome, " with twenty clerks of his own, \n garments oj' one
" SMfV, . and with thirty-six esquires m another suit;'' yet "was so
'"■highly delighted with a multitude of books, as by common report to
f* have more than all the other prelates put together, keeping many in
"' separate repositories at his ditferent manors, but at the place of his
!"i temporary residence leaving so many on the floor of his bedchamher,
" as hardlv allo\N ed the enterer to stand or ivalh without trampling upon
," a hookey It was altered, however, soon after that period. "Out
I" of this hall," notes Raltely in his description of the priory at Chvist,-
church in Canterbury before 141 1, "there was by ;5ome stone-steps a
" passage into a stone-chamber," like Bede's, " called Lc Paved Cham-
" ber," being tloored (as Bede's assuredly was) with a ''.pavement;'*
and " the prior's bedciiamber-studv, and some, other rooms for his
".private apartment, seem to have been contiguous to the paved cham-
.'." ber;;" or, as the words of Battely's original, the Obituary, more
.pointedly as -well as morc' accurately armounce, " a room of stone,
" which is called Le Pavid Chamber, with two other chambers," r\ot so
paved, as leaving the name of Lc i^avid Chamber to that, " aiKl the
." prior's bed in his dormitory, with the ^study and other rooms an-

thc " Benedictines" having " anciently a custom" to study in the cloystcrs " at stated times
" in the div." Wharton's Anglia Saira, i. 141: "Juvcni?, habilLim monaslicum snsci-
" pious, coepit virluluni moribus fiorcscere, et [KT studhim clai/dl rails resident iw tiucnla scrip-
" turarum siieI)undo corde hauiirc ;" 146, " austialcni — partem claustri ad usum studio-
" sonim confratmm vitrcam ferit," 640, " ad inspeclionem claustralium hbruruiu," ixc.

II Wliailon, i. 765: " Snmme dtlcctahalur in multitudine libroriui), pinres enim libios
•' habuit (ut passim dicebatiir) (luam onines pontificcs Antiiae ; el pricier cos quoi habuii iu
" diversis maneriis suis reposilos separatim, ubicunque cum sua tamilia resulebat tolJihri
" jiccbant in camera qu4 dorinivit, quod ingrcdientes vix stare poterant \cl in-'ederu nisi
" librum aliquom pedibiis conculcartul." 766, <' \'enii ipse cum xx elcricis suis in vr^ii-
'* l)us unius scciac, ct x.x.wi armigens allcrius secia:. — l{<spondit se nee pro illo episcopain,
*' nee pro aliquo alio, liicras niissurum."

" nCdcd/'

342 THE catiiecbm: op cohnwall [chap. vu.

" nc.recf" all equally not paved *. In fhis form, so plainly an improve-
ment just above Bede's, did all the priors in the kingdom, mc may be
sure, possess each of them a study : but it soon improved at Canteibury,
and probnbly at other places. " In the" same " Obituary we read,*
cries Battely again concerning the same priory, but still without seeming
to know the curiousness of his own notices, " that," between l-i;2 and
1-194, " — prior Selling built from the ground — a sfoiw tower, which
*' was covered with lead, and which had fair glass-windows; and that
*' he decently adorned if in the inside; and that this was called the
" vrior's study. — There the prior had his vrpKu study, and his loweu
" STUDY, which had shelves and cases for books and \s ritings, and
*<^ wherein several records relating to the priory, even a vast number of
"^ them, were stored up f." A prior of Kly, just a little before, is
equally said to have *' built a new chamber, — where he sometimes held
" spiritual discourses with his brethren upon the rights of the church,
*' the profits and the concerns of the church ; he had there his study
" also, for inspecting his books at his kisnrc:\..'' 'J'he example thus set
by the priors and monks, we find follo\NCd at last by the very lait)' thein-
"^elves ; though the laity were" for ages so ignorant in comparison with
tbe clergy, that to be a clerk implied a man to be a scholar, and to be u
layman imported him to be illiterate. Thus even a bishop of Durham,
who died in 1333, is reported by his historian to have been " chaste,
"'but laical, as he understood not the Latin language, and with difficulty
"could pronoufice it§." Yet vse hix\o two studios among the laity,

striking

• BaUely, 92 : " ' Juxta aulam, prions tedcm lapideani qua vocatur Le Pavid Chamber,
- " cum duabus aliis cameris, lectumque prioris in dormitorio, cum studio et aliis domibus
^« anuexis'."

i Bittely, 93, 94.

% Wharton's Auglia Sacra, i. 649 : "Fecit — fieri unam novam camernm — , ubi quandoque
" cum fratribus suis spirituales habuit traclatus, jura tcclesia; et utilitaits ac ncgotia eccl-.si;e
" nccessaria concernentes ; habuit etiam ibidem studium siium pro libris cum sibi vaca- ,
<*' verat inspiciendii;." Even Ncwcome notices his abbot's itiidi/, p. 211.

§ Wharton's AngUa Sacra, i. 761 : " Castus crat, sed laicus, Latinum non intelligent,

. « sed cum ditficultale pronuncians." Of thi» " diiliculty" we have two instances j one is

this, " Cum ill consccratione sua profiteri debuii, quamvis per miillos dies ante instructoran

" huluissit.

SECT, in.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 34,3

striking in their nature, and early in their date ; we see a noble ainong^
them about the same period with both these priors, having such a pro-
pensity tor reading as to form tor himselt' a study, like one of the priors
above, in a tower, even in one of the tovsers of his castle ; taking such
a delight in his study as to call it paradise, and disposing it in a manner
so very ingenious, as is w^orthy of the taste of the present day. " The
*' castle of VVresehill," says Leiand under i'orkshire, " is al of very fair
" and greate squarid stone, both withyn and withowte, wherof (as
" sum hoUl opinion) much was brought owt of Fraunce. In the castelle
" be only 5 towers, one at eche corner, almost of like biggenes. The
" gatehouse is the 5, having 5 longginges [or stories] yn high [highth] ;
" 3 of the other towers have 4 highes [heights] in longginges ; the 4
" conteinilh the botery, pantery, pastery, lardery, and kcchyn. The
*' haule and the great chaumbers be fair, and so is the chapel, and the
" closettes," for my lord's family in the chapel. " To conclude, the
" house is one of the most propre beyound Trente, and semith as newly
" made : yet was it made by a youngger brother of the Percys, erie of
*' Wiccester," by Thomas Percy earl of Worcester, " that was yn high
" favor with Richard the Secunde, and bought the maner of Wrese-
" liil — . One thing i Ukid excedingly yn one of the toircrs, that was a
" STUDY caullld Paradise, wher was a closet in the midle of 8 squares
" lufisid ahoute, and at the top of every square was a desk ledgid," that
is, \\ ith a ledging to it, " to set honkes on cqfers icithipi them ; and these
" semid as i/oinid hard to the toppe of the closet, and yet, by pulling,
" one or all wold cutn doivne briste higfhe in rahettes, and serve Jbr
" deskes to lay bokes on*." This description is singularly curious in
itself, either as it lays open to our eyes all the interiors of a nobleman's

*' kabuisset, legere nesc'wit : et cum, aiiriciilantibiis .ilii.-;," or prompted by others, " cm?»
" diffiadtale ad illud vcrbum metropol'ttkie pervenisset, et diu anhelam promtnsiare non
" posset, dixit in Gallico," as being a Frenchman, •• sett pur dllc. Stiipebant onines cir-
" ciimstantes, doloiitcs t.ilcm in cpiscopum consecranduni." This is a curious proof of ihe
/a». a/ slate of his education. Anollier occurs immediately thus: " Cum simihter celebrarct
" ordines, ncc illud vcrl)um in cenigmate proferrc posset j di.xil circunistantibus, par Seytit
*' Lowys il nefii pas ctirteis, qui cestc parole ici eicril."
* Itin. i. 55.

castle.

a-i I THE CATHEOnAL OF CORN-W'-VrX [CHAP. VM,

castle, or as it delineates to our mind the study of a nobleman, literajy;
refined, and magnificent -f. The whole ifclandat present cannot t"unu«U
one private library, I believe, more artfully contrived in parts, orniore
elegantly disposed in the whole, than this " study," with a " clojjet" or
enclosed' space " in the midle" of the room, with " 8 squares, latisid
" aboute" at the sides of the room ; and with " a desk IcUgid," seem-
ingly " yoinid hard to the toppe of the closet," actually standing one
** at the top of every square," yet coming down " in rabettcs" on being
pulled, resting at the " briste higthe" of a man, and there " serving toi
" deskes to lay" th'ose " bokes on," which were " on cofcrs withyn"
the squares. Nor, was this the only paradiae of the kind within the
kingdom ; there was another at " Lekingfeld," near York, once belong-
ing probably to the very sam^ earl, as it certainly belonged afterwards
to' liis -nearest relations the earls of Northumberland |. There Leland
equally notices " a litle studiyng cmaumuer — , cuuUid PuruiUcCi'
and in it " the genealogie of the Pcrcijs^." So very literary \\as the
house of Percy in general, or so very literary \^•as this younger son of i-t
in particular ! If, however, such a taste for letters, such a love of ti
library, appears^ in k Idical, noble, and a military family, we may be
sure they predominated among the clergy, and the briskness of the
current proclaims the vivacity of the fountain.

^' "To^this evidence, so powerful in its nature, so comprehensive in its
Tfeach;. it. is almost impossible to make any additions ; 1 shall therefore
atrtcriipt o^ily to give the whole a roundness and a finishing, by subjoin-
ing 'a few notices, miscellaneous, new, and Curious, yet all concurring
to shew a'spirit of literary refinement predominai\t ia the-monasteries.
In the very list of articles carried off by the royal housebreaker from

+ Lclantl's Illn. i. 55 : " The gartlo robe in the castelle was exceedingly fair, and so wer

■" the gaiileiiis withyn the mote, and the orchardes withoule ; and yn the orcliardes were

" nioiintes opere topiario, wriihen about with degrees Hke tnrningos of cocki'shiilcs, to eu»n

'" ib the top without payn." These I suppose to have been the first in the kingdonij afld

• from Leland' J nnrmner believe them to be very rare even inlns days.

J Camden, 5-^7. . ,

§ Leland's Itin. i. 48.

•'" ' ' convents

SECT. III.] ItlSTonTCALLY SURVEYED. 345

convents and catlicdrals in the west, we find " a-great piece of an nni-
*' corne-horne, as it is supposed f|." This appears to have been con-
sidered as very valuable, because it was an object of plunder for a mo-
narch. All the literary and curious spirit of Henry was drowned in a
<leluge of sacrilegious avarice. Uut in the inventory of plunder procured
at A\"inchester, I observe X^o similar articles that again unite with
notices ancient or modern to mark the actual existence of an animal
whicJi is reputed a mere nonentity now: " Item," for these thieves,
acting under the authority of law, carried on their larcenies, petty and
grand, in the regular form of mercantile transactions, keeping their
ledgers, and entering their " items" in them, "' one pastoral staff o\' a)i
*' unicorncs horn — , item, one rector's staff o\ iiuicontes horn^\y 'Vo

these

jj Stephens's Additions to Monasticon, i. 84.

^ Hist, of Winchester, i. 26. That an animal, which is so frequently noticed in itself
1)V the ancients, and, in its horn at least, so familiarly known to the moderns as late as the
Reformation, should now be universally considered to have been fabulous from the first, is
one of the most extraordinary incidents in ihc world of letters. Mentionctl by Job (xxxix.
9, 10), by Moses (Numbers, xxiii. 22, Deut. xxxiii. 17), by David (Psalm xxii. 21, xxix. 6,
xcii. 10), and by Isaiah (xxxiv. y), as an animal actually existent, and sufficiently known
for a transient reference; even characterized by three of them as fierce, strong, and dan-
gerous; even described in its appearance by I'liny with a minuteness reflected plainly from,
a real view ; it has yet, in the opinion of all, vanished like a vision from the face of nature-
The fact is assuredly, that it still lives unseen by Europeans in the woods or wilds of its
native India; that from them it was formerly made known to the ancients by the singularity
of its horn, witfi an accompanying account of its predominating qualities; and that it wau
equally made known to the moderns in the same manner. " Orsoi Indi," says the only
descrlbcrof it, Pliny, viii. 21, " — venantur — aspeirimam — fcram monocerotem, reliquo cor-
" pore eqiio s'nnilem, capilc cervo, pedibus elephanto, cauda apro, mugitu gravi, uno cornu
" nigra vied'u'i fr.onte cubltornm duum cm'titcnlc. IJanc ferani vivam negant capi." This
appears from the black horn, the stag's head, and the general similitude to a horse, to have
been the very original from which all our delineations of the unicorn have been derived, and
the arms of our i^ovcrtigns are to this day decorated by the pencil of Pliny. Yet how could
Euch a horn as Pliny's be formed into a " stafl"?" Could it only in the mani>er by which a
s.ipphirc-stonc is in iii. 2, before, by constituting the cross part of one above? No! In
Gcrinauy wc find a kind of grotto-chapel, in which are an altar, a crucifix, and two candle-
Kiicks, •' all three made out of the horn of an unicorn." (Kty-ler, i. 86.) This proves at
rnce what Pliny's description and our own dtlincations tell us, the great length of the horn.
Pliny's, indetd, as iuo ctd'its in length generally, and perhaps viore //w« /ao occasidually,

VOL. II. X y would-

• 34(3 THE CATIIEDBAI> Ol' CORNnVALL [cHAP. \ H.

these the catalogue of booty from the west adds, " the nao/e day, of
" tlie said stutie, a pecc of mother of perle, like a shell — ; the same
" day, of tlie same stufie, eight braunches of J'uire currall*." These
must have been much more rare and precious then than they arc at
present, I ap[)rehcnd ; to be repositcd as curiosities in the 7misa'U}ns of
the clergy, and to be seized as merchandise highly profitable by the
king. But I see another that makes no " item" in the list of articles
stolen, because it would produce nothing upon the merchant's counter,
yet which may really excite the wonder, and challenge the imitation of
the present age. In the church of Canterbmy was exhibited, down to the
Reformation, as Leland tells us, " a g/ohe of cn/stal, hollow within, and
" containing an apple in the hollow, among the offerings made to Thomas
" a Becket. And when I asked the exhibitor of the curiosities in the
" church, what was the meaning of the miraculous ol)Ject, he replied,
" that it was an oblation formerly made to the martyr by John Man-
" deville," the famous traveller, vho was born at St. Albans, went
abroad in 1322, staid abroad thirty-four years, and afterwards pub-
lished an account of his ti-avels. " Whose donation soever it was, it is
" a wonderful thing to behold an apple preserved from rotting through
" so mam/ years: the total exclusion of the air is possibly the cause of itf ."
In the same church, too, but in the quire of it, where the stalls of the

would easily furnish materials for an altar from its very thick part at the base, for a crucifix
from its niidtile parts, and for a couple of candlesticks from its upper ; but would more easily-
servo as a staff, rising about a yard in height. The unicorn then, though as little known
in person to Europe now, as is the chans, or the Cephas, the latter of which was exhibited
once, but the former frequently, at Rome, before the days of Pliny (viii. 19), yet infinitely
better known in all ages of European history by the singleness of its horn, is not that rhino-
ceros with which it has been generally confounded from a mere amazement at its disappear-
ance, but from which it is actually discriminated by the pen of Fliny (viii. 19) ; lying hid
merely in the woods of India, as the cephiis equally lies in the wilds of Ethiopia, and ready
to come forth one day perhaps with the cephus, for the amazement of a disbelieving Europe.

* Steevens, i. 85.

i Leland De Script. Brit. 36S : " QuodDurovcrni— crystallimim orbem, sed concavum,
" cum mall) intus recondito, inter numcra Thomse Betketo consecrata, repererim. Cum-
** que a mystagogo rogas.sem, quid miracuh esset ; rcspondebat, oblatum illudolim munus-
" culum marlyri a Joanne Mandcvilia. Cujus cujus erat fnunus, mira res videre malum
'* per tot annos a carie salvum. Fieri potest^ ut spiritus oinnino cxclusus ia caus& sit."

monks

SF.CT. HI.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 347

motiks remained to the year l/O-i, and where the lead of the roof
ajipeared to have melted so much in the fire of 1174, as to have run
into the joints of the pavement, and to have been discovered there on
altering a part of the pavement about 170O ; the pavement immediately
adjoinino- to the altar-rail is laid even at present, " with large slabs of
"a — stone, — which — has so much the appearance of the grain of wood,
." as to be taken by some for a petrifaction ; but — many stones of this
'• kind were taken up" not long ago, " — and many of them were capa-
" ble of a polish little inferior to that of agate. The edges [run] in
" curious strata, and the tops of many are beautifully clouded. The
" connoisseurs have called them by different names ; some, antique ala~
** haster agate ; others, the Sicilian ; others, the Egyptian agate; and
" the traveller Dr. Pocock, late bishop of jNfeath, diasprofiorito, or the
" flowered jasper |." The very variation of opinions concerning the
quality of the stone proves the extraordinary singularity of it; but in
the library at Croyland, so early as 1 0(j 1 , we see a celestial globe actu-
ally fabricated of metal, and incidentally mentioned in such magnificent
terms as arrest our admiration very powerfully. " We then lost," says
Ingulphus, from a familiar knowledge of the globe before a fire con-
.'^umed the library, " a very fine and \eYy costly pinax, wonderfully
" formed of every kind of metal, according to the variety of signs or
" stars ; for Saturn was of copper, Jupiter of gold. Mars of iron, Sol
" of brass, Mercury of electrum," a mixed metal, of four fifths gold
and one fifth silver, " Venus of tin, but Luna of silver. The colures'
" with all the signs of the zodiac, received from the dcKterity of the
" man who made it, their images and their colours in various forms or
" figures, according to their natures ; and, by their multiplicity of gems
" or metals, inconcei\'ably attracted the eyes, as well as gratified the
" minds of all spectators : there iraa not such a nadir known or noticed
" in all England. 'I'he king of France had formerly given it to Turkctxl,
" but he at his death had bequeathed it to the common liirari/, as at
" once ornamental to the room, and useful for lectures to the younger
"monks: yet it was now melted, consumed, and destroyed by the

X Gostling, 302, 30T, 299, 246,

y Y 2 " devouring

348 THE CATHEDRA!. OF CORNWALL [cHAP. Tir,

"devouring fire§." The abVjics thus became the repositories of the
finest procUictions of nature and of art. But let me rather mention what
comes more immediately to their cliaraeter for learning, that the monks
were artists, themselves, the planners, the executors of many ingenious
works; their own carvers, tlieir own- cloek-makers, their own archi-
tects. I have formerly obsencd, upon the expr^^ss evidence of history,
that Dunstan, the monk of Canterbury, was " dexterous in every ma-
" nual operation, — could form pictures or inscriptions, imprint them
" %vith a graver upon gold, silver, brass, or iron, and indeed execute
"any thing ||." So likewise, in I070, we find an abbot of Abingdon
*' a wonderful artist '\n fabrications of silver and gold^." Mann too,
abbot of I^vesham in the reign of the Confessor, and reported to have
died in the same night, at the same hour with the Confessor himself,
" ]iad been introduced into most of the sacred and liberal arts, excelling
" in the knowledge of singing, of writing, of painting, and tvorking up
" articles in gold*." And Cuthbert, who succeeded Walstod as prelate
of Hereford in 742, "finished with his own hand many ornaments of
" the church which Walstod had left unfinished ?vith his at death ; and
'' among these was a hannere cross, — composed of si her, gold, or
"Jcucls-f." We find also " compendious tables for the instalment

" called

§ Ingulphus, 98 : " Piilchcrrinvum — pinacem tunc pcrcliclimiis, ct valde sumptuosum, de
*' omui gencre nietalli pro varietatc sideium et signorum niirabiliter fabrefactiim. Saturnus
*' cnim ciipreus, Jupilcr autem aureus. Mars vero ferrugineus, Sol de auricaico, Mercurins
*' elcctrinus, Venus de stanuo, ct Luna fuit de argen-to. CoKiri, et omnia signa zodiaci,
'•' juxta suasnaturas, suas imagines et colorcs variis formis et figuris arte fabrili snrtientes,
•' iiiultiplicitate tarn gemmarum quani mclalbrum, et tani oculos quam ingenia spectan-
" tium supra modum solicitabant. Nonerat l&\enader in tola Anglia notuni aut nouiina-
" turn. Rex Franciae quondam Turketulo dederat; at ille in suo obitu communi biblio-
" thee*, tarn pro ornamento quam pro juniorum documentor conmiendarat. Jam igao
'•' vorace consumptum [fuit], ct in nihilum liquefactum."

II See ii. 3, b&fore.

•[ Wbarton's Anglia Sacra, i. 167 : " la auri argcntique fabricio operator mi rifxius."

* Alonasticon, i. 151 : " Sacris liberisque plurimis artibus fuerat inibutus, videlicet can-
" toris, scriptoris, pictorls, aurique fabrilis operis, scientia pollens."

+ Leland De Script. Brit. 1 34 : " Ornamenta vero ecclesias multa, qure moriens Valstodus
<' imperfecta reliquit, ipse perfwit j inter rjiise ve.\iUuna crucls erat, ut his testatur carmi-

" nlbus.

SECT. III.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 349

** called alhmi" by which is meant (says Leland) the clock at
St. Alban's ; and '* a tract by Richard Walingtbrd, concerning the com-
" position and conclusions of the instrument albion*." Wallingford
was the very maker of the clock, after he had become the abbot of the
monastery. Then, as Le]and himself informs us, from an inspection of
his clock and a perusal of his tract, " willing to give a miraculous proof
" of his genius, of his learning, and of his manual operations, with great
" labour, greater expense, and very great art, he formed such a fabric
" of a clock, that all Europe in my opinion cannot shew one even second
" to it ; whether }ou note the course of the sun and moon, or the Jixed
*' stars, and whether you consider again the increase or decrease of the
*' sea, or the Uiks uith the fgures and demonstrations almost infinitely
" diversified. And when he had completed a work truly tcorthy of
*' immortality, he wrote and published in a book, as he was the very
"first of all the mathematicians of his time, a set of canons, lest so fine
*' a piece of mechanism should be lowered in the erroneous opinion of
" the monks, or should be stopped in its movements from their igno-
** ranee in the order of its structure -j-."

But

'« nibiis, quae ego non modo in quarto libro Gulielmi McIlJunensis de poiuifitibus Anglo-
" nun offeiitli," see them in Savile, 162, " vcrum cum nuper Meildunum iiivisercni, — iii-
" vctustissinio libro sacrorum epigrammaion rcpcri.

*'' Hacc veneranda cnicis Chriiti vexilla sacrat.-p

"■ Ccpperat aiuisles venerandus nomine Walstod,

" Argvnti atqiic auri fabricare monilibus ainplis," Sec.

* Lcland's Coll. iv. 20 : " ' Tabulte conipendiosae pro instrumento albion'." Lclaml t •
•* IiitcUigil horologiuni Sancli Albani. ' Tractatus Richardi Walingford de conipositione ct
«' conclusionibus instrumenti albmi' ,"

t Leland De Script. Brit. 404, 405 : " Cum jam per amplas licebat fortimas, voluit
" illustri aliquo operc nou modo iugenii, vcrum cliani trudiiionis ac artis cxcelltiuis, mira-
" culum ostenderc. Krgo talcni horologii fabricani magno labore, niajorc sumptu, arte
" vero maxima, compegit, qualcm non habct tola (mcA opinionc) Europa secundum ; sive-
" quis cursum solis ac iunx, sea (ixa .iidcra, notct, sive iteruni maris incremcnla ct dccre-
" nienta, sen lincas ima cum figuris ^ic dcmonslratiombus ad intinitun) pirnc variis, consi-
•' derel. Cumque opus setcrnitale dignissimum ad umbilicani pciduxisset, canones (ut
" crat in maibesi onniium sui tcmporis facile primus) cdilo in hoc libro scripsit; nc tani
** insignis machiua errorc niojuclioruiu vilcsccrct, aut incognito structurce ordiac silcret."

Yet

3oO THE CATHEDRAL OT CORNWALL [CHAP. VII.

But I hasten to close all mv account, with one fact worthy to be tlie
close of all. Alan de Walsinghani, monk of J:^ly in 1322, formed tlie

Yet Mr. Newcome, p. 230, speaks thus concerning the clock : "Asa specimen of his in-
'^ <^enuUv, he is said to have invented," not, as the fact is, invented and fabricated, " a clock
'•' that was a miracle of art; it cxliibilcd the course of the sun and moon, the rising and
■'• setting of the fixed stars and planets, the ebbing and flowing of tlie sea, and, in short, the
" fiiTures, operations a.nA effects of all the heavenly bodies." As Mr. Newcome, througliout
his whole work, adopts the fashionable and fallacious mode of general reference ; and, as in
all this part of it he writes from an historian never published yet, but lying secreted among
the kinif's manuscripts in the British Musajum (p. 173, 174); he may have spoken here,
however, beyond the bounds of Leland's accounts, yet within the lines of authority and
truth. " He had begun this clock early in life," or (as Leland says), only after he became
abbot, and so was rich enough to begin it. " As we have no scientific description of this
-" piece of mechanism, handed down to 11s, we can form no judgment of its merits." Yet
Walingford himself wrote such a description, and this was existing in the days of Leland.
The latter saw it, as he tells us himself, " in bibliotheca Collegiide Clare," at Cambridge.
(Coll. iv. 19, 20.) He had read it there, as appears from his account above, and from this
farther account. Concerning the description, he says, " Joannes Stubius, mathematicus,
•<' nuilta referl; inciderat ille in exemplar, sed mutilum, unde quod deerat in albiojie," the
name of the description as well as of the clock, " supplevit; pars a/^ioww instrumcnti,"
Leland meaning still the description, " saphe dicta, Norembergse impressa est" (p. 405) ;
part being printed at Nuremberg, and the whole existing in manuscript before, and in the
days of Leland ; Mr. Newcome should have searched the libraries for the tract, especially
that at Cambridge, in which Leland saw it, to gratify his " scientific" readers, or at least to
" form" his own " judgment of its merits." But it was more easy to suppose there was 719
" scientific description," and to found even its very existence upon report. Yet his own
description is surely sufficient in itself, for every reader 7Wt " scientific," and for every one
who wishes to " form" his " judgment of its merits" in general. It is even sufficient
for Mr. Newcome himself, in Mr. Newcome's own opinion ; he who says, " we can form
" no judgment of its merits," for want of a scientific description, saying afterwards, " it
" would appear, however, to have been a masterpiece for that age," and thus pronouncing
upon iti merits at once. — See also Leland's Itin. iii. 117, for another clock made by another
monk at Glastotibury, and thus noticed by an inscription on the south part of the transept
under the clock, " Horologium; Petrus Lightfote nionachus fecit hoc opus," This I
suppose to be the very clock that is still preserved in the cathedral of Wells, and is there
reported to have been brought from Glastonbury. On a large horizontal plate it exhibits
horsemen coursing round the plate, while the lime is announced by the clock, &c. This is,
as that at Glastonbury was, tvithin the church, and, like it, near the quire. " Longitudo
" brachiorum jiixta chorum," says Worcestre, 29, concerning Glastonbury, " a borea in
•' meridiem, versus Lc Orlage," only one therefore, " 96 gressus."

plan.

