"Igtve thefi Boolts jiiyi>>i, S4e fDMndiag cf a. CoUege- in this Colony" Bought with the income ofthe John T. Norton Fund }'^''f =«. THE ANCIENT DIOCESE EXETER. A SHORT HISTORY OF Zbc Hnctent 2)ioce8e OF EXETER From ihe Conquest io ihe Church Congress of 7894, WITH BY HERBERT REYNOLDS, M.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, Priest Vicar and sometime Librarian of the Cathedral Cliurch of St. Peter, at Exeter. 1895. ®xet{r : Printed and Published by H. Besley & Son. \^All rights reserved. '\ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Intkoductoey. The Pre-eminent glory of the Ancient Church in Cornwall — Her Saints, St. Petrock, St. Piranand others — Their Churches — In Devon— SS, Sid'vrell and Wynfrith. CHAPTER II. Leofric, Fii'st Bishop of combined Cornish and Devon See at Exeter — Warel'svasts — Relics — The Priories — Tywardreth Ohituary and Psalter — Cathedral Enlargements — Under Bishop Henry I., Simon de Apulia and others — Constitution Re-organized by Bishop Bruere — The Missal and My kei English Boc of Leofric — Ordgar — Domesday. CHAPTER III. Bronscombe — His Itineraries — Epitaph — Quivil — Founder of New "Work — Exeter Synod — Capitular Visitations. CHAPTER IV. Creditou Church — Bishop Stapeldon — His Tomb — Bishop Grandisson — His Church of Ottery St. Mary — St. John's Hospital— Exeter College — Miracle Plays — His Character — Will — Completion of Cathedral Church — Ordinale and Use of Exeter — Lectionaries — Bishop Brantingham. CHAPTER V. Shillingford Lettera — Bishops Nevyll — Bothe— and Lacey — His Office of S. Raphael— Pontiflcal—The family of Courtenay. CHAPTER VI. Objective teaching in Architecture — Heraldic work in Parish Churches — Local C'haracteristics in Devon and Cornwall — The Stow Dedications. CEAPTER VII. Ashhurton Grammar School— Tavistock Abbey— The old Vicariats Colleges of Sidbury and Paignton— Barum — To'.nes— Crediton Schools— Bodmin Priory— Launceston—Liskeard — S. Michael's Mount— S. Nicholas Priory — Its destruction— The Grey Friars— Franciscans— Dominicans — Cluniacs — Eleemosynary Endowments. CHAPTER VIII. Capitular disorder under the Tudors — Dean Haynes — Extremities of the Reformation — Cardinal Pole — His ideas for Cathedral Reformation — Dean Raynolds, High Commissioner" to Oxford — The Cornish Rebels — Siege of Exeter— Consecration of Bishop TurherviUe — Marian ejections — Melancholy condition of University and Ecclesiastical Finances. CHAPTER IX. Bishop Veysey— Drake — Ralegh— Harding— Divine Hooker — Jewell — John Hooker — Social irregularities and Canonical penalties — Archdeacon Helyar— The Articles of 1562— Suhsd-iptions of Diocesan Clergy (Auto graph) — Licences— Institutions — Transitional state of religious opinions- Anecdotes. CHAPTER X. The Church in time of James I. — Dangers and anomalies— The Italian emissary Jaquinto— Church ales— Orthographical peculiarities in Parochial Registers— Eebellion imminent— Bishop Cary— Bishop HaU— Hia Visitation of 1621— Clerical irregularities— Testamentary dispositions of Priests and People — Pew system — Its evils. CHAPTER XI. The Rebellion — Capitular, Civic, Parochial and Clerical hardships — Sale of Churches— Puritan persecutions — Sufferings of Clergy — Restoration — Leasing of Manors — Bishop Gauden — His first Ordinations — Bishop Lamplugh — Anecdotal illustrations of Clerical life — Procurations and Synodals — Quakers and Presbyterians — Marriages irregular — Canon Law enforced — Episcopal Licences— Church properties transferred — Visitations — Sancreed Church and the Lanyon family. CHAPTER XII. The Revolution — Monmouth Rebellion— William Mayow — His evil and good report — Axminster and Memhury — Oar and Brendon — Violent grievances and indecorous behaviour — A Cathedral and Cornish Romance — Tolerance to Nonconformists. CHAPTER XIII. The Protestant Invasion and Revolution of 1688 — The Diocesan Census of Roman Catholics— Nonjurors in the West — Lewis Southcomhe— Episcopal aud Parochial Politics — Looe Chapel— Confirmation Statistics in 1764 — Bideford Proclamations — Nonconformist extravagances and persecution — Church Discipline at Truro, Ladock and Gwennap— Musical discrepancies at Tavistock — The Wesleyan Mission — Convocation. CHAPTER XIV. Bishop Phillpott's Episcopate — Henry Martyn — Tractarians— Gorham controversy — Church life revived— The Bishop's policy and practice — Synod of 1851 — Hawker of Moorwiuslow — Bishop Temple — Cathedral aifairs — Diocesan Societies under the later regime — Bishop Bickersteth — The present and ultimate work of the Church in the ancient Diocese of Exeter aud its development in that of Truro. APPENDIX. A. — The Ordinalia or Cornish Dramas. B. — The Episcopal Registers. Miscellaneous Documents of the Consistorial Court. C. — Documents in the Custody of the Chapter Clerk. D. — Documents in the Custody of the Custos of the College of Vicars Choral. E.— The Probate Court, Exeter. F. — The Probate Court, Bodmin. G. — Documents in Custody of the Town Clerk, Exeter. H. — Bishops of Church of England in Devon and Cornwall, from 865-1894. I.- — The Cathedral Church, Exeter. J. — The Cathedral Church, Truro. K. — Diocesan Officials, Truro. L.— The Joint Testimonie of the Ministers of Devon, 1648. M. — List of Gentlemen in the County of Devon who Compounded for their Estates and the sums then paid by them, 1660. N.— Certain Facts, gathered from a Private Letter, as to the Persons Executed after Monmouth's Rebellion, &c., 1685. 