Although much good work has been done and useful results have been obtained in many fields of research both by individual Cornishmen and by societies like the Royal Institution of Cornwall, there is one department at least which has been somewhat neglected by those for whom it might have been expected to possess a special attractiveness.

The interest which of late years has been awakened in the Cornish language and in Celtic Christianity has not been the result of any revival in Cornwall itself. Mr. Whitley Stokes is an Irishman by birth and extraction, Professor Loth a Breton, Mr. Henry Jenner a Cornishman. In fact no Cornishman except the last-named has so far thrown himself wholeheartedly into the movement which has for its object the critical study of the language and religion of the Celtic-speaking nations. This is much to be regretted, because both of these subjects were assigned a place in the comprehensive scheme of Dr. Borlase, which, as conceived and elaborated by him, entitled him to rank among the leading European antiquaries of his own day. Although Dr. Borlase achieved little of permanent value in the way of exposition, he gathered much valuable material which, but for him, would have been lost, and by his sagacity and diligence succeeded in riveting the attention of his compatriots.

He was, like all the leading archÆologists of his time, a resolute believer in the Druidical origin of the prehistoric remains of the county, a theory which he advocated with consummate skill and particularity. Since his death the theory has been found to be untenable without any serious injury, however, being done to his high reputation.

The brilliant essay of his great-great-grandson, the late Mr. William Copeland Borlase, on the Age of the Saints, first printed in 1878, has been one of the very few original works accomplished in the county having for its object the exposition of Celtic Christianity. In this work its writer attempted too much. Subsequent research has shown that many of his identifications of the Cornish saints are untrustworthy, and that his arbitrary delineation of the spheres of influence of the respective groups of Irish, Welsh and Breton saints is often fanciful and misleading.

Given leisure and the spirit of enquiry, the two subjects which ought to appeal most strongly to a Cornishman are the ancient religion and the ancient language of the county to which he belongs.

Both subjects are now well within his reach owing to the immense amount of material which has, within recent years, been made available by the publication of ancient records. The Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents of Haddan and Stubbs, the Episcopal Registers, edited by Hingeston-Randolph, the Parish Registers, edited by Phillimore and others, the publications of the Record Commissioners and of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, the Revue Celtique, the Ancient Cornish Drama, edited by Mr. Edwin Norris, the critical works of Mr. Whitley Stokes, of Professor Loth and Dom Gougaud, the Cornish Grammar of Mr. Jenner; these are a few of the many sources whence valuable information may be derived for the comparative study of these subjects. In this connection it may be observed that little satisfaction will be gained from facts and statements which are obtained at second hand. Facts must be sought out in the original documents and examined in their original settings.

The context is often more illuminating than the fact which it enshrines. Not documents only; the towns, villages, hamlets and homesteads, with their ancient names, address silent appeals to the hearts and understandings of those who live among them.

