It is not my intention to enter on any discussion relative to the
remote and obscure antiquity of Bodmin. Tanner, in his Notitia
Monasticon, says Bodmin, or Bodmanna.
There was a church built here to the memory of St. Petroc, a religious
man born in Wales, but who, coming from Ireland, is said to have built
a monastery on the north coast of Cornwall, about A.D. 520, and to
have been there buried; but his body being afterwards removed to
Bodmin, a church was built to his memory, and the episcopal see for
Cornwall was believed to have been therein placed by King Edward the
Elder and Archbishop Plegmund, A.D. 705. Here King Æthelstan is
reported to have met with old Saxon, or rather British, monks
following the Rule of St. Benedict, to whom he granted so great
privileges and endowments that he is accounted founder of the
monastery here, about A.D. 926. That settlement was destroyed by the
Danish pirates, A.D. 981; yet the religious continued here under
several shapes, and much alienation of their lands, both before and
after the Conquest, till about the year 1120, when Earl Algar, with
the King’s license, and the consent of William Warlewach, Bishop of
Exeter, re-established this religious-house, and placed therein
regular canons of the Order of St. Austin, who continued till the
general suppression, when it was styled the Priory of St. Mary and St.
Petroc, and was valued at 270_l._ per annum according to Dugdale, and
289_l._ 12_s._ according to Speed. The site, with the demesnes, were
granted, 36th of Henry VIII. to Thomas Sternhold, one of the first
translators of the Psalms into English metre.
Any one desirous of learning all that can be known or conjectured
respecting the Western Bishopric, is referred to “The Ancient
Cathedral of Cornwall historically surveyed,” by the Rev. John
Whitaker; where that subject and various others are discussed, with
the eloquence, ability, erudition, and confidence, usually displayed
by that eminent writer; who appears always to assume throughout the
whole of his work the very questionable fact, that monastic
historians, distant both in time and in space from the events which
they relate, are possessed of perfect information, and that their
narratives flow with unerring accuracy, at a period when none of the
inventions for rapidly carrying intelligence, and for stamping it with
the authentic impression of public notoriety, had yet occurred to the
human mind.
I willingly leave these recondite, and, in truth, little interesting
researches, for others of a more modern date, the objects of which are
still extant, and their effects influencing the present times. Those
connected with Bodmin we owe, in a great measure, to the ability, the
industry, and the laudable zeal of Mr. John Wallis, the present vicar,
on whom I would readily bestow more praise, if his merits had not
rendered commendation from me superfluous.
One event, however, intermediate between the Saxon antiquities of
Bodmin and those disclosed by Mr. Wallis, is so very curious, and so
illustrative of opinions and of habits long passed away, that I cannot
help inserting the details of it from Benedictus Abbas, an author of
high reputation, Abbot of the great monastery of St. Peter at
Medeshamsted, or Peterborough, and contemporary with the transactions
which he relates.
In his work “De Vita et Gestis Henrici secundi et Ricardi primi,” ex
editione Thomæ Hearnii, Oxon. 1735, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. i. pp. 228-229.