SKCT. III. J HISTORICALLY SURVErED. 351

plan, and began the execution, of that very dome with that veiT lantern
over the cathedral of Ely, which, from the lightness yet strength of
the arches supporting them; from the number yet luminousness of the
windows above, and from the visionary or fairy sort of light darted
down by the lantern above all, constitute a structure pre-eminently
elegant, pre-eminently striking to the eye, even in the shadowy exhibition
of it by the pencil, the graver, and the rolling-press*!

Thus did the lamp of learning continue to burn with considerable
brightness, in those very cells of the monastery which have been falsely'
believed to be sepulchnd only. It seems, indeed, to our sight at present,
to have burned but faintly; because the sun of literature it now throw-
ing its beams around us, and dazzling our eyes with its radiance. And
the library of our conventual church at St. German's, I suppose, was
in the only remaining part of the priory, the projecting point of the
western wing; a part now occupied, in a kind of hereditary right, by
the library of my lord.

As an appendage to the librarj' in a monastery, was the scriptorium,
or writing-room ; that, in which copies of books were formed. Thus,
as M. Paris informs us, under the abbacy of Paul, from 10"7 to 1093,
" a certain nobleman, stout in war, and a Norman by birth, in the time
" and by the }>ersuasion of this abbot Paul, conferred upon that chureh
" of St. Alban's two parts of the tithes of his demesne in the manor
" of Hatfield — , and assigned them (at the suggestion of abbot Paul, a
" lover of books) for the formation of volumes necessary to. the church;
" for that warrior was a literary man, a diligent hearer," as not able to
be himself a reader, " and lover, too, of books. To this ojjin: \vere
" also annexed additionally [by him] some tithes in Redbnrn ; and he
'' appointed a daily provision of meat to be allowed the w riters, — lest
" the writers should be hindered in their work. And the abbot caused
" some noble volumes nercssary for the church, to be thei'c — , in the very
" scriplorhun, which he built himself — , written by writers selected

• Bciilham, 156, 157, plaie 41.

2 " and

352 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALl. [CIIAP. Vir.

" and lelchcel from farf." This passage shews us very evident that
olJice of an abbey, from which our lawyers have derived tlic name of
their scriptorium, and in which the books wanted were multiphed by
the only printing-press of the times, the pen. But, as the passage has
been strangely misunderstood by a modern writer, let me subjoin his
translation to mine, in order to correct the one, and to vindicate the
other. " A vcrij stout soldier ^\•ho lived at Hatfield," says the
Ev^Iish \\istor\i\n of the abbey, " — one of the Norman leaders — , gave
" two frnfhs," literally two parts, actually (I believe) two thirds, " of
" the tithes of his demesne, assigning it [them] tor the purpose of pur-
" chasing," a point wholly interpolated by the translator, " and pro-
" vidiim books for the monks: for this Robert was a man of letters, and
" a diligent hearer and lover of the Scriptures T a mistranslation com-
pletely ridiculous, and contrary to the whole context, "The tithes of
" Hcdburn," rather, some tithes in Redburn, "■ were assigned for the
" same purpose," rather, were additionally assigned for the same pur-
pose. What, however, was the purpose ? That, as a])pears before, of
purchasing and prodding books. " And the best writers and copyists
" were sought for far and near, for ' -^purchasing arid providing books,
as the analogy of the argument, so interpolated, requires the sequel to
run; but, as the mention of " writers and copyists" now shews the
argument should have been before, and as, in fact, the sequel runs, in
the woi'ds immediately following, for — "' transcribing books; and their
" diet so provided for them, that they might never be tajcen off or hin- •
" dered," the words, "taken off, or" being as spurious as they are super-

t Park, 1003 : '' Contiilit quiJam nobllis, armis strenuus, uatione Neustcr, huic eccle-
•*< sire (tempore et persuasa hujus abbatis Pauli) duas partts dccimanim de suo doniinio in
*' villa de Hatfield,— et assignavit 'sic volente abbate Paulo, scripturarum amatore) ad-volu-
" niina ecclesia^ necessaria, facienda. Erat aiiteni miles illc literatus, diligcns auditor et
*' amator scripliirarum. Ad quod officium, additx sunt qujedam deciniE in Rtdburna; et
" constituit quffidam diaria dari scriptoilbus, — ne scriptoreb inipedirentur — . Ibique fecit
" abbas, ab dectis ct procul qusesitis scriptoribus scribi nobilia volumina ecclesije neces-
" saria." The titlics thus assigned are called by Paris expressly, " dccimaruni scriptoria
■" collatarum ;" and, " in ipso quod construxit scriplorio, libros [Paulus] scribi fecit."

fluous^

SECT. HI.] HISTORICALLY SITRVEVED. 353

fluous, " in this employment|." So very contradictory is one half of
this passage made to the other, and so wildly inaccurate is the whole!
Yet so invariably, so necessarily indeed, was a scriptormm a part of
every monastery! By the rules of Evesham, the prcecentor was obliged
to find, from the tithes and lands allotted him, " enamel for all the
" writers of the monastery, and parchment for brief s,'" another term
borrowed by the lawyers from the monks, but originally signifying
what? the heads, or contents of chapters? " and colours for Uluminatin'r
" books, and necessaries for binding them§." The scriptorium then»
in our priory of St. German's, was in all probability a room closely
adjoining to the library, as its relation to the library would naturally give
a proximity to it, but now used in the growing attentions of the age to
neatness of dress, as that modern apartment in the mansion of a " baron
" bold," the dressing-room of my lord.

With such a scriptorium and such a library, however, the priory mai/
never ha\e produced a single author, as every priory cannot be expected
to produce one. Yet ours has one little known to fame at present,
though well known formerly. Fame, indeed, is merely a circle formed
upon the surface of a lake, at its amplest extent, confined within nar-
row limits, diti^using itself slowly for a while, and soon lost in the very
tenuity of its substance. Thus we know not, in general, the very names
of the monks or priors of St. German's, yet are acquainted witii one
name in particular, that of a mere deacon in orders, but of a writer once
in such celebrity, as to be rescued from the obhvion which has covered
all the rest, and to be transmitted with reputation unto our own times.
" HucAR," cries Lcland, the happy vindicator of his fame, " sh.one out
" brightly, an honour of no slight quality to Cornwall, as fju" as relates
" to that divine kind of knowledge, an acquaintance with theology; and
" at a period particularly," that of the Danish ravages, " in \\ liirh
" through almost all Europe good letters were nearly annihilated, by the
" barbarism prevailing on every side, lint, that he niiglit run the

\ Ncwcomc, 48.

§ Monasticoii, i. 147 : " Incaiistum omnibiH scripioribiis monnsfcrii, ct pergamenanj
" ad brevia, cl colorcs ad illuniinaadiiui, ct neccssaria ad ligandum, libros."

VOL. II. z z " course

354 THE CATHFDKAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

" coui-fic of his Studies with more success," he did — ^^hat? According
to ^Ir. Ne^^•come's theory, he must have retired to any place — except a
monastery. Yet to a monastery he actually retired. " He repaired to
"the cl'urch of St. German in his own country. There also, being or-
" dc:ined a deacon, he prudently gained the good opinion of all, partly
" by his preaching, partly also by his writing. But he wrote a hundred
" and eight homilies, and in his preface to the volume" containing
them " writes thus: ' Such a book as this, which is a collection formed
" hv me Hucar, an inconsiderable man of slender talents, should ha^-e
" such a preface as this.' And in the same place he speaks thus : ' But
" vet these discourses, however collected bv me who dwell a humble
*' deacon in the very distant region of Cornwall, let him accept who likes
" them; and, if he will not applaud them, I beg he will not carp at
" them'." Many then continued deacons for life, as most priests con-
tinue priests at present; and had their peculiar parts of the clerical
ofHce assigned them. Thus one of them attended the bishop for the
execution of his otiice, was thus made archdeacon, or supcrintendant
over the rest, and thus too usurped an authority even over those
who were his superiors in orders, the priests or presbyters, with
their archi-presbyters or rural deans at their head. The first archdea-
con mentioned in our national records, is Wlfrted, a Saxon, who sub-
scribes the resolutions of one synod in 798, of another in 803, profess-
edly as archdeacon, and apparently as a dignitaiy, after the bishops; but
more explicitly witnesses a royal charter of donation in 808, as arch-
deacon of Canterbury*. Even at an earlier period, about 650, occurs
" Thomas-f-, his deacon," on the death of Felix the bishop of Dunwich,
and succeeds him as bishop. " And that his reader might not be igno-
" rant" of some points touched upon by his sermons, " he prefixed
" to his work a few constitutions, taken indeed from the book
*' of Ecclesiastical Constitutions of Egbert, the archbishop of York
•' [about 750], who was formerly the preceptor of Flaccus Albinus
• " [or Alcuinus], a man pecuharly famous for his literature." Or, as

* Battely, 145, 146.

t Wharion's Anglia Sacra, i. 403 : « Thomas diaconus suus,"

Leland

SECT. III.] niSTOniCALLY SURVEYED. 355

Lcland writes in another place concerning Egbert's Constitutions, " this
*' book, Hucar, a deacon of St. German's in Cornwall, carefully re-
" duced into an abridgment." — " That original work of llucar's had tra-
" veiled, I know not how, even to Canterbury; from whence it was
" transported by a certain monk, to Oxford, and lodged in the library
" of Canterbury college," now Canterbury quadrangle in the college of
Christclun-ch ; *' as the same fate has befallen other volumes, both many
" and ancient, the whole furniture of this library being derived from St.
" Saviour's at Canterbury," in consequence of the connexion naturally
subsisting between the monastery and the college, this bearing the name
and receiving the patronage of tliaf^. AVe thus find one author, at
least, belonging to this society, the preacher to it, the publisher also of
108 sermons in one volume, celebrated therefore within the walls of the
priory for his style of preaching, and equally celebrated without the
walls for his strain of writing.

What however is now become of llucar's work, of the St. German's
library, of all the monastic libraries in general ? They who accused the
monks of Gothic ignorance, would be sure to correct in themselves

X De Script. Brit. 168 : " Hucarins, Corinia: non levls [honor], quantum ad t^ieologiae
" cognitionem dlvinam quidcm illam pcrtinet, fania enituit; et co potissinuvm Icnipore,"
explained in p. 173 to mean tlic Danish devastations, " quo bonx per imiversam fere Eu-
" ropam lilerae, barbaric undecunque pra:valeiite, tantiam non interierant. Ut aute<ii studio-
" nun cursum felicius ahsolvcrct, Fanum Gcrmaiio sacrum ajnid suos petiit; \\h\ ct, Lcvita
<* factuB, partim concionando, partim eiiani scribcndo, insignem apud cunctos gratiam sibi
" comparavit. Scripsit autcm homilias centum ct octo, et in hujus libclli prologo sic scrihit,
" ' Talis liber, a me Mucaro, cxigui ingcnii lionunicLilo, in unum collcftus, talem habcat
" prologum,' ct ibidem, ' Scd tamen h:ec, utcuiiquc a me collccta qui in ultimis Cornu-
" galliic parlibus hunulis Levita habito, cui placutrint accipiat ; et si laudare nolucrit, pcto
** ne carpal.' Et, ne lector ignarus sit, prafixit operi paucas constitutiones, decerptas quidcm
•' exlibroConstitutionum Ecclcsiastlcarum Egbcrli, archiepiscopi Eboracensis, olim pra:ccp-
" toris Flacci Albini, viri litcrarum tiiulo vci clarissinii. Pcrvenerat, quo nescio casu,
" Ilucarii opus vcl Durovcmuni usque Cantiorum ; unde a monacho quodam transla-
*' turn est ad Isidis Vadum, ct bibliothccx collegii Cantiani commcndatum : id quod cl aliij
<' exemplaribus, cum mullis tum antiquis, contigit ; tola enim hujus biblioihecic su-
•' pellcx a I'ano ServaforisDurovcrni translata est." Ibid. 114: *' Hum: librum Ilucarus,
" Fani Gcrmaal in Coriiii.i Lcvita^ sludio^c in compendium redepil,"

z z 2 what

356 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [CHAP. VII.

•what they condemned in the others, to use industriously those Ubraries
which the others had so grossly neglected, and thus to turti their very
books as stormed batteries against them. So, in common sense, they
should have acted ; and so, tor that very reason, docs the world believe
them to have acted. But the accusers of the monks as Goths were
actually Goths themselves, Goths warring again with the literature of
Rome, and Goths consigning the literaiy treasures of the age to a
sweeping storm of destruction. To the present generation of the re-
formed, this seems utterly incredible ; yet is dreadfully true. Heiny VIII.
that wilful wayward child of violence, stood like another Genseric or
Alaric, tearing down the sun of literature from its sphere, and burying
the whole country in darkness, AVe even see him so standing, in the
striking portrait of him drawn by a cotemporary, a spectator, and a friend.
" Never had we bene offended," cries even Bale, that strenuous enemy
to the monks, " for the loss of our libraryes, beyng so many hi nombre,
" and in so desolate places for the more parte; yfihe chief e monuments
" and most nofahle tvorltes of our most excelleyit luri/tci^s, had bene re-
" served. If there had bene in every shyre in Englande, but one
" solempne library e, to the preservacyon of those noble workes, and
" preferrement of good lernynge in cure posteritye ; it had bene sumwhat.
" But to destroye all without consideracyon, is and wyll be unto Eng-
" lande for ever a most horryble infamy, amonge the grave senjours of
" other nacyons. A great nombre of them whych purchased those su-
" perstycyouse mansyons, reserved of those library hokes, some to serve
" theyr Jakes, some to scoiue their candlestycks, and some to ruhbe their
" bootes. Some they sold to the grossers and sopesellers, and some
" they sent over see to the bokebyndcrs, not in small nombre, but at
" tvmes whole shyppesfull, to the uionderyvge ofjoren nacyons. Yea,
" the universytees of this realme are not all clere in this detestable fact.
" But cursed is that bellye, whyche sekcth to be fedde with suche un-
" godly gay nes, and so depelye shameth his natural conntrey. I know a
" merchant-man, whych shall at thys tyme be namclesse, that bought
" the contentes of two noble lybraryes for forty shillings pryce; a shame
" it is, to be spoken. Thys stuff e hath he occupy ed in the stede of graye
"paper, by the space of more than these ten years ; and yet he had

5 " store

SECT, III.] HISTORfCALLY SURVEYED. 357

*' store ynougJi for as 7iiany years to come. A prodigyouse example is
** this, and to he abhorred of all men which love their nation as they
*' should do*'' The last is very similar to that ever-memorable deed
of destruction, by which the library of Alexandria was distributed as
waste paper during a cmirse of six months, to light the fires of wood
under the four thousand baths there. And the madness of Mahomet-ins
overtopping all the rage of Goths, so ranking Omar higher in infamy
than either Ahiric or Genseric, v as now apparent upon earth again,
in the person of our half-pi'otestant, half-popish, but wholly savage
king Henry.

I have thus laid open to the mind's eye, what is so little known to us
Protestants at present, the interiors of a priory. We are accustomed
only to view the environing walls with awe, and to deplore the fanati-
cism that reduced the buildings into mere walls. But the habits and
modes of lite, which a monk formerly practised within, are as little
known to the generality, as the modes and habits of the man in the
moon. I have therefore d^elt the more circumstantially, upon the
disposition of this priory within. Such a plan for the history of an
abbey I formerly recommended to the late Mr. West, who published,
in 1 774, " The Antiquities of Furness, or an Account of the royal Abbey
" of St. Mary" there. He, as a clerg}'man of the Romish church, and
a scholar bred in a monastery abroad, might have expatiated with a
freer plenitude of ideas upon the point, than we clergymen of the church
of Eiigland can. I believe him too to have possessed so much probity of
spirit, and to have acquired such a compass of knowledge, as would
have directed and heightened his personal familiarity with monastic

* Steevens's Preface to his oun Monasticon, p. x. See also Bale's whole work, a preface,
in Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood, i. ili. &c. In another work of Bale's is this obser-
vation additional : " The lyme hath bene," he cries, " when it [London] hath had a great
" nombre of t/ie nolU'sl libraries in all Christeiidome \ their destruccyon at this dave, of
" men godly niynded is much to be lamented. — Among the slacyoners and lokeltjnders, I
*' foimd many notaile aiUiquitecs; of whom I wrolc out the tytlcs, tymes, and begyn-
*• nynges — . I have bene also at Norwyche, oure seconde cytic of name ; and there all the
«* library monumenles are turned to the use of thtir grosser s, canJelmukers, sopeseltcrs, and
<' oilier worldly occupyers,^'

manners.

358 THE CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VIT,

manners. I even mentioned the suggestion soon afterwards to one,
^^hom I am proud to liavc frec|ucntly visited on a fair footing of equa-
lity, to have then done what I believe only one map besides to have
done, the late Mr. Beaiiclerc, opposed him freely whenever I dilfered
from him in opinion, yet to have enjoyed no small portion of his per-
sonal respectfulness, the late Dr. Johnson ; and he gave it his full

approbation.

Shook his ambrosial curls, and gave the nod,
The stamp ot fate, and sanction of the god :

But I was too late in my recommendation to Mr. West ; as he was then
in London, attending the press for publication. Nor has any attempt
been made since to carry the plan into execution, except by Mr. New-
come, the historian of St. Alban's abbey ; who, possessing a vein of
good sense and a spirit of observation, has delineated the manners of a
monastery, with the pencil of a monk, though with the colouring of a
Protestant ; yet reposing in confidence on the accuracy of his touches,
and indolently careless about the justness of his colours, has given us a
representation on the whole, however we may allow praise to parts,
violating propriety by fantasticalness, destroying uniformity by contra-
4ictoriness, and distorting truth by falsehood.

SECTION IV.

Having now traced the alterations made in the priory and the church,
subsequent to the original constructions ; I have one point more to
notice at the end of all, concerning the episcopate once attached to
both.

" As to the time tltat this place enjoyed this honour," observes our
old associate and useful intelligencer Mr. Willis, in his parting words, " I
" can only judge it to have been about 1 1 3 [l 1 5] years, viz. from the year
" gsO to lo-ig [i05o] ; and from Leland may guess, that eleven bishops

" sat

SECT. IV.] HISTORICALLY SURVEYED. 350

" sat here*." Mr. Willis thus goes on hke another Vulcan, in his kind
and amiable ministeries to the gods of literature ; limping to the very
close -j-. He forgets what he has remarked himself just before, and thus
confounds what Iceland h:i,^ asserted.

He himself has told us only nine or ten lines before, " that tlie first
" bishop — was Athelstan," who was nominated (according to Mr. Willis
himself) in 905:}:, and "who was succeeded by Conan," in gsG §.
We thus lengthen Mr. Willis's oivn period, with the addition of many
years. But as the see must ccrtaiidy have been erected, when the
kingdom was set up ; when Christianity retired with her priests and
bishops, before the victorious heathens of Germany ; when Cornwall
became independent of Devonshire, in matters spiritual as well as secu-
lar ; the prelacy will mount up with the royalty, as I have carried it, to
the very beginning of the seventh century. Thus will more than three
CENTURIES be annexed to its duration ; and the whole period of its con-
tinuance be almost four ages and a half. We cannot indeed pretend
to measure such a chronology as this, by the standard of a few years ;
any more than we can estimate the distance of the fixed stars, by a yard
or a pole. We must take a half or a whole diameter of the earth, for
this work ; and centuries half or whole for that.

Nor has Leland said any thing so contrary to my reasoning, as
what Mr. Willis imagines he has ; and so grossly false in itself, as that
only eleven bishops sat here. He says merely, in the passage which is
so familiar to our eyes at present, that " beside the hye altare of the
" same priory [church], on the ryght hand, ys a tumbe yn the walk — ,

* Willis, 142.

i Iliad, i. 599, 600 !

(It ijov H^aifoy Jux iuf/.a'ia -.omnvci'la.

Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies,

Ant! iincxtiuguish'cl laughter shakes the skies. — PoPK.

X Willis, 141. § Ibid. 142.

" and

500 THK CATHEDRAL OF CORNWALL [cHAP. VII.

^' and over the tumbe a xi bisshops paynted, — as token of so many bisshops
" biried theere, or that ther had beene su.many bisshoppesot Cornwalle,
" that had theyr secte [seate] theer ||." Mr. WiUis takes ojfe member of
the alternative, when Leland presents both; and so makes him lean
decisively to one of the sides, when he really inclines to neither. He
thus gives a false turn to Leland's account. Mr. AV'illis has also taken
the latter member of the alternative, when in reason and propriety he
ought to have taken thq former. But, what is infinitely more absurd
than either, he here continues the egregious blunder, which we have
seen him beginning before *, in a strange wildness of misapprehension,
he having fancied, and still fancying, this tomb in the chancel to be that
in the south aile, so placing " beside the hye altare" what is not in the
eastern end of the aile at all, what is near the very middle of the aile,
what is even to the west of the middle. By this astonishing act of
oscitancy, he lost a long succession of bishops, all prior to the construc-
tion of the chancel, all coaeval M'ith the cathedral preceding it.

How many these were, it is impossible to ascertain. Tradition,
which once told me of three, and another time of /o^/r, upon closer
examination could not specify any number. The four and the three, I
then found, were only the creatures of an imagination, that was con~
ce'wing from the general tradition, and deriving marks of division upon
its conception from the view of the plates before it f . Three plates were
very apparent in themselves formerly, and are in their places at present.
But a fourth is also apparent, on a strict survey. The number of
bishops, however, must have been much, very much greater than
either, in the three centuries preceding the erection of the chancel.
The number of twelve (for twelve, not eleven, I have noted before % to
be the real number) in little more than a century subsequent, shews the

y Leland's Itin. vii. 122; my vi. 4, and i'l. 4.

* In 111. 2.

t I allude to that very curious principle in physics, disclosed in Genesis, xxx. 39 : " The
" flocks conceived before the rods," which were peeled round in streaks, were therefore
spoTied and speckled in appearance, " and brought forth cattle ring-striUced, speckled, and
" spotted,"

% See vi. 4.

truth

SECT. IV.] HISTORTCALLY SURVEYED. SOl

truth of the assertion, and indicates the amount of all. More than tJ/irf?/
bishops sat in the throne of St. German's, before the reign of Athelstan;
as exactly twelve sat after it. Those are all, except St. Rumon, I
believe, buried near the cenotaph in their old cathedral ; the earlier
close to it, I suppose, the later receding more and more from it ; till
the whole range of the original church, perhaps, has now its soil made
up nearly of mould, that once was episcopal. And the lawn, which
occupies the whole extent of the ancient chancel at present, lies lightly
vt'ith its turf over remains much less numerous in themselves, but equally
episcopal in their nature.

VOL. ir. 3 A CONCLUSION.

362 ' THE CATHEDnAL OF CORNWALJ.

CONCLUSION.

In this manner was a prelacy and a royalty established formerly
among the Cornish; Cornwall being modelled at once into a kingdom
and a bishopric. In this manner too, was the metropolis of the latter
settled at St. German's, and the capital of the former fixed at Leskard.
Both went on in the same course of continuance, till the power of the
Saxons, like an Alpine snowball, growing with its own progress, and
swelling from its own accumulations, came rushing upon them both
with an overwhelming sweep of violence. Then the secular monarchy
■was buried for ever, but the ecclesiastical still reared its head above die
waste. The Cornish episcopate remained, imdcr the sway of the
Saxons ; and even received a magnificent addition to its cathedral, from
the Christianity imbibed by the Saxons on their settlement among
Christians, Kor did the Normans come to St, German's, with the
Saxon heathenism i^enewed upon these seeming Saxons of Denmark.
They came with the Christianity of the Saxons, communicated equally
to the Normans by the Christians of France ; and with the architecture
of Finance, improved by its nearer neighbourhood to Italy. They came
to lend more elegance and more grandeur to the British, to the Saxon
church of the Cornish see. Even when this see migrated to Exeter, it
merely reverted back to its original abode ; and the current, after many
wanderings to the right or left, only rejoined the ocean from which it
had sprung before.

