Uny and Erth and some others to complete the conversion of the Cornish
in the golden age of Celtic Christianity. For our present purpose it is
not material to accept the legend, but it is useful to know that Ia is
commemorated at St. Ives in Cornwall and in Finistère in Brittany, Erth
at St. Erth in Cornwall and at Chittlehampton in Devon, Uny at Lelant
and Redruth in Cornwall and at Plevin in Côtes du Nord. St. Dennis (or
Denys), his church being situated in the centre of a hill-fort, is the
only one whose name seems, at first sight, to lend colour to the new
criticism. But to quote Professor Loth, writing on a totally different
subject,[80] “it is quite impossible for Dinas by itself to be a man’s
name. It is one of the most widely distributed place-names in Cornwall.
Dinas in Cornish, as in Welsh, signifies a fortified town.” Assuming
that a personage derived his name from the place Dinas we should have
Dinan as in Cardinan. St. Dennis or Denys appears to have been the name
given to a chapelry of St. Stephen (Etienne) but there is no reason to
suppose that it was ancient when it first appears along with that of
Caerhayes in the _Inquisitio Nonarum_ (1340) as _Capella Sci. Dionisii_.
St. Denys, supposed, but mistakenly, to be identical with Dionysius the
Areopagite, was from the seventh century onwards venerated throughout
Europe, and it is not remarkable to find him the patron of a chapel in
Cornwall in the fourteenth century.
That the name of the site of the chapel may have suggested to its
founder a name for its patron saint is quite possible. As late as the
seventeenth century the heralds chose St. John Baptist’s head for the
arms of Penzance (holy head). There are, in truth, no better grounds for
regarding St. Dennis as mythical than St. Stephen to whom his chapel was
appendant.
St. Allen, as the presiding saint of the _hail_ or moor, reminds one of
some rather irreverent lines by the greatest of Irish poets:
Our preacher prays he may in’erit
The hinspiration of the Spirit.
Oh! grant him also, ’oly Lord,
The haspiration of thy word.
St. Allen is found as St. Alun in the Episcopal Registers. The name
occurs in the cartulary of Redon and in Coed-Alun near Carnarvon in
Wales. St. Alan is among the disciples of Iltut and is the patron of
Corlay (Côtes du Nord). In no instance is the name found with the
aspirate, or hail without it.
Pol de Leon is a personage quite as historic as Napoleon. It must rest
with the reader to say whether the church in Cornwall which bears his
name got it from Gwavas Lake or from the well-known British saint, a
disciple of Tutwal, who founded a Breton bishopric, who was a
fellow-student of St. Sampson the patron of Golant and who is himself
the patron of fifteen parishes, one of which curiously enough is in
Cornouaille in Brittany.
Eglosberria remains and this, we are told, is compounded of Eglos and a
Cornish place-word presumed to be Berrie. The fact that no such place is
now to be found in the parish of St. Buryan does not, of course, prove
that in the far remote past there may not have been one. Nor does it
concern us much to know that in the parish berries of sorts are
abundant, holly berries, elder berries, blackberries and gooseberries;
still less to consider whether the last-named berry is indigenous or
acclimatised. This is not a treatise on Botany.
Had our critic consulted his reference, Domesday Book, he would have
read in the Exchequer redaction, “The Canons of St. Berriona hold
Eglosberrie”; in the Exeter book—the original document—under the heading
Inquisitio Geldi (1085), “St. Berriana holds a hide of land”; and under
the heading Land of St. Berriona the Virgin, “the Canons of St. Berriona
hold a manor which is called Eglosberria, which the same Virgin held in
the time of King Edward freely” (i.e. free from the payment of dues).
The first point to notice is that in every case the name of the saint is
trisyllabic, Berrian or Berrion. Berria, the second half of the name of
the manor, is probably only a contraction for Berriana made by the
earlier scribe and copied by the later. This explanation is placed
almost beyond dispute by earlier and later documents concerning the
manor and the church. Again it is well known that the letters _b_ and
_v_ are, in certain Cornish words, interchangeable as, for example, in
Trebean and Trevean. Professor Loth had pointed out to the present
writer that Berrian (Buryan) and Verrian (Veryan) were identical, but it
was two years before a striking confirmation of his statement was
disclosed. A charter dated 1450 was recently handed to me to decipher
relating to this very manor of Eglosberrie.
