The Parochial History of Cornwall/Volume 1/Bodmin
BODMIN.
HALS.
Bodmin is situate in the hundred of Trigg, and hath upon the north Helland, south Lanhydrock, west Lanivet, east Cardinham. In Domesday Roll 1067, or 1087, it was rated by the name of Bod-ran, id est, command, authority, or jurisdiction share, or division. In some other ancient manuscripts, Bod-man.
[Mr. Hals gives here a long detailed account of the supposed Bishopric of Bodmin, and of the Bishops themselves, with a great variety of collateral incidents; but the late Mr. Whitaker has shown, in his learned work on "The Cathedral of Cornwall," that the whole is devoid of any foundation whatever. It is therefore omitted; and the reader desirous of information and entertainment is referred to that curious production of our learned antiquary.]
Algar Earl of Cornwall, successor of Ailmer, (as the Monasticon Anglicanum, tom. i. p. 213, and tom. ii. p. 205, informs us,) at his own proper cost and charges re-edified the church of St. Peter at Bodmin, as it now stands; consisting of three roofs, each sixty clothyards long, thirty broad, and twenty high, so that for bulk and magnificence it is parallel to the cathedral of Kirton, and little inferior to that of Exeter. Earl Algar gave the church to a society of Augustines or Black Canons.
Afterwards, if Leland's manuscripts may be credited, those Black Canons were displaced, and succeeded by St. Benedict's monks; and then again those monks were displaced, and succeeded by a nunnery of Benedictine nuns. Then again, saith he, those nuns were displaced, and succeeded by secular priests; who also were again displaced, and Canons Regular, or Black Canons Augustine, restored to their places; under which circumstance of religious men Leland found it when King Henry the Eighth sent him into Cornwall, to inspect the orders and revenues of the religious houses therein. And in this state it was found by the Commissioners, 26 Henry VIII. when dissolved, at which time its revenue yearly was valued at 270l. 11s. Dugdale; 269l. 11s. 11d. Speed. Now this value, the reader must observe, was only the conventionary or annual rent reserved on leases of the priory land, set out to tenants for 99 years, determinable upon lives, and the common way of valuing those old rents was after the rate of ten per cent; so that 270l. rent was then worth 2,700l. now worth 6,000l. per annum: which lands and rents are now chiefly in the hands and possession of Godolphin, Buller, Robarts, Morrice, Prideaux, Vivian, Rashleigh, Nicholls, Moyle, Molesworth, and many others.
The churches appropriated to this priory were, 1. Bodmin, 2. St. Wenn, 3. Withiel, 4. St. Kew, 5. St. Breock, 6. Little Pederick; 7. Padstow, 8. St. Ervan, 9. Crantock, 10. Cubert, 11. St.Colomb-minor, 12. Tregony, 13. St. Minver, 14. Lanhydrock, and some others, whereof the priors were either patrons or founders.
The Prior of this church of St. Peter kept his treasurer, his steward, almoner, hospitalarius, et infirmarius, that took care of sick and weak beggars and travellers. The priory-house wherein he dwelt is yet extant, though his domestic chapel and burial-place be dilapidated and demolished, all contiguous with the church aforesaid.
The jurisdiction and royalty over the river Alan, from Camelford to Padstow Rock, was given to this Prior by Algar Earl of Cornwall, in right of his manor of Helston, in this hundred, excepting the right of free fishing to the tenants thereof; a river famous for infinite number of those kings of fishes called salmon, which between Midsummer and Christmas are taken there, reputed, by such as are skilled in the gusto or palate, the best of that kind in Cornwall (except the salmon of the Val river, in this county). But, since the dissolution of this priory by King Henry the Eighth, this royalty is disjointed, if not dismembered from it, and enjoyed in co-partnership by such as are the now owners of its lands and revenues, and by some others whose lands are contiguous with that river; though the now Duchy tenants of the manor of Helston aforesaid still pay barbe-agu, or bar-ba-gut money, id est, barbed-spear money, annually to the Duke of Cornwall, who is Lord thereof, for free fishing with salmon-spears.
The list or catalogue of the names of the Priors of this church is lost, except Thomas Vivian, the last save one;[1] a man famous in his days for his piety and charities, as his benefactions make him still memorable in ours; for he built the rectory-house at Withall, the mansion-house at Ryalton, the south roof at Edleshayle church, and the lofty spire and steeple lately upon his prioral, now parochial church of Bodmin aforesaid, which was all struck down with lightning and thunder anno Dom. 1699, and since again re-edified as it now stands, without a spire, at the proper cost and charge of the inhabitants of Bodmin town and parish.
This Prior Vivian was by the Pope consecrated Bishop of Megara, in Achaia, a city of Greece. He lies entombed with his bust or skeleton within a costly and curious stone chest or monument, about seven feet long, and three feet high above ground, on the top of which is cut at full length his portraiture as a man, and on this figurative body his episcopal robes, his mitre on his head, his staff or crosier in his hand, his face encompassed over with the wings of two cherubim standing by: somewhat defaced in the interregnum of Cromwell, as a superstitious monument. This tomb is also adorned round with crosses; the arms of his Bishopric of Megara, viz. in a field Gules, three human thigh-bones saltirewise Or, or Proper; the arms of his priory aforesaid; the arms of England, France, and Ireland; and lastly, that of his own or his ancestors' arms, viz. in a field Argent, on a chevron Azure three annulets, between three bears' heads erased and muzzled Sable, on a chief Gules three martlets Or; which are arms of a strange confused bearing, according to the rules of heraldry, composed or consisting of two of the honourable ordi- naries, a chevron and a chief, and the same charged with martlets and annulets, of colours yellow, white, red, blue, and black, charge upon charge, and colours upon colours ; all which monument is surrounded with an ancient and broken inscription to this purpose:
Hìc tumulatus venerabilis Pater Thomaus Vivian, Megarensis Episcopus, hujus domus Prior; qui obiit tertio die Junii, anno Dom. 1533. Cujus animæ propitietur Deus. Amen.
This church of the Prior's, after dissolution of the priory aforesaid, was converted to a parochial church for the parish and town of Bodmin, and the secular church of Beni left to fall into utter ruin and decay, as it now stands; and is discontinued either for use of living or dead human creatures, the tower only standing, and cattle daily depasturing in the same, and the cemetery thereof, as in other places.