In tracing this current, I have been enabled to lay before my reader
many a fine object upon the banks, important in itself and in its con-
sequences, important to Cornwall in particular, important to the island
in general. I have displayed that period of the Cornish history, in the
3 ' " fidl

niSTOUIC.VLLY SURVEYED. 363

full light of historical radiance; which has hitherto been buried in the
clouds and mists of ignorance, yet concerns the very saints, male or
female, that almost every parish acknowledges in its name, that almost
every town honours in its wake, and that form a necessary link in the
chain of Cornish history. But I have not confined myself, like a limi-
tary intelligencer, to this peculiar orb. I have ranged over the island,
held up the origin of Gothic and of modern architecture within it, the
origin of chess, the origin of free- masons, the origin of armorial bear-
ings ; pointed out the period at which all the grander parts of our large
churches, the chancel, the nave, or the aile, the bell-tower, the lantern,
the spire, or the chapel, were added to them, or at which those peculiar
decorations of our cathedrals, the mitre, the crosier, or the throne, ap-
peared within them ; and exhibiting several churches in Britain, as built
by the very Romans themselves, yet existent still in part or in whole
among us. I !iave shewn the abbey-church of St. Alban's, in direct
contradiction to its own historian, to be one of the number. In doing
all this, I flatter myself I have been usefully employed, have added
something to the stock of antiquarian knowledge, have enlarged some-
what the bounds of historical certainty, and have broke open some new
fountains of intelligence, historical or antiquarian, for the benefit of the
public.

S A 2

APPENDIX.

No. I.
ON THE ORIGIN OF CHESS.

FROM THE ENGLISH REVIEW OF JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1 792.

Archccolog'ia, or Miscellaneous Tracts relat'wg to Antiquify. Pnhlished hy
the Society of Antiquaries of Loiulon. Volume IX.

4. An Historical Disquisition on the Game of Chess — ; hy the Hon. Daines

Barrington.

* JNIr. Barrington, \vho, in the eighth volume of these antiquarian
' papers, laid himself out to explain the origin of card-playing in Eng-

* land, here attempts to explain equally the origin of chess-playing in the
' world at large. The point is curious, much learning is collected to

* bear upon it, yet the conviction does not keep pace with the conclusion.
' This tardiness of faith in us may be in some measure imputed to our

* want of knowledge in the game itself. But it must also be imputed,
' we tliink, to the defective evidences and the feeble reasonings of the

* author.

" It seems to be generally agreed," says Mr. Barrington, " that we
" derive chess from Asia, and most writers have supposed from Persia"
[a note adds, " from the names of some of the pieces"]; " but I cannot
" give up the claim of the C-hinese as inventors, though Hyde inclines
" against it" in his History of eastern Games, " and chieHy because
" ihey," the Chinese, " have some additional pieces, which d'lilcr from
" ours both in their form and powers. This single circumstance, how-
*' ever, by no means appears couclusivc to me ; because in all countries,

" \\ hero

306 APPENDIX. [no. r.

" where any game liath been of long continuance, the players Mill make
" innovations, though it remains the sanu- in substance. ])u Halde, how-
" ever, cites a (Jhincse treatise ; by -wluch it aj)pears, that it is the favou-
'* rite game of that country, and as such is sometimes depicted upon Chi-
" nesc paper. In Thibet also chess is much in vogue, as it is throughout
" Bengal and Indostan, M'ith a native of which I liave myself placed, nor
" do the moves or rules differ materially from our o\\ n. It is therefore
" highly probable, that Thibet and Indostan received chess from the long-
" civilized empire of China, rather than from Persia, which it might reach
" in its progress westward through Indostan." That Indostan, Bengal,
Thibet, China, and Persia, ' all have the game of chess among them, is

* very apparent*from these evidences. Eut which is the mother-country

* of the game, does not appear. The long civility of China, even if the
' lact be certain, is no argument in favour of that country. Incivility,
' rudeness, and barbarism, delight in games of chance equally \\itli

* modern refinement itself. An English peasant loves cards as much as

* Milord All glois. And, in the highest luxury of Rome, Tacitus noticed
' with astonishment the infatuated propensity of those Indian-like tribes
' the Germans, for gaming with dice. " Aleam," he says, " quod mirere,
*' sobrii infer scria exereent, tanta luerandi perdendive temcritate, ut cimi
" omnia defecennit, extremo ac no\issimo jactu de liheriafeet de corpora
" contendiuit *." Arthur's, in all its exorbitance of gaming, never wit-
' nessed such a stake as his ; though it was in Tacitus's time very common
' in Germany, and even characteristic of the nation. INIr. Barrington, in-

* deed, only states it as " highly probable," that chess came from China.
' But the probability is nothing, when we take away the argument from

* civility. Indeed the probability is all on the other side, on the very side

* against which JNIr. Barrington is contending. Persia may still claim the
' honour, if an honour it be, of giving the game of chess to the world ;
*■ notwithstanding all, that Mr. Barrington has advanced hitherto. When
' Persia, China, Thibet, Bengal, and Indostan, have equally the game ;
' when, in the last countries, " the moves or rules" do not " differ mate-
*•' rialli/ from our own;" when the Chinese " have some additional pieces,

* Dc Mor, Gcr. xxiv,

** which''

yo. 1.] APPENDIX. 3O7

*' which" do " differ from ours both in ihcir form and powers " and

* when " the names of some of the pieces" in our own chess arc actu-

* ally Persian at this day : the probability is clearly in favour of Thibet,
' Bengal, and Indostan, preferably to China, and the balance turns de-
' cidedly in preference of Persia to all.

' Mr. Barrington having thus examined the Chinese claim to the in-
' vention, goes on to consider the Grecian. The first passage adduced
' for it, he remarks, ** is a line in the first book of the Odyssey, where it
" is said that Penelope's suitors thus amused themselves before the gates
" of Ulysses's palace :

" As it took place, however, in the open air, it is much more likely that
" it resembled a very common game at every scliool, called hop-scot, than
" the sedentary amusement of chess. Unfortunately for the former sup-
" position, Athenanis in his first book gives us from a native of Ithaca
" (whose name was Cteson), a very jiarticular account of the method of
'' playing the game of 'Tri-fluoc by Penelope's suitors, which differs most
" materially from chess, as the pieces were in number 108 instead of 32.
" The principal piece moreover (named PcnclopeJ was placed in the va-
" cant space between the tvio sets, ^^•hilst each player endeavoured to
" ^V/vYiC Penelope twice; in which if he succeeded, he was supposed to
" have better pretensions than the other suitors." This passage, we are

* The reviewer would have remarked if he had known, that there is a passage in the Iliad,
which shews the use of chess at a mucli cailicr period ; when Patroclus was yet a boy, and
ivilied another boy in a passion at ehess :

H|u»1i Ti', oil traiJa x«l(x1a»o» A/x^iJa/iavlo,-,

Kbjtw;, «m ^9!^»», ajA?' ASTPArAAOISl ^oXiO;!.;. xxxiii. S;, SS.

Mr. Pope has strangely omiUcd the whole passage in liis translation, though extended into
no Icsj than six lines in the original, and though so important in the history of PatrocUis's
connexion with Achilles. The father of Achilles then took Patroclus into his own family,
bred him up, and constituted him an attendant upon his son.

Elfi^i t' i»Jtxii',-, x*J fo/ SijarorV cvofiT.tif, 89, 90.

* sorry

-308 APPEXDIX. [no, I.

* sorry to say so, is peculiarly confused and erroneous. That the game,,
' whatever it was, was " played in the open ai-/' is not true. It was
' played in the very portico, within which the suitoi-s were equall} feast-

There, in the porlal plac'd, ihe heav'n-born maij

Enormous riot and misrule survey'il.

On hides ol' bees, lefore the palace-gate,

(Sad spoils of iuxnry) the suitors sat.

With rival art, and ardour in their mien,

At chess they vie, to captivate the quecn-^

Divining oF their loves.

Even if the game had been " in the open air," jNIr. Barrington surely is
under a strange influence of injudiciousncss, in setting the suitors of Pe-
nelope to play at " hop-scot" for her. Burlesque itself could not go be-
yond this. But Mr. Barrington himself, without seeming to know what
he is doing, instantly sweeps away this score of " hop-scot" with his-
hand, by giving us an authentic account of what the game was.
' A native of Ithaca" lends him the account. From this the game is ap-
parently not " hop-scot," but sedentary like chess, and probably, as Mr.
Pope has stated it, chess itself. " Unfortunately for the /6;vwc/' suppo-
' sition," says Mr. Barrington concerning the game being chess, when it
is decic/eiUi/ imfortunate for the latter, concerning the play being hop-
scot ; " Athenasus in his first book gives us," &c. By this account, as
Mr. Barrington adds, " the game of Tn-fiHot, by Penelope's suitors, —

* differs most materially from chess, as the pieces were in number 108 in-
' stead of 32." Yet we find from a passage and a note before, that

* the board at arch-chess," w hich he thinks is an Italian addition to the
original chess, " had loo sg/zo^r^' instead of 64*;" and, in opposition
to what is alleged in favour of the descent of chess from the Chinese,
that " they have some additional pieces, which ditler from ours both in

* their form and powers." The number of the pieces therefore, by Mr.
Barrington's own confession before, can be no argument against the
identity of the game. jNIr. Barrington indeed argues previously Jiimself,
that " in all countries, where any game hath been of long continuance,

* 'P. 17.'

*' the

NO. I,] APPENDIX. 360

** the players will make innovations, though it remains the same in sub-
" stance." And those variations in the number of pieces may be (ac-

* cording to ]SIr. Barrington himself) as much innovations of this kind in

* the chess of Ithaca, as thc.v avowedlv are in the arch-chess of Italy ;
' and as much the result of a long contiiniance there. But Mr. Barring-

* ton next objects, that the game was substantially different from chess.
" The principal piece (named Penelope)," he says, " was placed in the
** vacant space between the two sets, whilst each player endeavoured to
" s/iike Benelope twice," But let us attend to the more circumstantial

* account, which Mr. Pope (or rather his hired translator) has given us

* from Eustathius on the place -f. " The number of the suitors being
" one hundred and eight, they ccjually divided their men or balls ;{l; that
" is to say, lifty-four on each side : these Mere placed on the hoard oppo-
'* site to each other. Between the two sides \\-as a vacant space, in the
" midst of which was the main mark, ot queen, the point which all were
" to aim at. They took their turns by lot ; he irho took or displaced that
" vuirh, got his own in its place ; and if, by a second man, he again took
" it, without touching any of the others, he won the game." We know-
nothing of chess, and therefore may be mistaken in what Me are going

' to say. But this appears to us very similar to what Mr. Barringtoii
' himself tells \is, that " the putting the enemy's king," at Ithaca called
' a queen, by the suitors named Penelope, and onl}' one to the two sets of
* combatants, " in such a situation that he cannot be extricated" with-
' out being taken, " is the great object of each player § ." There is cei'-
' tu'inlij such a substantial similarity between chess and that, as shews it
' demonstrably not to be hop-scot, and evinces it probably to be chess.
' If it is not chess, what other gaine can it possibly be.'' If chess was
' actually meant by Athenivus, with the variations in playing the game

t And, 38 tills reviewer should in jiisiice to his .irgunicnt have added from Mr. Pope's
Eustathius, " Athtn.Tiis relates it from Apian the Giamiiiarian, who had it from Ctcson, a
" native of Ithaca, that the sport was in this manner."

I Balls ! The pieces were nearly globular, and were th^rfore called " pil.t;" by the Ro-
mans. See Ovid in a long note hereafter.

§ This reviewer should have referred to p. iR.

VOL. 11. \\yi ' that

370 APPENDIX. [no. I,

' that seem to have taken place at Ithaca, could he in his short descrip-
' tion have pointed it out more significantly?

' But " though chess is supposed to have been known thus early in
" Ithaca, yet the invention of this ingenious game hath been commonly
" attributed to Palamedes *. The chief authority, hoAvever,for his being
" the inventor of chess, is the foUoVing line from Sophocles :

E(piv^s [sc. Palamedes] Trscro-ooig, y.v^oig t.-, noTrvov ayias ayog.

' A note adds : " By this line the invention of dice is also attributed to
"Palamedes; which ingenious discovery, it is much v^'ished for the
" benefit of society, that he had reserved to himself." That Palamedes at
' Troy was the inventor of the game of Tna-a-ot, whether it be chess or
' not, is historically impossible to be true. We see the game actually played

* at Ithaca, when Ulysses and his soldiers were not yet returned from

* Troy. Nor does the passage in Sophocles affirm any such thing : it

* only alleges, that " he found amusement, as the cure of idleness, in
" TTJo-cro/ and in dice;" just as the suitors are said before to have
" amused themselves" in the same manner, inarcroicn %^ov s]sf,7rov. And dice
' were so little the invention of Palamedes, that they must have been
' known for ages before the complicated game of the 7r:-<ra-ci was in-

* vented ; being the simplest, and therefore the oldest, of all those instru-
' micnts which the selfishness of man has fabricated, for giving employ-

* ment to such as can find none for themselves, and so enabling them to
' escape from " the rack of a too easy chair." W^c have already

* seen the dice rattled by the earliest Germans, with more than the hardy
' desperation of a knight of industry at the German Spa nov^-.

' Mr. Harrington proceeds to the Roman claim of inventing chess. He

* accordingly produces two passages, one from Ovid, which " no person,"
' he affirms, " who is acquainted with the moves even at chess, can read
" — with attention, and conceive that it is alluded to ;" and another from

* The reviewer should have here cited this passage in Mr. Pope : " It is said, this game
*' was invented hy Palamedes, during the siege of Troy,"

' a poem

NO. I.] APPENDIX. • 371

* a poem sometimes ascribed to Lucan, which " must be allowed," he
' owns, " to contain stronger allusions to what may be deemed chess,
" than any of the other passages w hich have been quoted," but which, he

* still thinks, docs nut mean it. We can only say, that this moy be so.
' But wc are not convinced that it is f.

" The first mention which I have happened to meet with of a game
" that bears any affinity to scacchia or chess is, that in Du Frcsne's
" ' Glossariuni medite ct infinice Graecitatis' under the article Z«7f<K/ec ;
" where he cites a passage alluding to it from Anna Commena's I2th
** book of her Alexias, as well as others from the Byzantine historians.
" It is there stated, that the Persians call it a-uyl^xj^, vidiilst the Constanti-
" nopolitan name is o-yMKcv. — Sir Elijah Impey informs me, that the
" board is still called satri/ige in Bengal. It was rather a common game
" at Constantinople in the twelfth century, when Anna Comnena flou-
" rishcd : and this, I conceive, will account for its introduction into
" Europe." It is peculiarly unfortunate for an author to trip up his own

* heels in this wrestling of controversy. Mr. Barrington is endeavouring,
' we know, to disprove the Persian origin of chess in fa^'our of a

* Chinese one : yet v,e have seen him acknowledging befoic, that, even

* in our own chess, " the names of some of the pieces" are Persian. And

* now v\ e rind, that the very name at Bengal for the board itself, is the

* very same that was used in Persia many centuries ago. So far, there-

* fore, Persia appears the common centre of radiation (if we may use so

* sublime an allusion for so petty an object), to Bengal at one extremity of

* the glolie. and to Britain at another, for the science of chess-playing,
' Ki)r \\ ill the commonness of the game at Constantinople in the tirclftk
' century, account for its introduction into Europe. It was known and

* famihar in wcsfcfN Europe, during the cletriitli. This appears from a
' verv pictures(jMO |);issage in our own Malmesbury's account of the cru-

* sadcs. " Annoab Incarnalione lu<jj," he tells us, " — lunic — civitatem

t From what follows in tlit' reviewer's argument, coupled with these concessions so sin-
gularly ingenious in Mr. Barrington, the reviewer might have fairly presumed, I think, that
the lilies allude actually to chess.

3 u 2 " [Anlioch]

372 AVPElimx. [no. t.

* [Antioch] Franci ah Octobri usque adJuni/n)! [in I096] circumsedere. —
' Aoxianus — civitatis ammiratus," emir of the city, " — Sansadolem
' filium ad Soldanum imperatorem ]\'rsidis misit — : Soldanus apud
' J^crsas, — omnium Sarracenorum rector." The Christians however

took the town before the Persian succours arrived. These came just

afterwards, and blocked up the Christians in the tow^n. " Venerant illi

' a Sansadole invitati, duce Corbaguath satrapa orientali, qui ab impera-

* tore Persidis acceperat trecenta millia cum viginti septem ammiratis."
The Christians became distressed. " Quaproptcr, triduano prius cum

' letaniis exacto jejunio, legatus Petrus Ileremita mictitur ad 7//?'co5."
He went, and made his proposals. " Non erat Corbaguath ejus facilita-
' tis, ut legatum dignaretur rcsponso ; sed sciiaccis ludens, et dentibus
' infrendens, inanem dimisit — . Ille — , concite rediens, exercitum de in-
' solentia Turci certiorem reddidit J." In this very striking delineation,
we see the Turkish general of Persia, in the midst of war, and at the
very reception of a legate from the enemy, playing at the Persian game
of chess ; we behold Peter the Hermit so well acquainted with the
game, as to report it under its proper appellation to his European
brethren ; and we even find an historian in Britain, within a very few
years afterwards §, reciting the incident, and repeating the appellation,
as quite familiar to him and to his countrymen. All intimates the Per-
sian origin of the game, and all indicates its early introduction into
Britain itself.

" In the first crusades, before the destruction of the Eastern empire, the
•' adventurers often made a stay at Constantinople (the emperors of which
" were generally friendly to the Christian cause) ; and thus probably be-
" came acquainted with this bewitching game, which they introduced on
'' their return to their respective countries." But we have already shewn,
' that Europe in general, and Britain in particular, were well acquainted
• with the game hejbrc the return from the very first crusade.

" I cannot but dissent from Hyde's most learned treatise on this game,
" when he seems to suppose it known in England about the time of the

X ' Malmesbury, fol. 73 and 78.' § ' Malmesbury, fol. 98.*

5 " Conquest,

NO. I.] APPENDIX. ,373

** Conquest, from tlic court of exchequer having been then first esta-
" Wished. Now true it is, duit the barons of the exchequer sit with a
" table before them, which is covered with a chequered cloth ; l)ut the
" use of this cloth is, for settling the accounts to be passed before this
" court. — It is possible that the chequer being so common a sign for a
" public-house, may have furmcrly been for the same reason of changing
*' the reckoning ; and it is remarkable that the same sign was used at
" ancient Pompeii, as appears by the engravings which are inserted in
" the fourth volume of the Archreologia." We have already seen the
' scacchi a game, played by the general of the Persians, and familiar to
' the most westerly Europeans, in I09O; just thirty years only after the

* Conquest. Hyde therefore seems to have a strong probability in his
' favour, when " he seems to suppose it known in England about the
" time of the Conquest." But Mr. Barrington will not allow his suppo-
' sition, because it is founded only on the establishment of the court of
' exchequer then. This, he hisinuatcs, for he does not argue, derives its
' appellation only from the chequered cloth, with wliich the table of the
' court is covered, and by the chequers of which the officers of the court

* used to compute sums. Mr. Barrington, however, is as erroneous as
' he is popular in this insinuation. The court carries the very name of the

* game, the name appropriate to it at Constantinople and in Malmesbury
'before; that of scacchus. " Ab ipsa regni conquisitione," says Ger-

* vase of Tilbury*, who lived within a hundred years after the Conquest,
' and wrote a set treatise on the exchequer, " per regem Gulielmum
" facta htcc curia coepisse dicitur, sumpta tamenejus ratione a scacchario
" transmarino." The exchequer of Tilbury therefore unites with the
' chess of Malmesbury, to shew the familiarity of the name and game

* among our own ancestors, as early at least as the Conquest. But a

* court of exchequer appears to have been previously erected, under the
' same appellation of scucchariu/ii, upon the continent. The existence

* This author, with whom I so cordially imile in sentiment, and whom indeed, as I
must say in the language of Jien Jnnson concerning Shakespeare, "I honour as much as
" any nian on this side idolatry," has here committed a mistake, which is corrected in the
body of my work, iii. 3.

' and

.■?7.4 ArPE>JDlX. [xo. I.

' and the appellation of our own, were only liorrowcd " a scacchario
" trnnsnianiiDy Tliis therefore coincides with Malnicfebury again, to

* slicw how l*(?ter and tlie other crusaders canie to know so ver} rcadil}-

* the game, m hieli the Persian general was playing.

• Yet how came the continental and island exchequers to take the ap-
' pellation o{ scacchariiimf Gei-vase himself shall tell us, and so concur

* in part with, and in part correct, Mr. Barrington and the mass of
' writers. " Scacchariuiii,'' he says, " est tabula (juadrangula, qu?e lon-
" gitudine quasi decem pedum, et quinque latitudine, ad m<nlum mcnsa'^
" cireumsedentibus apposita, undique habet limbum latitudinis ({uasi
" quatuor digitorum, supponitur scacchario annus in termino Paschee
" emptus, non quilibet, sed niger virgis distinctus, distantibus u se vir-
*' gis vel pedis vel palmic extentae spatio*." The court, tlicn, took its

* name from the cloth f . Yet the question still recurs, and is only varied
' in the object. Whence, we nmst 7ioiv ask, did the cloth itself derive its
' name ? Evidently from its simiUtude to a chess-l-oard. The appella-
' tion of the game, scacclnis, had directly communicated itself in scaccha-
' riuiii to the board, and indirectly or allusively to any thing resembling
' it in appearance. Cloths, resembling it in having a set of diversified
' squares upon them, were distinguished by its name, and were said to be

* scaccharia or chequered. Just so, as ISIr. Barrington himself informs
' us, in p. 24 preceding, the chess-board being called satringe in Bengal,
' there this " term also signifies a carpet, from its bci/ig general/^
" chequered as the chess-board is.'' How strongly therefore does this

* ' Camdeni Britannia, p. 129, edit. 1607.' But Cannlen's copy was very erroneous.
The very citation in Camden shews it to be so. And " Seaccarium tabula est quadrangula,"
saysMadox's copy, ii. 353, " quae longitudinis quasi decem pedum, latitudinis quinque, ad
*' moduni mensae cireumsedentibus apposita, undique habet limbum altili/dinis qiaauoT dial -
* ' \orum, ?ie c/iiid apposllum exddat. S^pcr-ponitur aulem scaccario superior', pannits in
" termino Paschse emptus, non quilibet, sed," Sec.

t The reviewer's reasoning here seems at first sight, to be diflercnt from what it should
be ; ,and exchequer seems to be the name, not of the cloth, but of the table itself. " Scacca-
'•■ rlnni est tabula." Yet, on deeper consideration, I see he is right. The table had no
chequers upon it, but the cloth had, leing the veryjirst cloth of check that is noticed in our
history.

' prove

^*o. I.] APPENDIX. 375

' prove the equal popularity of the game among the nations of Europe,
' as among the tribes of Bengal ; when it could carry such an extensive
' influence with it, upon the language of both ! Ages must have been re-
' quisite, to make such an impression upon their fancies, and to thr,o^\■
' such a colouring over their minds, as to produce this grand effect.

* But this is not all. The reason why s\ich a scaccharhun or chcqucred-
' cloth was preferred to all others, for the continental and insular courts of
' exchequer, was the use to which it had been now applied, for reckon-

* ing up by its squares the large sums to be received into those ex-
' chequers : and, as this throws the origin of chequered cloths still far-
' ther back, so was it that use of the cloth which lent the appellation of
' it to the court. We thus run up ages beyond the Conquest, for the in-
' troduction of chess among our continental neighbours and ourselves.

' We see, indeed, their language and our own, stained very deeply with

* the hue and die; of this game. The scacchia and scaccharium, with

* which chess and its board came among us at first, have formed the
' denomination of one of our highest courts, in Latin scacchiiriitin, in
' Norman French cs-c/wfjuir, in English exchequer, and provincially
' chequer ; have created a name for a most useful species of cloth manu-
' facturcd by us, chequer or check ; have diffused their own appellation
' of chequer, over every object that is diversified in squares ; and have
' even given the signs and the titles of chequer, to our inns *. Mr. Bar-

rington
* Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 143, from tlie obituaiy of Canterbury, shews, that i)rior
Chillcnden about A. D. 1400, " in civitate Cantuariac unum hospitiiini taniosuni, vocaturii
*' Le Chektr, — nobilitcr .xililicavit." It was in Mercery Lane. " Great part of this lane,"
says Goatling, 57, " seems fonneily lo have been built for large inns ; great part of the
" Clu'ijiier, wheie Chaucer and his Jelloiv-pilgrims are said to have lodged, takes up almost
" half the west side of it." This is called by l.eland, in Ilin. viii. 6, " the Eschcker, llie fairc
" yene yn the High Stre.iteof Cantorbyri." Its front was narrow to the High Street, as it
even appears in (Joslling's own map, and its length extended down Mercery Lane. \Vc c\'cn
observe, that the f«r>Y/)y of our cathedrals, as the room is denoniinaleJ in our culltoes at
Oxford, within s\ hieh the accounts of receipts and dislnirsemcnts are made uj) ; was, and per-
haps is, denominated an exchcijuer oecasionally. So " Thomas Bekington made the west
«' cndc of the cloysler" at WcIIj, " with the volte, — and an adickcr over it, havin;^ 25 wyn-

" dowc*

3;f5 ArpEXDix. [^■o. i.

' rington indeed hath snrnused, that these title; aiul tl)cse signs may
' have been licriwd from the use of a chccjucr-cloth within, for changing

* the reckoning to the customers. But [to suppose] that the mode of
' computing the large receipts of a royal treasury could ever have been
' adopted for the petty expenditure of an inn, is too mucli in that high
' tone of burlesque with which we have charged another surmise of liis
' before. Tiie supposition looks too like the hardy energy of a mind,

' which will strain and strain to wrest any thing out of its course, in
' order to serve an hypothesis. The name of Chequer to some of our
' capital inns, is explained by the appearance of a checpier ypon the walls
' of many of our alehouses at present. Nor could tlie sign have ever
' been put without, but to indicate what was within, a chess-hoard

* ready for any that chose to play ; )ust as a bunch of grapes now proclaims,
' that wine may be had there. Nor is the sign of the chequer merely

* English; it is Roman, and of the first antiquity in the empire of Rome.
' We have long observed this in the ruins of Pompeii, as delineated by

* the pencil of sir William Hamilton. But Mr. Barrington is the first

* who has publicly noticed it. The streets of Pompeii are laid out ex-
' actl}' as the streets of London are and were a few years ago; paved

* w ith great rounding-stones, and laid with a raised foot-path on each

* side. On the left-hand of the principal street are two chequers still
'remaining, fresh and entire upon the wall, not far from each other;
' one consisting of five lines of squares, the other of eight, and each con-
' taining four squares in a line, all interchangeably white and black**
' And, as this fact evinces chequers to have been the signs of inns, even

* in the year 79 of our era, when Pompeii was covered with ashes from
' Vesuvius; so does it proclaim m ith a loud voice, that chess-boards were
' kept there in this year, and consequently carries the origin of chess in
' Europe to the first age of the empiref. " It

" dowes toward the area side," (Leland's Itin. iii, 127.) So likewise within the close at
LiiiLohi, " the eskcker" and " the eskeker gate," (Ithi. viii, 4, 5. J So, at Durham, one
who became bishop in I437» " ^caccarium coram poriis castri Diinelmcnsis— construxit,
" in quo curia cancellariae skakaria — tenetur," (Wharton, i, 777.)