In it the lands were described as those of Eglosveryan. The Domesday
record is not only in perfect agreement with, but confirms, the charter
of Athelstan, which, in spite of some adverse criticism, probably
arising from the fact that it has been copied and attested more than
once, is acknowledged to be a trustworthy document, and as such was
always regarded whenever the rights and privileges of the royal chapel
of St. Buryan were called in question. Veryan and Buryan being
identical, it follows that, on the assumption that they are derived from
Berrie, a place-name, that place will be found in both parishes. It is
found in neither. It is purely mythical.
It may be asked, why devote so much space to a matter of secondary
importance? The reason is that here we have to meet an attempt to bring
the Celtic saints within the province of comparative mythology, an
attempt to show that they were eponymous in somewhat the same sense as
Romulus, Cypris, Pallas Athene and Ceres (as representing Siculus) were
the genii and afterwards the presiding deities over Rome, Cyprus, Athens
and Sicily. It is useless to deny the assertion that “the Church history
of Cornwall before the Norman Conquest is chiefly a matter of legendary
lore” and that “the cult of the sun was that of Cornwall not a thousand
years ago” unless we have something to say in support of our denial.
Let us therefore carry the argument a little further—let us suppose that
the topological origin of the saints is the true one; let us suppose
that there is indisputable evidence, gathered in Cornwall, in its
favour; in other words, that the Cornish saints are local divinities;
how will it fare with them when their votaries have crossed the seas?
Will the Island which gives its name to St. Ives, will the Downs of
Lelant, the Hail (deprived of its aspirate), the Dinas of Mid-Cornwall
and Gwavas Lake win Armorican devotion? Or conversely, assuming the
saints to have been of Armorican manufacture, will they appeal to the
devotional instincts of the Cornish? Or must we assume that there was a
sacred island at Plouyé, a sacred downs at Plevin, a sacred pool at Léon
and a sacred Berrie at Berrien and Lan-verrien in Finistère? It is as
difficult to imagine an affirmative answer being returned to any of
these questions as St. Thomas Aquinas found it to believe that a
religious could tell a lie, and therefore, according to his biographer,
more difficult to believe than that an ox could fly. The Celtic saints
were not eponymous, but men of like passions with us, who lived their
lives, told their story, impressed their contemporaries and were
gathered to their fathers, men honoured in their generation and the
glory of their times.
This leads to a brief notice of their biographies. The subject is not
free from difficulty. It requires a rearrangement of thoughts, a
re-focussing of ideas. The Lives of the Saints do not conform to
ordinary standards or respond to ordinary appeals.
They are not plain, unvarnished accounts of simple earnest men written
by their contemporaries, but, in their present form, they are for the
most part highly coloured stories addressed not to the intellect but to
the imagination. They are not always free from anachronisms. The ideals
of their writers are not ours to-day.
They abound in the miraculous. They are adorned after a common pattern
peculiarly their own. They draw largely upon Holy Scripture. Incidents
related of one saint are sometimes transferred to another. Similarities
of expression are found in them, perhaps pointing to a common origin or
authorship. In short, all the elements which provoke adverse criticism
are found in them.
And yet, making due allowance for the mentality of those who wrote and
those who read them, there is no sufficient reason for impugning the
veracity of the writers, much less for despising them.[81] They were
neither deceivers nor deceived. The hagiographer had probably as great a
regard for truth as his modern critics, but he knew nothing of the
canons of literary excellence. He had never heard of “nature unadorned”;
but he knew, just as we know, how banal and commonplace are the lives of
many of the best men and women who have lived and worked for others, and
he strove to portray them in colours which might make them interesting
to a generation whose intelligence, so far as religion was concerned,
had been chiefly moulded by Holy Scripture. He recognised analogies and
emphasised them. He was conversant with the main facts and knew how
impressive had been the personality and the life of his hero, but he had
not, like Boswell, followed him about with a note-book. He was himself
an impressionist and by no means sparing of his paint, one whose work
doubtless won the approval of the age in which he lived. He had no
message for succeeding ages.
At the same time only ignorance or prejudice will place all
hagiographers on the same level or refuse to take account of alleged
facts, even when they are concealed underneath an intolerable deal of
fanciful adornment.
