into the value of benefices, in order to the Pope's annats 1294, Ecclesia de Bliss-lan in Decanatu de Trigminorshire, vil. In Wolsey's Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum, £13. 10s. The patronage lately in Sprye, Parker, Reynolds, in right of the manor of Blis-land, now Molesworth; the incumbent Hicks. This parish was rated to the four shillings in the pound land tax 1696, £104. At the time of the Norman Conquest I judge it was taxed under Udy or Pengally.
This manor of Blisland was heretofore invested with the jurisdiction of life and limb within its precincts (the lords whereof doubtless built or endowed the present church); and within memory of the last age, the inhabitants will tell you, that a person was executed, in the gallows-field there, for robbing this parish church of its silver cup and pattens belonging to the altar (vide Mitchell). This manor of Blisland, tempore Hen. VII. was the lands of ........, who forfeited the same by attainder of treason in Flammock's rebellion, whereby it fell to the crown; from whence it was conveyed to the Stanhopes, and from them to Parker, and from Parker to Reynolds, from Reynolds to Sprye, from Sprye to Molesworth.
In this parish somewhere liveth Trese, Gent. The name Tres, or Treas, is Cornish British, and signifies in that language "the third," and was a name taken up in memory of the third son or person of the family from whence he was descended, and is derived from the same Japhetical origin as τριτος, tertius, "the third," as the Latin word tres. Treas is also "the third" in the Scots and Irish tongues.
This parish hath in it loads and streams of tin.
TONKIN.
The etymology of this parish is plain, being wholly Saxon, bless and land, as contrasted with the moors