Eodem anno, quidam Canonicus de Abbatiâ Bothmeniæ, quæ in partibus
Cornubiæ sita est, Martinus nomine, statim post Epiphaniam Domini,
furtivè asportavit Corpus Sancti Petroci; et cum eo fugiens
transfretavit, et illud secum detulit usque ad Abbaciam Sancti
Mevenni, sitam in partibus Minoris Britaniæ. Quod cùm Rogero Priori
Bothmeniæ & Canonicis ibidem Deo servientibus innotuisset, predictus
Prior, consilio Fratrum suorum, D’n’m Regem Angliæ Henricum, filium
Matildæ Imperatricis, adiit, ut, per ipsius potentiæ auxilium, Corpus
Sancti Petroci, quod per furtum amiserant, recuperassent. Ad
instantiam autem illorum, concessit eis præfatus Rex auxilium suum; &
mandavit per litteras suas Rollando de Dinamno Justiciaris Britanniæ,
quod sine dilatione faceret illud Corpus reddi. Audito itaque mandato
Regis, prædictus Rollandus venit cum armatâ manu & potenti ad Abbatiam
Sancti Mevenni, et præcepit illud corpus reddi; quod cùm Abbas et
Monachi ejusdem loci reddere nollent, ipse minas addidit, jurans se
per vim, nisi celerius redderetur, extrahere velle illud. Quod ipsi
audientes, noluerunt iram prefati Regis Angliæ incurrere: sed beatum
Corpus illud reddiderunt prænominato Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ, die
Dominicâ Clausi Pentecosten, festo scilicet Sanctorum Gervasii et
Prothasi, Martyrum, scilicet 13 kalendas Julii; redditumque est ei
corpus illud Sanctum cum omni integritate, & sine aliquâ diminutione,
Abbate & Monachis Ecclesiæ Sancti Mevenni, jurantibus super Reliquias
ejusdem Ecclesiæ quòd de Corpore illo nihil retinerent, sed idem
Corpus non alternatum redderent. Quod cùm factum fuisset, prænominatus
Prior Bothmeniæ cum gaudio in Angliam rediens, Corpus beati Petroci in
Teca Eburnea reconditum, usque Civitatem Wintoniæ detulit; et cùm in
conspectu Regis allatum fuisset: Rex, viso eo & adorato, permisit
prædictum Priorem in pace, cum Sancto suo, ad Abbatiam Bothmeniæ
redire.[18]
Which may be thus translated:
“In the same year (1177), immediately after the Epiphany of
our Lord, a certain Canon of the Abbey of Bodmin, in
Cornwall, by name Martinus, secretly took away the body of
St. Petroc. Flying with it, he passed beyond the seas, and
carried the body to the Abbey of Saint Mevennus, in Lesser
Britany.
“When this transaction became known to Roger the Prior of
Bodmin, and to the Canons who served God in the same place,
the aforesaid Prior, with the advice of his brethren, went
to Henry King of England, son of the Empress Matilda, that
by his powerful aid they might again get possession of the
body of St. Petroc, of which they had been fraudulently
deprived. The King granted his aid to their entreaty, and by
his letters commanded Rollandus de Dinamnus, the Justiciary
of Britanny, that, without any delay, he should cause the
body to be restored. When, therefore, Rollandus had received
the King’s command, he came with a powerful and armed band
to the Abbey of St. Mevennus, and ordered that the body
should be given up; and when the Abbat and the Monks were
unwilling to comply, he added threats, that, unless the body
were yielded immediately, he would use force and take it;
which when they heard, they feared to incur the displeasure
of the King of England, and therefore restored that blessed
body to the before-named Roger, Prior of Bodmin, on the
Lord’s Day (Clausi Pentecostes), being the feast of St.
Gervasius and of St. Prothasius, martyrs, the thirteenth
before the calends of July (June the 19th). And that sacred
body was restored in all its integrity, without the least
diminution; the Abbat and Monks of St. Mevennus having sworn
on the relics belonging to their church that they had not
retained any part of the body, but had restored it wholly
unaltered.
“When this was done, the before-named Prior of Bodmin,
returning with joy into England, brought the body of the
blessed Petroc, closed in an ivory case, to the City of
Winchester. And when it was brought into the King’s
presence, the King, having seen and adored it, permitted the
Prior to return in peace with his Saint charge to the Abbey
of Bodmin.”
It would appear that such depredations must have frequently occurred,
since one precisely similar, but not followed by a restoration of the
relics, took place in the neighbouring monastery of St. Neot. In this
case, the stolen body of the Saint, having been enshrined at
Eynesbury, in Huntingdonshire, bestowed his name as a new appellation
to the place. See “A Description, accompanied by sixteen coloured
plates, of the Church of St. Neot, in Cornwall,” by J. P. Hedgeland, 1
vol. 4to. 1830, with Illustrations by Davies Gilbert.
Mr. Wallis has collected a very great variety of curious and
interesting particulars respecting this town and parish, and given
them to the public in a work entitled, “The Bodmin Register; or,
Collections relative to the past and present State of the Parish of
Bodmin.” And, in doing so, he has proved that the antiquities of a
county cannot in any way be illustrated, except by the exertions of
individuals locally residing in the district to which their attentions
are directed, and that from zeal and ability in such persons every
thing may be expected.
