St. Cleather is situate in the hundred of Lesnewith, and hath upon the
north, Trenegles; east, Egles-kerry and Laneast; south, part of
Altarnun; west, Davidstowe. For the name of St. Cleather, it refers to
the vicar of the church, and in Cornish, signifies a sacred, or holy
fencer or gladiator; a person that exercises a spiritual sword for
offence or defence in a holy manner; and as in this place by the holy
fencer is to be understood the vicar, so by his sword is signified την
μαχαιραν του πνευματος ὅ ’στι ῥῆμα Θεου, gladium spiritus, quod est
verbum Dei, i. e. the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester aforesaid,
1294, Ecclesia de Sancto Clede, or Cledredi, in Decanatu de Lesnewith,
was valued to its first fruits 6_l._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition, and
Valor Beneficiorum, 6_l._ 11_s._ 0½_d._; the incumbent, Harris; and
the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound land-tax, 1696, 71_l._ 4_s._
8_d._ Quere, whether St. Clede, or Clete, mentioned in that
Inquisition aforesaid, relate not to St. Clete, or Cletus, Bishop of
Rome and martyr, as the tutelar guardian and patron of this church?
whose history in short is thus: He was born at Rome, of an old family
of gentlemen or noblemen, in the reign of Tiberius; whose father’s
name was Emelianus, a Christian, that placed his son Clete a disciple
under St. Peter; after which he made him and Linnus coadjutors in the
ministry. To Linnus St. Peter gave the charge of affairs within Rome,
to Cletus the charge of the churches abroad; and those two holy men
had both the succession of the Bishopric of Rome, after St. Peter’s
death, (Clement through humility declining that office, who in justice
should have had it,) till the time that Domitian, the son of
Vespasian, enjoyed the empire, who, degenerating from the morality of
his father and brother Titus, raised the second persecution against
the Christians; at which time, amongst many others, St. Cletus Bishop
of Rome received the crown of martyrdom, after he had held the
Bishopric twelve years and seven months and two days, 26th April, anno
Dom. 91, tempore Domitian. He lies buried by the body of St. Peter at
Rome, and is one of the saints mentioned in the Canon of the Mass, as
also in St. Paul’s Epistle to Timothy. He is said, by order of St.
Peter, to have divided the City of Rome into twenty-five districts or
parishes, and to have set up a priest to rule and govern in spiritual
matters over such Christians as were within the same, and attended
their predicaments; whose successors afterwards in those churches were
called cardinals.
See Peransand for the family of Cleathers.
Bas-ill, in this parish, or Bas-yll, in former ages (at best being but
a poor corn country) has been for many ages the seat of the worshipful
family of the Trevillians [Trevelyan]; the present possessor, Peter
Trevillian, Esq. that married Borlace, his father Arundell.
His ancestor was John Trevillian, Esq. of Nettlecomb in Somerset, who
was sheriff of Somerset and Dorset 17 Henry VII.; his grandson John
Trevillian, Esq. was sheriff of Cornwall 38 Henry VIII. The arms of
which gentlemen are in a field Gules, a demy horse Argent, issuing out
of the waves of the sea Azure, grounded upon a tradition that one of
their ancestors, at the supposed general inundation or concussion into
the sea, of a tract of land called Lyon-ness, extending from St.
Sennan to the Scilly Islands, saved himself by sitting on the back of
a white horse, whilst he swam from thence through the sea to the
insular continent of Cornwall, where he came safe to land; but when I
consider that Solinus, who lived 1500 years past, tells us that the
Cassiterides, by which he means the Scilly Islands (or the tin
islands), in his days were separated from the coast of the Danmonii,
by a rough sea of two or three hours’ sail (as it still appears to
be), and that hereditary coat armours and surnames in Britain are
little above five hundred years old in Britain or Cornwall, there is
small credit to be given to this tradition.
In this parish, or part of Davidstowe, is Foye-fenton, the original
fountain of the Foys River; which well, in old records, is also called
West Fenton, i. e. the west well, to distinguish it from Mark well in
Lanick, otherwise east well; from which places the two cantreds
(hundreds) of Eastwellshire and Westwellshire are denominated. And to
this purpose it is evident, from Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 41,
that in 3 Henry IV. Reginald de Ferrar held in East Fenton and West
Fenton, several knights’ fees of land of the honour of Tremeton, which
is now East and West Hundreds. (See also St. Stephen’s by Saltash, of
those tenures in 1360.)