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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As the result of the above examination it will be observed that of the twenty-six religious houses about one-half afford evidence of Celtic origin. In some cases the evidence is convincing; in some it is of itself insufficient to convince. Taken as a whole, it adds considerably to the weight of the argument which is here advanced, namely, that in Cornwall the Celtic form of Christianity had not wholly disappeared at the time of the Norman Conquest. Of its secure and comprehensive hold upon the religious life of the whole county at an earlier period there is abundant proof in the names of the parishes. Excluding those which have been considered, fifteen bear the prefix Lan, the mark of monastic settlement. Others, like St. Erth (Lanudno), St. Madron (Landithy), St. Just-in-Penwith (Lafrowda), Kea (Landegy), Gulval (Lanisley), Lelant (Lananta), Lezant (Lansant), retained the prefix for a time, in an alias, which in some cases suggests an earlier dedication; or, as in the case of Lanherne, Langunnet, Lanyhorne and Lanhadron still retain it in the name of the manor to which the advowson of the church was appendant; while a very large number bear, without prefix or affix, the names of Celtic saints, many of them unknown to the outside world. From one end of the county to the other the impress of Celtic Christianity can be clearly traced. It is monastic in character. But it is not a monasticism which has intruded within the confines of parishes already formed, but a monasticism which has occupied the whole territory from the very first. This it is which, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, either finds itself gradually superseded by the newer parochialism, or which ensures, in some sort, its survival in collegiate bodies or in recognised monastic orders by submitting to new conditions and new ideas.