An interesting illustration is supplied by the three Cornish words, Eglos (Ecclesia), Escop (Episcopus) and Pleu (Plebs)—interesting because the final judgment must be held in suspense until a survey has been made of their ramifications. All three words are found in the place-names of this county. Eglos is found in Lanteglos, Egloskerry and in some other places; Escop is found in Trescobeas in Budock, formerly appendant to the bishop’s manor of Penryn, also in Mainen Escop (Bishop’s Rock), in the Isles of Scilly; Pleu is found in Plunent, the ancient name of Pelynt, in Pluvathack (Budock) and possibly in Bleu Bridge in Gulval. Names beginning or ending in Eglos are numerous in Cornwall; those having Pleu for the first syllable are very few in number. In Brittany very few place-names are composed of Eglos and Escop, whereas Pleu enters into many. Why does Pleu rather than Eglos lend itself so readily in Brittany to the exigencies of ecclesiastical nomenclature? Were it not that Lan (monastery) is equally distributed in the two countries, we should be tempted to say that in Cornwall a Celtic word (lan) was preferred to a Latin word (plebs) to describe the ecclesiastical unit. Some difference of condition or of association there must have been to account for it. That which most readily occurs is that Armorica was thoroughly Latinised before the insular Celts arrived there, whereas Cornwall was probably never brought into close contact with Roman civilisation as such except on and near the coast; in other words, that Plebs was in use in the former country before it became Christian and acquired afterwards a specific ecclesiastical signification, whereas in Cornwall it was introduced along with Christianity or after Christianity had taken root. Very few traces of Roman civilisation are to be found in this county. The Roman milestone at St. Hilary is almost unique. Roman coins, of which many have been found in the county, do not prove Roman settlement. It is certain, however, that Britain had become Christian, at least in name, before the Roman legions were withdrawn, and it is therefore probable that the words Eglos, Escop and Pleu had been received into the Cornish language before that time. And the true explanation of the persistence of Pleu in the place-names of Brittany seems to be that the insular Britons, who had acquired the word Plebs during the Roman occupation, converted it, for ecclesiastical purposes, into Pleu and took it with them when they emigrated to Armorica, where very soon it had to give place to the word Pares (from the French Paroisse), though not before it had taken root in the place-names. In Cornwall and Wales, on the other hand, Pleu remained in current use and is therefore seldom found in the place-names of those countries. Making allowance for changed conditions, the same explanation accounts for the persistence of the word Lan in the place-names of all three countries—it persisted in the place-names because it had fallen out of current use.

For reasons which will appear later, it is important to keep well in mind the relations which subsisted between Cornwall and Brittany from the time of the Dumnonian exodus, which began in the first half of the fifth century, until those relations were interrupted in the sixteenth century.

Leaving for future discussion the question of religion, there are points of contact between the two countries which deserve attention, not only because they are interesting in themselves, but because they can hardly fail to suggest others.

The colonisation of Armorica by the people of Dumnonia is accepted by every scholar of repute. The gradual re-settlement of Bretons in Cornwall is not so well known. Nevertheless, the historical evidence is not open to question. Domesday Book shows that, with three exceptions, all the landholders in Cornwall were, in the days of Edward the Confessor, Saxons. When William the Norman set about the conquest of England, he was joined by several Breton nobles, who, by way of reward, received considerable grants of land in Cornwall. Richard Fitz Turold, the ancestor of the baronial house of Cardinan, received thirty-one manors, Brient six, Blohiu five, Jovin thirteen, Wihumar three and Judhel one.

It was, doubtless, owing to the presence of these Breton knights that Cornwall came to play so important a part in the Arthurian romances, which, soon after the Conquest, became known throughout western Europe. There has been much controversy respecting their origin. They have been attributed to England, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. That of Tristan and Iseult was, until quite recently, commonly referred to an English archetype which assumed literary form at the hands of British and Welsh minstrels or jugglers.

It has remained for Professor Loth to demonstrate, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it originated in Cornwall at a time when Celtic, Saxon and Norman were all spoken languages. Those who are familiar with the romance will have been puzzled by the presence of two Iseults in one and the same story. On this point M. Loth says, “in my opinion it is from the juxtaposition in Cornwall of two legends, the Cornish and the Armorican, and from a compromise between the two that the creation of the two Iseults has originated.”^[34]

No better proof could be found of the friendly spirit which existed between the two nations than their mutual consent to share the tales and traditions of both.

It was a Breton who, in 1177, carried away the body of St. Petrock to the monastery of St. Mewan in Brittany. As a canon of Bodmin he had learnt to venerate the saint, and doubtless considered that he could confer no greater boon upon his own countrymen than to present them with the saint’s relics. At the instance of Henry II, Roland de Dinan restored them to the Priory.

The trade between the two countries was considerable. The Patent Rolls supply ample evidence of this. In 1343 we find an inquisition respecting certain mariners of the county of Cornwall who had been received into the service of the Duchess of Brittany, but who had turned pirates and plundered the vessels of both countries.

