chief, prostrated themselves at St. Sampson’s feet and utterly destroyed
the idol.”
It will have been noticed that the writer does not state whether the
idol was of stone or of wood; nor is it quite clear whether it was
itself the object of worship or the representation or symbol of a god.
Probably it was the latter.
Whatever its nature and character the saint decided upon its destruction
and marked the sign of the cross not upon it but upon a stone standing
in its vicinity. It does not seem likely that the word abominable
(_simulacrum abominabile_) would have been employed to describe a
wheel-headed stone. The idol was probably a fetich pure and simple or
possibly a symbol of nature worship.
Whatever may have been the purposes for which menhirs were erected
during the neolithic period and whatever adoration may have been paid
them by succeeding races—we have no evidence that such adoration _was_
paid—it appears certain that they had nothing to do with sun worship.
The Minoan symbolism, as such, which included the cross or rather the
wheel with four spokes (in this connection a better and more accurate
description because it explains the most beautiful form which it assumed
as the swastika), is entirely absent from the prehistoric monuments of
Western Europe.[31] The stone crosses of Cornwall are not of an earlier
date than the sixth or seventh century of our era, and by that time not
only was the county actively Christian but the Minoan symbolism was
dead, buried and forgotten.
Stones may be, and in many ages and in many lands have been, venerated
for their supposed powers and virtues. Such stones, especially in
Brittany, have received Christianisation, that is, have been marked with
or surmounted by a cross within comparatively modern times. There is no
reason why some such course may not have suggested itself to the Cornish
Christians of the seventh and succeeding centuries. But the golden age
of Celtic Christianity was during the latter half of the seventh and
first half of the eighth century, and at that time Cornwall was in
constant communication with Ireland, the centre of Christian
learning.[32]
About 270 stone crosses are to be found in Cornwall. They are mostly of
granite and have been fashioned by means of iron implements, in some
instances with considerable taste and skill.
They are too well known to require description. To suppose them to have
been erected by sun worshippers in the sixth and succeeding centuries is
to suppose the prevalence of a religion in Cornwall which at that time
prevailed nowhere else in Europe and concerning which history is silent.
On the other hand, to suppose them to have been originally connected
with nature worship of a peculiarly revolting character and to have been
Christianised by signing them with the sign of the cross is highly
improbable if, as the maintainers of this hypothesis assert, that sign
was regarded as pagan.
A much simpler and more convincing explanation is that the stone crosses
were erected in order to disaffect and sanctify places which from time
immemorial had been devoted to old pagan superstitions.[33] This at any
rate has the merit of being in accordance with the facts disclosed by
the Sampson episode. Moreover, it avoids the anachronism which connects
them with sun worship, while at the same time it disallows the charge of
incredible folly which must otherwise be imputed to the founders of
Cornish Christianity if we suppose those earnest men to have retained a
degrading symbol of nature worship with little or no modification of its
structural features.
-----
Footnote 11:
A still earlier age, the eolithic, which in Sussex has supplied my
school contemporary, Dr. A. Smith Woodward of the British Museum, with
what he believes to be a link between man and his pre-human ancestor
is not represented in Cornwall.
Footnote 12:
_Geology of the Land’s End District_, pp. 79-80.
Footnote 13:
“_Le prétendu caractère phallique de quelques-uns de ces monuments
n’est qu’une conjecture chimérique qui a permis à certains esprits
imaginatifs de se donner carrière._” Déchelette, _Manuel
d’Archéologie_, I, 431, n. 2.
Footnote 14:
W. C. Borlase, _Nænia Cornubiæ_, p. 99:
“Wishing to put beyond dispute the origin and purpose of some few at
least of these monoliths, and to ascertain if any were indeed
sepulchral, the author ... examined the ground round some half-dozen
of them.”
At the foot of a menhir at Pridden, St. Buryan, he found “a deposit of
splinters of human bone.” At the foot of a menhir at Trelew, St.
Buryan, he found “a deposit of splintered bones similar in quantity
and appearance to that found at Pridden.” A precisely similar
discovery was made at Trenuggo, Sancreed. Another at Tregonebris.
Footnote 15:
This is shown by the presence of bronze sickles in Ligurian graves and
their absence in Iberian.
