Paul is in the hundred of Penwith, and is bounded to the west by St.
Burian and Sancreed, to the north by Maddern, to the east and south by
the Channel and Mount’s Bay.
This parish is dedicated to the famous St. Paulinus (and not the
apostle Paul, as it is commonly thought), who was sent by Pope Gregory
the First in 601 from Rome, with St. Justus, to accompany St. Austin
the Monk for the conversion of the Saxons. In 625 he accompanied the
Princess Ethelburgha, daughter to Ethelbert King of Kent, when she
married Edwyn King of the Northumbrians, where he laboured so
effectually that he converted that king and the greatest part of his
people,[7] so that he was consecrated the first Archbishop of York,
and Pope Honorius sent him the pall about the year 630; but, Edwyn
being killed in battle in 633 by Cadwallo King of the Britons, and
Penda King of Mercia, he was forced to fly back into Kent with Queen
Ethelburga and her children, where her brother Eadbald, King thereof,
receiving them with all kindness, made Paulinus Bishop of Rochester,
where he ended his days on the 10th of October 644.
This church is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book at £13. 11_s._
6_d._; the Patronage in the Crown; the Impropriation of the sheaf and
tithes of fish in William Guavis, esq.; the Incumbent Mr. Henry
Pendarves.
In anno 1291, 20 Edw. I. this church was valued at £9. 6_s._ 8_d._
being then appropriated to the Abbey of Hailes, in Gloucestershire. To
this abbey the tithes of corn and fish were appropriated, and so
became lay-fees at the dissolution of the abbey.