The Parochial History of Cornwall/Volume 1/Boyton
BOYTON.
HALS.
Boyton is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the east the Tamer River, south Warrington, north Tamerton, west North Pedyrwyn, and as a mark of its antiquity and grandeur it was taxed in the Domesday Roll 1067 or 1087, by the present name. In the Inquisition of the Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester before-mentioned, Capella de Boyeton, in Decanatu de Stratone, was rated xxxs. but whether rectory or vicarage I am ignorant; the same not being mentioned either in Wolsey's Inquisition or Valor Beneficiorum. The patronage ............ in The incumbent ............... This parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £89. 14s.
Most probable it seems to me, that this place was denominated Boyton in memory of a colony of the Boii Gauls, that out of that country of Gaul first planted themselves here; who were a people on the further side of the Rhine, that with the Helvetians first invaded Gaul, as Caesar informs us, and placed themselves amongst the Hedui, a people of Gallia Celtica, near the Loire River, and possessed a great part of Burgundy; Cæsar also makes Boia in Gaul the name of a town.
Bradridge in this parish, the broad ridge or farrow of land (Saxon), is the dwelling of John Hoblyn, Esq. barrister at law, son of Mr. Hoblyn, attorney at law, of Bodmin; which place came to this gentleman by marriage with the sole daughter and heir of William Symons, Gent, attorney at law, as it did to him by marriage with the daughter and heir of Heale.
The Heales' arms are, Party per fess Argent and Sable, a pole counterchanged with three trefoils, one on each side the pole in chief, and the other thereon, in base counterchanged.
At Northcott, in this parish, temp. Queen Mary, lived Agnes Prest, but where born, or what her maiden name was, is to me unknown, whose merit challengeth to be recorded in this place, as being the only martyr that suffered death for the Protestant religion in the diocese of Exon during the said Queen's reign. She is described by Holinshed, Howell, alias Hooker, and by Fuller from them, to be a contemptible woman in respect of her person, (as St. Paul was for a man,) little, and short of stature, and of a brownish complexion. She was indicted, as Mr. Vowell says, at Launceston, in this county, upon Monday the fourth week in Lent, the 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary, before the Grand Jury there assembled. The matter suggested in the Bill was: "For that she denied the Real Presence in the sacrament of the altar; and for saying the same was but a sign and figure of Christ's body; and that no Christian doth eat the body of Christ carnally, but spiritually." The evidence against her were her own husband and children; from whom she fled, for that they would compel her, by force, to be present at the celebration of mass. Notwithstanding, upon their testimonies the bill was found, and indorsed, "Billa vera." Whereupon she came to her trial before William Starford, then Justice of Assize, (probably he that wrote the Pleas of the Crown,) where, upon a full hearing of the case, the Petty Jury also found her guilty on the testimony aforesaid; after which she was presented to James Turbervill, Bishop of Exeter, for further examination on the premises, but she persisting in her former opinion, was by him condemned as a heretic.
After her condemnation, she refused to receive any money from well-disposed people, that formerly relieved her, saying, she was going to that City where money had no mastery. Soon after she was delivered over to the secular power to be burnt, to Robert Gary, of Cockington, Esq. then Sheriff of Devonshire, or to his Under Sheriff, who saw her executed at Southernhay, without the walls of Exon, in the 54th year of her age, and in the month of November, 1558. This was the only person in whose persecution Bishop Turbervill did appear, in matters of religion, during the time he sat in that see, (consecrated Sept. 8, 1555, deprived in January 1560,) and, as Dr. Fuller saith, her death was procured more by the violence of Blackston, the Chancellor, than by any persecution of the Bishop.
And here it may not be impertinent to show, that our ancestors the Britons of Cornwall received and took the blessed Sacrament in the same sense as this martyr Agnes Prest did receive it; that is by faith only, contrary to the doctrine of Transubstantiation: as is evident from Mount Calvary, a manuscript in verse in the Cornish tongue, written about five hundred years since, a copy of which is now in my own custody, which containeth the history of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ, according to St. John's Gospel; wherein, amongst others, verse the 79th containeth these words:[1]
Du benegas an bara, therag ay ys abestlye,
An gorfe ay ma, eshenna, yumeth Chrest, sur rag rye why
Kemeras a berth, en bysma, dispersys henna nos avyth
Dybbery tho gans cregyans, thu da gober teck hag gevyth
Hay gwynsa wor an foys, ef a ranas in tretha
Yn meth Chrest, henna ys goyse ow, evough why pur Cherity.
