A BOOK OF THE WEST
VOL. II.
CORNWALL
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS THE
DESERT OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
STRANGE SURVIVALS SONGS
OF THE WEST A GARLAND OF
COUNTRY SONG OLD COUNTRY LIFE
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES FREAKS OF
FANATICISM A BOOK OF FAIRY
TALES OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES
A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AN
OLD ENGLISH HOME THE VICAR OF
MORWENSTOW THE CROCK OF GOLD
[Illustration: CORNISH FISHERMEN]
A
BOOK OF THE WEST
BEING AN INTRODUCTION
TO DEVON AND CORNWALL
BY S. BARING-GOULD
VOL. II.
CORNWALL
WITH THIRTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK: NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK CO.
LONDON: METHUEN & CO.
1900
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CORNISH SAINTS 1
II. THE HOLY WELLS 28
III. CORNISH CROSSES 38
IV. CORNISH CASTLES 44
V. TIN MINING 52
VI. LAUNCESTON 67
VII. CALLINGTON 96
VIII. CAMELFORD 114
IX. BUDE 134
X. SALTASH 151
XI. BODMIN 163
XII. THE TWO LOOES 173
XIII. FOWEY 188
XIV. THE FAL 200
XV. NEWQUAY 214
XVI. THE LIZARD 242
XVII. SMUGGLING 263
XVIII. PENZANCE 282
XIX. THE LAND’S END 305
XX. THE SCILLY ISLES 329
ILLUSTRATIONS
CORNISH FISHERMEN _Frontispiece_
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
S. MELOR’S WELL, LINKINHORNE _To face page_ 28
From a photograph by the Rev. A. H. Malan.
WELL CHAPEL OF S. CLETHER ” 33
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
CROSS, S. LEVAN ” 38
LAUNCESTON ” 44
From an old print.
A TIN MOULD ” 62
LAUNCESTON, CHURCH PORCH ” 67
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
TREWORTHA MARSH ” 83
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
PLAN OF HABITATION ON TREWORTHA MARSH ” 84
By permission of the _Daily Graphic_.
THE COUNCIL HALL, TREWORTHA MARSH ” 85
By permission of the _Daily Graphic_.
CALLINGTON ” 96
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
CALLINGTON CROSS ” 103
Drawn by F. B. Bond, Esq.
THE CHEESEWRING ” 106
From an old engraving.
ARSENIC MANUFACTURE ” 109
From a photograph by F. B. Bond, Esq.
ARSENIC WORKS ” 110
From a photograph by F. B. Bond, Esq.
KING ARTHUR ” 118
From the tomb of Maximilian I. at Innsbruck.
TINTAGEL ” 122
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
BEEHIVE HUT ” 127
By permission of the _Daily Graphic_.
BUDE ” 134
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
MACES AND SEAL OF SALTASH ” 151
Drawn by F. D. Bedford, Esq.
IN SALTASH ” 152
Drawn by F. D. Bedford, Esq.
ANNE GLANVILLE ” 158
CHALICE, SALTASH ” 161
PADSTOW HARBOUR ” 163
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
FOWEY HARBOUR ” 188
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
LOSTWITHIEL BRIDGE ” 188
Drawn by F. B. Bond, Esq.
S. MAWE’S CASTLE ” 210
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
THE LIZARD ” 242
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
GUNWALLOE CHURCH ” 254
From a sketch by F. B. Bond, Esq.
MOUNT’S BAY ” 262
From a photograph by Messrs. Gibson, Penzance.
LAND’S END ” 305
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
CHÛN QUOIT ” 326
From an old engraving.
THE PULPIT ROCK, SCILLY ” 329
From a photograph.
CORNWALL
CHAPTER I.
THE CORNISH SAINTS
A saint or squab pie--The saints belong to five classes--I.
The members of the royal Dumnonian family--II. Irish-Welsh
colonists--The invasion of Brecknock--Brychan--The
invasion of Cornwall and Devon--Murtogh Mac Earca--III.
Irish in West Cornwall--IV. Welsh-Breton saints--V. Pure
Breton importations--Ecclesiastical colonies--Llans and
cells--Tribal organisation--Ecclesiastical also tribal--The
sanctuary--How a tribe was recruited--Jurisdiction--What a
Celtic monastery was--Rights exercised by the saints--That
of ill-wishing--Missionary methods of the Celtic
saints--Illand and S. Bridget--The power of the keys as the
saints understood it--Reciprocal rights--The saint expected
to curse the enemies of the secular tribe--Asceticism--A
legal process carried into religion--Story of the three
clerks--A higher idea of asceticism gained ground--S.
Columba and the nettles--The saints and animals--And
children--How they used their powers--What they did for
womankind--The biographies, how far trustworthy--The
interest in knowing something of the founders of the
Churches.
The story goes that the devil one day came to the Tamar from the Devon
side and stood rubbing his chin and considering.
“No,” said he, “I won’t risk it. Yonder every person is made into a
saint, and everything into squab pie. I do not feel qualified for
either position.”