Footnote 16:
_Archéologie: Age du Bronze_, chap. xiii.
Footnote 17:
Quoted by Déchelette, _Archéologie_, II, pp. 413, 567; by Lord
Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 132; by D. Gougaud, _Chrétientés_, p.
13.
Footnote 18:
_Archéologie_, II, p. 30.
Footnote 19:
_England before the Norman Conquest_, p. 9.
Footnote 20:
Ezekiel, xxvii and xxviii.
Footnote 21:
Sir Hercules Read, _Early Iron Age_, p. 85.
Footnote 22:
_Arch. Journal_, viii, 8.
Footnote 23:
_Age du Bronze_, p. 29.
Footnote 24:
Oman, _England before the Norman Conquest_, p. 107.
Footnote 25:
Mr. Henry Jenner, F.S.A., to whom I am indebted for this statement,
has reminded me that St. Michael’s Mount is given in the _Life of St.
Cadoc_ as Dinsul (Mons solis) and that Tregaseal in St. Just may be a
compound of which _seal_=_Zil_=_sol_. Both are possible. Roman
intercourse with the extreme west of Cornwall is proved by the Roman
milestone at St. Hilary, which is within easy distance of both places.
Footnote 26:
Gougaud, _Chrétientés_, p. 22. The derivation of the word Druid is
uncertain. There appears to be no doubt that the Druids practised a
form of divination founded not on the flight but on the song of birds,
that of the wren in particular. Dren is Irish for wren. From this some
have inferred that Druid is derived from dren drui-én. There is
another Irish word _drúi_ (genitive _druad_) which meant a magician.
Anwyl, _Celtic Religion_, p. 55.
Footnote 27:
Prof. Oman’s translation, _England before the Norman Conquest_, p. 74.
Footnote 28:
See, however, chap. iv.
Footnote 29:
D. Gougaud, _Chrétientés_, pp. 16, 17.
Footnote 30:
Edited by M. Fawtier (Paris, Champion, 5 Quai Malequais, 1912). The
Latin text is given in the appendix to this book p. 169.
Footnote 31:
Déchelette, _Archéologie Préhistorique_, p. 441.
Footnote 32:
Oman, _England before the Norman Conquest_, p. 30.
Footnote 33:
Anatole le Braz, _La nuit des feux_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
CORNWALL AND BRITTANY
Although much good work has been done and useful results have been
obtained in many fields of research both by individual Cornishmen and by
societies like the Royal Institution of Cornwall, there is one
department at least which has been somewhat neglected by those for whom
it might have been expected to possess a special attractiveness.
The interest which of late years has been awakened in the Cornish
language and in Celtic Christianity has not been the result of any
revival in Cornwall itself. Mr. Whitley Stokes is an Irishman by birth
and extraction, Professor Loth a Breton, Mr. Henry Jenner a Cornishman.
In fact no Cornishman except the last-named has so far thrown himself
wholeheartedly into the movement which has for its object the critical
study of the language and religion of the Celtic-speaking nations. This
is much to be regretted, because both of these subjects were assigned a
place in the comprehensive scheme of Dr. Borlase, which, as conceived
and elaborated by him, entitled him to rank among the leading European
antiquaries of his own day. Although Dr. Borlase achieved little of
permanent value in the way of exposition, he gathered much valuable
material which, but for him, would have been lost, and by his sagacity
and diligence succeeded in riveting the attention of his compatriots.
He was, like all the leading archæologists of his time, a resolute
believer in the Druidical origin of the prehistoric remains of the
county, a theory which he advocated with consummate skill and
particularity. Since his death the theory has been found to be untenable
without any serious injury, however, being done to his high reputation.
The brilliant essay of his great-great-grandson, the late Mr. William
Copeland Borlase, on the _Age of the Saints_, first printed in 1878, has
been one of the very few original works accomplished in the county
having for its object the exposition of Celtic Christianity. In this
work its writer attempted too much. Subsequent research has shown that
many of his identifications of the Cornish saints are untrustworthy, and
that his arbitrary delineation of the spheres of influence of the
respective groups of Irish, Welsh and Breton saints is often fanciful
and misleading.
