God, in the name of St. Agnes, as a daughter church to Peransand, by Dr. Peter Courtenay, then Bishop of Exon.[1]
St. Agnes was a Roman by birth, anno Dom. 285 descended of noble ancestors, and being beautiful of body and mind, at 13 years of age was courted in marriage by the son of Sempronius, then governor of Rome; but because he was no Christian she utterly refused his address, who complained thereof to his father; that immediately he sent for Agnes, and renewed the proposals of marriage made to her by his son, making larger offers for her advantage, which altogether proving ineffectual, Sempronius asked her whether she would adore and sacrifice to the Roman gods, and abandon the superstition of the Christians, but she, proving constant to her religion, utterly refused to do that also; whereupon she was committed to prison, from thence, after much hard durance, sent among persons of ill fame, where her innocence and purity were miraculously preserved, till at length, by the Governor's order, she was committed to the flames, which immediately parted asunder, and did her no harm; whereupon the Governor, and Auspitius his agent, commanded her to be taken out of the fire, and forthwith to be beheaded by the common hangman, 20 January, anno Dom. 304, in the latter end of the reign of Dioclesian, or in the beginning of Constantius and Galerius. St. Ambrose wrote her life. St. Isidore, St. Augustine, Demetrius, and Prudentius, with Aloysy Lessomanus, Bishop of Seville, have all written very commendable things of her. In the glass windows of this church I remember to have seen written the remains of a broken inscription, "in carcere serat Agnes,"— referring, I suppose, to her sowing or preaching the Word
- ↑ It appears, however, by Mr. Tonkin's notes, that St. Agnes was deemed a distinct parish, and had a parochial chapel in it, as early as the year 1396. A licence to build a new chapel was dated Oct. 1, 1482. Lysons.