0. — Petition or Lamentable Indictment ofthe Cornish Gentlemen, Ministers and others, to the High Sheriffs and others of Cornwall. P. — Extracts from London Gazette as to circumstances attending flight and translation of Bishop Lamplugh, 1688. Q. — The Financial Condition of Truro Cathedral. Vlll. PREFACE. It does not require the experience of well nigh a quarter of a century to justify the writer in denying that " Cornwall and Devon are good for nothing but junket and the Weekly Entertainer." Vulgar and tame they may be to the world wide traveller, but in Great Britain there is no district with greater claims on the lover of romance, ecclesiastical lore and sacred associations. The utmost self denial and severity is desirable in endeavouring to identify modern names in Cornwall with those in our ancient calendars. It is most difficult to resist the fascination of the ingenious stratagems by which Borlase, as an eminent example, essays to clear up the dense mist under which the local dedications, festivals and revels are concealed. The case of Ludgvan is one of the least monstrous and impossible. By far the easiest way to escape from this labyrinth of contradictions and confusions is to adopt the somewhat cruel theory that the Anglo-Roman clergy, after the Saxon invasion, knew no more of the early Calendars of the Cornish Churches than did the Cromwellian usurpers of the Catholic ephemerides and diptychs. Whatever is known, and indeed unknown, of the period antecedent to the Norman invasion is here but briefly touched. In the llth century there are documents of irrefutable reputation and up to the present time it is possible to quote documentary evidences of local provincial interest without number. The difficulty has been to do full justice to all within prescribed limits. Devon and Cornwall are fortunate in possessing numerous students if not societies through whose constant endeavours the topography of the counties has been amply illustrated, but the palm must be given to the Devonshire Association for the magnanimity with which its members undertook the publication of the Exeter Domesday, in a translated form, and for placing such an immense task in the hands of so laborious and com petent a scholar as Mr. Brooking Rowe. The publication of the Episcopal Registers by the per severing exertions of Canon (non-residentiary), Hingeston Randolph furnishes a strong proof that there is a great demand for further knowledge of the antecedent events of Ecclesiastical History in its innumerable departments, not only in the Western pro-sdnces but throughout England and America. The present work is an attempt to furnish to readers, who hesitate to accept the statement of the Church's continuity, an account of occurrences and of eminent and of remarkable persons who have passed across the stage of Church life in this particular part of Great Britain, without any attempt to ex plain or palliate their conduct. They are not simply successive scenes of clerical life. This has been chiefly done by reference to inaccessible MSS. and rare printed books. The Church Congress of 1894 registered an epoch in the life of the Church of England in the most remarkable sphere of her work. The llth century saw the foundation of the Cathedral See of Leofric at Exeter, under the Royal patronage of Edward the Confessor. The 19th century witnessed the re-institution of the Cornish See, under the patronage of the Duke of Cornwall. In that interval, 800 years had passed. Before that day, the history of the Church of Christ in Devon and Cornwall is enveloped in fogs and mists, which even such authorities as Bishop Stubbs have been unable to illuminate. There stand out, however, in these dark periods great gaunt figures of ancient giant, and Saint, champions of courage, honor and truth, such as in Lyonnesse, where the distant echoes of their X. voices are still heard. During the later period, civilization, the handmaid of Christ in His Church, has in a manner replaced the old worn weapons of warfa;re with superstition, ignorance and vice, by the quick-firing artillery of science and education. The land, the people, the churches remain in great measure the same, but a current of newly excited interest is struggling to kindle energy and expel apathy, in the mining, fishing, and rural populations from Penzance to Porlock, from Seaton to Sennen. The adaptation of ancient endowments and edifices to modern needs leaves neither stone nor bone unutilized. The Western Counties have ever been the battlefield of the sharpest contests. They are now not a whit behind the midland and northern provinces in spiritual activity, in educational enterprise. Rather they are in advance. Experience of the miners of the North, the furnacemen of Cumberland, the cobblers of Northants, the colliers of Staffijrdshire, the mechanics of Birmingham, the sailors and soldiers at Aldershot, Plymouth and Portsmouth, of the agricultural villages of Yorkshire, Worcestershire and Bedfordshire, contradicts without com promise the astounding prophecy of Charles Kingsley, that the Neo-Anglicanism of 1851 would be a failure. Comparison of the relative condition of those parishes wherein the old Evangelical tenets and rites still obtain, with those in which the doctrines and practices of these Neo-Anglicans prevail is not encouraging to those who still persist in asserting that the Tractarians of the 1 9th century had neither the sincerity nor success of the Methodist of the 18th. The itineraries which the author laid out for himself traversed the whole of Devon and Cornwall in every direction and justify him in making this assertion, that a man, with ordinary faculties of observation, who walks from village to village and shore to shore, must be intensely impressed with the advance made by the parochial clergy in winning the attention and aflections of the people. Whether it be in the railway carriage, or on the road, across the moorland tract, by the sea waves, or on the coach, the clergy are recognized with respect which was impossible before the days of Bishop Phillpotts. Be he a well-known missioner as Atherton, Wilmot-Buxton or Cronshaw; a novelist as Baring-Gould; a cricketer as Warner or Copleston ; a sportsman like Jack Russell ; even a voluminous writer like Sadler ; a peacemaker fno-n sine armis J like Hammond ; a ritualist like Chase ; a devout pietist like Dumbleton or Prynne ; even a critical scholar like Tregelles or Scrivener; a ready -wit like Manley Hawker ; an archdeacon in gaiters ; or a Bishop, carrying his own carpet bag or his pastoral staff in a quasi gun-case ; from the most ascetic curate to the roughest parson from the wilds of Doone-land or Dart moor, for one, for all, the commercial traveller, and the old market woman laden with her basket of miscellaneous necessaries, have a look of sympathy, a courteous inquiry or a hearty shake of the hand. The strength, the victory, and the glory of this Sacred Commonwealth consist in the recognition of mutual respons ibilities and privileges by every member of the Established Church of England. This