* * Archa"ologia, iv. 170, plate'

t Xero evidently played at chess, " cum inter iuitia imperii elurneis qiiadrigis," ivory

chess-men

.tJ

50. I.] APPENDIX. 377

" It is possible, however," adds Mr. Barrington, " that chess might
" be known in England, in the next century after the first crusade had

" taken

chess-men stamped with such carriages, " quotidie in alaco ludercl." (Suetonius, 22.)
This passage confirms the reasoning in the text, about chess and chess-hoards at Uome, as
early as 79. It alio fixes the moaning of two passages in Martial, which have hitherto been
considered as dubious in their design ;

Sic vincas Noviumque Publiumque, ' ' '.'

Maiidiis et vittca latrone clausjs (vii. 7[>,

the chess-men here meant being of glass, the " mandrac" being the squares, and the two
epecified persons the Philidors of Rome at the time j

Iiisidiosoriim ai liidis bella latronum,

Gemmtus ibte tibi miles et liostis erit {\\y. 20),

the glass being cut in the form of a jewel. All is confirmed by a short passage in Ovid;

Sive latrocinii sub imsgine calculus ibit,
Fac pereat viireo miles ab lioste tuus;

the first chess-men being merely pebbles, and the name still adhering when the materials
were ivory or glass. And all enables us to appropriate to chess those reputed lines of Lucan,
which, as Mr. Barrington owns, " must be allowed to contain stronger allusions to what
" may be deemed chess, than any of the other passages,'* and which therefore no nitre
circumstance of omitting to notice the king, as Mr. Barrington would willingly allege against
bis own acknowledgment, can ever wrest away from chess.

Te si forte juvat studiorum pondere fessum

Non langucre tamen, lususque movere per artem ; '

Callidiore modo, tabuld varialur nferld

Calculus, et viiieo peraguntiir milite bella,

Ut niveus nigros, nunc et nlger alligct alios.

Sed tibi quis non terga dedit, quis te duce cessit

Calculus, aut quis non periturus pcrdidit hostem?

Mille modis acies tua dimicat, ille petentem

Dum fugit, ipse rapit, longo venit ille recessn

Qni stctit in speculis, iiic se conimirtcrc rixx

Audet, et in pncdain venientem decipit hostem,

Ancipites subit ille moras, similisque ligato

Obligat ille duos, hie ad majora movetur,

Ut citus et fractft prorumpat in agm'ntvi naitjra.

Intcrca sectis quamvis acerrima surgunt

Prxlia militibus, plen^ tamen ipse phalange,

Aut ctiam pauco spoliate milite viiicis;

£t tibi captivft rcMnat manus unique turb&.

VOL. n. 3 c Bu^

S;,q APPENDIX. - [xo. X,

" taken place; but, I should rather suppose, during the 13th century,
" upon the return ot Edward the First from the iJoly Land, where lie

*' continued

Bat, liaving gone thus far with success, I may even venture to appropriate that very passage
ill Oviil, of which Mr. Baninglon has so emphatically pronounced, " that no person, who is
" acquainted with the moves even at chess, can read il with attention, and conceive that it is
*' alluded to." The reasons assigned for this assertion, on a disjeclion of the lines, are these r
that " the second line, which makes it necessary for two pieces being employed in taking one,
" is not applicable to chess ;" that, by the seventh and eighth lines, " the squares or divisions
"were but 12;" and that, "by the ninth, the number of the pieces were [was] only 6,
" instead of 32." The first only shews some variation from our own in the mode of playing;
just such as appears in Lucan's lines before, when he says,

similisque ligato

Obligat ille duos;

and nearly such as Mr. Earrlngtoii has already conceded to be In his reputed parent of all ;
when he says the " Chinese," though " inventors, — have some additional pieces, which
" diS'er from ours both in their ybr-m and powers." His second and third objtct, that the
number of squares is merely 12, and of pieces only 6; when he previously acknowledges
what he owns to be chess, and actually calls " arch-chess," to have " 100 squares" in Italy
fp- 17) 5 '^^^^ when very contradictorily he alleges in the page immediately following, that
the crame of Ithaca " differs most materially from chess, as the pieces were in number 108,
" instead of 32," and the squares therefore still more. Mr. Burrington shifts his reasoning
with his convenience; but the fact plainly is, that the " squares" or the " pieces," which
must aKvays have borne a proportion to each other, only the squares more in nnmber than
the pieces, were sometimes more and sometimes less in themselves. At Rome the " squares"
were frequently twelve, but rose, at times, into sixteen, and occasionally mounted up to
thirty-two, as they have since risen in Italy to 100, and had once mounted in Ithaca beyond
108. That they were twelve, frequently, in the first age of the empire, is shewn by this
additional evidence in Martial :

Tabula Lusoria.
Hie mihi 6is seno numeratur tissera puncto

Calculus \nc gemino discolor ^w/<f perit. (xiv. 17.)

But, in the only two chequers painted on the walls of Pompeii, we see the variation more
striking : one diflering from the other in the number of squares, and this having sixteen,
while that has thirty-two. The passage in Ovid then, thus vindicated, gives us the general
but contracted chess of the times.

Caiitaque nnn stuU& latroniim praslia liidat,

Unus cum gemino calculus lunte peril;
Bellatorque suo prensus sine compare bellat
.^mulus, et eoeptum sjeperecurrit iter j

Reticulogue

XO. I.] APPENDIX. 379

" continued so long, and was attended by so many English. The
" Turks, who never change their habits, are still great players at this
" game, which suits so well, both with their sedentary disposition and
" love of taciturnity." We have seen a Turkish general playing the

* game so early as logO, in the sight of an European in Palestine*, and

* during the first crusade ; the European, even then, understanding the
'game and its appellation; and an historian of Britain, only about
' twenty } ears afterwards f, reciting the anecdote without wonder at
' the game, and without hesitation concerning the appellation. Wc

* have even seen the appellation of the chess-board, communicated pre-

* viously to cloths formed in assimilation to it, and transferred dven
' to a high court among us. And we have actually beheld the rcpre-

* scntation of the chess-board, impressed upon the walls of our inns for
' ages in England, and still preserved upon the walls of Pompeii. In

* such circumstances, to talk about the introduction of chess into Eng-

* land during the thirteenth century, appears wildly ridiculous. We

* believe the Romans introduced chess, as they introduced all th& arts
^ and amusements of their empire, into this island.

" The first mention which I have met with, of chess being known in
" England, is in a manuscript of Simon Aylward, said by Hyde to be
•' in the library of Magdalen college J. The same leaDied writer

Reticuloque piliE' laeves'" funduntur ajurto.

Nee nisi quam toUes iiUa movencia pila est.
Est genus in tot'tdcm tenui ratione redactiim '

Scif'tula, quot menses lubi iciis annus habet.
Parva tabella capit ternos utriiique lapillosy

In qiiii vicissc est continiiasie suos.

But let me crown all with an anecdote concerning the emperor I'roculus, yet long before he
became emperor: " quum in quodam convivio ail latrunculos ludcrelur, atque ipse decies
** imperator exissct, quidam non ignobilis scurra ave, inquit, Auguste." (Hist. Aug. 967.
Lug. Bat. 1661.)

• A mistake in the reviewer, for Syria,

■t Malnicsbury, f. 98.

J Authors, very much earlier, are cited in iii. 3, before.

■ Ai ncady globular. * Ai cat gla.<ss, * As conttactcd chcu,

3 c 2 *' cites

380 APPENDIX. ' [no. X,

"■ cites another manuscript, and of I.ydgate, where are the following

" lines,

" Was of &Jers so fortunate,

" Into a corner drive and maat;

" which are very intelligible, if we suppose that the preceding line relates
" to the piece called tJie king ; and they will have the following mean-
" ing, viz. ' the king was by a fortunate queen (of the adversary)
" driven into a corner of the chess-board, and check-mated,' which of
" course concludes the game." And, as a note adds, " J'crs" [or, as Mr.
' Barrington gives us the word, in p. 36,phi'rz] " is said to signify in the
" Persian language, general, or minister, and is applied to that piece at
" chess which we term the queen." It appears very unlucky for Mr.
' Barrington, that he had never met with that strong ray of light, which

* darts from the page of Malmesbury before ; and that he dashed from

* his hand the torch, which H}'de seems to have put into it, from the

* establishment of an exchequer. We therefore see him, like Elymas in
' the cartoon of Raphael, reaching out his hands in the dark, and feel-
' ing for some kind leader; while we are looking on, with equal
' surprise and sorrow. But we here see a term in chess-playing, that
' was formerly popular in it, and is supposed to be Persian. This ac-

* cordingly serves strongly to mark the Persian derivation of the game,
' mediately or immediately, to our English fathers. But we think the

* term proves still more. Fers or Pherz we consider as the same with

* Persia itself; the native appellation of the country being Pars and
' Phars, formed by the Greeks and Romans into Persis and Persia.
' The queen then retaining the name of Persia, so late as the days of
' Lydgate in England ; we have a double evidence of the Persian origin
' of the game.

* But let us here observe again some terms, that have diffused them-

* selves through our language. We have already noted some, that were
' only collateral. We wish now to remark others, that are in the direct
' line of descent. Scacchia forms in French echec, one of the pieces is

* said to be checked or check-nrdXcA, and the whole family of checks, as

* signifying stops or controls, is derived from the game of chess. So

* very

KO. I.] APPENDIX. 381

* very popular does the game appear again to have been among our

* ancestors !

" Our ancestors certainly played much at chess, before the general
*' introduction of cards ; as no fewer than twenty-six English families
" have emblazoned chess-boards and chess-rooTcs in their arms ; and it
" must therefore have been considered as a valuable accomplishment.
" Hyde moreover states, that chess was much played at both in Wales
" and Ireland, and that, in the latter, estates had depended upon the
" event of a game. I must own, however, that I have some doubts
** with regard to' these facts, as neither of these countries were scarcely
'* civilized till the latter end of the reign of Henry VHI. As for Wales,
" I doubt much whether they have a term for the game in their own
" language; whidi probably is true likewise, in regard to the Irish."
' That such a number of our English families have taken the board and

* some of the pieces at chess, for their armorial bearings ; is an evidence
' concurring with the signs of our alehouses, and the terms of our lan-
' guagc, to shew the astonishing popularity of the game among us.
' Arms carrying the board are also said, in the language of heraldry, to

* be cheeky or cheque. This, however, does not complete the evidence
' for our island. Hyde gives us still more. " Chess,' in or before his
' time, " was much played at both in Wales and in Ireland." Even
' whole " estates" in Ireland, he adds, have been staked " upon the
" event of a game." All this extends the induence of tlie game, verv

* widely over these islands. INJr. Barrington indeed mounts his hobby^
' horse of civUily again, in order to oppose the allegations. But the
' opposition is too weak, as we have seen before, to overthrow anv
' allegations. These too depend upon the best of testimonies, may
' be meant as posterior to Mr. Bari'ington's era of civilit}, and, even if
' prior, are too well attested for the admission of such a doubt. Nor

* can Mr. Barrington's [additional] doubt, of the Welsh or the Irish

* having any term in their language for the game, avail in the least.
' The Welsh appear from those laws of Howel Dha, w hich an English-
' man, fugitive in Wales for debt, to the disgrace of Wales first trans-
' lated into Latin, and published to the world; to have liad what is

' called

382 APPENDIX* [no. I.

' called a taivl-hwrdd among the furniture of a nobleman's house J.

* Tfiis, says the Englishman, is " mensa lusoiiu shnilis abaco qui in
•' ludo scacchicB iisurpatur. — Latninculis ex utraque parte usos fuissc
" lusorcs constat, ut ad scacch'ue ludum proximo occedere vulchtr. —
" Crcdidcrim quidem ludum quern nos Anglice vocamus bach-^avimon
" hlc designari, ni latruncnloi^um numcriis obst'Uerit ; hujusce enim lu^As
*' nomcn est purum putum Wallicum, cmnmon praelium, bach parvum,
" quasi pra:liolum. A Wallis igitur ad nos hunc ludum provenisse, est
•' verisimillimumf." The number of pieces, then, preventing us from

* considering this as a back-gammon table, and the pieces and the board
^ uniting to carry a strong resemblance to chess; we may naturally

* ascribe the board and the pieces to the latter. The very name too

* shews the game not to be back-gammon, and concurs to refer it to
' chess ; tairl-bwrdd signifying the silent, the quiet board, from taivel,
' silent, quiet, tawehvch, silence, quietness, taiv, silent, tawedog, silent;

* and so importing the chess-board, in direct contradiction to the rattling

* table of back-gammon. But the Irish have even a more decisive

* appellative for chess. This is feoinm; a term, that, like the fers of
' Lydgate, looks strongly to Persia for the parent of the game. And in

* that part of the Irish, which is spoken within the western Highlands,

* and called the Erse, are these denominations for chess, bord-sheiss, a
' chess-board, clinch ur sheiss, a game at chess, both borrowed (we
' suppose) from their neighbours the English ; and one purely native

* and indigenous, fear feo'irim, a chess-man. So thoroughly unhappy

* is Mr. Barrington, to the last*!

'On

X Wotton's Howel Dha, p. 270.

tP.5«3-

* To increase this unhappiness in the text, let nie subjoin one remark in a note. The

Irish have " bkannumh, chess, a game played upon a square board, divided into sixtij-

*' four small chequers ; on each side there are eight men and as many pawns, to he moved

•' and shifted according to certain rules, ylnjileheall aciis au brannamh ban old parchment)

" properly means the men; gon a hlranna'dh dead with his ivory men, because niade of

" elephant's Iteth," like the " eburneae" of .''uetonius before. " Th'n luai a favourite game

'« with the old Iriik. Lat. scaccharum Indus." (Irish-English Dictionary, 1768, Paris,

anonymous, but said by Mr. O'Halloran, in his Introduction to the History and Antiquities

of Ireland, 65, to be wiitten by Dr. John O'Brien, titular bishop of Cloyne, and praised

NO. I.] APPENDIX. 38d

' On the whole then, we think chess to have been a Persian invention,

* as Hyde alleges, and not a Chinese one, as Mr. Barrington surmises ;
' that from Pereia it went out, with the love of amusement, to Thibet,

* Indostan, Bengal, and China, upon one side, and the west of Europe

* on the other; that in Indostan it received little alteration, in China
' received some additions, and at Ithaca in Greece, particularly, suffered
' [at once an addition and] a diminution, [an addition in number of
' pieces, but a diminution in] the second piece of the game, the queen

* being made supreme, in the room of the deposed king ; that in the rest

* of Greece probably, and all over the Roman dominions, the king was
' restored to his rights, and the British chess is now nearly similar to the

* chess of Indostan ; that the queen, however, retained as late as the
' days of Lydgate in England, the name Mhich marked the family-descent
' of all ; that the Romans, from their chess-boards drawn upon the
' walls of Pompeii, on or before the year 79, so exactly similar to w hat
' are represented upon the waJIs of our alehouses, and reflected in the
'titles of our inns, at present, appear to have been the introducers of
' chess among us ; and that, from the Britons of the Roman empire,
' chess had migrated with its name of relation to Persia, among the
' neighbouring Picts and Hibernii, and still continues stamped with its
' name of relation, on the common language of the western Highlands
*• and Ireland f .

''Having spent so much time in stating what we think to be the true
' origin of chess, we can only notice in the most cursory manner a few
' more of Mr. Barrington's remarks. He refers, in p. 32, to Carte, i.

by Mr. O'Halloran much, in J09, &c.) So " Fltchill (I.) is tables or chess-boartl, jlg
" imirt filchille (I.), playing at tables or chess." And, what shews the nature of the in-
striinients with which the game was played. Dead (1.), " a tooth — sonittinics — imphcs
" ivory," as an elephant's tooth, and sometimes (as above) a chess-man. With sueli a
temerity of n>iiul did Mr. Barrington presume to doubt of " the Irish having any iiriii in
" their language for the ganie.'.' They had, it is plain from various signatures in thiir
language, the game very lainili;tr among them.

+ The [lighlanders retain the name of clies9, while the Irish call it hrannumh from those
chess-men, which the Irish call brannaHjh, and the Highlanders brannumli, at this day.

2 * -115,

384 APPEXDIX, ' [no. I.

' 445, for a quarrel at chess between tlie eldest son of Philip king of
' France, and Henry the Second, son of WilHam the Conqueror, in i (»«/*;
< and ansM ers it only — by " wishing, Carte had stated the term used in
" the Norman Chronicle to which he refers." A poor reply surely,
' and unworthy of Mr. Barrington ! " Hyde," he sa}s also, in p. 36,
*' — mentions a set of chess-men preserved at St. Denys, which be-
" longed to Charlemagne, and four of which were kings and queens."
'But how does he eiWe this strong allegation against him? "That
" these pieces caimot be so ancient," he replies, " seems to be sufficiently
" evident, both from the set being preserved entire for near ten centuries,
" and from the principal pieces having Arabic characters on their back,
" with the name of the maker. If Charlemagne was a player at chess,
" he would have prohahhj emphijed an artist of his own dominions.'' A

* reply still more poor in itself, and more unworthy of Mr, Barrington,
' than the former! " In Muscovy," he addsf, " it is said to be. in
" great vogue among the shop-keepers-s— . Chess moreover is supposed
** to be alluded to in some verses, which are inserted in the ancient
" northern >poems of Henarar Saga ; but the passage alluded to may
" relate to other games, which are played upon a chequered board."
' Non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris. " Hyde indeed informs us, that
** it is not unknown even in Iceland," A note adds: " I am informed
" by Mr, professor Thorkelin, who is by birth an Icelander, that chess
" (called shahj continues to be an amusement in that island, and [to be
" played] by abler players than are to be found in Copenhagen," The

* Romans diffused the game of chess, under its Persian appellation of
' scacchia, over all their empire ; and even propagated it beyond the
' bounds of their empire, under the same appellation. Thus even the
' most distant and insulated Icelanders still retain it, under its Roman
' title of scacchia, or shak. But the game itself being deduced to the
' Romans from the Persians, the king (or president of the whole game)
' was naturally named, as " this piece is" actually " termed — in the
" more eastern parts of Asia, shack or emperor J," shaw or king, and

* A mistake in the reviewer, for " Henry I." in the author; and gravely corrected by
the reviewer in a note, as the author's,

t P. 34. \ P. 35-

'so

KO. I.] APPENDIX. 385

• SO conferred (we apprelicnd) the original name of a-y.ay.o., scacchia,
' upon the whole game. And we may just subjoin from Mr. Barrington,
' in order to reduce all he says into a perfect conformity with this new
' hypothesis of ours, that " the term of gamhct at chess, which hath
" been introduced (it is believed) into most European languages, is
"clearly of Italian original" (p. 25); tliat what " we call sometimes
" the rook but more commonly the castle, I conceive — to be derived
" from the Ifa/iat/s, — as rocca in that language not only signifies a rook'
" but a fortress" (p. 37) ; that " the term of being mated seems also to
"be derived from the Italian amazzato] or killed," when it plainly is

* nothing more than the old English mated or subdued, ?ind cl/eck-mafed
' or subdued by a check*; that what " v\e call the bishop, and — the
" French call the fou, or fool, because anciently royal personages
'• were commonly — attended" as closely by their fool, as the king and
'queen are by this piece, and which, " in Caxton's time, was stvled
" the elp/i^/n," seems therefore to have been named the bishop only
" after the Reformation," and, " in the chess-pieces which belonged
" to Qiarles I." this piece hasa top " somewhat resembling a bishop's
" mitre" (p. 37 and 3d) ; that the " term of paw?i is probably taken
" from the Spanish word peon, which signifies a foot-soldier ' (p. 33),
' though " the pawns in Caxton's time were of ditferent figures, and not'
" all uniform, as at present," aa hile " the pawn before the queen (for
" example) represents the queen's spicer or apothecary, see Caxton's
"book on chess" (p. 38) + ; and that chess — continued to be the
" favourite game throughout Europe till it was di'opt for cards, not bv
" their superiority surely, but because inferior players at other games

* Rather, as the ever-instructive Skinner derives it in check, from the Italian " scacco
" matlo," a piece subdued at chess ; both words, and the French 7nat or matiee, check-
mated or subdued, being the old Latin maltus, subdued, which Sahnasius finds in one of
Cicero's epistles to Atiicus, xvi. 12. (Notes on Hist. Aug. 967, 968.)

\ This may "ith much greater propriety be derivecl with rook and gamhet and jnated,
from the language of that Italy, which through France gave us chess at first. " A pawn at
" chess," says Skinner, " a Fr. G. [Franco-Gallica] pion, It. pedina, pedone" la.xlv,
•• latrunculus," a cliess-man, but in strictness a foot -soldier.

VOL, II. 3d " had

380 API'EXDIX. [XO. I.

" had a better chance of winning" (p. 20), because, as king James
' judiciously says, not " in his Eocwv B«ir/A/y./!," as Mr. Barrington affirms,
' but in his Aoj^ov 'Ruo-iKikov, as the fact really is, chess " is over-wise"
' (p. 3l), has too little of the relaxation of amusement in it, and exposes
' a man too much to the unknown strength of his antagonist's sagacity,
' and because, as Mr. Barrington himself infers, " it being impossible to
" know the full force of your antagonist, no one would play at chess for
" money" any more (p. 20).

* We trust the readers of our Review will thank us, for this long dis-
' section of Mr. Barrington's paper, and for the original matter M'hich we
' have introduced into it. And, if 2vlr. iiarrington be the man that we
' take him to be, he will be the first to thank us.'

SOME ^;ew remarks.

" Sir William Jones has informed us," says Fi'anc is Douce, esq. in a
set dissertation on the origin of chess ; " that chess was invented by the
" Hindoos ; from the tcstiDiuiiy oj the Persians, who unairiinoaslij o^rce,
" that it was imported from the aest of India, in the sixth century *.'*
This daring declaration is repelled at once, by the historical proofs be-
fore ; and must appear therefore to every critical reader, in the energe-
tical but colloquial language of Johnson, the more energetical by being
colloquial, a mere throw ing of peas against a rock. The chess-board was
known even at Home itself, as we have seen before, in the very first
century. iSor is there any possibility of pretending, in order to cover
this glare of error; that the sixth ccntuiy of the author, or of sir
William Jones, means one of an epocha different from the common, the
jera of the Seleucidas, the a?ra of Nabonassar, or the eera of the Maho-
metans. Both these \%riters do plainly refer by their manner to the
common epocha; and Mr. Douce particularly confirms the suggestion,
by what he alleges from sir \^"illiam a few lines below, by speaking of'
" the Arabs, who soon after took possession of tlicir [the Persians]
-**. country f."

* Archpe. xi. 397. t V. 398.

Mr.

2^0. 1.] APPE>7DIX. 387

ISfr. Douce cfinally remarks from the original architect of this falsely
bearing fabric, what almost erjually undermines all '\^•hich he attempts
to erect; that " no account of the game has hitherto been discwei^ed in
" the classical ivritings of the brainins, though it is conjiilenf/// -dsserted
" that Shanscrit booh on chess exist +." 'Jlic confidence imposed upon
both these gentlemen, even when the non-appearance sho\ild have cured
their credulity. Just so the unanimous tesfimoni/ of the Persians before,
seduced them into a belief directly opposed by the facts of history. And
a false gem of paste is worshipped by these worse than Indians, in
preference to the sun bursting forth from the gates of the East.

But I must notice more at large some points in Mr. Douce's essay,
that illustrate the names of the pieces at chess, and actually (without
the author's perception of the result) subvert again the very hypothesis
which he has been framing with sir \Mlliam. After such an egregious
stumble, as we have seen this author making at the very first step, it
certainly is not necessary for my argument to attend his movements
any longer. But it is very useful. And I shall be able, I tnist, to shew
his various rays of intelligence diverging widely from his own focus,
to improve some of them, and then collect them with new rays into the
true^oc/<« of all.

*' The principal piece, — by all the writers who have mentioned the
" game, — is uniformly styled the king§." At Ithaca, however. Homer
savs it was called Penelope.

" With respect to the piece next in rank, and now (I believe) univer-
" sallv called the queen, — it is certain that the French, and after them
" the English, during the middle ages, adopted a very different name :"
Fierce m Roman de Cassamus MS. Fierecs in Roman de la Rose MS.
Feers in Chaucer's Dream of Lo^e |j. " The term is borrowed from the
** Eastern word I'herz," notes our author in consonance with Mr.
Barrington, " which means a counsellor or general ^[." Yet how then

J Arcbaj. xi, 398, § Ibid. ibid. || P. 399. fl Ibid. ibid.

3 D 3 comc«

3 88 APPENDIX. [no. I.

comes the piece to be called a queen aftenvards ? As Mr. Douce con-
jectures, from " the similarity in sound bclvxcen the words p/wrz and
" r/V/iTC." This very %veak conjecture Mr. Douce endeavours to
strengthen from an old poem in Latin, " commonly ascribed to Ovid,
" but with more probability supposed to have been written during the
"middle ages, by a monk named Pamphilius Maurus*;" in which
" the queen is called vifgo -f-." In Poland and Russia, however, he
alleges himself, and so destroys his own conjecture, " it is — called the
" .old woman or nnivelj^." This transition of ideas, therefore, is one
that cannot possibly be marked in the mind of man ; ?/nlt'ss the symbol
stamped upon the piece originally, was a Persian zvoman. This, and
this alone, can. account for the nurse, the virgin, and the queen, all in
one j)iece.