The following are extracts from this publication:
The benefice is a vicarage in the gift of Lord de Dunstanville,
situated in the Deanery of Trigg Minor, and in the hundred of Trigg.
The following are the dimensions of the church: length 151 feet,
breadth 63 feet. The greater part was built in the reign of King
Edward the Fourth. It was roofed in 1472, as appears by an inscription
on the cornice on the northern side of the south aile of the chancel.
The northern chancel and the tower appear to be of an earlier date.
The walls of the tower are eight feet thick at the base, made for the
support of a lofty spire, which was destroyed by lightning, between
seven and eight o’clock on Saturday evening, December the 9th, 1699.
The present awkward pinnacles were then erected: three of them are
dangerous from the decay of the stone.
The ancient building in the church-yard, adjoining to the
vicarage-house, was, it is believed, a chantry chapel dedicated to St.
Thomas. The interior, 44 feet 9 inches by 19 feet, was used till
lately for the free grammar-school. It is now converted to a national
school for girls. Under is a crypt or bone-house.
The isolated tower at Berry, on the north of the town, belonged to the
chapel of the Holy Rood. The building of this tower was commenced on
the 12th of September, 17th of King Henry VII. 1501.
Since the year 1814, both the church and church-yard, which were in a
very ruinous and neglected state, have been greatly altered and
improved.
Over the porch are the remains of two small rooms, each about eleven
feet square, formerly the record and the council rooms of the
corporation. The floor of the higher one, the record room, gave way
about eighty years ago, as some gentlemen were inspecting the
documents. In the lower room some valuable records had remained for a
long time neglected, till in the year 1807 or 1808 they were removed
to the guild-hall, and there examined and arranged. They contain many
curious particulars relative to the history of the parish, and
incidentally of the county, during a period of five hundred years, the
oldest document bearing date in the 14th Edward II. (1320). Among them
is a charter of the 36th Edward III. (1362); another, in good
preservation, of the 3d year of Richard II. (1380), having reference
to the reigns of Henry the First and Second. A minute of the receipts
and payments for the rebuilding of the church, in the years 1469,
1470, and 1471; and also for the erection of Berry Tower, in 1501; the
contract with Matthy More, carpenter, for making the pulpit and open
seats throughout the church in 1491, the carved remains of which are
at present much admired; Resolutions of the Corporation on the
destruction of the spire in 1699; also a Petition to King Henry the
Eighth, on the eve of the Reformation, conveying some ludicrous
charges against the Prior; with various others.
In the north chancel is the altar-tomb of Prior Vivian, the
inscription on which has been inserted in page 76. The tomb was
repaired, and placed between two pillars of the chancel, in 1819, by
the late Sir Vyell Vyvyan, of Trelowarren.
The very splendid organ was given, in the year 1775, by Mr. James
Laroche and Mr. George Hunt, at that time Members for the town.
Mr. Wallis enters into a very minute detail of particulars highly
interesting to the immediate neighbourhood, but which would occupy too
much space in a general parochial history of Cornwall.
The carving in the church is indeed greatly admired, but a large part
of that admiration is excited by the appropriate and judicious manner
in which it has been rendered ornamental by the present vicar.
The inscriptions on various monuments are noticed by Lysons, and other
writers.
But a splendid addition has been recently made to the decorations of
the church by Lord De Dunstanville, on his retiring from the office of
recorder in the corporation. The large east window of the chancel is
entirely filled with painted glass, and the middle part contains a
well-drawn representation of the Ascension.
Bodmin parish contains 5279 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815:
The Town 7784
The Parish 3077
―――― 10,861 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831:
The Town 1012 0
The Parish 318 10 1330 10 0
Population, in 1801: | in 1811: | in 1821: | in 1831:
The Town 1951 | 2050 | 2902 | 3375.
The Parish 348 | 383 | 376 | 407.
―――――― ―――――――― ―――――― ――――――
Total 2299 2383 3278 3782
Increase on a hundred in 30 years, sixty-four and a half per cent.