More convincing still is the evidence supplied by the first subsidy roll of King Henry VIII. The roll is undated, but the date cannot be later than 1523. In it are given the names of all those who were required to contribute to the subsidy and the several amounts of their assessment, in land and goods, for the purpose. The roll for the hundred of Penwith is almost complete, only the parishes of Crowan, Illogan, Redruth and a part of Camborne being missing.^[35] In all the Penwith parishes, save five of the smaller ones, are found Bretons who are described as nati in partibus BritanniÆ sub obediencia Regis Francorum. These Bretons constitute more than one-sixth of the total tax-paying population of the hundred of Penwith. They are described as tinners, fishermen, smiths, servants, labourers and cooks: the occupations of twenty-nine of them are not given. Although the several amounts to be contributed by them are in every case in respect of goods and comparatively small, there is fortunately reliable evidence to prove they were not mere sojourners but persons who had come to stay.

The order to keep parish registers issued by Thomas Cromwell in 1537, and the further order, in 1597, requiring a transcript of them to be made on parchment, would have provided future generations with an invaluable source of information, had those orders been generally obeyed and the records carefully preserved.

Unfortunately, few parishes can claim to possess an uninterrupted record of baptisms, marriages and burials from the year 1538 up to the present time. In Penwith only Camborne enjoys this distinction. All the rest of the registers begin after the accession of Queen Elizabeth. The earliest of the Madron registers, which begins in 1577, has been printed and is accessible: the Camborne marriages have also been printed. From these two registers it will suffice to give extracts which bear upon Breton settlement in the county. Camborne supplies the following marriages:

• 1538. John Carthowe, brito, and Nora his wife.
• 1540. Stephen Bryton and Jane his wife.
• 1540. G’ua Bryton and Margaret his wife.
• 1540. Uden John, brytton, and his wife.
• 1540. Gregorie Brytton and Margaret his wife.
• 1546. John Gerecrist and Margaret Willm, bryttons.
• 1568. Peres Brytton and Alson his wife.

If the above list is compared with the subsidy roll, to which reference has been made, it will be clear that Bryton is not a surname but a descriptive epithet. The list, in fact, supplies only four surnames, Carthowe, John, Willm and Gerecrist. Of these the first and last are interesting: the first survives in Cornwall as Carthewe and in Brittany as Carzou; the last is a Breton place-name—Kergrist, near Pontivy.^[36]

As showing that the Breton immigrants did not return to their own country the following entries from the Madron register^[37] will be helpful, if not conclusive. Among the burials we have:

• 1582. Jane, wife of John Brittayne.
• 1585. Elizabeth, wife of Oliver, the Brittonn.
• 1587. Joane, wife of John Britton.
• 1599. Peres Brittayne.

Unfortunately the Madron baptisms are missing until 1592 and the marriages until 1577. It is impossible, however, with the Camborne marriages and the Madron burials before us, to resist the conclusion that in the first half of the sixteenth century Bretons arrived, married and were buried in the county. They doubtless left descendants. It is remarkable, however, that whereas, at the present time, in Cornwall the surname Britton or Bridden is rare, in the Midlands, where Breton influence was never considerable, it is comparatively common. The explanation appears to be that the Christian names of the Breton immigrants became surnames, and in this way the number of Christian surnames, which in West Cornwall now amounts to little short of 30 per cent of the whole number, was vastly increased.

For how long the tide of Breton immigration had been flowing, when we meet with it in the sixteenth century, it is impossible to say. Its persistence in the first half of that century is not more noteworthy than its arrest in the second half.^[38]

Brittany had become a French province in 1495 by the marriage of Anne, Duchess of Brittany, to Charles VIII. The tortuous foreign policy of Queen Elizabeth of England, no less than the political and religious complications of her protracted reign, could hardly have been favourable to Breton immigration. The reformed religion and the decline of the Cornish language have prevented a renewal of close relations between the two countries.