" The BISHOP was, by the English w-riters before cited," Horman in
1519, and Caxton antecedent to him, " called alphyn, mvj'yn, and aljin;
" by the old French romancers, aiifin. — The present Spanish and Italian
"chess-terms, alfieres,' — aljiere, or alfino, — are evidently from the same
•' source. — The French, at a very early period, called this piece fol — .
" .It is easy to trace this term from tlie original, j^V," said by Hyde to be
" Arabic," and " the name of this piece on the Eastern chess-board;"
though it occurs not before "the beginning of the fourteenth century,"
and though the previous name is \ery different. " It occurs in the
" .Roman de la Rose, and in a manuscript of the Roman du Veeu de Paon,
" wdiere it is likewise called aiijin. — ^The French yet retain this name [that
" name of/b/] ; and I have seen French and German chess-men, among
** which this piece has occurred. I have not been able to discover when
" this piece was first called an ar-cher, or for what reason. — Dr. Hyde, in
" his description of what are usually called Charlemagne's chess-men, in
" the treasury of St. Dennis, makes it to be an archer — ." In the poem
also cited before, as ascribed to Ovid, tiie elphin is called the bishop ex-
pressly,

. . , . . . Alphinus episcopus ipse est.

Accordingly '• the Poles" call it " the priest ;'' and " in a very old Latin

* Archas. xi. 404. f P. 400. J P. 399.

((

poem

NO. I.] APPExnnc. 389

" poem upon chess, printed by Dr. Hyde from a manuscript in the
" Bodleian library, the piece next the king," or next but one, as it
should have been called, " is termed calviis, and" so " denotes a monk,"
or a secular clergyman, " with a shaven crown." All this variety of
names has resulted assuredly from the only incident that can account
for such a variety, a similarity in the sym!)ols on the piece to a viifre,
and a hoir. " The English and Danes alone, in modern times, called
" it the bishop ; and the first mention of this term that I have met with
" in England, is in Saul's Famous Game of Chesse-play, originally
"published in lO-lO; who says — the bishop" is " representing the
" clergy * with high cloven heads like a bishop's miter*'." The mitre
made the bishop, the priest, and the calvus. The mitre then, was
always there. Yet how could it come thither, if the piece was either
Indian or Persian } It came from the use of a mitre among the priests
of Persia, confined to the high-priest assuredly in the present form, but
common to all the priests in this or in another -j-; a fact that carries a
high antiquity with it for the mitre, as I have previously remarked,
because a figure appears to this day with a mitre on its head, upon the
rocks near Persepolis ^ ; and a circumstance, in the fact, that accounts
satisfactorily for the present denomination of the piece, sometimes as a
priest, sometimes as a bishop, the old ideas prevailing equally with the
new upon the mind. At the tomb of the kings still nearer to Persepolis,
appears equally in the front of the i-ock above, " an altar with fire burn-
" ing on it ; and," what wonderfully accounts for the equal appellation
of archer with bishop for the piece, " a reverend person holding a bow in
" his hand §." This occurs in two places, the bow being rested at one
end upon the ground, and having the left hand of the priest laid upon
the other, while the right is protended in prayer to the fire||. In this
form, the idolatrous priest and his idol fire were naturally execrated by
the zeal of the Christiarre, and denominated clfyn or the di^mons ;
re/J'enne being the plural of the Saxon e/J, the Teutonic afp, or the Bclgic
a/J', signity ing some lesser deities of German dcmonology, and passing

* Archoe. xi. 400, 405. t See iii. 2, before. J Ibid. ibiJ. '

§ Ant. Univ. History, v. 115. d Ibid, plates 31, 32.

2 with

3Q0 APPEXDIX. [xo. r.

with tlie Lombards of Germany (I apprehend) into Italy, But others
again acted in the same contracted attention to parts, which called out
the bow and the mitre into separate discriminations tor the piece, }et
with an indistinctness of vision, that formed the bow into a proboscis,
and changed tlie peaks of the mitre into two ears erected; as " the
" Germans call this piece the hound or runner, the Russians and Swedes
" {.he elephant^.'" Nor is the name of /o/, which the French have
latterly given to the piece, referrible to any other principle, than that
popular association of ideas which has pervaded all Christendom ; of the
elves or fairies stealing children peculiarly brisk from their cradles, and
substituting others peculiarly dull in their place. Hence " esprit /o/Zc/,"
signifies an elf now with the French, " un follet,'' a hobgoblin ; as a
changeling means an idiot, and mff, or oaf, a stupid ,man, among our-
selves, though that is primarily a fairy-child exchanged, and this is
actually an alf or e/f.

" The KNIGHT has been cdwai/s so called upon the French and English
" chess-boards. It is probable, that he was represented in the earliest
" times as mounted upon his charger. Vida has so described this piece ;
" and hence, in modern times, it has been simply termed the horse, and
'•' so represented. The Spaniards and Italians have adopted loth those
" names" of horse and knight, " hut give it the form of a horses head.
" With us it is — represented as a horse's head." This accoimt throws
a strong light back upon the immediately preceding, and shews how the
bow or the mitre came to be severally the discriminations of the piece ;
even by being severally stamped upon it. In this disposition alone,
could the bow have been taken for a proboscis, and the two peaks of
the mitre considered as two erected ears of a hound. " These pieces — ,
" among Charlemagne's men, — have been converted into centaurs," that
is, are represented, with some dimness, as men on horseback. " The
" Germans, from the nature of their motion on the board," or rather
from their aspect as horses, " call them leapers; among the Poles and
" Danes they are termed hnights, and among the Russians horses *."

f Archae. xi. 404. * P. 405, 406.

3 This

KO. I.] APPENDIX. 301

This instance schts strikingly to shew us, how little we can expect to
find original appellations adhering to the pieces at present, how much
the present appellations are derived from tlie aspect ot' the pieces, but
how some nations have taken only one half of the aspect, wlijle others
have taken the halves both together.

" The origin of our rook is certainly to be sought for in the old
" French term roc, — but" this " was immediately borrowed, together
" with the Spanish and Italian terms, from rue, the Eastern name of' this
" piece. — But a difRculty arises in ascertaining, whether the most an-
" cient Eastern rue was represented as a dromedary — . INIons. D'Herbelot
" informs us, that j^ohh, in the Persian language, signifies a valiant hero
" seeking after military adventures ; in ivhich character, he says, it was
" introduced into the game of chess. — But it is needless to prosecute this
" inquirij any farther, after sir William Jones has informed us, that
'' the rook is to be deduced from rotli of the old Hindoo game of chess,
" which was an armed chariot *." The very contradictoriness of this
derivation from the East, precludes all possibility of belief in it. The
rashness also, in asserting " rue" to be " the Eastern name of this piece,"
when the name after\A'ards proves to be " rot'h," a ver}- diti'erent one,
doubly precludes all possibility. Yet we need not dwell upon this rash-
ness, or that contradictoriness, as Mr, Douce immediately sweeps both
away, with an unwary hand. " I conceive," he proceeds to addf,
imconscious of his own deviation from himself, " that our term castle,
" as applied to this piece, is of a very modern date, and that, with the
" French tour, it originated from its shape," not as an armed cliariot,
which in all consistency it ought to be, hut as a tower or castle, " It is
" so represented in the early Italian dissertations on the game, although
" uniformly called // roccho" The author meant surely to liave written,
imd therefore is uniformly called il roecho. The argument certainly
requires the change. But the author is much confused here in his move*
nients, and so turns again upon his own course, in the words imme-
ciiiitely following. *' Some careless icriters confounding this term,

* Archac, ,\i. 406, 407. 1 P, .^07, 408.

" ^^■hicIl

392 APPr.xMx. [no. I.

" which is evidently from the same som-cc as the old French mc, with
" rocca, a fortress; have increased the mistake by tracing a supposed
" connexion between a casf/c atid a fortress ; \\hich has given rise to a
" multitude of conjectures." A^'liat a mass of confusion have we here
before us! Let me unravel it a little. He here intimates again the
roccho of the Italians and the roc of the French, to be derived from his
rue, alias rofh, an armed chariot ; when he has just before informed
us, that this rook " is — represented" as a castle " in the early Italian

" dissertations," and that the name of castle, he '•' conceives,

" originated from its shape." But contradictoriness alu ays attends upon
confusedness. Yet who are the " careless writers," tliat have " con-
*' founded" this term o^ roccho with " rocca, a fortress ?" Even they, it
seems, who " have increased the mistake, by tracing a supposed con-
" nexion, between" two objects so very nearly connected in reality, as
" a castle and a fortress^ Confusion perhaps did never do her own
work before with a completer satisfaction in the labour of her hands.
Yet she has still greater satisfaction. " It is probable," adds the author,
" that the European form of the castle,'' which he has previously stated
only as mere Italian, " was copied in part from some ancient Indian
" piece," what in conformity to its name ought to have had an armed
chariot, but what this very forgetful author now believes, and with
reason, to have been charged " with the elephant and castle on his back.
" It is thus described by Vida ; and whilst the French, Spaniards, Eng-
" lish, and Italians," the three first from the last, " have retained the
" tower only," so calling it rocco or fortress, " the Danes and Germans
" have adopted the elephant \Y\t\io\it the castle, by the former of which
" names it is also called by them. — By the Poles this piece is also termed
" the rooh — . Among Charlemagne's pieces, it is termed the elephant."
This adoption of separate parts in the representation as a denomination
for the whole unites with the same sort of adoption in the bishop, to
shew the familiarity of the practice in all these terms for chess-men.
The rook then had upon it originally a tower-backed elephant, and
afterwards a tower separately, or an elephant by itself, as Mr. Douce
has properly conjectured at last ; though before he " conceives — our
" term castle — is of a very modern date," yet allows it is so represented

"in

KO. I.] APPENDIX. 393

" in the carh/ Italian dissertations," even conceives the name to have ^

" originated from its shape," and now conjectures this shape to have
been " borrowed in part from some ancient hidian piece;" a vert/
modern name being derived from an earhj representation, even from an
ancient and original one. But setting aside all these contradictions by
picking the single truth out of them all, the name is plainly derived,
not from any imaginary rue of the East, which perhaps is, and perhaps
is not a dromedary, not from the real rokh of the Persians, which is
said to be a hei-o, and not from the real rofh of the Indians, which is
equally said to be an armed chariot, but from the rocca or rocco of the
Italians, a name actually descriptive of one of the two objects in the
representation upon it, used by some nations in its nearly Italian form,
as rook, and used by others under a translation into tower or castle.

" It remains," as Mr. Douce subjoins *, " only to notice the pawns.
" These appear to have been always so called among otu^selves, and by
" the French in the middle ages paon, — poons, — and pionnes : — they
" are — prohMy from pedones, a barbarous Latin term for Jbof-soldiers.-^
** By the Italians they arc called pedone, by the Spaniards' pcowei' ; the •

" Russians and Poles make them also foot-soldiers ^ J' The name,
therefore, flows from the Italian, and the stream has come coloured
through France into Britain ; the Italian pedone softening into peon,
poon, or pawn.

All attempts, then, to deduce the a])pcllations of the pieces in chess
from the language of India, prove impotent and ridiculous in the result;
they are all but one confessed by the very attemptcrs themselves to be *

Italian : even that one appears now to be more evidently Italian than 9

any of the others. All, therefore, unite in their testimony against that
very hypothesis of an Indian origin, in favour of which they were pro-
duced by Mr. Douce : one of thcin aj)parently carries the very name
of Persia on its head, and another as apparently had the very symbols
of Persia once upon it. Even Mr. Douce himself unites unconsciously

• Archs, xi. 408, 409. , t P- 408, 409.

VOL. II. 3 E with

394 APPENDIX. [\0. I.

with his leader, sir William Jorues, by deriving one of the names from
the Indian rofh, as wisproiwuvcccl into jolih by the Peitihnis, and as no
<r'wins birth to the Italian roccho, the French roc, v^ith the Enjrlish
rook, to make Persia, not India, the parent of the game to Emope.
Italy thus appears, in direct contradiction to the h} pothesis of both,
but in full accordance with the voice of history, to have been the trans-
mitter of the Persian game to the western nations of Europe, at a time
when Italy was the mistress of Europe, and when only she could form
the chain connecting western Europe with Persia.

No,

VO. II.] APPENDIX. 3Q5

No. II.
CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF FREE MASONS.

J.N the body of the work I have sufficiently refuted the origin assigned
to these masons by an ingenious essay in the Archaeologia *. But ano-
ther essay here arises before me, and with a louder voice demands its
reprobation at my hand ; this is a tract " said to be printed at Franck-
" fort in Germany, 1/48," under a German title, but wholly English
in all the rest. If the first essay takes a flight upwards, to the haziird
of its author's neck, the second mounts into the clouds at once, and
hardly ever comes within sight of earth again: to expose this, therefore,
as I have exposed that, is necessary for giving a full completeness to my
reasoning before.

Subjoined to the life of Leland is this tract, consisting of a text and
notes -f-. The text professes to be a set of questions and answers con-
cerning masonry ; questions supposed to be put in pri\y^ council, and
answers returned by some free masons, but both " wryttenne by the
*' hande of kynge Henrj'e the Sixthe of the name." The text will thus
be acknowledged to carry an historical authority with it, if' the hand-
writing of Henry be ascertained ; yet, till it is, we see an apparent
absurdity in the process alleged, the king himself playing the humble
part of a clerk in council, as taking down the questions and the answers
with his own hand.

How then is the hand-writing ascertained ? By attestation only : the
original is lost, a copy alone remains. Yet how is the original attested
to have ever existed, and how is the copy attested to be a just transcript

♦ See ii. 3. t P. 96, 103.

3 E 2 of

. t

3o6 ArPENorx. [xo. ii.

of it ? The same title to the text whieh avers it to be written by the
sixth Henry, equally avers it to be " faythtullye copyed by me, Johaix
" Lcylande, antiquarius, by the com man nde of his highnesse" the eighth
Henry. This attestation undoubtedly is sufHcient for every purpose of
authentication, ij'it is authenticated itself; but, alas ! it is not ; Leland's
attestation is equally non-apparent with Henry's hand- writing: the
Avhole, indeed, is liere said to be " a MS. in the Bodleian library |."
Yet where in the Bodleian it is, is not said ; or who ever saw it there,
is not noticed. Even the biographer of Leland, w ho v^rote in Oxford and
printed at the Clarendon press, who therefore was peculiarly enabled to
discover, and interested to consult, the original of his own publication,
was forced to content himself with leaving it to say, that, " from—
** obvious — mistakes — it is evident this treatise was not printed from
*' Leland's original transcript, but rather from a secondary copy of an
*' unlearned copyist, who only could fall into the egregious errors" of
it§; with only adding himself, that " an ancient MS. of Leland's has
*' long remained in the Bodleian library, unnoticed in any account of
" our author yet published," and unknown in its existence to this very
writer, as he subjoins, that " if the authenticity," and should have
rather subjoined, if the very existence " of this ancient mouuinent of
" literature remains unquestioned, it demands particular notice in the
" present publication || ;" and with then publishing it from — " the Gen-
" tlcman's Maga-zine, September 1/53 ^."

Yet this treatise professes to be printed from a copy direct of Leland's,
and to prefix " a letter of the famous Mr. John Locke," under the date
" of May 6, lOgO," in testimony of that. The letter is addressed " to
" the Rt. Hon. *** earl of **** ;" speaks to him of " that MS. in the
" Bodleian hbrary which you were so curious to see ;" and adds, " I
" have at length, by the help of Mr. C — ns, procured a copy *." And
as Mr. Locke in this letter acknowledges himself the author of the notes
to the text, so all are declared to have been found " in the desk or scri-

X P. 96. § P. 103. B P. 67. f p. 96. * P. 96.

4 " toir

NO. II.] AppEXDix. sg;

" toir of a deceased brother f ." With such a bold appeal to names,
with such a contiUcnt cital of anonymous inspection and anonj'mous
preservation, yet with so much suspectibility in its countenance, has
this English text ot Henry's writing, and Leland's copying, with these
English notes and English letter by Locke, been published in Germany
moi'c than half a century after the date of LocJics letter !

The tract, however, has imposed upon many, I believe : it has cer-
tainly imposed so far upon the biographer of Leland, that with some
dubiousness he inserted it as a real transcript of Leland's. Tet it shews
the flare of forgery playing visible upon every lineament of its face, par-
ticularly in making masonry " beg}'nne with the fyrste menne yn the
*' Este, whych were before the fyrste mrmne of the IVestc," in making
the " Venetians," for the Phenicians, bring it into the West ; and in
making " Peter Gower," for the French Pytagore, or the Greek Pytha-
goras, " frame a grate lodge at Groton," for Crotona, " yn Giecia
" Magna," of which some masons went to Fi-ance and some to Eng-
land "l. Even if the free masons then were so ignorant, amidst all their
professed knowledge of all their ancient history, from or before Adam
to the days of Pythagoras, as to force Pythagoras upon a tiew transmi-
gration into Peter Gower, to turn Crotona into Groton, and to moder-
nize the Phenicians into Venetians, yet Henry would certainly not have
written all their barbarisms of pronunciation in their full and uncor-
rected tone of ignorance ; still less would Leland have copied them all,
without correction, without notation, for the eighth Henry. Even if
Leland could have copied, even if the sixtli Henry coidd have written
them, yet we have already seen the free masons of this very Henry s
reign to have been mere mechanics, mere handicraftsmen, mere lalxjii'ers
in hick and mortar ; who therefore hneic nothing of Crotona, Aneta
nothing q/' Pythagoras, knew nothing of the Phenicians.

History and criticism thus unite to lay their iron hands in concert
upon the head of this treatise, and to stamp their brand of forgery deep

t P. 9^- % P- 98; 99»

into

3Q8 APPE?7DIX. [no. II.

into the thick scull of its front. Yet for what purpose was it forged ?
Wlien we examine the whole more nicely, we perceive such an air of
studied extravagance ; nvc see such an appearance of a laugh ready to
break out, but stirilcd for the moment ; we catch such symptoms of a
smile, sitting upon the lips, and just opening them into a grin, as shew
the whole to be fabricated on purpose to play upon the faith, and to
glory over the credulity of all who give credit to it.

I was therefore induced at first, from the reference of Locke to Collins,
and from the timid contraction of Collins's name into C — ns by Locke,
to suppose the procurer of the copy was the fabricator of the original.
From the known infidelity of Collins, from the known connexion of
Locke with him, I suppose Collins very capable of putting such a
forgery upon Locke ; and I believe Collins very likely to put it, in order
to play upon and to glory over the credulity of a man who was engaged
in the folly of Arianism with infidels, but refused to go on with them
into the sottishness of infidelity. The connexion of Collins with Locke,
the intimacy subsisting between their persons in some similarity of their
principles, and the Arianism of Locke shooting up into the very infide-
lity of Collins, as Arianism has so sadly shot up in others*, are recorded
in very mournful characters upon the face of an useful anecdote. " This
" person," says my religious friend and respectable intimate, the late
Dr. Home, bishop of Norwich, concerning Collins, " on his death-bed
" was under great anxiety ; and just before he expired, with a deep sigh
" pronounced the following words, Locke has ruined we ! His niece,
" who attended him at the time, related this circumstance to Mr. Wogan,
" the pious author of an Essay on the proper Lessons, as he assured a
" friend of mine," one to my knowledge worthy of all credit, " the
" Rev. Dr. Merrick, of St. Ann's, Sohof."

Yet, upon closer inspection, I believe it to be a forgery upon Collins
as well as Locke ; the sly air of imposition, half concealed, yet half
revealed, marks equally the notes of Locke with the text of Collins, and

* Origin of Arianism, 497, 498, t Jones's Life of Bishop Home, 278.

marks

NO. 11.] APPENDIX. 3QQ

marks the notes indeed more glaringly CA^en than the text : it thus per-
vades the substance of both thoroughly, and both therefore appear the
manufacture of one mind. The grand aim of both is the exaltation of
masonry to the sky ; nor is this exaltation the simple effusion of attach-
ment, the result of zeal and indiscretion in a brother mason ; it is merely
the insidious flattery of a foe, exalting in order to depress, mounting
the higher with masonry in order to give it a greater I'all, and bearing
it on the waxen wings of Icarus towards the sun, that there f/ic// may
melt, and it tumble headlong into the deep. The wilful wildness of extra-
vagance throughout a text that was plainly written for the notes, and the
solemn soberness of extravagance throughout notes that were as plainly
drawn up at the same time with the text, shew this conspicuous to the
examining eye. T5ut we see this displayed particularly in one passage,
in which the text avers free masons to have taught mankind all the arts
of life, even a// /cZ/of/yw likewise; and a note adds, "that — they have
" their own authority for it, and / know not how we shall disprove
" them %y In this manner, and with this view, do we behold those
who appear from their very name to be merely the modern sons of
•England, to be the mere " masons," and mere " labourers" of England
during the reign of Henry VI. converted in England by the wand of
this roguish Mercury, assuming the person of Locke, adopting the
clothes of Collins, but wearing the mask of INIomus ; sometimes into the
philosophers of Greece, then with a designed contradictoriness into the
founders of all the arts to mankind, and \\ ith a designed contradictori-
ness again, into the very fathers of all religion to the world. The humble
trowel of our bricklayers is thus enshrined in glory over the altar, and
has thus a temple erected to its honour, merely to engage the worship of
the free masons, and to draw down upon them the ridicule of the world

for it.

Sunt gcmiiva; snmni portx; quarum ahcra fcrtur
Cornea, quS. veris facilis datur cxitus iwnbris j
Altera, candenti pcrfccta nilcns ck-phantt,
Scii/ulsa ad ccelum mittunt insomnia manes.

% p. 100. «■

His

400 APPENDIX. [no. XU

His ub'i turn natum Anchiscs vinaque Sibyllam
Prosequitur dictis, porlaque cmitlet clurnti^.

§ To thai origin of free masons in England, as, mere " masons" and mere *' labourers,"
which I have exposed in ii. 3, before, let nie add their first appearance upon our records as
•' free" masons. We have a deed from the prior and monks of Bath, in consideration of
the good services shewn, and to be shewn, " a dilecto nobis in Christo Johanne Multon
" FREMASON," granting him " officium magistri omnium operum nostrorum vulgariter
" nuncupatorum fuemasonuy," when it shall be vacant. This was "dat. in domo nostra
«' capilulari primodie Februarii anno regni regis Henriti Oclavi — vicesimo octavo." (Warner's
History of Bath, Appendix, p. 55, 1801.) No longer a mere mason, no longer ranked
therefore among mere labourers, he was now distinguished with the title ofjree mason, and
was now intrusted with the superintendcncy of buildings ; he was intrusted even with the
superintendeney of large buildings, became a retained superintendant of their repairs, was
retained by anticipation of death in the very lifetime of the superintendant retained before,
and had a salary *' quadraginta solidos" assigned him, "necnon lihcratam paimi ad togam,"
d livery of' cloth for a gown, " cum et quoties liberatam dari contigerit," whenever the
other lay officers of the priory had one. We thus see the builders of Solomon's temple, the
architects perhaps of the tower of Babel, for the first time appearing as free masons and as
architects at all upon the records of England, the only records of their existence under the
ixioon.

■>• i

No.

^^0, III.] APPENDIX. '' 401'

No, III.

CONCERNING A VICTOR r ATTRIBUTED TO ST. GERMAN

IN WALES.

J-N that period of our island annals, which succeeds immediately to the
departure of the Romans from us ; the sun of histoiy, which came with
the Romans to enlighten us, now retiring with them again to leave us in
darkness ; we behold a very extraordinary victory ascribed to the relin-
^uislied Britons, and we find it denominated from its principal circum-
stance the AUeluiah victory. It is even noticed by Usher, as the general
theme of conversation among the scholars of his time, then much more
attentive than scholars now are, to the ecclesiastical or miraculous points
of history ; and the general subject of history among the authors of that
or the preceding century, all agreeing in the belief of the incident, all
endeavouring to remove the difficulties of the narrative, all trying to
ascertain the precise period of the whole*. The narrative was written
by one Constantius, a clergyman of Lyons in France, a cotemporary with
Sidonius Apollinaris, and the very person to whom Sidonius dedicated
the first eight books of his epistles f.. He is even described in Sidonius's
ninth, as " a man of singular seriousness, of salutary prudence, in his
" publications excelling other men of eloquence, whether engaged on the
" same subjects or on diflereni, in the endowments of a superior rheto-
" ric ;|:." In a preface to a work of the ninth century we' are particu-
larly told, that Constantius wrote the Life of Germanus, in which the
AUeluiah victory is recorded, " at a time when the memory of the saint
" yet breathed fresh in the mouths of all, and many were yet surviving

* Ushir, 179 : " lllam omnium sermonc atqiie scriptis celebratissimam, victoriam Aile-
** liiiaticam." See also 180.

t Usher, 175.

X Usher, 175: " Ut ' virum singnlaris ingi'nii, saiutaris consilii, in Iractatihus publicis
*• ceteros eloqucntcs, seu divcr?a sivc paria ik-ctrnat, prtestaiuioris facumlx dolibus aiilcctU
•• lentcm' prsdicat, lib. 9, epist. 16."

YOt. II. 3 F " who

403 APPEKDTX. [no. Iir.

" A\ho saw him iiTtve upon cartli §." Sucli a writer therefore, so re-
spectable in understanding, and so near to tlie very time, should carry a
considerable weight of authority with him. The narration of the vic-
tory comes within a very little distance from the period of it ; and Bede
has accordingly doneConstantius the honour to transcribe that narration
into his own history ||. i'et, after all, the whole narrative is merely a
fiction, I think, historically incredible in its circumstances, historically
false in its substance.