present history was in part written for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The author having been unable to comply with the usual conditions of the Committee, received the utmost consideration at their hands. The MS. was returned to him. The work has been re written under circumstances of great trial, but it is hoped that the delay in its completion will be in some degree condoned in consideration of the large amount of original matter which has been added, and of the extension of its limits from 350 to over 450 pages with appendix. S Sativola, V. ET A.D. 740. CHAPTER I. THE pre-eminent honor of the earliest branch of the Celtic Church nowhere is more i eadily recognized than in that particular province of Great Britain which still goes by the name of Cornwall, removed as it is and ever in all probability will be, from those lines of rapid and busy inter national communication which rob (all unintentionally) most ancient haunts of legendary lore and saintly grace of their sweetest attractions. It would, however, be extremely difficult to deprive this portion of the United Kingdom of that hereditary charm which has in the towns and villages of this, the westernmost, county of England, stamped both the land and the people who own and till it with a distinctive and all unmistakeable character. B If with a reverent suspicion we are compelled to dismiss the extravagant but convenient legends of St. Joseph and the Glastonbury thorn, we cannot plead guilty to repudiating in the same breath the tales which Gildas, Leland, Usher and other masters of ancient history have left us from personal inspection and local experience of the holy and goodly company of bishops, saints and martyrs who stamped their identity on the Churches of the West. The impression which they have in some mysterious manner left upon the coasts of Devon and Cornwall has as yet proved impervious to all the hasty changes of railway traffic and commercial aggression. And yet there was a time — was it 2,000 years ago ? — when keen Phenician merchants forced their storm-tossed fleets through the Straits of Hercules, all round the ironbound coasts of Northern Spain, and reached these sheltering river banks, up which they drew their ships, and, having purchased from the savage miners on the shores of Tamar, of Dart, of Exe and of Teign the precious metal, went home to the brighter sunnier East, thinking little of the uncouth manners and the wild worship of the skinclad natives. At what period and under what influences the Christian Church was established in this distant province, we have no means of ascertaining. There seems no reason to doubt that the tribe of the Dum nonii occupied the territory comprised in the old Diocese of Exeter, and that Isca, " the town among the woods," was their capital. If any proofs be sought of the theory that a system of judicature was regularly in force, they may be seen in the vast flint rocks which are found at Widworthy in South Devon, at Grimspound in the parish of Manaton and in Crockerntor on Dartmoor. Here, indeed, was held a stannary court until the requirements of civilization demanded a place of business more in keeping with the conduct of official routine. The Gorsedd or Cheese-wring at Drewsteignton is the most vivid representation of the awful solemnity of those debased heathen rites which ruled the aboriginal inhabitants of this wild region. Here the Archdruid sat in judgment. Here many a wretched victim cringed in his death agony beneath the terror of the sacrificial blade, or writhed in the excruciating torments of the raging flames. And yet it was but one day's easy sail, with prosperous wind, to bring the frail craft from Ireland to these shores, and thus there one day came, in no greedy search of precious metal or of glittering hoard, but in the spirit of their Master, the dauntless ones, to preach to the wild tribes of "the province called Cornwall" the laws of healing Peace, Goodwill and Love Incarnate. The history of the Celtic Saints is so enveloped in obscurity that it is difficult to say for certain to which of the many in the noble Army of Martyrs the credit of first ministering to the Britons of Wessex is to be ascribed. From Hartland Head on the north coast of Devon, to S. Sennen at the extreme west and from St. Burian on the south-west to St. Germans on the easternmost boundaries of Cornwall there is found nor church, nor headland, nor bay which bears not the hallowing significance of some hermit's abiding place or cell. If any corroboration of ancient legend or of pious use were asked, could more be required than these apparently ineradicable names, which through every change of constitution in political and national history have borne unswerving evidence to the truth of those high and holy lives and the supernatural glory of that kingdom of which they were at one and the same time Princes, Priests and Prophets ? What debt of gratitude does not the Saxon and the British Church owe to the large heart, the boundless enthusiasm of St. Patrick and St. Columba. Patrick, the son of Brychan, a British regulus, brought up steadfastly in the Christian Faith, what was his first impulse 4 but that of Benedict ? to choose the quiet life of contempla tion, clean contrary to his parents' wish. Placed, however, eventually under St. Budock or Corentin, he came within the reach of St. Patrick, who inspired in his already passionate spirit a longing to be more intimately conformed to tbe Divine Example, and removing with his disciples from Tibidy, he , founded a monastery at Landevennec, near Brest, there to practice those ascetic austerities which with his miraculous powers obtained for him such immense popularity in all the churches, as is plainly shewn by the fact that his name is known under at least fifty different forms. What part, if any, he may have taken in the evangelization of the Cornish we know not, nor can we speak with any certainty of another Saint who has given name to a stall in the new Cathedral Church of Truro, St. Conan. If he be identified with the son of Fergus, of the race of Conall Gulban, he is, therefore, related to St. Columba, and was recognized in his day by the two honorable distinctive appellatives, " the beloved " and " the glorious