In some cases the Lives of the Saints, as presented by their authors,
possess real historical value. Those of Sampson, Paul Aurelian,
Winwaloe, Tutwal and Malo (Machutus) fall within this category.[82] The
life of St. Sampson drawn up, according to Mgr. Duchesne, towards the
end of the seventh century, of which the earliest and most valuable MS.
is of the eleventh century, will repay diligent study.[83] It has a
direct and important bearing upon monastery-bishoprics, and ought to
possess a special interest for the people of Cornwall whose forefathers
profited by St. Sampson’s ministry. The biography, as we should expect,
contains its full share of miracles, but is, nevertheless, characterised
by veracity in those statements which relate to the saint’s parentage,
private life, travels and career. The picture is a true picture, however
much we may dislike the method of treatment. The landing of the saint
near Padstow, his sojourn at St. Kew, his destruction of the pagan idol
in the hundred of Trigg and other details are all related and the
topographical knowledge of the writer has been shown to be accurate.[84]
It is doubtful, however, whether, at the present stage of historical
research, it is possible for those, who are most competent to form a
judgment of the value of the evidence afforded by the Lives of the
Saints, to do so dispassionately and impartially owing to the antagonism
which is provoked by the extraordinary play of fancy on the part of
their writers.
That some of them possess historical value is proved by a Life the
earliest MS. of which is comparatively recent. In the life of St.
Petrock the text of which is not earlier than the fifteenth century it
is stated that “Petrock, after visiting his compatriot St. Sampson,
betook himself _ad cellam Wethnoci episcopi_. A little further on we
read _unde etiam lingua gentis illius Landuuethmoch_ (for Lannwethnoc)
_adhuc usque hodie dicitur_. Now Lannwethnoc presents itself in Domesday
Book under the forms of Lanwehenoc (wrongly written Lanwenahoc) and
Lan-guihenoc.”[85]
The remarkable thing is that a fifteenth-century writer should have
recorded two facts which were as little known at the time when he wrote
as they are to the generality of English readers to-day; the first, that
in the days of St. Petrock a bishop might have been found occupying a
cell, living as a monk or hermit, though not necessarily living alone;
and the second, that there was in pre-Norman times a place bearing the
name of Languihenoc, both of which are placed beyond dispute by the
evidence given us in the chapter on Monastery-Bishoprics and by the
testimony of Domesday Book. It surely requires an imagination of wider
scope to believe that the writer was not transcribing or interpreting an
authentic document than to accept the most fantastic legends of Celtic
saints. The service rendered to research is twofold: it witnesses to the
historicity of the Life even if it does not establish the reputation of
its writer, and it adds one more to our list of Celtic bishops in the
person of Guethnoc, who as Gwethnoc is honoured in Finistère and
elsewhere in Brittany.
At this point it seems convenient to summarise the results of our
survey. It has been maintained that coincidence and resemblance have
been invested with an importance disproportionate to their real value,
that where coincidence has been claimed for the purpose of discrediting
traditional doctrine it has often proved as illusory as the rainbow,
that resemblance unsupported by other evidence has proved to be
imaginary or superficial, that in the case of the Cornish saints, whose
names have been supposed to resemble place-names, there is nothing to
warrant the suspicion that they are eponymous, that the Lives of the
Saints as they have come down to us must be estimated in the light of
the mentality of the writers and readers of them, that, however ornate
or barbaric they may be considered to be, when they record ordinary
events the statements are worthy of investigation and often of
historical value, and that a comparatively modern life of a saint may
afford evidence of the substantial accuracy of the facts which it
records.
It may not unreasonably be asked what then is the attitude to be
observed towards those students of comparative mythology who endeavour
to find a common origin for all religions by studying religious
phenomena? There is no reason why it should not be friendly or even
helpful. But, whatever may be the final verdict of that study, its
present value will be generally determined by psychology rather than by
logic. The man who starts with a theory, whether in favour of a common
origin of religious belief or with one opposed to a common origin, will
probably find enough evidence to confirm his theory. Darwins are not
born every day; yet there is no hope which is more widely shared or more
secretly cherished by those who give themselves to mythological research
than the hope that they are at least potential Darwins. The desire to be
scientific, that is, to reduce to system an array of facts, vastly
preponderates over the desire to ascertain the accuracy of certain
alleged facts and their relation to other facts of a similar nature. It
is possible to accept the statement that worship originated in
sacrifice, in the attempt to propitiate an offended deity, and to deduce
conclusions diametrically opposed to each other. To the Catholic
Christian it will perhaps be a substantial aid to faith, to the
Protestant an encouragement to discard the errors of paganism, to the
unbeliever a confirmation of unbelief. The subject—only as yet in its
infancy—can hardly be ignored. At the same time its ramifications cover
so much ground that comparatively few can be expected to acquire
sufficient knowledge to be in a position to judge of its conclusions.