Given leisure and the spirit of enquiry, the two subjects which ought to
appeal most strongly to a Cornishman are the ancient religion and the
ancient language of the county to which he belongs.
Both subjects are now well within his reach owing to the immense amount
of material which has, within recent years, been made available by the
publication of ancient records. The _Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents_ of Haddan and Stubbs, the _Episcopal Registers_, edited by
Hingeston-Randolph, the _Parish Registers_, edited by Phillimore and
others, the publications of the Record Commissioners and of the Royal
Institution of Cornwall, the _Revue Celtique_, the _Ancient Cornish
Drama_, edited by Mr. Edwin Norris, the critical works of Mr. Whitley
Stokes, of Professor Loth and Dom Gougaud, the _Cornish Grammar_ of Mr.
Jenner; these are a few of the many sources whence valuable information
may be derived for the comparative study of these subjects. In this
connection it may be observed that little satisfaction will be gained
from facts and statements which are obtained at second hand. Facts must
be sought out in the original documents and examined in their original
settings.
The context is often more illuminating than the fact which it enshrines.
Not documents only; the towns, villages, hamlets and homesteads, with
their ancient names, address silent appeals to the hearts and
understandings of those who live among them.
An interesting illustration is supplied by the three Cornish words,
Eglos (_Ecclesia_), Escop (_Episcopus_) and Pleu (_Plebs_)—interesting
because the final judgment must be held in suspense until a survey has
been made of their ramifications. All three words are found in the
place-names of this county. Eglos is found in Lanteglos, Egloskerry and
in some other places; Escop is found in Trescobeas in Budock, formerly
appendant to the bishop’s manor of Penryn, also in Mainen Escop
(Bishop’s Rock), in the Isles of Scilly; Pleu is found in Plunent, the
ancient name of Pelynt, in Pluvathack (Budock) and possibly in Bleu
Bridge in Gulval. Names beginning or ending in Eglos are numerous in
Cornwall; those having Pleu for the first syllable are very few in
number. In Brittany very few place-names are composed of Eglos and
Escop, whereas Pleu enters into many. Why does Pleu rather than Eglos
lend itself so readily in Brittany to the exigencies of ecclesiastical
nomenclature? Were it not that Lan (monastery) is equally distributed in
the two countries, we should be tempted to say that in Cornwall a Celtic
word (lan) was preferred to a Latin word (plebs) to describe the
ecclesiastical unit. Some difference of condition or of association
there must have been to account for it. That which most readily occurs
is that Armorica was thoroughly Latinised before the insular Celts
arrived there, whereas Cornwall was probably never brought into close
contact with Roman civilisation as such except on and near the coast; in
other words, that Plebs was in use in the former country before it
became Christian and acquired afterwards a specific ecclesiastical
signification, whereas in Cornwall it was introduced along with
Christianity or after Christianity had taken root. Very few traces of
Roman civilisation are to be found in this county. The Roman milestone
at St. Hilary is almost unique. Roman coins, of which many have been
found in the county, do not prove Roman settlement. It is certain,
however, that Britain had become Christian, at least in name, before the
Roman legions were withdrawn, and it is therefore probable that the
words Eglos, Escop and Pleu had been received into the Cornish language
before that time. And the true explanation of the persistence of Pleu in
the place-names of Brittany seems to be that the insular Britons, who
had acquired the word Plebs during the Roman occupation, converted it,
for ecclesiastical purposes, into Pleu and took it with them when they
emigrated to Armorica, where very soon it had to give place to the word
Pares (from the French Paroisse), though not before it had taken root in
the place-names. In Cornwall and Wales, on the other hand, Pleu remained
in current use and is therefore seldom found in the place-names of those
countries. Making allowance for changed conditions, the same explanation
accounts for the persistence of the word Lan in the place-names of all
three countries—it persisted in the place-names because it had fallen
out of current use.
For reasons which will appear later, it is important to keep well in
mind the relations which subsisted between Cornwall and Brittany from
the time of the Dumnonian exodus, which began in the first half of the
fifth century, until those relations were interrupted in the sixteenth
century.