athlete." But if we desire to hear of holy men in those dark days who not merely honored churches with their names but actually with their own feet trod the very soil which we now tread, and bedewed with their tears the same stones which we now press with careless feet, then we will take our stand on that sheer rugged rock that dares the Atlantic storms, and sip the waters of that holy well. For this is indeed the very ground where, 1,300 years ago, there knelt in earnest prayer Nectan, the eldest child of Brechan, king of Brecknock, true Celtic devotee, little thinking that his unselfish labours of love would win so wide appreciation as to carry his fame throughout the whole kingdom of Dumnonia. Indeed with St. Nicholas he shared the pride of being the patron of shipwrecked mariners if we read aright the vow that Githa mother of the luckless Harold made when her husband Godwin was saved from imminent danger on the perilous coast. Here at Hartland, in fulfilment of her pious oath, she founded a college of secular canons, which seems in later times to have come in for the special benediction of the ever energetic Walter de Stapledon, who is stated — on what grounds we know not — to have been both " clerk and advocate of the abbey." The Chapel of St Nectan also, near Lostwithiel, testifies to the honour which attached to the memory of this Irish apostle. But the glory of Cornish hagiology shines more brightly in the annals of such incomparable Heralds of the " Godspel " (for the old Anglo-Saxon MS. of Leofric less jeuphoniously but more simply leaves the ancieni; spelling) as St. Kieran, and St. Petrock, and from these it is that we are led on to the later and more authentic records of the early British Church. Son of a Cornish Prince, Petrock took up his humble abode on the banks of the River Hayle. Educated in the Island of Saints, at an early age he, like every true son of the Church in those bright days of genuine and unflinching zeal, made his pilgrimage to Rome, returning with three faithful comrades, all together to spend their life and finish their course in the conversion of heathen in those bleak wilds, and all together lay their bones within the first Church of what wns subsequently called Petrockstow. There they, with their leader, found a resting-place, but on him alone does the interest of students now as of devotees in medieval days concentrate. In that ancient to'wn they had no more precious treasure than the relics of the Saint which had, as we must believe, obtained so high a reputation by the middle of the twelfth century that the clergy of the Abbey of Mevennus succeeded in carrying them off in the hopes that the same miraculous powers which had gained great honor for the remote Cornish Church might be wrought in their favour. The period at which this shameful act of sacrilegious jealousy was perpetrated was unpropitious to the French pirates, and Henry II. was the last man to 6 think that dishonor done to a Saint (or quick or dead) would escape condign punishment. By the King's special interposi tion they were speedily recovered for the rightful owners and restored to the Saint's shrine, where the ivory casket which contained them remains to this very day. His soul must indeed be dead to things unworldly and old-timed, who can, without the kindling of a noble purpose, stand beside the little shrine, where lay for long years beneath the shifting sands the headless body of St. Patrick's resolute disciple, the saintly Kieran or Piran, for be it on millstone or on altar slab, as ancient legend tells, they found their way to these wild shores and left the indelible footprints of the Truth they knew and loved on every nook and corner of this coast. It may be said by idle scoffers of their simple faith that had not Cornwall been so far removed from all the great and stirring routes and movements of the world of commerce and of culture, all these old landmarks of a childish and superstitious age had been fortunately for ever swept away. The answer is that long before the cities and capitals of the middle ages had secured their glory and affluence these very obscure villages, which the overworked citizen frequents in the bright summer holidays, were the homes of teeming popula tions, centres of bustling industry, and from the lengthy seaboard which belongs to the whole diocese, the resort of traders from all parts of the world. The geographical position of Cornwall has from the first given it the opportunities which few of the other provinces of Great Britain could possess. Between lat. 50°-5P, and long. 4°-6°, it stretches out into the Atlantic with inviting tenderness, courting, as it were, the anxious mariner to stay awhile and test its hospitable shores, and were it not for those bright spirits of that age the poetry, life and grace of all these hallowed spots had never been. The fact is that the Church has here her strongholds and her fortresses of impregnable strength. Man's rage in bygone days has proved futile to eradicate the foundations of the ancient Celtic Church. To give, however, the lives of aU that host of holy men who found in Cornwall scope for their heaven-sent ambition or a resting place when their labours were accomplished, would be here and now an impossibility. It must suffice to merely give their names. Of those who were either natives of the West or immigrant from Ireland, or from Wales, we may name Melianus, King of Cornwall, and Melor his son; Gerennius, another Cornish King, now commemorated in St. Gerrans ; and Keby, son of Solomon, all of Royal parentage. Leland will have us to remember all the devout progeny of Brechan, King of Wales — twenty-four in number — whose names are imperishably perpetuated in the churches of St. Tethe, Endellion (with iis once active but now sinecure prebends), Maben, St. Clether, Advent and Morwenstow, with all the remaining galaxy of Celtic martyrs. Nor can, indeed, the valiant posse of Irish apostles, the " hodan," or ministers who hail from the land of St. Patrick be ignored : Sennen, Crowan, Allen, la, Erghe, Gwinnear, Enoder, Ervan, Withiel and Budoc, names of parishes well known throughout Cornwall, sure evidences of an age rich in souls already sealed for Christ. Nor through the darker days of Danish slaughter and