SECTION I.

*' The Saxoxs and Picts," says Constantius, " engaged in war with
" imitcd forces against the Britons, whom the same necessity liad com-
'- bined in a camp against f/icni ; and when the Britons, in the trepida-
" tlon of their spirits, judged themselves almost unequal to the contest,
" they requested the aid of the holy bishops," Germanus and Lupus,
" who, hastening their promised arrival, gave as much security and eon-
" fidence, as if a verj- great army had been believed to have joined them.
" Under these apostolical generals therefore, Christ warred in the camp,
" The venerable days of Lent were also come, \\hich were made more
" religious by the presence of the priests ^f." The Picts and the Saxons,

§ Usher, 175, 176, cites " Sigcbert Gemblacens. — in Chronic, aim. 877," for " Erricus
" Aiitissiodorcnsis monachus," who put Constantiiis's Life of Germanus into verse, writing
another work upon the mir.icles omitted in the Life of Germanus, and speaking of Constan-
tius in his preface thus ; that he wrote the Life " ' cum per ora cunctorum sancti recens ad-
** hue spirarct memoria, pluresque qui eum degentem in seculo viderani superessent'."
,|1 Bede Hist. i. 17-20, &c.

^ For the Life in general, see "Constant, de AHta German!, lib. i. cap. 19, MS. inbibli-
" othcca Sarisburicnsi et Cottoniana, et apud Suriiiin, torn. iv. Jul. 31," Usher 170, and
for this incident in particular, Usher 179: " ' IntorcaSaxones Pictique belium advcrsus
" Britones junctis viriiius suscepertint, quos eadcm necessitas in castra contraxerat ; et turn
" trepidi partes suas pene impares judiearent, sanctorum antistitum auxilium petierunt. Qui,
" promissuni niaturantcs adventum, tanlum securitatis ac fidiicia; contulerunt ; ut accessjssi;
'» ma\imus acdcretur e.NcrciUis. Itaquc, apostolieis ducibus, Chrislus mililabat in castris,.

" Aderaut

SECT. I.] APPE^'D1X.• 403

it seems, were united into one army against the Britons ; while these
opposed them indeed in the field, but kept themselves close to their camp.
Even there they were apprehensive for the consequences ; and theret'ore
desired the two bishops of France, who wcyq by accident in the country
at the time, to come and join them. This was a veiy natural action in
men, alarmed at their situation, yet Christian in their spirits. Hy such,
the presence of two saint-like bishops might be v^cll considered, as hkelv
to have a peculiar efficacy in lowering their fears and in exalting their
hopes, by their religious addresses to them, or their devout supplications
with them. We accordingly find, that the whole army of the Britons
considered the arrival of the bishops as equivalent to a second army. We
even find, that, " under these apostolical generals, Christ" is said by
Constantius to have actually " warred in the camp." And we finally
find, that these Britons kept " Lent" very strictly ; only kept those
*' venerable days" in a " wore religious" manner, because of " the pre-
" sence of the priests." So thoroughly was the whole country of
Britain engaged at the time, in professing and in practising the Christian
religion !

Yet we read immediately afterwards another account. The observance
of Lent was kept with such strictness, adds Constantius, " that the
" Britons were instructed by preachings everij day, and were eager to fly
" to the blessing of baptism : for the greatest part of the army requested
" the saving waters of baptism. A church is framed and wattled toge-
" tlier with leaf}' boughs against the day of the Lord's Resurrection, and
" in. a military expedition is fitted up like a city. Washed l)v baptism,
" the army marches forth *." The Britons, we thus find to our surprise,

were

*' Aderant cliam Quadragcsiniae vcncrabilcs dies, quos rellgiosiores rcddcbat prxsenlia sacer-
«' doUim'."

* Constantius in Usher, 179 : "'In tantuni ut, quotidianis prnediicationibus instituti',
" cerlatim ad gratiam baptisinatis couvolarcnt. Nam maxima cxcrcitils niultitudu undani
" lavacri saUitari-s cxpcliit. Ecclcsia ad diem Kesurreclioais Dominicas frondibns conttxta
" componiuir, et in cxpcditionc campestri instar civitalis aptaUir. Madidus baptismate pro-
" ccdit excrciiub'." Those words "'maxima cxcrciius nuduiudo'," might be translated

3 F 2 " t li

-lot AIMT-XPIX. [no. III.

were not Christians. Those wlio had sriit for the; two hishops to come
and join them ; those wlio had exulted at their arrival, as it" they had ixv
ceived the rcitil'orcemerit of a sceond anii\ ■, thobc who had *' Cluist"
thus "warring ill the camp" along vNith tliem ; iiatl not yet (M'efind) heeu
instrueted in the elcviaiis of the Gospel. Even those who had always
kept Lent, who how kept it only more strictly than they had used, to do,
had not yet been admitted into. the profession of Christianity. So retro-
grade does the histors-move as it proceeds ! All Britain is represented us
still heathenish, though it had just invited and urged two bishops out of
France, Jiot to come and convert and christianize them, but to refute some
liercsies that were beginning to disgrace then- Christianity. An army of
7/w-bapti7,ed Britons is described as imploring tho.se very bishops to come
into their camp, and as exulting when they came, at the vast accession of
strength m hich they had -now recehed. A host of heathens is thus Ex-
hibited to us as keeping Lent, as keeping it more religiously than they
5used to keep it, and as finally receiving baptism at Easter. So palpably
contradictory is Qn€;part of the narration to another !

But to consider the narration in a more historical manner; we have
here two armies in the field so early as the commencement of Lent. This
Avas very early indeed ; yet the point is plainly asserted. They were en-
camped before the bishops arrived ; as ajter their arrival we are told,
that " the venerable days of Lent were also come." 71iese the soldiers
now kept, were during them " instructed by preachings every day" from
the bishops, and were finally " washed by baptism" on " the day of the
" Lord's Resurrection." Thus an army, which cannot noiv take the field
even on the southern shore of Britain, before the beginning of May, could
then take it in the very north of Wales (for such the scene of action will
immediately appear to be fixed by Usher), in the end of February or be-
fore. So much is the supposed fate of Italy as to warmth, reversed in
Britain ; and so much colder than it was, is Britain grown at present !
But the author of the narrative w^as a Frenchman, an inhabitant too in
the south of France j and in the midst of those inventions, with which

'« the very great mass of the army;" but are confined to the sense in which I have trans-
laifd them, by these v ords occurring soon, " * pars major excrcitus'," for the very same
objcet.

S&CT. I.] ATPE^fDIX. -lOJ

he thought it liglit to embellish the histoiy of Germanus, he forgot the
thll'erence of latitiuie bctv\'ecn the countries /// wliich and of which ht:
wrote, and betrayed his fiction by iiis folly.

This was the only army too v\ Inch the Roman provinces of Britain
could I'urnish at the time. The commander of it thought himself unequal
to a contest with the enemy; yet did not send for fresh .succours. None
therefore were to be had ; and he sent for the two bisho'^, because he
could have tliem alone. Accordingly we fij.id, that though the bishops
were come, and tliough the army spent a whole Lent with them after-
wards in the camp, no farther succours either arrived, or were expected.
But at this very period, Britain must have been full of a brave soldiery,
Roman or British, or both, from one side of the island to the otherf. That
how ever was so small, as to be baptized in oz/c day by iwo bishops. Nor
Jet us believe with Usher's reporter, in order to invaUdate this objection ;
that it was baptized in a river 4:. It was baptized in a booth erected for
the purpose, as " a church is framed and w attled together with leafy
" boughs." This, indeed, was a very large one, as it was " fitted up like
" a city." It might well be large for the baptism of an army ; yet was
still a 1)ooth only. In this were all baptized that were baptized, and all
upon Easter Sunday. All therefore could not be many hundreds in
juimber. Behold then the mighty host of warriors, which all the muni-
cipes and colonics of the Romans, all the castles and towns of the Britons,
the whole of Roman Britain from the Channel to the Friths, after an
interval of peace and prosperity for three hundred and fifty years, could
muster up in a period of many weeks for the defence of the whole
island !

"■ Washed by baptism," adds Conslantius, " the army marches
"forth; faith kindles among the people; and, with contempt for tlie
" protection of arms, the aid of the Deity is expected. In the mean
*• time, this institution or form of the camp is reported to the enemy;

t Hist, of Manchester, ii. 197, 200, octavo.

J Usher, 179: " In prxler-flucnte— fluviolo, sacro hoc excrcitu baptlzalo."

" who.

400 APPEXDIX. [no. ITT.

<* who, prcSutning upon victory as going to fight with an xinarmed host,
" hasten \n ith aclditional alacrity. Yet their approach is known from the
" scouts : and when, after tlio Easter solemnity was past, the greater
" part of the army, fresh from the font, essayed to take arms and to prc-
" pare for figlit ; CermanusotFers to command them in battle. He chooses
*• some light-armed soldiers, he traverses the country round, and, on the
" side from which the enemy's approach was expected, he beholds a
" valley," &c.§. AYhen the Britons were baptized, not all, biit only the
main bodv, were. " The greatest part of the army," we have been told
before, "requested the saving waters of baptism;" and, as we arc
additionally told now, " the greater part of the army" was " fresh from
" the font." The rest, therefore, neither desired nor received baptism.
The rest, too, ^\ ere not concerned in the victory afterwards ; as only
<' the — fresh from the font essayed to take arms." AVhat then became
of the remainder ? The author tells us not. They disappear from the
eve, and flit away we know not whither. The baptized, however, march
out of their camp, all animated wath faith, all looking down with scorn
upon the efficacy of earthly arms, and all relying upon the miraculous as-
sistance of God. Yet this was a wild presumption, a presumption with-
out a pretence. The enemy hear of their coming forth, and of their pre-
sumption visible in their unarmed condition. They therefore hasten to
cut them in pieces, and for that purpose " approach" them. Eut, by
some strange doubling of the author upon his own steps, it immediately
appears that the Britons have not yet marched out of their camp, and that
the enemy have not yet " approached" them. AVe are told indeed, that
" the army marches forth," lired with faith, despising the protection of
arms, and relying upon the assistance of God; that the enemy hear of

§ Constantius in Usher, 179: " 'Matlidus baptisniate procedit exercitus; fides fervct ia
" ponulo; ct, contempto [in Bedc, very strangely, conterrtUi] armorum priBsidlo, Dlvinitalis
" expectatur auxllium. Interea hiec insiilutio vtl forma cuslroriim [in Btde, as strangely
" again, caslitatis] hostibiis nunciatur; qui, victoriam quasi de inernii cxercitu prsesu-
" mcntes, assumpta alacritate festinant; quorum tamcn adventus exploratione coguoscitur.
*' Cumque, emensa solennitate I'aschali, recens de lavacro pars major exercitus arnia capere
" et bellum pararc leutaret j Germanus duecm se prjelii proiitetur eligit exptditos, tircum-
** jecta percurrit, et e regione qua hostium sperabatur adventus, vallem'," &c.

3 tiieir

SECT. I.] APPENDIX. 4D'

tlicir marching out, know them to be " imarmcd," and " hasten ^\ ith
*' additional alacrity" to cut them in pieces. Yet we find afterwards, that
the enemy's " approach" is known only from the scouts, that t/ien the
Britons begin " to take arms and prepare for fight," and that therefore
they are still within their camp. In such a wild contrariety of circum-
stances, is the reader beat backwards and forwards! Constantius's " un-
" armed" host had actually " taken arms," His soldiery, that had already
marched out of the canip, and so had invited the enemy to hasten to-
wards them, hears of their haste by its scouts, then takes arms, and then
marches out. So little, indeed, did the Britons march forth without their
arms ; so little did they despise the protection of arms ; and so little did
they rely only on an expected aid from God ; whatever the author says at
first, in affirmance of all this ; that he tells us at last, they acted just as
any other army would ha^e acted, went out with their arms in their
hands, and took their ground for the battle with particular cautiousness.
Their confidence in the miraculous aid of God, and their consequent
scorn of earthly arms, end most amazingly — in their setting an ambus-
cade for the enemy.

AVhy however had not the Saxons and Picts attacked them, in all the
long interval of time before ? They had waited upon the Britons as
these were cooped up in their camp, exposed more than these to all the
severities of this winter-campaign; n'hilc the Britons sent for the
bish.ops, while the bishops w ere coming to the Britons, while both Mere
keeping Lent together, and while the main body of the army was bap-
tized on Easter Sunday. They were unwilling to attack them assuredly,
liifjre the bishops had come to convert these heathens, hifore these
heathens had finished their Lent with the bishops, before thebishopshad
baptized these heathens into Christians upon Easter Sunday. Even then
thci/ did not attack the Britons, but the Britons marched out to attack
fheiti. Yet the Britons act as strangely now as the Picts and Saxons acted
l)efore. They marched out to light, but ad\ancc not towards the enemy.
Earnest and eager for the battle, they loiter so much in their outset, as
to. hear of their enemy's "approach" before they have njarchcd out,
before, indeed, they have stood to their arms. Confident of the po>\cr of

God

408 APPEXDIK. [so. III.

God interposing miraculously in their favour, they march not in a brisk
pace towards the enemy, they meet them not in higli f-pirits about the
mid\\ay of their approach,, they " traverse the country round," ai\d then
lav an ambuscade. The enemy too were " hastening with alacrity,"
with "additional" or extraordinary " alacrity;" yet leave the Britons
time to ** choose some light-armed soldiers" to " traverse the country
♦' round," and to lay an ambuscade in the very front of their marching
column. The Picts and Saxons Mere encamped near enough to the
Britons, to see them march out of their camp, to behold them march
out unarmed ; yet, in crossing the small interval of ground between
them, with all their " additional alacrity," leave the Britons time to do
this. So completely is the whole narration a mere chaos of agitated and
shifting atoms, one atom dashing violently against another, all rearing
their heads in billows of reciprocal opposition, and never to be composed
into a creation by any hand but the divine !

" Germanus chooses some light-armed soldiers, traverses the coimtry
" round, on the side from which the enemy's approach was expected,"
as Constantius proceeds, " beholds a valley encircled with lofty hills ; in
** which place he draws up his new army, he himself acting as its leader.
" And now came up a ferocious multitude of foes, which they sa-sA- to ap-
** proach as they lay in ambuscade. Then suddenly Germanus their
*' standard-bearer admonishes them aJl, and foretells them, that they
" should reply to his voice with one shout : and while the enemy were
*' in security, as trusting they approached unexpected ; the tw o priests
" cry out Alh'lu'mh, and repeat the cry three times. One voice follows
" all ; and the enclosing mountains multiply the raised shout, by a re-
" verberation of the air. The hostile soldiers are stunned with terror;
" tremble for fear the smrounding rocks, for fear the very frame of the
" sky should rush down upon them ; and, in the consternation at their
" hearts, believe their swiftness of foot will scarcely suffice to save them.
" They fly on every side, they throw away their arms, rejoicing to have
" saved their persons from the danger, at the expense of their arms. Even
" several, in the precipitancy of their fear, were swallowed up by that
*' river which they had forded leisurely on their advance. The army un-

" hurt

SECT. 1.] APPEN'DIX. ^Og

" hurt beholds itself avenged, and is made the idle spectator of a victory
" obtained. The spoils are collected as they lay on the ground, and the
" religious soldier acquires the booty of a heavenly victory. The prelates
" triumph, in a bloodless defeat of the enemy ; triumph for a victory ob-
" tained, not by force, but by faith. The island therefore being now
" composed into a full security, and its foes, spiritual or carnal, being
*' subdued, as the bishops had conquered the Pelagianists and the Saxons
" [and the Picts], to the grief of the whole country, they then effect
" their return *." The Britons thus lay such an ambuscade as never
was planned by the mind of man before. Nothing but a voice from
Heaven could have recommended it ; yet they take it up without such a
voice. They even determine upon it before they march out of their camp.
They therefore detach their light troops to find out such a place, as they
v\ere determined should have a miraculous victory obtained at it. These
" traverse the countiy round" to find it, as if they were not acquainted
with their own country ; and at last find it directly before their eyes, in
the very front of their own camp, in the very avenue hy which the foe was
inarching to attach them. The ambuscade is laid, and the foe comes. He
is now " a ferocious multitude" of men. The Saxons and Picts are a
" multitude," yet have never assaulted the sm:Ul army of the Britons

* Constantiu3 in Usher, 179 : " * Eligit expeditos, circunijecta percurrlt, et, e regione qua
** hostium spcrabatur adveiUiis, vallcm circumdatam edilis montibus intuetiir ; quo ia locu
*' novum componit cxcrciliim, ipse dux agminis. Et jani adcrat ferox liostium multitudo,
*' quam appropinquare intucbantur in insidiis constituti. Cum subilo Gemianus signifer
" universes admonet, et prsedicit, ut voci suae uno claniore respondcant. Sccurisque hosti«
" bu;;, qui se insperatos adesse confiderent, Alleluiah terlio repetitum sacerdotcs cxclamant.
" Sequllur una vox omnium ; et clevatum clamorem, repercusso aerc, niontium inclusa niul-
*' tiplicant. Hostile agmen terrore prosternilur ; et ruisse super sc non solum rupes circum-
" datas, vcrum ctiam ipsam coeli niachinam, contrcmiscunt, trepidationi(iue injectae vix suf-
*' ficere pedum pernicitas crcdebatur. Passim fugiunt, arma projiciunt, quadcntes vcl nuda
" corpora eripuisscdiscrimini. Plurcs etiam timore praicipiles (lumen, quod scnsim venicntes
" traiisierant, devoravit. Ultionem suam innocens intuetur exercitus, et victoriae pncstitas
*' otiosus spectator cfficitur. Spolia colligunlur exposita, et praedam coelcstis victorix miles
" religiosus adipiscitur. Triumphant pontificcs, hostibus fusis sine sanguine ; triumphant
'• victoria fidcobtenta, non viribus. Composila itaquc — insula securitalc mulliplici, supera-
** tisque hostibus vol spirltualibus vel came conspicuis, quippe qui vicisseut Pclagianistas et
" Saxones [Pictosque], cum totius mcerorc rcgionis rediunu moliuntur'."

VOL. II. 8 G before;

410 APPENDIX. [no. III.

before; and a "ferocious" multitude, yet have been tamely inoffensive
for so many weeks before. They come too " in security, as trusting
*' they approached unexpected;" those who knew of the Britons march-
ing out of their camp unarmed, and hastened to cut them in pieces,
knowing nothing of their light troops " traversing the country round,"
knowing nothing of their whole army taking possession of the woods in.
front. The Britons from their ambuscade beheld their approach, but
they beheld not the Britons at all. They entered the hollow of the hills,
and pushed along the line of the valley. Germanus therefore prepared
to open his masked battery upon them. He had ordered his men to
second his voice, and to repeat his cry. Then he and Lupus thrice re-
peated the wondei'-working word AUeluiah. The whole army repeats
it after them. The enclosing hills reverberate tlie sound. The Picts and
Saxons are struck with consternation ; fear they shall all be instantly
crushed, by the rocks on their sides, or by the sky over their heads ;
throw down their arms, and fly.

Such is this miraculous victor}', in all its circumstances ! It is plainly,

1 must say.

An idiot's tale, told with sound and fury.

Signifying nothing.

It is absurd in its parts ; it is absurd in the whole ; and the internal evi-
dence is strong, vigorous, irresistible against it.

SECTION II.

Yet internal evidence is often delusive. Let us therefore examine the
external, and see whether this bears equally hard upon it.

** In the county of Flint," says Usher, the first Who attempted to
ascertain the scene of this memorable victory *, " near the town which

* Except that trifler, as I was ready to call him from report, or, as I ought to call him,
that writer of whom I know not and wish not to know any thing, Polydore Virgil. *' Noa
•' ad Trentam fluvium," says Usher, 179, «* prout conjec,tura auguratus est Polydorus."

"is

SliCT. II.] APPENDIX. 4 1 I

" is denominated Mold bv the Englisli and Gu'ul-cruc by the Welsh, is
*' this battle reported to have been fought, and the place to have retained
" from it, even to the present day, the name of INIaes Garmon, which
" signifies the Plai/i of Germajuis -, this holy army being baptized in the
" little river Alen, that flows along one side of it i"." To whom Usher
here refers as his reporter, is not told, and can only be conjectured. Who-
ever he was, his report was not worth the reference. The Eritons are said
by him to have been baptized in the river Allen, which flows along one
side of the place ; when we know them to have been baptized in a large
booth. Nor could the Britons have been baptized in the Allen, if the
Allen be the rivulet which the Picts and Saxons crossed, as they advanced,
and in M^hich some of them were drowned as they fled back; because
the Allen must then have been at some distance, in front of the Britons.
This river runs about a mile to the north-west of Mold, is there crossed
now in the road from Wrexham to Holywell by a bridge, but was for-
merly crossed by a ford ; and has upon its nearer or south-eastern bank
the very field, to which Usher points as denominated Maes Garmon J.
On this field has been recently built an obelisk, by a gentleman curious
concerning any incidents relative to the history of the region, but with-
out any evidence from tradition, as no tradition of a battle there exists
in any part of the neighbourhood, and without any documents in
writing, as his nephew, who now possesses his estate, knows of none.
He built it merely, as the inscription upon the obehsk witnesses, by the
very words of Usher's Constantius, and of Usher himself, adopted
through the whole ; on what would naturally be thought by a person so
adopting and so curious, the infallible authority of Usher. Thus one of
this gentleman's family, I suspect, first communicated his intelligence of
the name, witJi his conjecture of the battle, in an excursion of Ushei-'s
out of Ireland by Holy well and Wrexham into England; as, in the re-

"t Usher, 179 : " In agro Flintensi, juxta oppidum quod Angli MoU, Cambro-Eritanni

*' Guid-cncc appellant, hoc gcstum aiunt ; indeque locum Maes Garmon, quod Campura

" Gcrmani sonat, hucusquc nomen retinuisse; in practer-fluente Aleno fluviolo, sacro
■" hoc cxcrcitu haptizato."

^ Cough's Britannia, ii. 596; Owen's Ogilby Improved (1764), p. 267 j and private in-
formation from a very obliging clergj-man in the neighbourhood.

3 G 2 operation

-112 APPENDIX. [no. nr.

operation of that intelligence or that conjecture from Usher again,
ianother of them erected an obelisk §.

But the whole was a delusion, in Usher and his reporter ; a delusion,
tesulting solely from the solitaiy circumstance of the name. Yet the
name was so obscure in itself, even so unaccompanied by any tradition,
that till Usher called it into notice by fixing this battle at the place, it was
all unknown ; and, even since Usher did this, has engaged little notice
before the obelisk was erected. Leland takes no notice of it. Camdea
takes none. Lhuyd too, ^^ ho so judiciously corrected and so usefully
enlarged Camden's account of Wales, heard as little of it as either of
them. He inserted, indeed, a mention of the name, with an application
of it to the victoiy, in his additions; but inserted them only, in an express
reference to the opinion of Usher about them. " Near this town," he
Says concerning Mold, " as the learned Usher supposes, was that cele-
*• brated victory which he calls Victoria Alleluiatica — ; adding, that in
*' memory of that miraculous victory, the place is called at this day Maes
" Garmon |[." This is all which a native of Wales, a native of North-

§ The inscription is this : " A. D. CCCCXX," an error, Usher, p. 516, placing it in
430, '* Saxones Pictique bellum adversus Britones junctis viribus susceperunt," the very
words of Constantius in Usher 179, " in hac regione hodieque Maes-garnion appellata," the
inscriber's own words, and faulty, as denominating a field, a region, " cum in prselium de-
*' scenditur," the inscriber's words again, " sub apostolicis ducibus Germano ct Lupo
*' Christus militabat in castris," the words of Constantius ; " Alleluja tcrtio repeti-
*' turn cxclamabant," the words of Constantius again, " hostile agmen terrore proster-
'«' nitur," Constantius's words again, " triumphant hostibus fusis sine sanguine," the
words of Constantius again, " palma," victoria in Constantius, "fide non viribus obtenta,"
Ihe very words of Constantius once more; " MP in Viclm-'Ks AUelidaticcE," an appellation
formed by Usher and peculiar to him (179 and 180), " memoriam N. G.," Nehemiah
■Griffiths, " MDCCXXXVr." Mr. Griffiths has thus transcribed his account of the battle
literally from Constantius, has only put in some supplementary words de propria penit, and
has even- taken Usher's very appellation of the victory for his own: and I suppose a former
owner of the ground to have given the information to Usher ; as I find, that he who erected
the obelisk inherited the estate of Rhual, of which this field Is a part, from " Robert Ed.-

*' wardes a gentylman [who] dwellith," says Leland in Itin. v. 37, "at [Rhual,

' " I suppose] on the side of Alen yn Molesdale, haviflg plenty of wood and goodly medow by
" Alen side."
I Gibsoa's Camden, Sa^..

Wales^

SECT. 11.] APPENDIX. 413

Wales, one peculiarly inquisitive and sagacious concerning the historical
antiquities of his country, says upon the subject ; knowing no more, than
what Usher had told him. So insignificant was the name in itself! And
the very obelisk, by the very tenour of the inscription upon it, all bor-
rowed in terms from Usher, but neither in Usher, nor in its copy of
him, hinting at any authority higher than mere supposition ; proves no
tradition of this battle to have existed at the field, -when INIr. Griffiths
erected that obelisk on it, or even when Usher pitched upon it as the
scene of this battle.