Archæology, philology, ethnology, ancient philosophy, theology and
mythology are only some of the departments of a study which aims at
determining the origins of religious belief. Who then is sufficient for
these things? He has yet to be born.
Cornwall, with its large admixture of Celtic blood, until lately
speaking a Celtic language, inheriting a Celtic tradition, for centuries
in close contact with Brittany, might have been expected to furnish
materials enabling the student to differentiate the quality of its
religious belief and practice from that of the Midlands. To accept the
same creed is not necessarily to hold the same belief or to have the
same religious ideal. Each people has doubtless its own instinctive
beliefs which may or may not find a place in the creed which is
professed. If those beliefs do find a place in it they will find
emphasised expression in the popular worship. The appeal of Wesley in
the eighteenth century struck home to the instinctive beliefs of the
Cornish. In spite of the marked progress of Anglicanism during the last
half-century the Cornish are largely Methodists, whose worship is still
conducted in buildings which usually have as little claim to beauty as a
railway station. They have no stereotyped form of service, no liturgy
which lends itself to musical adornment. The hospitals and other
charitable institutions in the county have in many cases been built and
are mainly supported by others. And yet the Cornish possess a keen sense
of beauty. They are musical, refined and generous. In skill and
intelligence they will bear comparison with the rest of the United
Kingdom. They are open-minded, fond of discussion and never tired when
it takes a religious turn. Their nearest kinsmen in blood are the
Bretons, with whom they have much in common, although in the matter of
religious practice they are as far as the poles apart. While the latter
cling with unrivalled devotion to the old religion, the former spend
much time, like the men of Athens, in telling or hearing some new thing.
Methodism on the old lines is moribund in Cornwall; Catholicism on the
old lines is a living and a growing power in Brittany. During the last
quarter of a century a remarkable change has passed over the face of
Cornish nonconformity. Revivals have almost become things of the past.
Conversion, theoretically the starting-point of Methodist religion, is
no longer required to be sudden. The class meeting has lost much of its
attractiveness. There is less reverence for the Holy Scriptures. Many of
the old doctrines are being recast. Methodism is in a state of
transition. The drift is towards rationalism, but the end is not yet in
sight. Under these circumstances it is not easy to form a right judgment
or to forecast the future of Cornish Methodism, but to one who has spent
twenty-five years in its midst and who knows how deeply and
instinctively religious is the character of the people it would seem
that at a no distant date there will be a _volte-face_, in other words,
that the essentially religious instinct will reassert itself. Two
alternatives may supervene. There may be a return to the Catholic faith,
Anglican or Roman, of which there are already signs or there may be
recourse to Christian Science, Spiritualism or some occult system which
attracts by its novelty and promises to satisfy religious craving.
Rationalism, which may suit the Teutonic race and be a substitute for
religion, is impossible to the emotional God-fearing temper of the Celt.
-----
Footnote 80:
_Romans de la Table ronde_, p. 90.
Footnote 81:
To quote M. Loth, whose gentle irony would be spoiled by translation,
in his answer to M. Fawtier’s criticism: “Il (M. Fawtier) a été
évidemment, d’avance, fâcheusement impressionné par le fait même
d’avoir affaire à un _hagiographe et ce qui plus est_, comme il
l’avoue sans détour _à un hagiographe breton_. Si nos hagiographes
méritent une place d’honneur dans le martyrologe de la critique, c’est
peut-être bien que nos vies de saints sont d’une assez basse époque:
la vie de Samson mise à part, les deux plus anciennes ont été rédigées
vers la fin du ix^e siècle.”
Footnote 82:
J. Loth, _Revue Celtique_, xxii, p. 96.
Footnote 83:
The text has been edited by M. Fawtier and published by MM. Champion
(Paris). The reader should consult also the more critical notes on _S.
Samson de Dol_, by Prof. Loth (Champion, Paris) and if possible a very
illuminating little treatise, _La vie de S. Samson_, by M. L’Abbé
Duine.