homeless despair, when all their precious service books had perished in their burning churches, did the Cornish Church forget or lose the merits and the comfort of these champions of the faith. The Martyrology of the Exeter Monastery which even now exists, marks a place which loving tradition had assigned to many saints of the British Church whose names are never so much as whispered in the Menologies of the Northern Province. Rich indeed is the Diocese of Exeter in her roll of saintly men whose birthdays — for thus does the Church of Christ speak of their end — are thus recorded. Amongst the exceedingly rare books which have survived the ravages of the Danes and the ignorant mischief of the Royal Commissioners, one remains at Exeter which attracted the attention of no less a scholar than Wharton, whose notes are now in the Lambeth Library. He calls the Martyrology "very old and elegant.'' It is certainly most clear in its statements as to the honor of those saints who have won fame and glory for the Cross of Christ in pre-historic days. The first is the birthday of St. Branwalarencher, the martyr, son of King Kenen, to whom the church of Branscombe, in the south-east coast of Devon, is supposed to be dedicated. Next comes St. Kyeran, Bishop and Confessor, better known as St. Piran. To him succeeds St. Winwallow, Abbot and Confessor. Then two most obscure but worthy Coi-nish names appear, but without any honorable description, save only with the remark before inscribed : — " In greater Britain, in the province, which is called Cornwall — Natale, that is, the birth day of the Holy Bishops and Confessors, Karentoc and Carnoc." The next entry of a distinctly local character is the Trans lation of Relics at Exeter, which, as the notary observes, was " commended " by many great miracles. We come now, however, to the most valuable clue, which puts beyond all question the impression made by the great disciple of St. Patrick on the devout churchmen of his day. " In Greater Britain, in the place which is called Bodmin, the day of St. Petrock the Confessor, who, divinely moved, forsook the footsteps of this earthly kingdom and the warfare of this worldly life to win by the sweetness of the lonely life the glory of the heavenly kingdom." It is clear, too, that at this period St. Sidwell was recognised under her Latin rather than her Saxon name, as we have on August 5th; "In Greater Britain, outside the walls of the city of Exeter, the day of Sancte iSativole virginis et martyris." Then with the same geographical definition we find further on: — "at the place called Tavistock, the deposition of St. Rumo, Confessor.'' There are also amongst the other saints mentioned as suffering or dying in Greater Britain some which appear to defy recognition, though their names have a familiar ring. Such is the celebration of St. Beornwald on the street called " Benitona." With this imperfect but interesting list it would be well to compare another calendar of the Church of Sarum, which dates from the ninth century. Easier then would it be to argue in the very sight of those extraordinary monuments of broken and scattered stones which are so widely scattered on the wild Cornish hills that there never were any nations of ante-historic times living on the very ground now traversed by the iron horse, than to contradict the testimony of the Church to the men who came across the sea to convert the Saxons to the Gospel. There are authorities of no mean order and high repute, men of experience, and yet unable to agree on the fundamental principles of criticism, who tell us that Druidism was never to any extent in antagonism with Christianity in this part of Britain, on the one hand, and on the other assert with uncompromising emphasis that the people of Dumnonium were inveterately sunk in all the basest forms of Druidical fetishism. It must be confessed that a diligent study of the innumerable cromlechs, pillars, kistvsens, cairns, and circles in or under, or even in proximity to which human calcined remains are almost invariably found, leads to the conviction that were no semblance of Christian symbolism is forthcoming it is most improbable that the doctrines of the Gospel to any degree 10 prevailed. It is, therefore, only agreeable with the commonly received notions to suppose that the early martyrs of the British Church who are met with in the first Martyrologies of our Church won the crown at the hands of their heathen persecutors in Cornwall during their noble attempts to persuade them to exchange the horrors of Druidical superstition for the pure light and true knowledge of God. " Frigid philosophy " may assert that the tendency has always been to canonize witnesses for truth who never merited any more than they desired to be honored -with the title of martyr. For example, Leland, speaking of the atrocities committed by one Rivold on his invasion of Cornwall, says that, having himself maimed Melorus, his nephew, by cutting off one hand and one foot, he persuaded, one, Cerealtine to murder Melorus Here there is no direct evidence to prove that either Rivold or Cerealtine committed these barbarities, because Melorus made a public profession of the Christian faith, bi. it is quite as reasonable to suppose that, as he had been brought up in a monastery, his religious convictions or habits were provocative in an eminent degree to such brutal dispositions. Whether, indeed, it be an amiable or culpable compassion to give honor where honor is due, the facts remain that at a period much nearer to the actual occurances than our own, there were men and women (St. Sidwell, for instance) whose inoffensive testimony to the truth as exhibited in gentleness of carriage and patience under insult and injury so strongly impressed the Church that she accorded them a place of high honor in her calendar of never-to-be-forgotted worthies. In fact, the evidences on which the reputation of our earliest Cornish saints depend are so varied and irrefragable that none but a critic, who would judge political and ecclesiastical history by entirely different canons, could shake their testimony. Thus, of St. Corentin, it is a most valuable, because indirect, proof of 11 this veracity of Cornish tradition that Bede in his Martyrology has the