Also this prioral rectory church, long before its dissolution, was converted by the Prior into a vicarage church; for in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester before mentioned, anno Dom. 1294, Eccles. de Bodmin, in Decanatu de Trigg minor, was taxed to the Pope's annats vil. xiiis. 4d. Vicar ibidem nihil propter paupertatem. The rectory or patronage now in Prideaux, the Incumbent Wood (Key), and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 89l 1s. per annum; the borough of Bodmin 178l. 12s.; in all 267l. 13s.
In Bodmin churchyard is a well-built school-house, built over a very spacious charnel-house or grott, where are piled up the dry bones of such men and women as are found in new-made graves, to put the scholars and townsmen in mind of mortality; and is now commonly called the Bone-house. This school Queen Elizabeth endowed with about 16l. 13s. 4d. per annum revenues out of the Exchequer for ever.
The name Bodmin anciently comprehended no more than the town or borough itself, as it is now taxed in the Exchequer; for in the Domesday tax Beni, Lanlaran, now St. Lawrence, and Lantallan, were districts rated by themselves, though now consorted under that name of Bodmin parish and town. It is called a burge, or burghs, from the same Japhetical original as the Cornish word purguse, πυργος [purgus], turris, a tower, castle, fenced or fortified place, from whence the Latins had their word burgus, of the same import; and suitable thereto, notable it is, this town hath in it still a place called Tower-hill; as also, that every considerable town or burg in Cornwall heretofore had near it, for its defence, some castle, tower, or citadel, to defend it from the invasion of enemies. And agreeably to this interpretation and custom, Bodmin town, upon the east part thereof, upon a high-mounted hill, hath still extant the ruins and downfalls of a treble British entrenchment, containing above twelves acres of ground, formerly and still called Castle Kynock, alias Cunock, synonymous words, i.e. the King's, or the supreme and sovereign castle. (See Truro, Launceston, Saltash, Helston, &c. for the like.)
Hence it is in the Cornish-British we have πυργες, purges, Anglice burgess, or a citizen (from whence the Latins had their word burgensis), which signifies an inhabitant of such a place as kept a tower, castle, fort, or hold, or had a college-court of purgesses (now burgesses) in it. And I doubt that, long before the Norman Conquest, or bishopric here was erected, this town of Bodmin by prescription was invested with the jurisdiction of a court-leet, (id est,acourt that kept a law-day, or festival,) though the same was not confirmed by a charter or incorporated before King John, A.D. 1216, granted one thereto; whereby he privileged the same with the tribunal also of a mayor, recorder, town clerk, twelve aldermen, and twenty-four common-councilmen, or assistants, who have power to nominate and elect a new mayor annually by the majority of voices, as also members of parliament. The mayor and town clerk, and last preceding mayor, justices of the peace for one year after within the said borough; the town clerk during life. This town and borough is held of the King of Great Britain, and pays annually to the King's Audit at Launceston between five and six pounds per annum rent, beyond the records of time.
By the same charter it was made also one of the towns for coinage of tin, though long since discontinued (see Lostwithiel for the Tinners' Charter); and made also the only staple town in Cornwall where in a public market merchants might carry their goods for wholesale, and whereby the mayor and town clerk also were authorized to take the acknowledge of statute staple bonds between party and party as the law directs.
Now to remove an action depending in this courtleet of Bodmin to any superior court, the writ must be thus directed:
Majori et Communi Clerico Burgi sui de Bodmin, in comitatu Cornubiae, salutem.
The chief men within this town, and within the circumstances aforesaid, are Mr. Philipps, Mr. Bullock, Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Bligh, Mr. Wymond, Mr. May, Mr. Smith, Mr. Tomm.
The precept for electing members of parliament is thus directed: Majori et Burgensibus Burgi sui de Bodmin, &c.
This town, for number of inhabitants (as in Mr. Carew's time, 1602) far exceeds any other town in Cornwall; which is also privileged by its charter with keeping a weekly market on Saturdays, wherein is vended of all creatures both living and dead, corn, fish, and fowl, and all other things necessary for the life of man, in such great abundance, and at a moderate price, as the same equals if not exceeds the markets of Tavistock and Exeter, in Devon. It is also appurtenanced with fairs, upon January 25th, December 6th, Saturday after Mid-lent Sunday, and on Wednesday before Whitsun-day. There is a street in this town called Cassiter-street, that is to say, Woodland-street. (See Falmouth, for Cassiter and Cassiteros.)
I have been told that, within the memory of sixty years last past, there was extant within this town and parish the remains, ruins, and dilapidated walls of no less than 13 churches or free chapels, wherein heretofore God was duly worshipped, perhaps first erected by those religious persons mentioned by Leland, who had so often been displaced or turned out from the priory as aforesaid.
But, above all others, there is still extant in this town the stately church of the Franciscan Friars, dedicated to St. Nicholas, and their cells, consisting of one roof twenty clothyards high and fifty long, with two stone-windows, admirable for height, breadth, and workmanship; which, after the dissolution of their house and order by King Henry the Eighth, the justices of the peace of this county appointed for a house of correction for such vagrant and idle persons as the same afforded, by the name of the Friary and Shire-hall; which the townsmen taking notice of, soon after converted or profaned it further to a common market-house, for selling corn, wool, and other commodities weekly; yea, and within the same is kept yearly several fairs for selling all sorts of merchandize, the altars being pulled down, and in the churchyard, or burial-place, a fair for cattle. It also lately made the tribunal or hall for the judges of assize yearly, and the justices of the peace in their sessions, and is undoubtedly, except Westminster Hall, the fairest and best in England.
The stone font of this church for baptizing infants is now converted to a measure for corn in this hall, which also, as I said, is the weekly market-house. On the same is an inscription in old characters, which I leave for abler capacities than mine to interpret.