Footnote 84:
Loth, _Saint Samson de Dol_, p. 26.
Footnote 85:
See the previous footnote.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
ANCIENT RELIGIOUS HOUSES
A brief survey of the monastic and quasi-monastic foundations is
required in order to determine if possible which of them, if any, were
originally Celtic in character. It will suffice to take the
_Monasticon_, as edited by Dr. Oliver, and to examine the charters and
notes respecting the several houses and to check them by means of such
other records as are available. Neither Sir William Dugdale nor Dr.
Oliver distinguished between institutions which were Celtic and
institutions which were the common heritage of Western Christianity.
If a monastery existed before the Norman Conquest their main purpose was
to trace it back, if possible, beyond that date, and, having done this,
to record its fortunes as it fared forth through the centuries which
followed. This purpose they achieved by printing in chronological order
all its charters, whether preserved as chirographs or as inspeximi[86]
derived from Charter and Patent Rolls. The following list comprises all
the Cornish religious foundations given in the _Monasticon_:
St. Petrock’s (Bodmin) Priory.
St. German’s Priory.
St. Michael’s (Mount) Priory.
St. Stephen’s (Launceston) Priory.
St. Buryan Collegiate Church.
St. Crantock Collegiate Church.
St. Cyricus, or St. Cyriacus, Priory.
St. Probus Prebendal Church.
St. Keverne Collegiate Church.
St. Piran Collegiate Church.
Minster or Talkarn Priory.
Scilly Priory.
Tregony Priory.
Tywardreath Priory.
St. Anthony, Cell of Plympton.
St. Michael of Lammana Cell.
Truro Convent.
Endellion Collegiate Church.
Glasney Collegiate Church.
St. Michael’s (Penkevil) Collegiate Church.
St. Teath Collegiate Church.
Helston Hospital of St. John the Baptist.
Liskeard Lazar-house.
Of the twenty-three religious houses enumerated the first nine are
mentioned in Domesday Book, which also mentions the priests of St. Neot,
the lands of St. Constantine and of St. Goran and the honour of St. Che
(_Honor St. Chei_). There are also a few churches which call for
examination like those of St. Kew, Mawnan and Manaccan whose religious
character is omitted in both. Languihenoc and Gerrans have been already
considered. It is obvious that to give a full and complete review of all
of them would require not a chapter but a volume.
Before attempting to deal with the subject, within even the narrowest
possible limits, we may profitably ask ourselves what courses were open
to the members of monastic communities, which had been in the ascendant
until the Saxon Conquest of Cornwall, in order that they might come into
line with the new ecclesiastical régime? Three courses presented
themselves. The first was to allow themselves to be disbanded as the
regular clergy were compelled to be at the time of Henry’s reformation;
the second was to conform to the rules of one or other of the recognised
western orders and to become affiliated to it; the third was to
transform their convents of regular clergy into colleges or collegiate
churches of secular clergy. No doubt there was a strong conservative
party who resisted all change, otherwise it would be difficult to
understand the spoliation of which there are traces during the Saxon
period and of which after the Norman Conquest there is abundant proof in
Domesday Book. Of the three courses which have been suggested the third
seems to have been favoured under the Saxons and the second under the
Normans.
Taking the nine monastic bodies which stand at the head of the foregoing
list in order, it will suffice to say that after serving as the seat of
an abbot-bishop the monastery of St. Petrock probably became collegiate
and parochial. In Domesday Book it is always referred to as St. Petrock
or the Church of St. Petrock. The date of its reconstruction as a
monastery is obscure. There does not appear to be any evidence to show
to which of the religious orders it belonged until the _Ordinatio_ of
the Priory by Bishop Grandisson in 1347, in which it is ordained that
the prior and convent shall celebrate the Divine Office and observe
vigil, fast, silence and prayer according to the rule of Blessed
Augustine. Long before that date it had therefore doubtless become a
convent of the Black Canons. Sir John Maclean expressly states, though
on what authority I have not been able to discover, that it was Bishop
William Warelwast (1107-1136) who settled therein regular canons of St.
Augustine. In the _Taxatio_ of the vicarage, by Bishop Bronescombe in
1269, the vicar was assigned, as a part of his emolument, the victuals
(_liberacionem_) of one canon.