birthday of ' St. Corentin, Confessor and Bishop, and that John of Glastonbury, in his list of the relics preserved there, mentions " os de Sancto Corentino Ep." And if we search the other and fuller records of the Cornish Church we are struck with the importance which all historians of old date attached to all the legends and folklore which they could collect in this respect, simply working on the same lines as all the antiquarians of modern days, accepting what suits their own theory and repudiating all that makes for an adverse decision. At Tregony is found one of the very finest of the ancient Cornish Churches. About the middle of the fourth century lived Solomon, King of Cornwall. He had a son called Keby, who was ordained bishop by Hilary, of Poictiers, and then returned to his own country until, driven thence by the inhuman behaviour of the before-named Rivold, he took refuge in Wales for a brief period. On his return to his native shores, it was not for him to hold intercourse with the associates of his youth, but to take up his abode in a little hill which looked down upon the whole town where he lived in retirement, after his death, revered alike in Anglesea as in Wales. Thus the sanctity of St Keby redounded to the profit and growth of the town, and in the end Tregony became one of the most flourishing ports of Cornwall, until, by the retiring of the tide and the con sequent loss of commerce, from prosperity it shrank back into a barren moor: the streets vanished, and the name alone remains to tell the tale of former glory. At the time of his death— at the end of the fourth century— we get beyond the range of mystery, and have solid facts to lead us in tracing the footsteps of the British Church. They are specially helpful in illustrating the history of Cornwall in connection with this particular hero. The presence of British Bishops at 12 the Council of Aries in 314, of Nice in 325, of Sardica in 347 and of Rimini in 359, has once and for all time settled the question. Britain was in touch with the capital and centre of Catholic learning and jurisdiction ; her saints and martyrs received their title from the Roman Pontiff, but their local fame and local name is too intimately identified with the actual scene of their labours to be confused with that of any other holy name bearing an apparent relation. Thus, it is perfectly certain from every accessible record that St. Columba, to whom the Cornish Church is dedicated, is the virgin and martyr who died in 597, whose feast is kept on the- 9th or 10th of June. Indeed, go where we will or read what we may, there remains in the Calendars of the Church, in the dedica tion of the churches, in the Christian names of the very children, testimony which no " new learning " can any more eradicate than disprove. Take now, for instance, the list which Leland gives us of the saintly family who are responsible for most of the oldest churches in the peninsula. They are the children of Brechan, the Welsh prince, and their relics, laid with pious care, formed the foundation of the earliest altars whereon the Eucharist was celebrated in these rough sea-coast shrines. Take the deanery of East : note the church of St. Ives : Ecclesia Sancti Ivonis, that is simply the church of St. Evan, Jevan, or John. So take another, more famous possibly as a sinecure prebend — that is Endellion. Thus the Valor Ecclesiasticus lets us know that the holy patron of this pre- bendal church was, like St. Columba, one of those gentler spirits whose devotion was as thorough as that of St. Melor. We have but a very short distance to go in the same country, when we come to St. Minver, merely the easier aud euphonious pronunciation of the old St. Menefrede or Menfer. Then, as it were, to make the three graces of the Cornish 13 Church, comes yet another Prebendal Church— that of St. Tethe ; and, as if so bright an array were yet incomplete, St. Mabena — another sister — claims the little shrine of Mabyn, near Wadebridge. How, also, can we ignore the unassuming claims of other daughters of the same great prince, great, aye and glorious, in this respect, that he enriched the ancient Church with the gift of his own blood? His children, when once-jthey set their feet on sand at Padstow, went — some north-east, some south — all in search of that seclusion which posterity has at last denied them. Thus went Holy Morwenna, St. Clether and St. Keri, not to pass over St. Adwen — names easily recognised, even to the present day, in the churches called after their names at Morwinstow, Egloskery and Advent. Thus we may pass throughout the whole length and breadth of this rich province, and find scarce a bare spot or rugged rock to which in times of old poor miners or weary mariners might not, nay did not, look with hope and love. Little cause for wonder is there then that names so full of meaning and so dearly cherished still hpld fast. Of Saxon saints, indeed, the Cornish people know and care but little, and indeed what need of any such strange names had they ? It seems indeed an anachronism that, as all eminent historians affirm, the history of the Cornish Church is hidden in obscurity, when, go where we will, from Hartland Point to Land's End, the bright light of well-authenticated facts illumines the whole landscape with a nimbus of imperishable glory. The most sceptical historian cannot tread such ground nor breathe such air without becoming inspired with reverence and awe. When, then, we cross the Tamar, and tread on ground which knew little of such hallowing instances, the two great tracts of Dartmoor and Exmoor leave a fair and well-watered valley in which, almost to our surprise, we meet with two indisputable Celtic dedications — Iddesleigh and St. Gyres —not 14 to mention the old church of Dunchideock, which, notwith standing its modern dedication to the Trinity, retains the old sign of Duranonian origin in the termination oclc, while in the name Cowick, which we see close by in the alien priory of the Benedictine rule between Ide and Alphington, we are brought back again to the Celtic St. Kewe or Lanou. This very name had also appeared as Cuic in the manumissions of serfs, found bound up with the Missal of Bishop Leofric, and as Coic in the Domesday Survey. As we are now within