Which sounds thus in English:
God blessed the bread in presence (or among) his Apostles (or Disciples);
The body of me in this, saith Christ, certainly given for you;
Taken secretly, and in this world despised, this night shall be.
Eat it with faith, thy good, fair reward, and remission.
And the wine on the wall he divided amongst them:
Says Christ, this is my blood; drink you in pure charity,
Anno Dom. 1050, Berengarius, a deacon of Angiers in France, disproved and refuted the doctrine of Transubstantiation in a large manuscript, which he sent with letters to Lanfrank, then Abbat of Caen in Normandy, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070 to 1089, which letters and reasons, in the absence of Lanfrank, being opened by some of his clergy, the same were transmitted to Pope Leo IX. whereupon calling a council at Rome, and the letters and reasons of Berengarius being read, he was condemned for an heretic in 1051. In France also the same year, Pope Leo IX. assembled another council at Versailles against Berengarius, which likewise condemned him for a heretic. The like did Victor II. successor of Pope Leo IX. in 1055, in which council Berengarius answered personally for himself; That, as to the doctrine he taught concerning the Sacrament, he adhered to no particular opinion of his own, but to that which was the ancient and common doctrine of the universal Church.
After Pope Victor II. his successor Pope Nicholas II. assembled at Rome a council of a hundred and thirteen Bishops against Berengarius' doctrine; who thereupon submitted the same to the Pope and his councils' correction, who prescribed him a form of recantation. But afterwards he published a refutation of that recantation, and of the doctrines therein contained, anno 1059. Notwithstanding which, the fourth council of Lateran, under Pope Innocent III. in 1160, (Frederick II. being then Emperor), consisting of four hundred bishops and holy fathers, established the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiantion, which was afterwards further confirmed by another council at Lateran, in Rome, under Pope Innocent V. an. Dom. 1215.
TONKIN.
The etymology of this name, Boyeton, may be either from the Cornish word "byu," which is pronounced like "boy," or from the French "bois," a wood, which agrees extremely well with its situation in the midst of woods.
I take most if not all the parish to be a part of or holden from the manor of Boyton, which belonged to the Priory of Launceston, and was ultimately given, inter alia, by King Henry the Eighth, to the Duchy of Cornwall, in exchange for the honour of Wallingford.
THE EDITOR.
For a detailed account of Berengarius, see Le Grand Dictionaire Historique, par Moreri, under the word Berenger, who refers to a great variety of authorities.
The account given of Agnes Prest is curious, if she alone suffered in the whole diocese of Exeter during Queen Mary's persecution. They still exhibit at Exeter the place of her martyrdom, and are persuaded that grass has refused to grow on the spot ever since.
The measurement of this parish is 3,710 statute acres.
| The Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | £. 1477 |
s. 0 |
d. 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 240 | 5 | 0 |
| Population, | in 1801, 319 |
in 1811, 402 |
in 1821, 406 |
in 1831, 452. |
Increase on an hundred in 30 years 41.7, or more than 41½ per cent.
Present Vicar, Rev. Edward Rudall, instituted 1826.
The hamlet of Northcot lies in Devonshire, and is therefore not included.
Dr. Boase observes, the dunstone of Devonshire, so ably described by the late Rev. J. E. Conybeare, in the 2d vol. of the Transactions of the Geological Society of London, p. 495, constitutes the rock of this parish. Its compact varieties are very quartzose, and form barren hills; but the schistose dunstone produces a good substratum, which near the Tamar affords productive arable and pasture land.
- ↑ The whole of Mount Calvary, with a translation by Mr. John Keigwin, made in the year 1682, has been printed by the Editor of this work from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The passage above cited occurs in the 44th and 45th stanzas. The general meaning appears to be the same, but the words are differently spelt and divided. The Editor has also printed "The Creation of the World, with Noah's Flood," a Play, or Mystery, in the Cornish language, and a Translation into English by the same Mr. John Keigwin; both from the office of Mr. Nichols, No. 25, Parliament-street, London, the printer of this work.