The mystery and miracle plays constituted another link between Cornwall and Brittany. Whether written in Cornish or Breton they could be understood by the inhabitants of both countries.

They were acted on both sides of the Channel in the open air. The subject matter—sacred history and religious biography—was the same for both. The trilogy called the Ordinalia, which, in three plays, covered roughly the same ground as the Old and New Testament, represents the Cornish treatment, by means of the Cornish language, of the mystery, which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was common to western Europe. But the miracle play of Beunans Meriasek, the life of St. Meriasek, was Celtic in origin and treatment. The Cornish version, written by Dom Hadton, in 1504, had probably a Breton archetype. St. Meriasek or Meriadec, who shares with St. Martin the patronage of Camborne, was unquestionably a very important personage in Brittany. He gave his name to a trÈve of Plumergat, Pluvigner, Pluneret and Noyal-Pontivy:^[39] he is the patron of Stival and of Plougasnou. He was also numbered among the early bishops of Vannes, though, according to M. Loth, mistakenly.^[40]

It is significant that in the Cornish Beunans Meriasek his elevation to that see forms an important episode. This fact, of itself, would suggest a Breton origin for the play. Mr. Thurstan Peter has, on other grounds, arrived at the same conclusion.^[41]

The mystery and miracle plays were still in vogue when Richard Carew wrote his Survey of Cornwall. There is no need to quote the well-known passage in which he describes the degradation of what had once been a valuable means of instruction, but which, in his day (1590), had become a questionable form of popular entertainment.

At St. Just-in-Penwith and Perranzabuloe the plain-an-gware, place of the play, is more or less carefully preserved. The populous district of Plainangwarry in the parish of Redruth also reminds the inhabitants of the days of old and the years that are past. In more than one manorial extent, as, for example, in that of the manor of St. Buryan, the writer has found a tenement, described as Plainangware, the site of which is now unknown. It is not improbable that every considerable Cornish parish had formerly a space reserved for the mystery and miracle play.

No attempts have hitherto been made to revive these plays in Cornwall.^[42] A graduate of Missouri University, visiting the Plain-an-gware at St. Just, informed the writer that in New York, with the assistance of wealthy patrons, the Cornish plays had been successfully rendered by members of the University. In Brittany there has been of late years a notable revival of the mysteries on modern lines in the Breton language. Under the direction of an enlightened clergy, encouraged by eminent Celtic scholars, the plays are attracting the attention of many besides those for whom they have been written. The marked histrionic ability of the players, most, if not all, of them simple country folk, the atmosphere of reverent adoring faith, and of robust inspiring patriotism, the utter absence of anything like vanity or pretence, the intense reality of the Gospel story which, too often, in the case of ordinary Englishmen, has, under the soothing influence of an inimitable authorised version of the Holy Scriptures, become an idyllic, poetical and idealistic presentment of Scriptural truth, when proclaimed by the living voice and the impassioned fervour of believing hearts amid circumstances not very dissimilar to those which gave it birth: all this is irresistibly pathetic and convincing.

No one who has been present at St. Anne d’Auray and who has followed, even by means of a French translation, the BoÉh-er-goÈd (the Call of the Blood), in which the parable of the Prodigal Son is unfolded strictly on the lines of the sacred narrative, can ever forget it. In the words of AbbÉ le Bayon, the writer of the libretto, it is “par delÀ ce pauvre pÈre qui souffrit un jour, dans quelque coin ignorÉ, de l’abandon inqualifiable de son fils—que chacun des spectateurs veuille bien entrevoir; le coeur de Dieu Éternellement blessÉ des abandons humains; mais aussi, la vieille Bretagne toute dÉchirÉe au dÉlaissement des siens et confiante encore, toujours aimante, rappelant À sa vieille langue, À ses croyances anciennes, les fils oublieux en qui repose l’espoir de la race.” The appeal “À sa vieille langue” for Cornishmen comes too late, but that “À ses croyances anciennes” should meet with a response from those at least who are zealous for the traditions of their Cornish forefathers.