a short distance of the old Dumnonian capital, successively and at times jointly occupied by widely different and discrepant races, it will be apposite to the present subject to observe how distinctly each nationality within the walls left its own special identity marked unmistakeably in the churches which clustered round the Monastery of St. Mary and St. Peter beneath the sheltering strength of Rougemont. Exeter, as frontier town and market, has engaged the diligent attention of the most industrious English historians. The Britons were still in possession of their inland mountainous districts when the Saxon invaders came upon them. In jealous propinquity to the most holy relics which, in all probability, from a very early date gave the monastery of SS. Mary and Peter its pre-eminence, there had sprung up the churches of St. Petrock, St. Kyeran, St. Pancras, and St. Paul — not, in this last instance (if we may believe some painstaking enthus iasts), the Apostle, but, as seems more locally appropriate, the less famous Bishop of Laon, a native of Devonshire. In fact, there is a distinctly Celtic cluster of dedications just as there also is of Saxon. The city still glories in them, and in their restored beauty, efficiency, and organization bears witness to the continuous chain of evidence which binds the English Church of the past to that of the present both in village and city. The enclosure of the Cathedral precincts in 1286 marked, 15 while it is also amalgamated, the distinctive boundaries of the civic and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions, for the line of demar cation ran along between the houses opening into High Street and the cemetery of St. Peter's. The deeds which yet survive of that constructive and practical age shew that every inch of ground was carefully watched, and, if any encroachment were so much as hinted, it was made the subject of legal process, even to the projection of a beam or the insertion of a corbel. The area of Saxon predominence is so obvious to any casual visitor that it scarcely needs pointing out. There are the churches of St. Laurence, St. Stephen, St. Martin, Holy Trinity, St. George, St. John, and lastly, two which deserve special notice, St. Olave and St. Edmund. These two last belong to the reign of Canute, but the whole part of the city by the Northgate was occupied by the British, even as the extra mural dedication of St. David testifies. One thing seems, however, certain : within the walls of Exeter there dwelt, each in their own quarter, and "equo jure" in all respects, the conqueror and the conquered, Celt and Teuton. The fact is that both the saints of the Church of Exeter were of Saxon origin, and their legends being authenticated by documentary evidence, rise above the level of apocryphal romance. St. Wynfrith and St. Sydwell have no rivals in the field of godly chivalry and enterprise. Let us look at the latter first, if only because the church which bears her name, and the well hard by, attract us to the Saxon settlement outside the walls of Exeter, and shew us thereby the separation of the British from the Saxon even on the very outskirts of the town, the former adhering to the northern district, the latter to the south-east. It is thus that Leland speaks of her, quoting professedly 16 the Lectionary which de Grandisson, the altogether uncom promising champion of local worthies, took the trouble to write, so convinced was he of perpetuating in human memory the fame of such hereditary witnesses to the continuity of the earlier Saxon Church. The disappointing incident in this otherwise important connection is that, though Leland appears to have seen the actual writing of this indefatigable student, it is now wanting, and that in the companion volume — the Ordinale — which is intimately associated with it in the daily offices of the Church of Exeter, the very page which contains the order of the mass is also gone. All the more thankful are we to the ubiquitous and discriminating prelate for preserving to us the names and bare facts of the life of the local saint, till the 14th century. Of Saxon birth she undoubtedly was, as her own original name (before it was transformed into the less known, but then more acceptable Sativola) bears witness. Benna, a native of the Anglo-Saxon colony on the outskirts of the old capital of the West, had four daughters — Juthwara, Eadwara, Wilgitha and Sythwella. Of this excellent quartette but two are now remembered, the first, indeed, only by the translation of her relics at Sherborne on July 13th, the last by the generally accepted tradition of the manner of her martyrdom, vividly portrayed in stone in the church of her dedication, and in the east window of the Cathedral Church, in each illustration with the instrument of martyrdom at hand, the scythe. The story goes that her stepmother, desirous of obtaining her property, had recourse to violent means to attain her ends, and with one blow severed the head of St. Sidwell from her shouldei s. We shall seek in vain for frequent and general dedications to this Saxon 'virgin martyr, one only occurring at Laneast — a chapelry annexed to St. Stephen's priory at Launceston, which was given to the Ciithedral by King Henry I. The date of her martyrdom is A.D. 740. The history of the other great Saxon light of the 17 Church of Exeter carries us some eight miles off from the old Exanceaster, and sets us down on the banks of the little Creedy stream in the wild country which leads up to the moor. At Crediton, in Devon, says Bishop de Grandisson in his Legenda Sanctorum, was Wynfrith born, son of a pagan father, who had thus far emigrated into the strange British territory, but of a Celtic mother, in whose bosom burnt that holy fire of heavenly ardour which so prematurely fiashed into the tender soul of her boy Wynfryth. He was but a child when itinerant clerks came on their errand of evangelical commerce to his father's home and spoke of heavenly things on which his simple mind had ere this even long been set. It was their way, writes Willibald, the attentive historian of St. Boniface, to go about preaching, but in few cases did they do so with more eminent profit to the Church than on that day when they came to the farmstead of the Saxon yeoman. The