The founder of those Cordelier or Franciscan Friars was Francis of Assium, in Italy, who was born about the year 1140. His parents placed him to school for some time to study the liberal arts and sciences, and afterwards placed him to the trade and occupation of a merchant, which in Italy still, as anciently it was amongst the Jews, is so reputable an employment that even princes themselves are merchants: which trade or occupation Francis followed, with small gain or advantage, in a fair and righteous way, for some time, but growing discontented thereat, and not knowing thereby well how to subsist, he resolved, as others did, to follow indirect arts and practices to get more riches, by stealing the duties of such goods and merchandize as he bought and sold, which then was, and still is, a capital crime in Italy; and accordingly put the same in practice, and much enriched himself thereby, though at length his fraud was detected, himself indicted, tried for his life, and condemned to death for the same. Whereupon, in order to prevent the sentence inflicted upon him, and to avoid the halter, he gave the greatest part of his goods and estate to his prince, to grant or procure his pardon, and the other part to pious uses, in relieving the poor, and re-edifying and endowing three churches. Afterwards he fell into such great horror and trouble of conscience for those facts, and that he was fully informed from Hosea xii. 7 and 8, that a merchant cannot be without guile, nor a victualler without sin, it so wrought upon him, that he did not only renounce his trade of a merchant, but also forsook all worldly affairs, and took upon himself the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity; and under the habit of a grey cover, or scapula, and a coat of the same, surrounded or girded in the middle with a twisted rope, cord, or halter, in memory of his deliverance from it and the gallows, as aforesaid, with naked legs and discalceated feet, he forsook his house, and went about the country preaching the Gospel gratis, subsisting only on the alms and charity of his hearers, and what was wanting in that particular was made up by downright beggary. And in short time he so far prevailed with the people by his predicatements, that divers brethren went about with him, following the same manner of life, under the rules and habit aforesaid, which gave him occasion or opportunity to lay the foundation of the first convent in Christendom of his order at Assissium aforesaid, and obtained a confirmation of his rule from the Pope; and two years after his death, 4th Aug. 1228, was by him canonized for a saint.
However, let it be remembered here, that afterwards St. Bonaventure, being at the 18th year of his age entered of this order of St. Francis, and in the general chapter of Narbonne chosen minister general of those friars, he then so altered and regulated his rule and order, or rather reformed it, that ever since it might more aptly be called the order of St. Bonaventure than that of St. Francis. Which St. Bonaventure afterwards being made a Bishop, and one of the Cardinals of Rome, wrote the Life of St. Francis in Latin, and therein recounted so many stories of his conversion as aforesaid, of his perfection, religion, reparation of three churches, his sincere, mortified life, and the manner of preparing creatures for his refection, his humility, obedience, condescension, and bowing downwards of himself, his love of poverty, the wonderful supply of his wants, his affections towards piety, his desire of martyrdom, his study, and virtuous orations, his skill in Scripture and spirit of prophecy, his efficacious predicatements, his sacred marks, and holy chastisements of his body, his patience in undergoing the pangs of death, 4th Oct. 1226, that in this place I have only room to name them. And as a surplusage thereto, St. Bonaventure, as also Alosi Lepomani, Bishop of Seville, ascribe to St. Francis, before and after his death, the doing of no less than 113 miracles, or supernatural acts, which, I think, are more than are recorded by the sacred writings to be done by our Saviour Jesus.
But, notwithstanding all that is done and said by St. Bonaventure in praise of St. Francis, he did not much rely upon the merit of him or any other Saint, since it is an established sanction at the end of all his hymns pertaining to this order of Franciscans,
Soli gloria tibi, Domine, qui natus es de Virgine.
Now though this Order of St. Francis, after convents were erected and endowed, for the most part lived in convents under these rules as aforesaid, without alms or begging, yet a particular sort of them went abroad to preach the Gospel in parochial churches and free chapels, where the rector, vicar, curate, or chaplain was no preacher, and administered the sacraments as occasion required; having, moreover, committed to their charge or jurisdiction, by the Pope, the commutation of penance for sins committed; and, because by their rule they were not to take money, they took the same in corn, wool, fruits, fields, goods, and chattels, for their Superior. Those kind of missionaries were called Friars Observants, and went at large as supervisors, who pretended to a stricter observation of their rule than the master conventuals that went not abroad. What revenues this stately church of St. Francis at Bodmin had at its dissolution I know not, neither doth the Monasticon Anglicanum inform me; besides five quarterly pence, and twenty penee by the year out of every family or dwelling-house in Cornwall, that was not excused propter paupertatem. Supplication of Beggars to Henry the Eighth, p. 2.
Those Franciscan friars, Mendicant or Minors, came not into England till Henry the Third's days (since which time this church at Bodmin must be erected) in all but nine in number, who landed at Dover; five of which went to Canterbury, where, by the King's leave, they built the first convent in England of their order; four went to London, and had a place given them in St. Nicholas Shambles, anno Dom. 1260, to erect another convent or monastery, by John Jewyn, merchant. However, let it be remembered that the Black Friars Mendicant, or Augustines, were founded by William de Paris, and first brought into England in the time of William the Conqueror, to whom Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury tempore William I. at the west end of London, on the bank of the Thames, founded and endowed there a monastery to them. For White Friars, or Cistersians, see Kilkhampton; for Dominicans, St. Dominick. Carmelite Friars were founded at Carmellus, a town in Syria; as also a latter order of those discalceated friars were fouuded by St. Mary de Theresa, of Jesus, of the blessed Lady of Mount Carmel, 1540. She was a native of Castile, and died 4th October, 1582, in the 68th year of her age, and 47th of being religious. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. 12th March 1622. The Friars of St. Francis of Paula, in Italy, were founded by him 1414; little different from those others. Finally of these friars: Bishop Usher, in his Discourse of the Primitive Church, fully demonstrates that, before the Reformation of religion, besides monks there were in this land, of the five orders, above thirty thousand begging friars.
At Lan-car, in this parish, (rest-rock, or rock-temple, if ever any church or chapel was extant here, other wise, by the rock may be signified some notable stone-quarry found in those lands,) was the dwelling of John Mountstephens, Esq. sometime member of parliament for West Looe, who purchased the same from Mr. Bullock. He was the son of Mounts or Stephens, alias Mountstephen, of St. Mabyn, and had his first education under Mr. Stephens, sometime schoolmaster of Bodmin, to whom at length he became usher; afterwards was clerk or servitor to William Lilly, Esq. and so became an undergraduate in Oxford; and, being recommended by him to the notice of the Earl of Sunderland, Lord President of the Council temp. James II. he made him one of his clerks or secretaries, which circumstance further brought him to the knowledge of Jonathan Lord Bishop of Bristol, by whose interest he obtained a burgess-ship at West Looe for the parliament, and was afterwards made one of the Commissioners for the King's Tin-farm in those parts; by which ways and means he got himself considerable wealth and reputation.