Nor does the field in any manner correspond with the battle. The
ground of this was a small, long, narrow valley, enclosed by two ranges
of lofty hills at the sides, traversed by a road from end to end, and
having a rivulet across the mouth of it, capable of " swallowing up"
precipitate forders. But the place pitched upon for it, is only in general
a level range of ground, intersected by the Allen, and only in particular
a single field, upon the very bank of the Allen. " Mold," says our
Welsh traveller, himself equally Welsh with his subject, " consists prin-
" cipally of one broad and handsome street, on a gentle rising in the midst
" of a small but rich plain. The church is placed on an eminence. — At
" the north end of the town stands the mount, to which it owes the
" British and Latin names, Yr ffyddgnig and Mans Altus. — About a
*' mile west of the town [I] visited Maes Garmon,'' &c. *. The ground
from Mold to the field, wc thus see, is all a plain in general ; and is
therefore sunk into no valley in the middle, ridged up into no hills at the
sides, and waving with no woods upon the latter over the former. The
field too is itself a perfect level, I find from inquiry, five or six acres in
extent. The river of it likewise, I equally find, is very shallow in its
waters, having the ford Rhijd-goli, or the Clear, the Evident Ford, across
it, and being therefore incapable of " swallowing up" any forders, how-
ever precipitate. Such ground as this does reason proclaim in her
loudest note, can never be the place of such an action as that. Tlicre

* Pennant's Tour in North Wales, i. 419, .(.^j, 437; the author still retaining that
tradesman's token, of writing without a nominative case to his verb.

is.

411 APPENDIX. [no. riu

is not a single feature of similarity lx^t\\een the historical and the anti-
quarian ground of battle ; they arc as opposite as nature can possibly
make tliem. The valley is all filled up, the hills are all pulled down, and
the river is all transposed by the meddling hand of art. Nor could Ger-
manus, if he was to visit his own place of ambuscade again, ever recog-
nise it under its new form. The fact is, that this spot was selected for
the place of the battle by tliat infantine imbecility of intellect, which
took no pains to assimilate the scene to the story, which never pre-
sumed indeed to think of this necessary operation, and was fondly^
credulously, implicitly.

Led by the foolish tinklings of a name.

Nor should Usher have suffered himself to be deluded by such a re-
porter, lie should have been startled at his application of the name to
the history, instantly on his assertion that " the army was baptized in the
" little river Alen ;" an assertion, so contradictory to the narrative. But
he should have been driven away as with a whirlwind frotn the whole,
by his explanation of the name ; so contradictory to the very operations
themselves. Macs Gannon signifies not what Lhuyd, and Mr. Gough
from him, renders the name, " St. German's Field," as " in memory of
*' that miraculous victory;" even though the margin adds, " Maes in the
'' names of places so?«e///«t'6' implies more particularly, that battles have
" been fought there, — vide Anglesey *." The Welsh and the Eretoons
indeed do sometimes use the word Macs in this signification, as ?i'e equally
use the word Field, yet always with some addition to mark it for a field
of battle ; as, in the very name to which Lhuyd refers us within the isle of
Anglesey, we have Kae y Maes Mater, which " implies some great battle
*' fought here," as it is literally the Field of the great Fight, m English f.
But the general and the natural meaning of the word among the
Eretoons or the Welsh, was and is the same as that of Magh in Irish,
the same word with a little variation, a Plain or a Level Ground. In this
sense the name corresponds exactly with the site, but is totally discon-
formable to the scene ; and, as the very presenter of the name to Usher

* Gibson's Camden, 826; and Cough's, ii. 596. t Gibson, 810.

4 became

SECT. 11.] APPE^'DIX. 415

became the explainer of it to him, the presenter was so stnick with the
correspondency of the name, yet so inattentive to the disconformity of
the scene, that though he rendered the name in the dubious manner of
Lhuyd, a mere Plain, yet with Lhuyd again he boldly interpreted it at
once into a Plain of Battle. There " is this battle reported to have
" been /'ought,'' as Usher cites him reporting, " and the place to have re-
" taincd from it, even to the present day, the name of Maes Garmon,
*' which signifies the plaiij of Germanus *." By this single stroke the
reporter should have awakened Usher from his dream of antiquarianism,
and forced him to reflect for one moment upon the incompetency of a
plain for his victory, upon the dissonance of the 7iame to the nari-ative,
upon the contradiction in the localities to the facts. Usher would tlaus
have resigned up the appellation for ever, to unite itself no longer with
history, to stand only the title of a common field, to indicate onlv the
site of a chapel probably, dedicated once to St. German, and existing so
late, perhaps, as the very days of Leland -f.

The field has lent its name to a farm of sixty-four acres that nearly
surrounds it, yet is totally distinct from it. The former belongs to Wi'.
Griffiths, but the latter to the lord of the manor. This circumstance
corroborates my supposition, that the field was once the site of a chapel,
dedicated like the adjoining church of Llan-armon to our own saint,
Germanus. Upon the whole, therefore, from the full contrariety of the
scene to the story, the obelisk overlooking a plain instead of a valley,
and rising from the area of a level field instead of the ridges of two pa-
rallel hills, that monument stands the witness of its own falsity; records
a victory in its inscription, which it denies in the very aspect of the
ground about ; proclaims a battle to have been fought upon t-he field,
while the field protests against the proclamation from every feature of
its face ; and thus.

Like a tall bully, lifts its head, and lies.

• Usher, 179: "Maes Garmon, quod Campum Gerniani sonat." Maes is ordinarily
used for a Jield in general by the Welsh of tliis day.

t Leland'sltin. V. 37 : " Tlierc longe 3 chapcllcs onto it," the parish of Mold, Only
two of the three e.\ist at present, Ncnjuis and Tryddyn (Liber Regis), The third probably
"was here.

4l6 APPENDIX. [no. III.

" It is to be considered," adds Usher, however, endeavouring to bring
up an accession of strength to his cause, yet doubtful of his power, and
fearful of a failure, '•' whether this victory is not also alluded to in that
*' passage of Gregory's writings : ' The omnipotent God, while the
•' clouds were brightened over with light, hatli burst the gates of the
" sea; because, by the illustrious miracles of the preachers, he hath
*' brought even the ends of the world over to the faith. For behold !
*' he hath now penetrated the hearts of almost all nations ; behold ! he
*' hath united the limits of the East and West in one faith. Behold !
^' the language of Britain, which knew only how to grunt its barbarous
" tones, hath long begun to sound the Hebrew AUdu'iah in the praises
" of God. Behold ! the ocean, formerly swelling, is now reduced into
*' senice under the feet of the saints ; and its barbarous movements,
*' which the princes of the earth could not subdue with the sword, are
*' tied up through the fear of God by mere words from the lips of the
" priests ; and he, who in his state of infidelity never dreaded the troops
" of the warriors, in his state of belief now fears the tongues of the
" humble. For as, by the hearing of the words of Heaven, and by
" the bright shining of miracles, the virtue of divine knowledge is in-
" fused into him ; by the texTor of the same Deity he is so reined
•* in, that he is afraid to do ill, and \\'ishes with all the desires of his
" heart to attain a gracious eternity'*." These rhetorical ^vords, it
eeems, have been applied by Bede, by Johannes Diaconus the old

* Usher, 179} 180 : " Videndum, amion hue etiam spectat illud Gregorii. ' Oninipo-
" tens enim Dcus, coruscantibus nubibus, cardines maris opcruit; quia, emicantibus proe-
" dicatorum miraculis, ad fidcm etiam terminos mundi perduxit, Ecce enim ! peuc cunc-
*' tarum jam gentium corda penetravit ; ecce, in una fide orientis limitem occidentisque con-
•• juxit. Ecce ! lingua Britanniae, quae nil alium noverat quam barbaruni frendere, jamdu-
" dum in divinis laudibus Hebrasum coepit Alleluia resoiiare. Ecce ! quondam tumidus,
«• jam sanctorum pedibus substratus, servit oceanus ; ejusque barbaros motus, quos terreni
" principes edomare ferro nequiverant, hos, pro divina formidine, sacerdotum era simplici-
*' bus verbis ligant ; et qui catervas pugnantium infidclls nuiiquam metuerat, jam nunc
*' fidelis humilium linguas timet. Quia enim, perceptis ccelestibus verbis, clarescentibus
" quoque miraculis, virtus ei divinas cognitionis infunditur j ejusdcm divinitatis terrore re-
•' frxnatur, ut prave agere metuat, ac totis desideriis ad sternitatis gratiam pervenire con-

cupiscat

» >»

biograplier

SECT. 11.] APPENDIX. 417

biographer of Gregory, and by Ainioinus the old historian of the
Franks, to the conversion of the Saxons in Britain ; but Usher suf-
ficiently exposes the absurdity of the application, by noting that very
writing of Gregorj's, in which the words are found, to have been
published in ."JQl, some years antecedent to Augustine's arrival from
Gregory, for the conversion of the Saxons*. Smith too, in his anno-
tations upon Bcde, lias very properly added to the decisive remark; by
observing one of the terms in the main clause of all, " long since," to
point at an event of a much older date-f. Yet neither the main nor any
other clause, has the slightest reference to that victory. This is apparent
at once, from the face of the whole. The whole alludes to one event ;
not a slight, a private, a transitory fact, but a fact permanent, general,
and important; not I he occasional victory of a small party of Britons
over a petty host of i'icts and Saxons, but the grand victory of the Gos-.
y)el over the Britons themselves. " The omnipotent God," says Gre^
gory " — hath burst the gates of the se.i, — hath brought even the ends
" of the world over to the faith, — hath — penetrated the hearts of almost
" all nations, — hath united the limits of the East and West in one
" faith." This speaks in the plainest language of the general predomi-
nancy of the Gospel among the nations of the earth. Gregory then
comes to 3i particular nation, that of the Britons; as one, that by its re-
moteness and its insularity peculiarly corroborated this general assertion.

* Usher, i8o : " Etsi — ad gciuis Aiigloriim conversioncm a Bcda (Histor. lib. ii. cap. i.),
" ct Johaiinc Diacono (Vll. Grcgor. lilj. ii. cap. 39), ct Aiinoino (Dc Gost. Francor. lib. iii.
" cap. 74), isla Irahi noii ignoreiii ; quo iniims taiiu'ii atl illoriini acccdani sciilentiam, vci
" illiid nic coliibet, quod, ante missmn ad Anglos Augiistinuni, expositionem Jobi a Gre-
" gol-io (UcgC'^t. lib. i, c-pist. 41, indict. 9, ann. 591, cl lib. iv. epist. 46, indict. 13, aim.
" 595) t'ditam I'nissc nnimajvtrlerini.''

t Smith ai liedc;, i2o: " Hoc," this jjassagc in Gregory, " Beda ad Anglorum conver.^
" sioncni rcUiIit, ii. i, ct post eimi J. DiAconus iu Vita Gregorii [ct Ainioiniis] ; non ob-
'' scrvato; quod liber iilc scriptus erat aiitc Anglorum conversioncm, ac proiiidc hxc verba
" Grcerorii pralium hujas capitis," the baUlc with the Saxons and Picls, " ejusque alleluia,-
" [mii)iinc]respcxcrunt," Smith thus setting hisicetin the vcn,' steps of Usher ; " pr.X5crtini,
" ciim id ut /'«/;«/««/«?« factufii pra-dicct." 'I'ho omission of the principal \Vv>rd in Sinilh'.-.
sentence above, is very rcmark.ible ; as it sets the face of the \\liole directly ce^nlrarv to ilis-
author's intention.

VOL. u. 3 Ii " Thr

4 1 S APPENDIX. - ! [no. hi.

" The language of Britain," he remarks, " which knew only how to
*' grunt its barbarous tones, hath long si:ycE begain to sound the He-
** brew AUeluiah in t-he praises of God." So much, higherset was the
rhetoric o^ Gregory, than to glance at a slight incijient in a provincial
historv! The liplitning; of heaven streams in one oi" its lltishes across
the \AlioIe compass of the sky. The eagle of heaven sweeps, in one of
its flights, along the whole extent of the horizon. The soul of Gregory
was mounted up(m the wing of an eagle, and rode upon a beam of the
lightning, when he composed the passage above. Yet Usher attempted
to confine the lightning within a little closet, and to thrust the eagle
into a child's cage; when he endeavoured to lower the lofty passage
into an allusion to his humble victory. Gregory, in truth, thought as
little of the battle in Flintshire, as St. Jerome, who lived long before it,
thought, when he spoke of Christian churches at Rome in similar
language, and thus expressed himself concerning the similar worship of
God in them: " tlie psalms resounded, and allehnuhs, echoing on high,
" shook the gilded ceilings of the temples ;];."

Yet, as error, once floated, spreads in a circle over all the surface of a
still water, by not merely extending its own ring, but by generating
other rings of a iveaher kind; " Gildas, a British author, who wrote in
" the sixth century," adds INIr. Carte, moving in the circle generated by
Usher's, " alludes to this victory as obtained Inj thehlessivg of God, with-
" out any human assistance; which sufficiently appears from the cir-
" cumstances of the relation§." The passage in Gildas, to which Mr.
Carte refers, is said to be in " Epist. n. 17, 18," and is actually in Hist.
c. xviii. But the passage has no more connexion with the AUeluiah vic-
tory, than it hath with the battle of Pharsalia, or the engagement off
Actium. It speaks, indeed, of a victory, but one totally different trom
Germanus's. Gildas, in a preceding part of his history, notices what he
calls " the first devastation ;" when " Britain, being trampled down for

J Hieronymi Opera, i. 130, Franc, cf Lips. 1684: *« Sonabant psalmi 5 et autata tecta
*• templorum, reboans in sublime, cjualiebat alleluia,"
§ Carte, i. 182, 183.

5 " the

SECT. II.] APPENDIX. 410

" the first time by two transmarine nations outrageously cruel, by the
" Scots from the north-\\'est, by the Picts from the north, lies for many
" years stunned and groaning*." He afterwards notices " the second
" devastation," when " those former enemies" again carry destruction
through the countiyf. He then comes to " the third devastation," in
which " tlie black bands of Scots and Picts" again ravage the country :|:.
He finally goes on in his xviiith chapter, to speak " of the victory;" and
subjoins thus: " then first they [the Britons] made a slaughter among
" the enemy, — trusting not in man but in God, according to that ex
" ample in Philo, tJie divine aid becomes necessary ivhen human assistance
"fails. The audaciousness of the enemy was repressed — , the enemy
" retired out of the country§." This victory, therefore, had nothing
miraculous in it, and is expressly ascribed by the author to the exertions
of the Britons. These " made a slaughter among the enemy;" not
standing like the Britons of Germanus, " the idle spectators of a victory
V obtained," but wielding their weapons to obtain it, and dealing destruc-
tion around them in obtainuig it. Nor were the Britons of Gildas en-
gaged, like the Britons of Constantius, against Picts and Saxons, but
against Picts and Scots. So very different in the nations opposed, and
in the battle fought, is the victory of Constantius from the victory of
Gildas; that the one has scarce any similarity with the other!

" In Constantius's narration of the Alleluiah victory," subjoins Vsher,
to all, willing to remove every objection if he can, and to lend his fable
the full credibility of truth, " is a difiiculty yet remaining to be explained;
" how the Saxons are here introduced warring w ith the Britons, irhen
*' their arrival in the island seems j^OiYmo/' in /inn- to the legation of

• Gildat;, c. xi. : " De prima vastatlonc. — Britannia, — ditabus piimum centibus t'ransnia-
" rinis vchciueiUcr swvis, Scotonim a Circionc, Fictorum ab Aqiiilonc, calcahili?, imilto=
'* 3tupet g'einitf|ne per annos."

t Gildas, c. xiii. : " De Keciimlii vastaiione, — llli priorcs inimici," &c.

X Gildas, c. xvj :• " De lertia vastaiione. — Tctri Scotorum Plctoniiiique grco;cs," S:r.

-§ C. xviii. : " De victoria. Et turn primuni iniinicis — stragcs dabanl non confidcntes in
'♦ honiinc scd in Deo, secundum illud cxcmplum I'iiilonis, necessa est adnse divi/ium tii't
" luimantim cessat auxiliuvi. Qnicvit parumper inimicorum audacia, — rcccsserunt hosles a
" civibus."

3 H 2 " (jcrmaiuisi.

420 AJTENDIX. [:fO. III.

" Germanus. This knot Mattliev\- of Westminster and Carolus Sigo-
" nius cut in two, because tlicy could not untie it; substituting the NNord
" Scots for Saxons in the historj'. Bcde> Paulus Diacunus, and Frccul-
" phus, deserting the calculations of Prosper in ascertaining the time of
«' Gcrmaaus's legation, stated this victory to have been obtained in the
•' reign of the emperor Marcian, after tlie arrival of the Jngles. On the
" contrary, Camden, peculiarly learned in the antiquities of his country,
" has retained the c'lironology of Prosper for the tirst expedition of Ger-
" matms, but from Nennius's interpolator throws the arrival of the
" 7\ngles into the year immediately preceding ; here neglecting the senti-
" mcntsof Bede, and of all the Anglo-vSaxon writers, concerning the time
" of their own arrival. But we have a very easy opening without tjiese
" windings, if we consider that the Saxons had been used to invade
*' Britain frequently, long before the arrival of Hen gist here. For in the
" beginning of the reign of Valentinian the 1st, as we are informed by
" Ammianus Marcellinus, the Saxons, no less than the Picts and Scots,
" distressed the Britons continually with their ravages ; and Claudian
" introduces Britain in the reign of Honorius, thus singing concerning

" Stilicho,

" Through him no more the Scouish sword I fear,

" No more I tremble at the Pictish spear,

*' No more I shrink to see the Saxon sails

" Crowd all my shores, and wave in all my gales.

" And the Notitia Imperii shews us, that a count of the Saxon shore
" in Britain was appointed, for the defence of the island from their
" ravasres*." Such difficulties have alwavs occurred to the examinin";

mind,

* Usher, 180, 181 : "In Constantii de Alleliiiatico illo triumpho narrationc, difficultas
" adhuc explicanda superest, qua ratione Saxones cum Britonibus bclligcrantes hie indu-
" caniur, quum eoruni in insulam adventus Germani legatione tempore videatur fuisse
" posterior. Eum nodiim Matthxtis Florilegus (Flor. Histor. ann. 448), ct Carolus Sigo-
" nius (de Occidental. Iniper. lib. 12, ann. 429), ciam solvere non potuissent, dissecuerunt;
" Scoturum pro Saxotiian in historia substituto votabulo. Beda (in lib. de Sex ^tatib.),
" Paulus Diaconus (in Addit. ad Eutrop. lib. 15), et Freculphus (Chronic, torn. 2, lib. 5,
•' cap. 16), a Frosperi ralionibus in tempore legationis Germani designando recedentes, post
" adventum Anglorum sub M.irciano impcratore victoriam banc parlani fuisse statueruut,
" Antiquitatum patriarum scientlssimus Camdenus contra (Britan. p. 95), in prima Ger-

" mani

SECT. IIw} APPENDIX. 42 1

mind, in attempting to reconcile the battle of Constantius with the
known history of the times. AH but Usher referred it, as common
sense required they should refer it, to a period posterior to the arrival of
the Saxons; only dilFcring concerning the very year of that arrival. Yet
all who dated it affer the Saxon arrival, whatever common sense might
suggest in their favour, were certainly not right; and Usher, who has
noticed their opinions witliout refuting them, who yet has advanced a
different opinion of his own, is as certainly wrong. The battle of Con-
stantius thus seems to be neither posterior nor prior to the Saxon arrival;

and is, however paradoxical the assertion may seem, actually neither.
o sea*. . ; .I-1 i 7

That it could not be posterior, two or three reasons will sufficiently
prove. Germanus and his associate could not have sailed from France
to Britain, as they really sailed, if the Saxons were already here. Those
very prelates to whom Constantius ascribes the Alleluiah victory, "enter
" the ocean," as Bede tells us ; " and even to the middle of the passage
" by trhich you cross from the Gallic hay into Britain, the vessel flew
" safe with prosperous gales." Then a storm comes on; but " a serene
" trancpiillity ensues, the contrary winds return to minister to the voy-
" age, and, having run over the sea in a short time, they enjov the
" peace of their wished- for shore*.'' "^I'hey thus embarked at the usual

port

" mani profcctione Prosper! chronologia retent&, ex N'mii intcrpolatore Anglorum advcntum
" in annum proxime praecedcntcm conjicit ; Bsdx et Anglo-Saxonicorum omnium scriplo- '
" rum de sui advtnlus tempore scntentia liic. neglecta. Sed absque istis diverticulis facillimus
" patebit exitus, si consideravcrimus, longe prius quam appulitset hie Hengisuis, tVequeiiter
" Saxonas krunipere consuevisse in Brilauniam. Nam in principio imperii Valentiniani I.
" Saxonas, non miniis quam I'ictos et Scotos, Britannos aerun.nis vexavisse continuis, auctor
" est Ammianus Marcciiiuus (Hi^tor. lib. 26) ; et sub Honorio Aug. de Stiliehone ita cinen-
" tern introducit CLuuiianus Britaiiniam,

Illius effectum curls, ne bella timerem
Scoiica, ne Pittum tremerem, ne litcore tofo
Prospitirem diibiis venturum S.ixona vcniis.

" Kl, ad insulam ab eorum impetii defindendam, instituiuni fulsse comilem Uttoris Sajco?tid
" per Britanmam, Notilia Imperii indicat."

• Bede, i. 17 : " Germanus — et Lupus — intrant oceanun), et usque ad medium itineris,
" quo a Gallico sinu Britannias usque tcnditur, secundis flatibus na^^is tuta volabat. — Tran-

•' quillitas

■i22 APPENDIX. [yo. Ill,

port in Francr, and landed at the usual port in Britain. What then
were these? Bede himself shall tell us: as ,'* Britain," he says, "has
•• Belgic Gaule on the south, the fiearest shore of which is ppencd to
': passengers from the c'lly called Portiis Rutupis, hy the English now

V corrupted into Repta-caefstir/.' or Richborougii near Sandwich ; " the

V sea interposing between ijt and Gessoricwum," or Boulogne, " the near~
•/ est shore of the nation of the Mori,ni," in Gaule f. But if the Saxons
had been then arriyed in Britain, and hostilities had been then commenced
by them against the Britdns; the port of Richborough must have been
shut up to tU<jse, or any other, passengers from France. The Saxons
were fixed at the very first, and before these auxiliaries of the Britons
became the invaders of Britain, on that very isle of Tbanet, which
formed the .barbour of Riphborough, by presenting an opening fqr.it
between itself and the mainland of Britain. " The nation of the Anglc^^
*.' or Saxons," as Bedehimself informs us again, " being invited by tbo

V king aforesaid, is brought into Britain iia, three gallies, and, by the
*y command of the same king, takes up its residence at the eastern part of
" the island'l'' But, as Nennius writes more explicitly,," ther^ came
" three heels [ox gallies] driven into banishment from Germany, in which-

V were Hors and Hengist; — Vortigern received them kindly, and deli-
'fevered to them the island which in their [he should have said, in their
'Iqnd our] language is denominated 2t//i(?///§," This island thus be-
came

I: . I

*' quiHitas aereiia subsequitur, venti e contrarlo ad itlneris ministeria revertuntur, dccursio-
" que brevi spatiis.peiagi, oplata litoris quiete potiunUir."

ijj' Bedeyi. I : " Habet a nieridie Galliam Belgioam, cujus proximiun litiis transmeanti-
""bus aperlt'.civLtas qute dicitur Rutubi Portiis, a gcnte Ansiornm nunc corriipte Repta-
•'rcaestir vocata, jnierposito niari a Gessoriaco, Morinorum gentis lilore proximo."

■$. Bode, b u^i> '*. Aixglqcum sive Saxonum gens, invitaia a rcge prxfato, iribus loiigis'
" navibus Britanniam advehitur, ct in orientali parte insuix, jubente codetn rege, locum
" manendi — siiscipit." . .

§ Nennius, c. 28 : " Intcrea vencriint tres chiulas, a Germauia in exilio piilsse, in qulbus
** erant Hors et Hengist; — Gorligej-Hus aiitem suRcepil eos benignc, et tradidit eis insulani
"• q,uae_Jiiigiiitfl9]i+M,v^c.atuET9netli."; M. VVi?stni. 394, interprets 'Sphiqla'l to be agal-
Icy, " longas naves quas cuylas sive galeias appellant." The Saxon, laqg^iaga has still
Ci?e^.a,s^i^ arid qcelsj a. keel. Yet Ae^Z is still retained for, a ship at NewtastJe upon Tymc,
tbougUJipij>;|rl.v\yfijtnx. ajope we know the precise import of it .4s a gaU^if ^t firgt.; , !^c^'s.

eh:'u..ua " expression

Sriir. II.] APPENDIX. 423

came the poinf, from whicTi tliey afterwards prosecuted their invasion of
Britain f . The harbour of Richborough, therefore, was possessed, at
tha't period,' By the vessels of the Saxons; and all intercourse between
France a^'d Britain, at that grand port of passage into the latter, must
have^ been totally precluded to those French prelates. To shew tliis' in'
the most striking view, T will notice an incident of history, mucH' later
in time, and consequently more emphatical in import. After the Saxons
6f Kent, and the Saxons of ma'ny other parts of Britain, had been'
brouglit within the pale of humanity and the Gospel ; Wilfrid, a Saxon'
iDishop of the new' Christians, was 're'turniing from France into Britain.
He steere'A'for the old' port of passage in Britain, Richborough, the
town of which had now descended from the hill of the castle, had
settled on the very sands of the sea, and was therefore beginning to be
denominated as it is' now. Sandwich + ; but was driven upon the Coast of
Sussex, then addicted equally as it was of late to the phinderino- of
wrecks, then addicted tenfold more, as not restrained by the civilizino-
gehiiis of Christianity. The Salons of Sussex were not converted yet,
but left to the operations of their own "heathen spirit, and to the heathen
consideration of a state of nature being a state of hostility in man to
man. Such was the influence of this consideration, and of that spirit in
Sussex then, that the chaplain and biographer of the bishop speaks of
the coast, just as we should speak of the Moorish shore of Africa at
present. " The south-east wind blowing hard," he says, " the whiten-
" ing heads of the waves threw them upon the region of the South-
" Saxons, ivith which thet/ivere unacquainted. — But the Gentiles, coming

expression of " longas naves" for what Nemiiiis calls " chiulae," indeed, mia;lu have
sn{;'gesicd to us before, and does confirm at present, M. Westminster's interpretation. But
how comes Neivnius, a Briton, to use the Saxon term ; and Bede, a Saxon, the Romaa
OTIC? The name galtcj/ itself conies evidently to us and to the French, from the Italians and
their galea; a dilferer.t word from galea, a helmet in Latin, and accented, even spelled,
diflerently, as in this line of M. Paris (p. 530) :

In tettK gaJeaj in aquis formido ^o/Wo/.