And it is a fact that nowhere else in England are there so many
villages bearing the names of saints, and these names strange, and
such as may be sought out in vain in the calendars that are easily
accessible. One is impressed with the idea that the vast majority of
these saints are unknown and negligible quantities.
This, however, is an entirely false assumption, and it is based on the
fact that their history has not been studied.
On close examination it will be found that the saintly names in
Cornwall belong to certain well-defined groups, and when we have
determined the localities occupied by these groups we have taken the
first step towards the elucidation of some important problems in the
early history of Cornwall.
Now let us look at these groups.
I. The first belongs to members of the royal Dumnonian family that
ruled Devon and Cornwall.
The first-known prince was Constantine the Blessed (about 460), whose
brother Aldor migrated to Brittany, and married the sister of Germanus
of Auxerre, who came to Britain in 429 and 447 to oppose the spread of
the Pelagian heresy.
Constantine’s son Erbin, prince of the Dumnonii, died about 480. We
know nothing of him save that he was the father of Geraint, the heroic
king who fell at Langport, in Somersetshire, in 522, fighting against
the Saxons.
His name is familiar to us as the husband of Enid, daughter of the
lord of Caerleon, whose virtues and pathetic story have been revived
with fresh interest in Tennyson’s idyl. Geraint has left his name
at Dingerrein, where was his palace, near the church he founded--S.
Gerrans, in Roseland--and a tomb, supposed to be his, is still pointed
out. Although his story is preserved in the Mabinogion, this story has
no pretence to be regarded as history.
His first cousin was Gwen of the Three Breasts, married to Fragan, also
a cousin, who migrated to Brittany. There is a curious monument of
Gwen in Brittany, on which she is actually represented as having three
breasts. But the expression three- or four-breasted was used of a woman
who was married thrice or four times, and had a family by each husband.
The mother of S. Domangard was called the four-breasted for no other
reason than this.
Fragan and Gwen had three sons--Winwaloe, Wethenoc or Winock, and
James--and although the great field of their labours was in Brittany,
yet they certainly visited their cousins in Cornwall and obtained
grants of land there, for they founded churches in two districts,
where their names remain to this day somewhat disguised in Gunwalloe,
Lewanick, and Jacobstow. Geraint and Enid had several children; the
eldest was Solomon or Selyf, who died about 550.
He married Gwen, sister of Non, the mother of S. David, and it was due
to this connection that Non and her son came to Cornwall and founded
Altarnon, Pelynt, and Davidstowe.
Gwen herself we recognise as S. Wenn; she was the mother of S. Cuby,
founder of Duloe and Tregony. Docwin or Cyngar, brother of Solomon,
was an abbot in Somersetshire. In his old age his nephew Cuby took his
uncle with him to Ireland, where he kept a cow for providing the old
man with her milk. A chief carried off the cow, and Cuby left Ireland
and brought the aged uncle back with him. Docwin or Cyngar was the
founder of S. Kew.
Again, another uncle of S. Cuby was Cado, Duke of Cornwall, who makes
a great figure in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fabulous history, and in
the Arthurian romances. He was father of Constantine, whom Gildas
attacked so venomously in his spiteful letter about 547, and who was
converted by S. Petrock in his old age. We have in Cornwall two of his
foundations and one in Devon.
After his conversion Constantine went to Ireland and entered a
monastery without disclosing who he was. He was discovered by accident;
for, having been set to grind corn with a hand-quern, he was overheard
laughing and saying, “What would my Cornish subjects think were they to
see me thus engaged?”
II. The second group of saints is of Irish-Welsh origin. The Welsh have
a droll legend to account for the Irish conquest of Brecknock.
Meurig, king of Garth-Madrin (a part of Brecknockshire), had a
daughter, Marchell, who said to her father in coaxing terms, “I _do_
want a fur cloak; the winters here are abominably cold.”
“You shall have one,” answered the father.
On cool reflection Meurig considered that fur cloaks were expensive
luxuries, far beyond the means of a petty Welsh prince.
So he said to Marchell, “My dear, I am going to marry you to a very
agreeable young man, Aulac” (Amalgaidh), “an Irish prince, and he has
ample means at his disposal to provide you with the desired fur cloak.”
So Aulac was invited over, found Marchell charming, and carried her
back with him to Ireland.
Now whilst he was in Wales he had allowed his eyes to wander, and
he had seen that there was a good deal of rich and covetable land
there. So he speedily returned at the head of a host of Irish kernes,
and overran, not Brecknock alone, but all Cardigan, Carmarthen, and
Pembroke, and established himself as prince there.
Whether Marchell ever got her fur cloak history does not say.
Aulac and Marchell had a son, Brychan (the Speckled or Tartan-clad),
who has given his name to the county of Brecknockshire.
Brychan was a much-wived man, unless he be greatly misrepresented, and
had a numerous family.
Not only do the Welsh genealogists give him forty-nine children, but
the Irish, the Cornish, and the Bretons attribute to him several more.