But, notwithstanding all those his prosperous successes of fortune, in the month of December, or beginning of January, 1706, aged about 60 years, when he was at London, a member of parliament as aforesaid, and in his own house till eleven of the clock, one day upon some discontent went from his company, and so into a more retired apartment, where he took a razor and cut his own throat, and instantly fell dead on the spot, the razor by his side all bloody, to the great terror and amazement of his domestics, who found him in that posture.
Various were the reports and sayings of people upon occasion of this sad accident; some said it was for that he made addresses of marriage to a gentlewoman above his degree, who rejected his amours, upon account of some concubine, or bedfellow, he kept at Truro; others, with more probability, gave out that he was detected by the Earl of Sunderland (who raised him) for eighteen years' space to have been a French pensioner, and to have received a great sum of money annually for communicating the secrets of the Queen and Parliament to the Secretary of the French King, which as soon as he understood, by a letter shown him under his own hand, he instantly went home to his lodgings, burnt all his papers, and committed the felo-de-se aforesaid.
Bo-carne,[2] in this parish, id est, cows, kine, cattle, and white spar-stones, comparatively rocks, is the dwelling of William Flammock, Gent, that married Reynolds, and giveth for his arms, out of a supposed allusion to their name, Argent, a chevron between three estoiles Sable, (that is, in a wavy or flaming posture,) for flammock, after the Cornish-British, must be interpreted a flame and smoke; since the Latin words flamma, or flame, or bright burning fire-sparkle, and flammans, burning, flaming, are both derived from the British word flam; for exæstuo is the proper and native word, to burn, or flame.
Again, this family indifferently wrote their name Flam-mank, Flam-mane, id est, in Cornish, flaming or burning glove, sleeve, or gauntlet; so called, perhaps, for that some of this family was a notable soldier, and famous in the combat at sword and gauntlet, (viz. military glove,) or a sleeve and gorget of mail, as the above name. And flammock may relate to some soldier of this tribe that was as renowned in his charge with the fusee or firelock, soon after the invention of guns: for Camden, in his Remains, tells us that in Edward the Third's French wars gunaria, or gunarii, had its pay; which was before the invention of guns in Germany.
But if flammeck, flammeg, flammock, be a monosyllable, and not a compound or conjugated word, it signifies in British blear-eyed-ness, or one that hath a sparkling or flaming eye, either by natural or accidental infirmity, an obstruction of sight.
I take this gentleman to be the lineal descendant of that Mark Le Flemanc who was possessed of 16l. rents in lands and tenements in Cornwall, 40th Henry III. (Carew's Survey,) that were held by the tenure of knight's service, and was no knight; who was obliged by his tenure to send into the King's army a man and horse armed with lorica, capello ferri, gladio, et cultello, a breastplate, a brigandine, an iron headpiece, a sword and cuttler. As was also that Thomas Flammock, a lawyer, in the reign of King Henry VII. 1496, who, together with Michael Joseph, a smith of these parts, stirred up the Cornish people to a rebellion against that prince, under the pretence of the severity of a land tax, though it was but a subsidy of an hundred and twenty thousand pounds, charged by Act of Parliament for one year of the thirty-seven shires of England, towards the Scotch war; which, after the severest imposition, could not amount to above 2,500l. on this county. But really the ground and design of this insurrection was to depose King Henry from his crown and dignity, and in his stead to set up Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, the true heir male of the House of York, sister's son to King Edward the Fourth. Which being well understood by the inhabitants of Cornwall, gave Flammock and Joseph opportunity to raise such an army, as thereby to become so formidable that John Basset, of Tehidy, then Sheriff, with his posse comitatus, dared not encounter them. Whereupon they marched with their army, consisting of about six thousand men, from Bodmin to Launceston, and from thence into Devon; where also they appeared so tremendous that Sir William Carew, Knight, then Sheriff thereof, with his posse comitatus, would not venture a battle with them, but suffered them (either through fear or affection) to pass through his Bailiwick into Somersetshire, and so Taunton there; in which place they slew the Provost Perrin, a commissioner for the subsidy aforesaid, and then advanced to Wells; where James Touchet, Lord Audley, knowing the mystery of their design, confederated with them, and became their general. Soon after, they published their declaration of pretended grievances, chiefly concerning the said land tax, and wholly laying the blame of that exaction upon John Martin, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Reginald Bray, Knt. two of the King's Council, whom they would have removed from that station.
Upon which pretence (and the secret reserve aforesaid) the people, being better affected to the House of York than to that of Lancaster, suffered these rebels quietly to march from Wells to Salisbury, from Salisbury to Winchester, and from thence into Kent, where they expected great aid and assistance; but when they came there, contrary to promise and to expectation, no person came to their help: but on the contrary, for the King there appeared in arms against them, with the Earl of Kint, the Lord Abergavenny, Sir John Brook, Lord Cobham, and divers other gentlemen, with great forces, to stop their further proceedings that way. Upon which disappointment, the rebels turned their march towards London, and encamped upon Blackheath, about four miles from thence; where they had not long been before they were encountered by Giles Lord Daubeny, King Henry's general, who, after a short, conflict with them, and the loss of three hundred soldiers on the King's part, and two thousand on the Rebels' side, the remainder of them fell into despair, threw down their arms, craved mercy, and yielded themselves prisoners. The King pardoned many; but of the chief authors of the insurrection none. The Lord Audley was committed to Newgate, and from thence drawn to Tower-hill in his coat-armour (painted on paper), reversed and torn, where he was beheaded. Flammock and Michael Josepp the smith, were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and has their heads and quarters pitched upon stakes set up in London and other places, June 26, 1496. [See Lord Bacon's History of King Henry the Seventh. An opinion is still prevalent in Cornwall, that after themselves the people of Kent are the most brave in England.]
This town and parish of Bodmin is also notable for the rendezvous of Perkin Warbeck's army from St. Michell's Mount, which he had also raised to the number of six thousand in opposition to King Henry the Seventh, anno Dom. 1498, as the pretended Richard of Shrewsbury, second son to King Edward the Fourth; where he was proclaimed King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, by the name of Richard the Fourth: but he and his army at length underwent the same fate as the former rebels did. (See St. Michael's Mount, in this our History.)
Here also was the rendezvous of the Cornish rebels under Humphrey Arundell, Esq. anno 3 Edward VI. who pitched their camp upon Castle Kynock aforesaid, and imprisoned such gentlemen as would not willingly ride with them, till the King's forces vanquished the one, and delivered the other, at and near Exeter. (See St. Hillary.)