Leaving for future discussion the question of religion, there are points
of contact between the two countries which deserve attention, not only
because they are interesting in themselves, but because they can hardly
fail to suggest others.
The colonisation of Armorica by the people of Dumnonia is accepted by
every scholar of repute. The gradual re-settlement of Bretons in
Cornwall is not so well known. Nevertheless, the historical evidence is
not open to question. Domesday Book shows that, with three exceptions,
all the landholders in Cornwall were, in the days of Edward the
Confessor, Saxons. When William the Norman set about the conquest of
England, he was joined by several Breton nobles, who, by way of reward,
received considerable grants of land in Cornwall. Richard Fitz Turold,
the ancestor of the baronial house of Cardinan, received thirty-one
manors, Brient six, Blohiu five, Jovin thirteen, Wihumar three and
Judhel one.
It was, doubtless, owing to the presence of these Breton knights that
Cornwall came to play so important a part in the Arthurian romances,
which, soon after the Conquest, became known throughout western Europe.
There has been much controversy respecting their origin. They have been
attributed to England, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. That of _Tristan
and Iseult_ was, until quite recently, commonly referred to an English
archetype which assumed literary form at the hands of British and Welsh
minstrels or jugglers.
It has remained for Professor Loth to demonstrate, beyond the
possibility of doubt, that it originated in Cornwall at a time when
Celtic, Saxon and Norman were all spoken languages. Those who are
familiar with the romance will have been puzzled by the presence of two
Iseults in one and the same story. On this point M. Loth says, “in my
opinion it is from the juxtaposition in Cornwall of two legends, the
Cornish and the Armorican, and from a compromise between the two that
the creation of the two Iseults has originated.”[34]
No better proof could be found of the friendly spirit which existed
between the two nations than their mutual consent to share the tales and
traditions of both.
It was a Breton who, in 1177, carried away the body of St. Petrock to
the monastery of St. Mewan in Brittany. As a canon of Bodmin he had
learnt to venerate the saint, and doubtless considered that he could
confer no greater boon upon his own countrymen than to present them with
the saint’s relics. At the instance of Henry II, Roland de Dinan
restored them to the Priory.
The trade between the two countries was considerable. The Patent Rolls
supply ample evidence of this. In 1343 we find an inquisition respecting
certain mariners of the county of Cornwall who had been received into
the service of the Duchess of Brittany, but who had turned pirates and
plundered the vessels of both countries.
More convincing still is the evidence supplied by the first subsidy roll
of King Henry VIII. The roll is undated, but the date cannot be later
than 1523. In it are given the names of all those who were required to
contribute to the subsidy and the several amounts of their assessment,
in land and goods, for the purpose. The roll for the hundred of Penwith
is almost complete, only the parishes of Crowan, Illogan, Redruth and a
part of Camborne being missing.[35] In all the Penwith parishes, save
five of the smaller ones, are found Bretons who are described as _nati
in partibus Britanniæ sub obediencia Regis Francorum_. These Bretons
constitute more than one-sixth of the total tax-paying population of the
hundred of Penwith. They are described as tinners, fishermen, smiths,
servants, labourers and cooks: the occupations of twenty-nine of them
are not given. Although the several amounts to be contributed by them
are in every case in respect of goods and comparatively small, there is
fortunately reliable evidence to prove they were not mere sojourners but
persons who had come to stay.
The order to keep parish registers issued by Thomas Cromwell in 1537,
and the further order, in 1597, requiring a transcript of them to be
made on parchment, would have provided future generations with an
invaluable source of information, had those orders been generally obeyed
and the records carefully preserved.
Unfortunately, few parishes can claim to possess an uninterrupted record
of baptisms, marriages and burials from the year 1538 up to the present
time. In Penwith only Camborne enjoys this distinction. All the rest of
the registers begin after the accession of Queen Elizabeth. The earliest
of the Madron registers, which begins in 1577, has been printed and is
accessible: the Camborne marriages have also been printed. From these
two registers it will suffice to give extracts which bear upon Breton
settlement in the county. Camborne supplies the following marriages:
1538. John Carthowe, brito, and Nora his wife.
1540. Stephen Bryton and Jane his wife.
1540. G’ua Bryton and Margaret his wife.
1540. Uden John, brytton, and his wife.
1540. Gregorie Brytton and Margaret his wife.
1546. John Gerecrist and Margaret Willm, bryttons.
1568. Peres Brytton and Alson his wife.
If the above list is compared with the subsidy roll, to which reference
has been made, it will be clear that Bryton is not a surname but a
descriptive epithet. The list, in fact, supplies only four surnames,
Carthowe, John, Willm and Gerecrist. Of these the first and last are
interesting: the first survives in Cornwall as Carthewe and in Brittany
as Carzou; the last is a Breton place-name—Kergrist, near Pontivy.[36]
As showing that the Breton immigrants did not return to their own
country the following entries from the Madron register[37] will be
helpful, if not conclusive. Among the burials we have:
1582. Jane, wife of John Brittayne.
1585. Elizabeth, wife of Oliver, the Brittonn.
1587. Joane, wife of John Britton.
1599. Peres Brittayne.
Unfortunately the Madron baptisms are missing until 1592 and the
marriages until 1577. It is impossible, however, with the Camborne
marriages and the Madron burials before us, to resist the conclusion
that in the first half of the sixteenth century Bretons arrived, married
and were buried in the county. They doubtless left descendants. It is
remarkable, however, that whereas, at the present time, in Cornwall the
surname Britton or Bridden is rare, in the Midlands, where Breton
influence was never considerable, it is comparatively common. The
explanation appears to be that the Christian names of the Breton
immigrants became surnames, and in this way the number of Christian
surnames, which in West Cornwall now amounts to little short of 30 per
cent of the whole number, was vastly increased.
For how long the tide of Breton immigration had been flowing, when we
meet with it in the sixteenth century, it is impossible to say. Its
persistence in the first half of that century is not more noteworthy
than its arrest in the second half.[38]
Brittany had become a French province in 1495 by the marriage of Anne,
Duchess of Brittany, to Charles VIII. The tortuous foreign policy of
Queen Elizabeth of England, no less than the political and religious
complications of her protracted reign, could hardly have been favourable
to Breton immigration. The reformed religion and the decline of the
Cornish language have prevented a renewal of close relations between the
two countries.
The mystery and miracle plays constituted another link between Cornwall
and Brittany. Whether written in Cornish or Breton they could be
understood by the inhabitants of both countries.
They were acted on both sides of the Channel in the open air. The
subject matter—sacred history and religious biography—was the same for
both. The trilogy called the Ordinalia, which, in three plays, covered
roughly the same ground as the Old and New Testament, represents the
Cornish treatment, by means of the Cornish language, of the mystery,
which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was common to western
Europe. But the miracle play of _Beunans Meriasek_, the life of St.
Meriasek, was Celtic in origin and treatment. The Cornish version,
written by Dom Hadton, in 1504, had probably a Breton archetype. St.
Meriasek or Meriadec, who shares with St. Martin the patronage of
Camborne, was unquestionably a very important personage in Brittany. He
gave his name to a trève of Plumergat, Pluvigner, Pluneret and
Noyal-Pontivy:[39] he is the patron of Stival and of Plougasnou. He was
also numbered among the early bishops of Vannes, though, according to M.
Loth, mistakenly.[40]
It is significant that in the Cornish _Beunans Meriasek_ his elevation
to that see forms an important episode. This fact, of itself, would
suggest a Breton origin for the play. Mr. Thurstan Peter has, on other
grounds, arrived at the same conclusion.[41]
The mystery and miracle plays were still in vogue when Richard Carew
wrote his _Survey of Cornwall_. There is no need to quote the well-known
passage in which he describes the degradation of what had once been a
valuable means of instruction, but which, in his day (1590), had become
a questionable form of popular entertainment.
At St. Just-in-Penwith and Perranzabuloe the plain-an-gware, place of
the play, is more or less carefully preserved. The populous district of
Plainangwarry in the parish of Redruth also reminds the inhabitants of
the days of old and the years that are past. In more than one manorial
extent, as, for example, in that of the manor of St. Buryan, the writer
has found a tenement, described as Plainangware, the site of which is
now unknown. It is not improbable that every considerable Cornish parish
had formerly a space reserved for the mystery and miracle play.