+ Ncnnius, c. 46.

X Eddius's Vita Wilfridi, c. xlii. in Gale, i. 58 ; »' I'oitum Sandwich}" the first men-
tion of it under that nam':, in all our history,

" down

'»2 1 APPENDIX. [n'O. lU.

" down w'ilh a very great uvmy, resolved without delay to seize the ship,
'■ to divide the money as plunder among themselves, to carry off' as
'• slaves those who yielded, and tp slay with the sword those who re-
" sisted^.'' Yet these were countrymen to the bishop and the crew,
these were near neighbours to the new Christians. What then would
not the Saxon pirates have done, all etiually in the feroeity of nature,
less civilized from the very business of their lives, and more barbarous
from their very banishment, as the outcasts of society, as tlic provoked
enemies of all mankind ; to the stranger bishops, and to the stranger
Christians, coming from France into their harbour, and anchoring near
to their vessels ? They "would certainly have seized, and probably ha^c
murdered then) immediately.

Had indeed the Saxon invasion then commenced, the whole region of
Roman Britain must have been in too violent an agitation of spirits, too
much intlamed with a high and raging fever in its veins ; ever to have
invited the prelates into it. The Pelagian heresy \\ould have been con-
sidered as an evil much less formidable in its nature, and much less
pressing in its encroachments, than the Saxon invasion. The controver-
sies of theojogy would have been resigned up, to a period of peace and
leisure. All thoughts, all exertions would have been employed, in pre-
paring for the new war, in preventing the ruin of all Britain, in pre-
cluding the destruction of all Christianity,

So incompatible is the very victory, said to be obtained by the bishops
over the invading Saxons, with the very coming of the bishops into
Britain ! But if, with Bede, we fix the arrival of the Saxons in the year
A4Q*; the Saxon invasion necessarily ranking still later in time, and

§ Eddii.s, c. xiii. : " Navigantibus — eis de Gallia Brltannicum marc, — flante — vcnto
*■' eiiro-austro dure, albescentia undarum ciilmina in regionem Austraiium Saxoiium, quani
" noil noverant, projeceiunt cos. — Gcnlilcs aiiUnii, cum iiigciiti cxorciui venicntes, navcni
" arripere prxilam ibi pecuniae dividere, captivos subjugator dcduccre, resistcntcsque gladio
*' occiderc, incunctanter proposuerunt." Wilfrid and his men however escaped, pushed off
to sea, and gained their port, *' prosperc in portum Sandwich atque suaviter pcrvenerunt.''

• Bede, i. 15.

Germanus

fECr. n.] APPENDIX. 425

Germanus dying In 448 f , this good bishop must have fouglit the battle
and won the victory, one year at least after he was dead^. The victory
and the battle, therefore, if at all real, could not possibly have hap-
pened posterior to the general invasion of the Saxons §.

Usher accordingly had recourse to a new hypothesis, which is not
exposed to these invincible objections, which has gained an universal
acquiescence ever since, and has actually carried the narration of Con-
stantius into our national history. Yet this hypothesis lies open to
similar objections, and is just as untenable as the other. That the
narration refers to a period, when the Saxons were hostile and invasive;
is apparent upon the very front of it. But that it also refers to a period
much prior to the general inviision by the Saxons ; is equally apparent.
The narration forms a part of that history, which relates not to the
second expedition of Germanus, hut to the Jirst ; which recites the
incidents that arose during the legation, njot of Germanus and Sevenis,
but of Germanus and Lupus ||, which therefore speaks of events that hap-
pened, not so late as even 447, but so early as 429-430 *. The Saxons
of Constantius then must be, what Usher states them to be, some
Saxons that existed in the island many years prior to the general inva-
Kion ; if they ever existed in it at all. But thej never existed ; nor is it

t Usher, 204, 205.

X Lhuyd in Gibson, 826, says thus: "Whereas it may be objected, that seeing it is
" allowed St. German dyed in the year 435, it was impossible he should lead the Britons in
" this island against the Saxons, for that Hengist and Horsa arrived not here till 449; he
" [Usher] answers," &c. Lhuyd thus, by a mistake of memory, confounds Camden's
chronology with Usher's, and substitutes that very chronology in Camden which Usher re-
futes, for the very chronology which Usher proposes himself.

§ We naturally tliink with Usher, 180, thit " Bcde, and all the Anglo-Saxon writers'*
are the pronerest judges "of their own arrival in Britain ;" if wc do not reflect, that the
computation of lime from the Christian xra was not begun by any before 525, that it was
not adopted by many till one or two centuries afterward, and that therefore various errors
must necessarily have arisen, in the retrospective application of it to evtnis.

H Usher, 179: *' Victoriani Alleluiaiicam Germano et Lupo ducibus — obtentam." Sec
also Bedc, i. 17-10.

* Usher, 175.

VOL. II. 3 I in

•120 APPRNDIX. [n'O. Iir.

in the po\A-cr of Usher to exert a kind of Promethean art; and to lend
life to these mere statues fabrieated by (Jonstantius's hand.

The Saxons undoubtedly harassed the shore of Britain, before they took,
up their residence in Thanet. Yet they harassed it not, as Usher makes
jNIarcellinus to say they did, " continually," and " no less than the
*' Scots and Picts," even •' in the beginning of the reign of Valen-
" tinian I. ;" because, what INIarcellinus says of the Saxons then, what
he says of the Saxons at unij other time, has no keferexce to the
ISLAND, but is ALL CONFINED TO THE CONTINENT f. The Saxon de-
scents upon Britain did not begin as early, as even the close of Marcel-
linus's history, the year 378 %. So very unfortunate is Usher, in his first
Inference to history ! So long has Marcellinus been repeated from him
to say, what Marcellinus never says ! So carelessly have the references
of this truly great man in historical criticism, been echoed from mouth
to mouth, and transmitted from pen to pen, without one examination
through the course of a century and a half!

Even when the Saxon invasions began upon our shores, even when
they were prosecuted in their utmost violence, they were not prosecuted,
as Claudian in the laxity of poetical language insinuates they were, upon
everji part of the shore. The}' harassed only one part of it, and this not
on the ivestern or Welsh side of the isle, but on the contrary or eastern ;
not even upon the eastern along the 7i'holc range of the shore, at any
point towards the north, at any about the wiclil/e, but at the lower end
of all to the south, at the grand lend of the isle on the south-east. This is

t Usher, i8i, cites " Amniian. Histor. lib. 26," but means lib. 27, where, in p. 494
(Paris, 1681), he notices the Saxon?, the Tirts, anil ihc Scot3, for lhcjfr5< time j where he
harasses the Britons Wwh the Scots and Picts, but the Gawijwith the Saxons: " Picii, —
" et Scotti, per diversa vagantes, nuilta popiiiabantur ; Gallkanos veto tractus Eranci et
" Saxones, iisdtin confines, — viohibant." The mention of the Saxons in lib. 28, p. 522,
is merely allusive; " quam ob caus.iui pix ceteris hostibus Saxones limc-nlur, iit repentini."
The only other mentioH in MarccUuius, is at p. 536, 537 ; where the scene is equally in
Gciiilf, as the final feat was in Germany, " in ipsis Francorum finibus," says Orosiiis in a
note here.

X Marcelliuus, lib. x,v\i. p. 655,

plain

SECT. II.] APPENDIX. 427

plain from the very fact alleged for his own purpose by Usher, the
Roman appointment " of a count of the Saxon shore in Britain,".
Where this count's jurisdiction lay m Britain, and how far it extended
along the coast of Britain, we know with the greatest precison from the
very " Notitia Imperii," alleged by Usher. " Under the disposition,"
says this record, " of that dignified officer, the count of the Saxon .shore
" in Britain," arc troops at these forts sj)eciiied ; " Othona" or Ithan-
cester near Maldon in Essex, at " Dubris" or Dover, at " Leinannis"
or Limne nearlivlhe, at " J>rannodunum" or Brancaster in the north
of Norfolk, at '• Gariannonum" or Caster on the Yare in the south of
it, at " Regulbium" or Reculver in Kent, at " Rutupis" or Rich-
borough in Kent, at " Anderida," I know not what place in Sussex,
and at " Portus Adurni" or Aldrington near Shoreham in Sussex §.
'J'hus we find the Saxon shore of Britain to have been all confined
between Aldrington in Sussex, and Brancaster in Norfolk. So little
did it extend into North- Wales, as Usher has extended it; that it reached
only a few miles, upon either side of the South Foreland ! Accordingly,
when the Saxons appeared for the last time otFthe shore of Britain, and
from intended invaders became hired auxiliaries ; they were then at this
very angle of the island, were landed on the isle of Thanet, and from
the isle of Thanet marched into the interiors of the country. All assist-
ance, therefore, in support of Constantius's narrative, as derived from
the existence of a Saxon shore prior to the general invasion by the
Saxons; is merely the vision of a dream, a ghost that glides before the

§ Pancirollus, fol. i6i : "Sub dispositionc vlri spectabilis, coniitis litoris Sa.xonici per
" Firitanniaiii. IVajpositiis — Olhonas. Prxpositus — Dubris. PrasposiUis — Lemannis. Prx-
" positus — Brannodmiesis Braiinotluno. Propositus — Gariaiinonensis Garlannouo. Tri-
" bunus — Rcgulbio. I'rKpositus — Rutupis. Propositus — Anderida;. Pncpositus — Poriu
•' Adurni." For appropriating these ancient names to modern places, sec Caniden, 247,
Somncr's Roman Forts and Ports in Kent, 103-106; Horsley, 488; Ives's Gariunonmii
fairlv considered; and Cough, i. 206. Camden's reasons for fixing Anderida at Newcndi-n
in Kent, arc refuted at oncQ by history itself. Anderida being a town of llic Khemi, who
iuh.d>iled between the Cantii of Kent and the Bclg.-e of Hampshire (Richard, 18); and tllia,
the founder of the South-Saxon kingdom, completing his conquest of Sussex hy the reduc-
tion of Andrcdeccslcr (Huntingdon, f. 179).

3 1 2 <^v.-

428 APPENDIX:. [XO. IH.

eye of fancy, a form that is all unsubstantial when you attempt to

embrace it.

Ter conatus ibl coUo dare brachia circum,

Ter frustra comprensa niaiius effugit imago,

Par levibiis vtntis, voliicrique simillima somno*.

But let US attend to another feature, in the complexion of tliis false
history. From the isle of Thanet the Saxons penetrated in time to
North-Wales, and reached the banks of the Allen at last; but not till
many hundreds of years after Germanus had visited the country. Yet
Usher exhibits them in Flintshire during Germanus's visit, and not
merely by themselves, but in company with Picts also. This circum-
stance forms an additional note of spuriousness upon the narration,
though Usher has entirely overlooked it. The Picts and the Scots, it is
true, invaded the Roman half of Britain repeatedly, but never in imion
•with the Saxons, and never in North- Wales. The Picts particularly,
whom Usher has carried with the Saxons into that country, were even
more unlikely than the Scots to enter it. " Britain," says Gildas, as I

• " Maes Garmon," says Mr. Pennant, " a spot that still retains the name of the saintly
" commander, in the celelrated battle of the Victoria Alleluiatica, fought in 420," 420 ! ! !
" between the Britons, headed by the bishops Germanus and Lupus, and a croud of pagan
" Picts and Saxons, ivko were carrying desolation though the coimtrj/." He then gives an
account of the battle, which is true in itself, but all at variance with the ground : " It has
" been objected by cavillers," he adds, " that the Saxons were not at that time possessed of
" Britain," when no one ever objected they were not possessed of the country, because the
whole story proves they were not; and the only objection has been, what indeed Mr.
Pennant means to state, though he has been unfortunate in his language, that they had not
yet begun their reduction of the isk. " That may be admitted," though it is expressly called
a cavil before; "but the learned \ls\\e.v overthrows \he objection," though tlie objection
•* may be admitted," as we have been told just before, " by rightly observing, that those
** people" were not indeed possessed of Britain, and thus overthrows the objection by alloiu-
ing it, but " had long before made temporary invasions of our island, and committed great
" ravages m several farts ; and calls to witness Ammianus Marcellinus," who witnesses no
such thing. " And to his authority I may add," what Usher himself has expressly added,
•« that the Romans found it necessary to have, in the laler limes, a new officer to watch
" their motions, and repel their invasions, a comes littoris Saxonici per Britannias." (Tour
in North- Wales, i. 437, 438.) Such are writers of travels, when they become critics in
history ! so honest to others, so just to truth, so dignified in themselves !

have

SECT. II.] APPENDIX. 42Q

have cited him before, " being trampled down for the first time hy two
" transmarine nations outrageously cruel, by the Scofs from the north-
" ivest,'' that is, across the Clyde from Argyleshire, their original seat
of residence in Britain ever since tlie year 320 || ; " by the Picts from
" the northr that is, across the frith of Forth, from the regions of
Caledonia beyond ; the two nations thus evading the wall of Antoninus-
between the friths, by transporting themselves over the water of both,
so breaking into the Roman province of Valentia, between that wall
and Severus's, "lies for many years stunned and groaning." This
shews us the nature of the Pictish and Scottish irruptions in a lively
form. The Scots and Picts had an embarkation for the purpose; but
then it was merely to float them over the two friths, to give them that
access into the country which the more northerly wall prohibited, and
to land them on the visible shore at the other side : they then overran
the country up to the southerly wall, and ravaged all the present low-
lands of Scotland, from Falkirk even to Berw^ick. They therefore pene-
trated not, either by land or by water, into North-Wales ; and never
came within one hundred andjifty miles from it : even if either of them
had penetrated so far, these would not have been the Picts, but the
Scots. The Picts invaded the country from the north-east, and the
Scots from the north-west: the latter therefore must have been the
enemy that would ninge along the road from Carlisle to Chester; while
the former would range in a parallel direction, from Berwick towards
York. Even if the Picts had turned in upon the course of the Scottislx
ra\'agcs, had given up their own course to the Scots, so had crossed
obliquely I'rom Edinborough to Carlisle and Chester, yet they did not.
they could not, act in union U'ith the Saxons. 'J'he Saxons indeed are
all within another hemisphere, as it were ; they are on the other, Uie
eastern side of the island, and at the south-eastern angle of it ; they must
therefore be brought across the breadth of the whole, like the Picts ;
and across a breadth as oblique, Init vuich more ample, than theirs,
before the Picts and they can be united together, before we can accoia-

II Hist, of Manchester, ii. 250, octavo.

modats;

130 APPENDIX. [^'O. HI.

niodate this particular narrative to the general history. The position of
the universe must be altered before this Ptolemaic system can possibly
be adopted ; general history stands like the sun in the C^opernican, the
centre of gravitation to all the lesser orbs about it, and the grand regu-
lator of all their movements.

But, as Gildas goes on still more explicitly to describe what he calls
*' the second devastation" of the Picts and Scots, " those former ene-
" mies, — borne along with the wi/igs of ours, by tlic arms of rowers,
" and with sails helbj'wg in the wind, break through the borders, kill all
" before them, and mow down, trample upon, pass over, as ripe corn,
" all that come in their way *." A\^c thus see the Scots and Picts
invading Roman Piritain now, just as they invaded it before ; crossing
the friths with sails and oars, entering the country from the borders,
and ravaging it up to Severus's \\i\\\ again: we see them also still with-
out any party of Saxons among them. Then they were " hastily driven
" back heijond the seas" by some Roman auxvliaries sent to the Britons ;
and the more hastily, " because they greedily transported their annual
" booty across the seas when they met with no resistance f." So clearly
does Gildas continue to fix the Picts and Scots on the north of the friths,
and to make the country immediately south of the friths the only scene
of their ravages, while he gives a different and a distant scene to the
descents of the Sa.roiis .' "The Romans," he says, only olliiding to
the Saxons, not specifying them, but plainly indicating them, " on the
-" shore of the ocean in the southern clime, where their navij was lic/jf,"
meaning Richborough particularly, the grand port of their navy for
Britain |, " and where they were apprehensive of the wild beasts of

* Gildas, c. xiii. : " Illi priores ininiici — alls rcmoruni, remigumque bracliiis, ac velis
" vento sinualis, vccti, terniiiios riimpunt, cxdutitquc omnia, ct qiixque obvia, maturam
" sen seo-etcm, nictunl, calcant, transt-iinl."

t Gildas, c. xiv. :' " Auxiliatores egregii — prospcrc trans maria fugaverunt, quia anni-
*' vcrsarias avide prsedas, nullo obsistenle, trans maria exaggerabant." I have supplied a
clause in the text above, as necessary to connect the remark svith the fact.

X Ilist. of Manchester, ii. 509, quarto.

" Barhanj,

SECT. 11.] appendix:. 431

" Barhary, fix towers at intervals for a survey of the sea §." Gildas
thus places his towers, and thus points his apprehensions, on and at the
Saxon shore of Britain !

But when he relates ^\ hat he calls " the third devastation," and what
he states as the last, " the black bands of Scots and Picts," he says,
" emulously emerge from the coracles, in which they were borne across
*' the vale of the sea, and, — with more than usual confidence, seize from
•' the natives all the northern and extreme part of the land, up to the
" very wall || :" even this they attack, this they storm, and pour into-
tlic countr\- on the south. How far they went, and whether they met
(if they ever met) with any Saxons, may seem not easy to be ascer-
tained ; r formerly supposed them to have pushed only through the
bishopric of Durham into the county of York, yet two years afterward
to have returned and penetrated into Lincolnshire^. But, as Gildas
expressly asserts the Picts to have never returned any more *, I now see
the necessity of reducing both these invasions into one ; of dating them
both as one in the year -14 8, the ascei'tained year of Germanus's death
in Italy, the real year of Artius's third consulship toof, and of carrying
this invasion as far to the south as Lincolnshire ; then, in the very same
year, accidentally came a party of the Saxons u|)on the coast, as we are
told by Nennius, were invited to land as auxiliaries, and as auxiliaries
engaged in battle with the invaders. This engagement both Gildas and
Nennius have suppressed, in their natural dislike for men who pro\ed

§ Gildas, c. xiv. : " In littorc quoquc ocean! ad meridianam plagatn, qua naves coruni
" habcbantiir, ct inde Barbaricae fcrx bcstix timebantur, turrespcr intervalla ad prospecUun
" maris collocant."

II Gildas, c. xv. : " Emergunt ccrtatim decuricis, quibus sunt trans Tithicam [Tethycani^
" vallein vccti, — totri Scolorum I'ictorumque greges, — ct — solito confidcnlius onmoin a(ini-
" lonalcm extrtmaniquc terrae paitempro [read aij indigenis nuiro-tenus capcssunt."

51 Hist, of Mancbcitcr, ii. 528, quarto.

• Gildas, c. xix. : " I'ictl in cxtrcnia parte insulx tunc primuni, et deinceps, rcijuic-
«' verunt."

+ As Carte, i. 192, fixes the year, and as the death of St. German in 448 obliges all to
fix it. Hist, of Manchester, therefore, in ii. 513, quarto, must stand corrected.

2 so

AS2 APPEN'DIX. [n<). hi.

SO perfidious afterwards, iinjusth' stiliiiig the truth |: but at a hitcr
period two Saxons, or two wlio in tlie predominance of the Saxons con-
sidered themselves as such, did them the justice which the Britons had
denied. " The engagement being begun," says Bede, " with the enemy
" who had come from the north, tlie Saxons gained the victory §." —
" The Sodons," adds Huntingdon in tliat very spirit of Bede, which
shews the Saxon prejudices operating equally as the British before, to
the hurt of history, " entered into an engagement against the Picfs and
" Scots, who hiul now come even to Stamford, which is situated in the
" southern part of Lincolnshire, distant from Lincoln forty miles; when
" therefore those," the Saxons, " had fought with their javcHns and
" lances, and these," the Picts and Scots, " had very keenly contended
" \\ith tlieir axes and broad-swords, the Picts [and Scots] could not
" bear so strong a pressure upon them, but provided for their safety by
" their llight : the Saxons triumph in victory, and enjoy the booty \\."
Thus do all these opposing historians unite together against their wills
to make up that truth in one whole which they have respectively given
in parts only ; to shew both the Britons and Saxons employed in obtain-
ing this victory, those as principals, these as auxiliaries ! Such and so
local was the battle, which exhibits to us the associated Picts and Scots

:}: Gildas, c. xviii. " De Victoria," says only, " clabant stragcs," and thus confines the
victory to the Britons. Nennius suppresses all meniion of the victory; yet Gildas says
what plainly allows the Saxons were to fight for the Britons, telling us in c. xxiii. that a
resolution was formed by the Britons concerning the Saxons, " in insulanj ad retntdeiidas
*' aquilonales gentes intromitterentur ;" adding, that the Saxon host accordingly landed
" quasi pro patr'ta pugnaliirus, sed earn certius inipugnaturus." Nennius also notices, that
" ipsi promi^crunt expugnare iniinicos ejus forliter )" and introduces the Britons, telling
them, after the battle at Stamford undoubtedly, " recedile a nobis, auxilio vesiro non indi-
" gemus."

§ Bede, i. 15: " Tnito — certamine cum hostibus qui ab aquilone ad aciem venerant,
■" victoriam sumpsere Saxoncs."

11 Huntingdon, f. 178: " Inierunt autem certamen contra Pictos et Scottos, qui jam
" venerunt usque ad Stanfordiam, quse sita est in australi parte Lincolniae, distans ab ei 40
" niilliariis: cum igilur illi pilis tt lanceis pugnarcnt, isti vcro sccuribus gladiisque longis
" rigidissime deccrlarent, nequiverunt Picli pondus tantum perferre, sed fuga saluti suae
" consuluerunt; Saxones victoriosi triumpho et prosd^ potiti sunt."

for

SECT. II.] APPENDIX. 433

for the last time, but the Saxons with them for ihcjirst, in the Roman
regions of Britain^ !

The Picts then were united, not with Saxons, but with Scots, in
their only three invasions of Roman Britain. In the first, when they
broke into the country between the two walls, and retired into thcnr
own Caledonia unopposed, they had Scots with them, bid no Saxons ;
in the second, when they broke into the same country again, but were
beat back into Caledonia by the Romans, they had equally no Sa.vons
with them, but only Scots; in the third and last, when they broke
through both the walls, and even pushed as far to the south as Stam-
ford in Lincolnshire ; they had Saxons with them indeed, but had also
Scots, and Scots as associates, but Saxofis as enemies. There indeed
was the one only engagement at which the Picts and the Saxons were
ever united in battle with the Britons, when the Saxons and the Picts

^Cln Hist, of Man. ii. 537, 538, quarto, I have wrongly interpreted these words of
Gilnt Concerning the future pacificness of the Picts : " Picti in extrema parte insula: tunc
*' primum, et deinceps, requieverunt, pradas et contr'itiones nonnunquam facientes." Tbe
last clause I have interpreted as implying one more incursion into Britain, which I then
believed to have been made, and therefore supposed to be meant here; but as I now see no
such incursion to have been made, to be positively denied indeed by the first and second
clause, I cannot interpret the last, in direct contradiction to them and to fact. That the
Picts then and afterwards rested from incursions. Is explicitly affirmed ; and therefore the
plundcrings or harassings sometimes made by them afterwards, must be acts very consistent
with the resting before ; yet not acts merely of a private, a petty nature in their own country,
as the mind is ready to suppose at first, but, as such a notice taken of them shews, acts of
invasion and hostility upon one another ; acts of plundering aggression committed by Picts
upon Scots, and the very beginnings of that war between them, which ended finally in the
total reduction of the Picts by the Scots, Thus Fergus, who began to reign about A. D. 503,
half a ceHtury later than this irruption of Scots and Picts into Roman Britain (Innes, ii.
690, 691), but eighty years earlier than Gildas's writing (Hist. c. xxvi.), extended the king-
dom of the Scots beyond its original limits in Argyleshire, within which it had been settled
by a prior Fergus (Hist, of Man. ii. 250, 251, octavo), and carried it a good way into the
country of the Picts (Innes, i. 87 ; ii. 665, 666, 669, 674). We thus allow for the two
Fergus's that have so much divided the Scottish antiquaries (Innes, ii. 666) ; thus assign a
pointed meaning to these hiih.erto unheeded words of Gildas ; and thus fix historically the
commencement of that war between the two nations, which then gave, which still gives,
such a new aspect to the internal history of our whole island,

VOL. II. 3 K Nvcre

454 APPENDIX. [no. III.

were actually opposed to each other, when the Picfs were confederated
with the Scots, and the Scwons were associated with the Britofis against
both.

So wild and so false, in every view that we can take of the subject,
is Constantius's account of the Alleluiah victory ! So requisite was it,
even for Germanus's sake, to strip off the false and monstrous covering
of hair with which ignorance and imposition have endeavoured to orna-
ment his head, in order to shade his baldness, like Caesar's, with a just
and becoming crown of laurel ! Constantius's story requires the highest
degree of evidence to authenticate it, yet has not even the lowest ; it is
clogged with a vast variety of absurdities within ; it is loaded with the
greatest incredibilities without : it is at last reduced into a mass of liisto-
rical impossibilities, each speaking loudly against itself, all uniting in
one powerful acclaim against all. Thus is the narration finally found
to be one of the most extraordinary fabrications that were ever imposed
upon the historical world ; projected with infinite confidence of false-
hood at a time very near to the incidents, yet executed with little judi-
ciousness of fraud, little knowledge of Britain, little regularity of ideas ;
triumphing, however, in its victory over the belief of man for no less
than twelve hundred years together ; but appearing, on a close exami-
nation, infinitely wild in itself, actually incredible in every part, and
absolutely impossible in the whole.

r 1 N I s.

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