Now Sir Anthony Kingston, Provost Martial of the King's Army, coming from Exeter to do justice in Cornwall according to the law of arms against such rebels as had escaped thence, executed Thomas Boyeer, the mayor of this town, and the miller's man, is set forth in Mr. Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 124 (p, 292 of Lord Dunstanville's Edition).
In this parish is St. Laurence, so called from the chapel dedicated to his guardianship. The name is derived from the Latin words, laureat and ensis, that is, a laureat sword, or a sword of triumph. St. Laurence was a native of Osca, in Spain, born about the year 280. He received holy orders from St. Xysten, who was raised to the chair of St. Peter in 257. During the persecution by the Emperor Valerian, St. Laurence, finding that not even the sacred vestments nor the decorations of the church, were safe from profane hands, availed himself of the office of chief deacon, which he then held, to dispose of the whole, and to distribute the wealth thus acquired among the indigent of his spiritual brethren. This having been made known to the Prefect of Rome, a man devoted to the worship of false gods, but more, as the biographer observes, to the adoration of silver and gold, he demanded from St. Laurence the riches of the church, who promised in three days to produce them; and on the third day he returned with the poor persons among whom their value had been divided. When the Prefect, transported with rage, is said to have ordered his destruction by the most cruel death. The legend reports him to have been fastened on an iron bed, and consumed by fire placed under it. Hence the familiar emblem attributed to this martyr, of a gridiron. The event is referred to the 10th of Aug. 261.
In this parish the town, or rather village of St. Laurence, is situated between two hills, and with a pleasant river running through its street, about a mile and a half west from Bodmin. In it stands a lawres hospital, that is to say, a hospital for lepers (loure, or lower, in British is a leper), which hath good endowment of lands and revenues appertaining thereto, founded by the piety and chanty of the well-disposed people of this county in former ages, for the relief, support, and maintenance of all such people as should be visited with that sickness called elphantiasy, in Latin lepra or elphantia, in English leprosy, in British lowerery; being a white infectious scurf running all over the bodies of such persons as are tainted therewith. Which disease heretofore in many families was hereditary, and infected the blood for generations.
This disease, though common in Asia, was thought to have been first brought into England from Egypt by seamen and traders, so that generally it spread itself over this kingdom about the year 1100. Soon after which, a general collection of charitable benevolences was gathered throughout the land by one of the Mowbrays, a gentleman tainted with the disease, for erecting and endowing the lazar-house or hospital of Burton, in Leicestershire, to which place was made subject all other hospitals of this sort in England, as the Master of Burton Hospital was afterwards made subject to the Master of St. John's Hospital of Jerusalem, in London, and then, soon after the erection of lazar-houses throughout this kingdom, was invented that writ called Leproso amovendo, for removing a leper from his country-bouse to the hospital. But the custom in this place was such, that none were to be admitted by the governors of the same for the time being, unless the person so brought in paid them 5d. a pot for dressing their meat, a purse and a penny in it to receive alms. At present I hear of no lepers in this hospital, nor any person visited with this disease in Cornwall: however, daily in the chapel of Lawrence, by the townspeople, God is duly worshipped by a chaplain in deacon's orders, who reads divine service to them according to the church of England; and at three several times at least in the year the Vicar of Bodmin, and Rector of Lannerat, for a small stipend preach and administer the sacraments to them. Infants baptized, and the dead bodies thereof buried, at Bodmin church.
The lands, customs, and privileges of this lazar-house, or lower hospital, were much augmented or enlarged, and also confirmed by a charter from Queen Elizabeth, in the beginning of her reign, with the jurisdiction of a court-leet within the precincts of its manor of Ponteby, (id est, by the ford or bridge whereon the town of St. Lawrence is situate,) the white-rod erected or held up yearly whilst the court is sitting. It is also by that charter privileged with a weekly market, to be kept on Wednesday, within the town of St. Lawrence, though of late discontinued; as also with fairs yearly on the 10th of August and the 18th of October.
TONKIN.
In respect to the etymology of the name Bodmin, or or Bodman, I have no difficulty. I looke upon the word as Saxon-Kernaiwsh, bode and man, or bode-men in the plural, which may safely, and without a catachræsis, be interpreted, the preacher-man, or men. That bode signifies priest, or preacher, in the Cornish, the Gaelic, and other cognate tongues, I confirm by the authority of Alfred, the Saxon grammarian, and of Verstegan, from which is derived our modern Kernawish word for a priest. And this sense is preserved in the names of divers other churches throughout the land; as in the hundred of Weston, Herefordshire, where we find Boddenham Vicarage, bod-den-ham, preacher-man-dwelling, den being in Kernawish synonymous with man.
[The remainder of Mr. Tonkin's narrative agrees so nearly with that of Mr. Hals as not to require its insertion.]
WHITAKER.
"The paroch chirch standith at the est end of the town, and is a fair large thyng," says Leland, an author with whom Mr. Hals had no acquaintance (though the Itinerary of that author was published in 1710, and in some years immediately following; and the Collectanea in 1715); "there is a cantuarie chapel at th' est ende of it." This is the present school[3], situated a few yards east of the eastern end, raised upon vaults, ascended by steps, entered by an arched door of stone peaked, having a large arched window peaked; at the east two windows in the arch, two on the south, arched and peaked; with three stalls of stone on the south, near the eastern end. The space below, lately a bone-house to the church, now atttached to the school, must formerly have been a walk under the vault.
"Bodmyn hath a market on every Saturday, lyke a fair for the confluence of people." (Itin. ii. 114.) Bodmin was then at the height of its glory: it began soon afterwards to sink. The many decayed houses, says Carew, 120 years afterwards, prove the town to have been once very populous. What occasioned this decay was the Reformation, probably, throwing the revenues of the priory, and of the house of friars, into the hands of men laical and distant.
"There was a good place of Gray Freres in the south syde of Bodmin town. One John of London, a merchaunt, was the beginner of this house. Edmund Erle of Cornewaul augmentid it. There lay buried in the Gray Freres Sir Hugh and Sir Thomas Peverel, Knightes, and benefactors to the house."—(Leland.) The remains of this form the south side of an open space, which must have been the quadrangle or court of the Friars, and have been surrounded by its buildings, on the east, the north, and the west. On the west end, near the grand door in these remains, was the church-yard, or burying-place, which Mr. Hals says was made a fair for cattle; and here were very lately found, by sinking a saw-pit, bones in a considerable quantity.