lad panted, thus fervently does the keen observer of his after life (in the happy intensity of the Psalmist's thirsty plaint) describe the unquenchable enthusiasm of this youthful disciple — he panted for the religious life, but not until his father had suffered a severe illness and a solemn convention of his kinsfolk and acquaintance had been held was permission granted him to accept the invitation of the mission-band from the monastery at Adescanceaster. The exact constitution of this community we have no means of fully understanding, but that it was of a. domestic character to which the children of Christian parents were eligible on the express condition of their self-consecration to the ministry in the lower orders of the Church seems extremely probable, the colleges of the prophets read of in the Old Testament as established in Israel by Eli and Samuel, furnishing both example and precedent. Winfrith was accordingly received into the College at Exeter, and when study and devotion had enlarged his ideas of the office and power of the Catholic Church and kindled a c 18 holy ambition, was sent to the Convent at Nutschellinge, at the head of Southampton Water Ordained priest at the age of thirty, he then went on a mission to Canterbury, and afterwards satisfied his long cherished wish for foreign travel by sailing from the port of Sandwich for Germany on his first missionary enterprise. This was not attended with success, and he returned to Nutschellinge to receive as the recognition of his abilities the offer of supremacy in the abbey. Such a position, however, had no charms for his active temperament, and so sailing again for Germany he laboured in Thuringia and Hessia, until, compelled to summon aid from home, he sent urgent entreaties, mingled with pious exhortations, to his connexions and friends in Devonia to come and join with him in the glorious work of converting the wild "tribes of Northern Frisia. The change of name, from what was called the " barbarous " Wynfrith to the more soft and orthodox Bonifacius, marked the great crisis of his public career. This took place at his consecration in 723, though his letters shew that his natural affection for the name of his childhood and nation survived even the higher honor which awaited him in his elevation to the Archbishoprick of Mainz The unconquerable energy which had in very early days carried the Celtic missionary band through not only the province of Cornwall and Armorica, but even into the fiercer depths of the great German forests, was certainly conspicuous to an unequalled degree in St. Boniface ; and as need required and larger fields of spiritual adventure appeared open to his always willing retinue of followers, he swept the continental Teuton before his carefully organized staff of clergy into the net of the true Church, lea-ving behind him a name so highly honoured that when the news of his death reached England the General Synod, con vened by Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, decreed that he and his cohort — for this was the noble name of military 19 significance given to his company of faithful followers— should have their martyrdoms celebrated annually in the Church of England. His own festival still holds its place in the Black Letter Calendar of our Prayer Book, and, though only two small churches in the kingdom claim the honor of his patronage, the testimony of the Universal Church is unequivocal to the praise of the Devonshire lad. In the day of his necessity, when the claims of his immense diocese weighed heavily upon his heart, knowing the stern stuff of which the men of his province and fatherland were made, he insisted on his right to have their co operation "without grudging. Amongst these, Lulius his own relation and succe.ssor, at Mainz ; after his days Frideric, of Utrecht, " the Devonian from Crediton " ; Burchard, first Bishop of Wurtzburgh ; Willibald, first Bishop of Eichstadt, were distinguished lieutenants of the Saxon Apostle of Germany. Of the no less loyal and trusty emigrant clergy and laity of both sexes, but of one heart and mind in the Evangelical Crusade, there came over to him to do his behests, Wigbert, Wunebald, St. Sola (founder of Solenhofen on Altmuhl), Liafwin, unmistakeably from the English fatherland, Walpurga, Abbess of Heidenheim, and Leoba, daughter, it may be, of parents in Western Britain. Of these many perished with the Primate, gladly sharing his patient death, in willing and cheerful obedience to his command to offer no resistance to the onslaught made by the wild horde of Pagans who, bent on revenge for the insult committed to their gods by the destruction of their sacred oak which Boniface had cut down as being an object of gross superstition, slew him and them as he was in the very act of administering the rite of Holy Confirmation to the Fries- landers whom he had converted. Dying at eighty-four years of age in 754, thus gloriously and humbly for his Master whom he had served from his childhood, he was buried in the Abbey of Fulda, and canonized, his memory being celebrated by the 20 English Church on June 5th. Apostolic in his unremitting care for Christ's flock, in spending and being spent, he always bore about in his bosom a copy of the Gospels, while his pleasant criticism on the uselessness of all gorgeous ritual, splendid sanctuaries, and costly accessories was happily summed up in his saying how " in old times there were golden prelates and wooden chalices, but in his own days wooden prelates and golden chalices " May such an example urge many a lad from the quiet country towns of Devon to follow his steps who so well followed his Lord's. 21 Leofricus, Ep. Exon. A.D. 1050-1077. CHAPTER II. If the expression of the early form of the bidding prayer in use in the Church of Exeter can be taken in any sense as a note of historical value, the monastic Church of Exeter had obtained no fame or position when " the most glorious King " Athelstan came westwards in pursuit of the Danish invaders. " Ye shall praye," runs the somewhat lengthy supplication, " for the State of all holy Churche, for our Holy Fader the Pope with all his College of Cardinalis, &c., &c. Also ye shuld praye for the soule of Kinge Athelstan, the first founder of this place,"