The remains themselves are, a long and lofty room once a church, but since used as Mr. Hals describes. It has a fine window at the east end, peaked in the arch; the only part of it that is not blocked up being very pleasingly broken into small parts by mullions of stone. It has another arch for a window to the west, but not so fine; and four arches on the north and south sides, all peaked, but those most easterly more sharply than the others. What Mr. Hals calls a font is still there; and a font it assuredly is, the Friars having just as much right to a font as to a burying-place; but the inscription upon it is on two or three squares of the hexagon in which the font is shaped, and is too modern to mean any thing.
"There is a chapel of St. at the west ende of the toune. There is another chapel in Bodmyn beside that at the west ende of the toune, and an almose house, but not endowid with landes." (Leland, Itin. ii. 114, 115.) Query, says Tanner, respecting the latter, Whether this alms-house was St. Anthony's or St. George's? for the will of John Killigrew, proved A.D.1500, gives legacies Pauperibus Sancti Antonii de Bodmyn, et Pauperibus Sancti Georgii de Bodmyn. Both these chapels had an almshouse. The latter is that chapel which stood on the summit of a hill north of Bodmin, called Berry, from some castle or fort upon it, I suppose, and giving name to the valley below it, Berrycoomb, or Bereum. The remains of this chapel are merely a tower, neat but slight, making a considerable object to the road from its elevation, yet small in its rise, or its pitch, and carrying a face of no great antiquity, being merely three hundred years old. The town, says tradition, stood formerly here, was burnt down, and then removed to its present site. That this is false as history we know for certain, as we know the town to have been where it now stands, but that the town in the days of its high prosperity had shot out hither.
"The showe and the principale of the toun of Bodmyn," says Leland, "is from west to est along in one streate." (Itin. ii. 114.) There were (says Mr. Hals upon the credit of information) within these sixty years past no less than thirteen churches, or free chapels, remaining either whole or ruined in the town and parish, and this was one.
The church of the priory, notes Mr. Hals, after the dissolution of religious houses, was converted to a parochial church. It was, indeed, such from the beginning: so Leland tells us concerning it in his time, "that the parish church standeth at the east end of the town," &c. It was even converted as such from a rectorial to a vicarial church before 1290.
This prioral rectory church, Mr. Hals himself informs us, (long before the dissolution, and therefore not after the dissolution of the priory, as said before,) was converted by the Prior into a vicarage church; for in the Inquisitions of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, Ecclesia de Bodman was rated to the Pope's annats at 6l. 13s. 4d. Vicar, ejusdem nihil propter paupertatem. So directly does Mr. Hals confute himself; but the words of the record are not cited fairly, and are in reality these:
Ecclesia de Bodmynia vil. xiiis. 4d,
Vicar, ejusdem xis.
Nor could any one of the thirteen be a free chapel, as no such chapels existed in the first or in the second valuation, and therefore none are mentioned therein.
Vivian's "tomb is adorned round with crosses." In truth, it has only one, and that is upon the northern side. "The arms of his Bishopric of Megara," the arms of this Priory, and lastly, "those of his own or of his ancestors." But there are three fishes repeated as arms twice; and Mr. Hals affirms himself that the jurisdiction and royalty over the river Alan, from Camelford to Padstow Rock, was given to this Priory by Algar Earl of Cornwall; and in further testimony of Algar's donation of the royalty of this river, he gave for the perpetual arms of him and his priory, In a field Azure, three salmon-fishes in fess barwise Argent; which arms were lately extant in all the church windows of the churches under the priory.
Castle Kynock, as called by some to this day, but called simply the Castle by the generality, lies more than half a mile to the south-west, has two ditches and two ramparts; the outer are very deep and very massy, the inner are much shallower and slighter. It takes in the whole crest of the hill, the ground within rising from the sides to the summit; is circular in form, because the hill is so; and has its only entrance on the east, denoted as an original entrance by the bridge of earth, as it were, which leads across the hollow of the ditches into it. The whole is double, I believe, to the extent that Mr. Hals gives it; and, from the position of the entrance on the east, appears to be Roman in its origin.
THE EDITOR.
It is not my intention to enter on any discussion relative to the remote and obscure antiquity of Bodmin. Tanner, in his Notitia Monasticon, says Bodmin, or Bodmanna.
There was a church built here to the memory of St. Petroc, a religious man born in Wales, but who, coming from Ireland, is said to have built a monastery on the north coast of Cornwall, about A.D. 520, and to have been there buried; but his body being afterwards removed to Bodmin, a church was built to his memory, and the episcopal see for Cornwall was believed to have been therein placed by King Edward the Elder and Archbishop Plegmund, A.D. 705. Here King Æthelstan is reported to have met with old Saxon, or rather British, monks following the Rule of St. Benedict, to whom he granted so great privileges and endowments that he is accounted founder of the monastery here, about A.D. 926. That settlement was destroyed by the Danish pirates, A.D. 981; yet the religious continued here under several shapes, and much alienation of their lands, both before and after the Conquest, till about the year 1120, when Earl Algar, with the King's license, and the consent of William Warlewach, Bishop of Exeter, re-established this religious-house, and placed therein regular canons of the Order of St. Austin, who continued till the general suppression, when it was styled the Priory of St. Mary and St. Petroc, and was valued at 270l. per annum according to Dugdale, and 289l. 12s. according to Speed. The site, with the demesnes, were granted, 36th of Henry VIII. to Thomas Sternhold, one of the first translators of the Psalms into English metre.
Any one desirous of learning all that can be known or conjectured respecting the Western Bishopric, is referred to "The Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall historically surveyed," by the Rev. John Whitaker; where that subject and various others are discussed, with the eloquence, ability, erudition, arid confidence, usually displayed by that eminent writer; who appears always to assume throughout the whole of his work the very questionable fact, that monastic historians, distant both in time and in space from the events which they relate, are possessed of perfect information, and that their narratives flow with unerring accuracy, at a period when none of the inventions for rapidly carrying intelligence, and for stamping it with the authentic impression of public notoriety, had yet occurred to the human mind.
I willingly leave these recondite, and, in truth, little interesting researches, for others of a more modern date, the objects of which are still extant, and their effects influencing the present times. Those connected with Bodmin we owe, in a great measure, to the ability, the industry, and the laudable zeal of Mr. John Wallis, the present vicar, on whom I would readily bestow more praise, if his merits had not rendered commendation from me superfluous.
One event, however, intermediate between the Saxon antiquities of Bodmin and those disclosed by Mr. Wallis, is so very curious, and so illustrative of opinions and of habits long passed away, that I cannot help inserting the details of it from Benedictus Abbas, an author of high reputation, Abbot of the great monastery of St. Peter at Medeshamsted, or Peterborough, and contemporary with the transactions which he relates.
In his work "De Vita et Gestis Henrici secundi et Ricardi primi," ex editione Thomæ Hearnii, Oxon. 1735, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. i. pp. 228–229.
Eodem anno, quidam Canonicus de Abbatiâ Bothmeniæ, quæ in partibus Cornubiæ sita est, Martinus nomine, statim post Epiphaniam Domini, furtivè asportavit Corpus Sancti Petroci; et eum eo fugiens transfretavit, et illud secum detulit usque ad Abbaciam Sancti Mevenni, sitam in partibus Minoris Britaniæ. Quod cùm Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ & Canonicis ibidem Deo servientibus innotuisset, predictus Prior, consilio Fratrum suorum, D'n'm Regem Angliæ Henricum, filium Matildæ Imperatricis, adiit, ut, per ipsius potentiæ auxilium, Corpus Sancti Petroci, quod per furtum amiserant, recuperassent. Ad instantiam autem illorum, concessit eis præfatus Rex auxilium suum; & mandavit per litteras suas Rollando de Dinamno Justiciaris Britanniæ, quod sine dilatione faceret illud Corpus reddi. Audito itaque mandato Regis, prædictus Rollandus venit cum armatâ manu & potenti ad Abbatiam Sancti Mevenni, et præcepit illud corpus reddi; quod cùm Abbas et Monachi ejusdem loci reddere nollent, ipse minas addidit, jurans se per vim, nisi celerius redderetur, extrahere velle illud. Quod ipsi audientes, noluerunt iram prefati Regis Angliæ incurrere: sed beatum Corpus illud reddiderunt prænominato Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ, die Dominicâ Clausi Pentecosten, festo scilicet Sanctorum Gervasii et Prothasi, Martyrum, scilicet 13 kalendas Julii; redditumque est ei corpus illud Sanctum cum omni integritate, & sine aliquâ diminutione, Abbate & Monachis Ecclesiæ Sancti Mevenni, jurantibus super Reliquias ejusdem Ecclesiæ quòd de Corpore illo nihil retinerent, sed idem Corpus non alternatum redderent. Quod cùm factum fuisset, prænominatus Prior Bothmeniæ cum gaudio in Angliam rediens, Corpus beati Petroci in Teca Eburnea reconditum, usque Civitatem Wintonise detulit; et cùm in conspectu Regis allatum fuisset: Rex, viso eo & adorato, permisit prædictum Priorem in pace, cum Sancto suo, ad Abbatiam Bothmeniæ redire.[4]
Which may be thus translated:
"In the same year (1177), immediately after the Epiphany of our Lord, a certain Canon of the Abbey of Bodmin, in Cornwall, by name Martinus, secretly took away the body of St. Petroc. Flying with it, he passed beyond the seas, and carried the body to the Abbey of Saint Mevennus, in Lesser Britany.
"When this transaction became known to Roger the Prior of Bodmin, and to the Canons who served God in the same place, the aforesaid Prior, with the advice of his brethren, went to Henry King of England, son of the Empress Matilda, that by his powerful aid they might again get possession of the body of St. Petroc, of which they had been fraudulently deprived. The King granted his aid to their entreaty, and by his letters commanded Rollandus de Dinamnus, the Justiciary of Britanny, that, without any delay, he should cause the body to be restored. When, therefore, Rollandus had received the King's command, he came with a powerful and armed band to the Abbey of St. Mevennus, and ordered that the body should be given up; and when the Abbat and the Monks were unwilling to comply, he added threats, that, unless the body were yielded immediately, he would use force and take it; which when they heard, thy feared to incur the displeasure of the King of England, and therefore restored that blessed body to the before-named Roger, Prior of Bodmin, on the Lord's Day (Clausi Pentecostes), being the feast of St. Gervasius and of St. Prothasius, martyrs, the thirteenth before the calends of July (June the 19th). And that sacred body was restored in all its integrity, without the least diminution; the Abbat and Monks of St. Mevennus having sworn on the relics belonging to their church that they had not retained any part of the body, but had restored it wholly unaltered.
"When this was done, the before-named Prior of Bodmin, returning with joy into England, brought the body of the blessed Petroc, closed in an ivory case, to the City of Winchester. And when it was brought into the King's presence, the King, having seen and adored it, permitted the Prior to return in peace with his Saint charge to the Abbey of Bodmin."
It would appear that such depredations must have frequently occurred, since one precisely similar, but not followed by a restoration of the relics, took place in the neighbouring monastery of St. Neot. In this case, the stolen body of the Saint, having been enshrined at Eynesbury, in Huntingdonshire, bestowed his name as a new appellation to the place. See "A Description, accompanied by sixteen coloured plates, of the Church of St. Neot, in Cornwall," by J. P. Hedgeland, 1 vol. 4to. 1830, with Illustrations by Davies Gilbert.
Mr. Wallis has collected a very great variety of curious and interesting particulars respecting this town and parish, and given them to the public in a work entitled, "The Bodmin Register; or, Collections relative to the past and present State of the Parish of Bodmin."
And, in doing so, he has proved that the antiquities of a county cannot in any way be illustrated, except by the exertions of individuals locally residing in the district to which their attentions are directed, and that from zeal and ability in such persons every thing may be expected.
The following are extracts from this publication:
The benefice is a vicarage in the gift of Lord de Dunstanville, situated in the Deanery of Trigg Minor, and in the hundred of Trigg. The following are the dimensions of the church: length 151 feet, breadth 63 feet. The greater part was built in the reign of King Edward the Fourth. It was roofed in 1472, as appears by an inscription on the cornice on the northern side of the south aile of the chancel. The northern chancel and the tower appear to be of an earlier date. The walls of the tower are eight feet thick at the base, made for the support of a lofty spire, which was destroyed by lightning, between seven and eight o'clock on Saturday evening, December the 9th, 1699. The present awkward pinnacles were then erected: three of them are dangerous from the decay of the stone.
The ancient building in the church-yard, adjoining to the vicarage-house, was, it is believed, a chantry chapel dedicated to St. Thomas. The interior, 44 feet 9 inches by 19 feet, was used till lately for the free grammar school. It is now converted to a national school for girls. Under is a crypt or bone-house.
The isolated tower at Berry, on the north of the town, belonged to the chapel of the Holy Rood. The building of this tower was commenced on the 12th of September, 17th of King Henry VII. 1501.
Since the year 1814, both the church and church-yard, which were in a very ruinous and neglected state, have been greatly altered and improved.
Over the porch are the remains of two small rooms, each about eleven feet square, formerly the record and the council rooms of the corporation. The floor of the higher one, the record room, gave way about eighty years ago, as some gentlemen were inspecting the documents. In the lower room some valuable records had remained for a long time neglected, till in the year 1807 or 1808 they were removed to the guild-hall, and there examined and arranged. They contain many curious particulars relative to the history of the parish, and incidentally of the county, during a period of five hundred years, the oldest document bearing date in the 14th Edward II. (1320). Among them is a charter of the 36th Edward III. (1362); another, in good preservation, of the 3d year of Richard II. ( 1380), having reference to the reigns of Henry the First and Second. A minute of the receipts and payments for the rebuilding of the church, in the years 1469, 1470, and 1471; and also for the erection of Berry Tower, in 1501; the contract with Matthy More, carpenter, for making the pulpit and open seats throughout the church in 1491, the carved remains of which are at present much admired; Resolutions of the Corporation on the destruction of the spire in 1699; also a Petition to King Henry the Eighth, on the eve of the Reformation, conveying some ludicrous charges against the Prior; with various others.
In the north chancel is the altar-tomb of Prior Vivian, the inscription on which has been inserted in page 76. The tomb was repaired, and placed between two pillars of the chancel, in 1819, by the late Sir Vyell Vyvyan, of Trelowarren.
The very splendid organ was given, in the year 1775, by Mr. James Laroche and Mr. George Hunt, at that time Members for the town.
Mr. Wallis enters into a very minute detail of particulars highly interesting to the immediate neighbourhood, but which would occupy too much space in a general parochial history of Cornwall.
The carving in the church is indeed greatly admired, but a large part of that admiration is excited by the appropriate and judicious manner in which it has been rendered ornamental by the present vicar.
The inscriptions on various monuments are noticed by Lysons, and other writers.
But a splendid addition has been recently made to the decorations of the church by Lord De Dunstanville, on his retiring from the office of recorder in the corporation. The large east window of the chancel is entirely filled with painted glass, and the middle part contains a well-drawn representation of the Ascension.
Bodmin parish contains 5279 statute acres.
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | £. | s. | d. | |||
| The Town | 7784 | |||||
| The Parish | 3077 | |||||
| 10,861 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Poor Rate in 1831: | ||||||
| The Town | 1012 | 0 | 1330 | 10 | 0 | |
| The Parish | 318 | 10 | ||||
| Population,—in 1801: | in 1811: | in 1821: | in 1831: |
| The Town 1951 | 2050 | 2902 | 3375. |
| The Parish 348 | 383 | 376 | 407. |
| Total 2299 | 2383 | 3278 | 3782 |
Increase on a hundred in 30 years, sixty-four and a half per cent.
GEOLOGY.
Dr. Boase says of the Geology: the town of Bodmin is about midway between two insulated groups of granite, and it is principally built of a stone quarried on the spot, and which well deserves the attention of geologists. This rock in the deeper parts of the quarry becomes more blue; but its common appearance presents various shades of drab or fawn colour, with irregular spots of an ochreous yellow. It breaks into thick laminæ, or slabs, which are traversed by parallel joints; so that, with care, this stone may be obtained in oblong quadrangular masses. It is soft; sometimes so much so as to lose its cohesion. The substance appears to be almost entirely argillaceous.
All the cultivated parts of this parish, north and north-west of the town, rest on this rock: and the barren parts on a schistose rock, which is very siliceous, affording by its partial disintegration no more than a shallow, meagre soil; silica predominating in the one, and argillaceous earth, or alumine, in the other. The characteristic rocks of these genera occur next to the granite in the parishes of Blisland and St. Breward, and they will be noticed in the description of the latter parish.
The editor is aware that the article Bodmin has extended to a very great length. It might easily have been extended much further from interesting materials collected by Mr. Wallis relative to the past and present state of this chief seat of our ecclesiastical establishments. On their abolition the town unquestionably fell into great decay, till about the middle of the last century, when roads were made in all directions, and Bodmin, from being almost inaccessible by the modern system of travelling, became an extensive thoroughfare; the market has grown into one of the first in Cornwall, and the whole town is renovated by trade and industry.
If any further apology is required, the editor hopes that he may be excused for some partiality towards a place which he has represented in eight successive Parliaments, after as many unanimous elections.
- ↑ Speccot.
- ↑ Bocarne, or Boscarne, seems evidently the house [on] a rock.
- ↑ This establishment having completely degenerated, and become a mere receptacle for persons of the very worst description, the charter was, about twenty years ago, declared forfeited; and the revenues have been attached to the county hospital, reserving a preference for lepers over all other patients, if any such should present themselves.
- ↑ A similar account of this curious affair is given by Hoveden, another contemporary author, who continued the history of England from the year 731, where that of Bede ceases, to 1202, the fourth year of King John.
A.D. 1177. Eodem Anno, Martinus, canonicus regularis ecclesiae de Bomine, furtive asportavit corpus Sancti Petroci, et fugiens secum detulit in Britanniam ad Abbatiam Sancti Mevenni. Quo comperto, Rogerus Prior Ecclesiae de Bomine, cum saniore parte capituli sui, adiit Regem Anglise Patrem; et adversus cum effecit, qubd praecipiendo mandavit Abbati et Conventui Sancti Mevenni, ut sine delatione redderent corpus Beati Petroci, Rogero Priori de Bomine, jurantes super Sancta Evangelia, et super sanctorum reliquias, quod ipsi idem corpus, et non alternatum, cum omni integritate reddiderunt.
But King Athelstan is said to have given a part of the bones, the hair, and the garments of this saint to the church of St. Peter at Exeter.