The fact is that all Brychan’s family, grandchildren as well as
children, have been run together, for all such as exercised tribal
rights formed the family clan.
In one of the S. Neot’s windows may be seen good old Brychan seated
on a throne, holding a lapful of progeny before him, dense as young
rabbits.
In Ireland the tribes are called after the founder, as the Hy Conaill,
Hy Fiachra, or sons of Conal, sons of Fiech, though grand, great-grand,
and great-great-grandchildren.
Now the Irish who had invaded South Wales were not allowed a peaceful
time in which to consolidate their power, for in the time of the
grandchildren of Brychan, if not in that of his son Cledwyn, king of
Carmarthen, there came down a Northern Briton, named Dyfnwal, into
South Wales and drove them out, and pretty well exterminated the
family of Cledwyn. This must have been about the year 500, and it was
probably due to this that so many of Brychan’s sons and daughters and
grandchildren took to their heels and crossed the Severn Sea, and
established themselves in North Devon and Cornwall.
It was not till about fifty years later that Caradoc Strong-i’-th’-Arm,
the son of a granddaughter of Brychan and prince of Gallewig, the
region about Callington, marched westward from the Severn, and expelled
the invaders, and recovered Brecknockshire.
When the great migration took place it comprised not only the family of
King Brychan, but also the Gwentian royal family, that was allied to it
by blood.
Of course there has accumulated a certain amount of legend about
Brychan, and we cannot really be sure that such a person ever existed;
that, in fact, the name is not really that of a clan, for Breogan,
which is the same as the Welsh Brychan, was the reputed ancestor of
one of the branches of the Scots or Irish who migrated, according to
legend, from Spain to the Emerald Isle.[1]
What is true is that a certain Irish clan did invade and occupy
Brecknock and Carmarthen, as well as Pembrokeshire, and that about 530
they were driven out of the two first counties, and that they thereupon
invaded and occupied North-East Cornwall from Padstow harbour, and the
north of Devon as far as Exmoor. This was not by any means a first
descent. The whole coast had been a prey to invasions from Ireland for
two centuries. On this occasion among the Irish-Welsh from Gwent and
Brecknock came a great number of saints, that is to say, princes and
princesses devoted to the ecclesiastical profession. The significance
of this I shall explain presently.
I will here only point out that almost all the foundations of churches
in North-east Cornwall were made by members of the same Gwent-Brecknock
family. Is there, it may be asked, any Irish record of this invasion?
We have a good many records of earlier forays and occupations of
Britain by the Irish, but of this particular one only a somewhat
confused legend. There was a certain Princess Earca, married to a king
named Saran, in Ireland, who was much engaged in raids in Britain. She
was the daughter of Loarn, king of Alba or Scotland, from whom Lorn
takes its name, the date of whose birth is given by the Irish annalists
as taking place in 434. He was, in fact, one of the Irish Ulster
adventurers who invaded Scotland.
Earca ran away from her husband to be with Murtogh, a distant cousin of
Saran, and she bore him four sons. The most noted of all was Murtogh
MacEarca, who in time became king of Ireland. Saran then married
Earca’s sister, and by her became the father of S. Cairnech and Lurig,
king of the Scots (Irish) in Britain. Murtogh having committed several
murders in Ireland, fled for protection to his grandfather, Loarn, in
Alba, and murdered him. Thereupon he was banished from what we now call
Scotland. He went to his cousin S. Cairnech to bless his arms, as it
was his intention to offer his services to one of the kings of Britain,
and do as much fighting as came in his way. Before leaving Cairnech he
murdered in cold blood his cousin Luirig, and carried off his wife.
In Britain this ruffian, we are told, became the father of Constantine
and Goidel Ficht, who became the reigning princes in Cornwall.
Murtogh was back in Ireland in 488, for we find him there fighting; and
he remained there stirring up strife, and a cause of bloodshed till he
was elected king of Ireland in 508.
Now, Murtogh most certainly when he went to Britain led a body of
adventurers like himself. He is said to have been the father of
Goidel Ficht, who remained there as sovereign. Now, Goidel Fichti
signifies the Irish Picts, neither more nor less, a generic name, and
his fatherhood of the Irish Picts means no more than that his clan or
horde, which swooped down on Cornwall and Wales, regarded themselves as
Hy Murtogh.
It is rather remarkable that his cousin, the whole brother of S.
Cairnech, was named Broechan or Brychan.
Now, in this story, attached to a perfectly historical character, I
cannot but suspect that we have a reference to a descent on Wales and
Cornwall in or about 470-480.
Perhaps it may interest the reader to hear what was the end of this
ruffian.
On his return to Ireland he brawled and fought till he became king in
508.
He was married to a good wife named Duiseach, and had by her a family,
but he fell under the fascinations of a beautiful woman called Shin,
whereupon he turned away his wife; and--by the witchcraft, so it was
supposed, of the witch--one after another of his children was carried
off by disease, possibly by poison. Duiseach fled for refuge to S.
Cairnech, who blessed her and all who would take up her cause, and
gathered together a body of men resolved on fighting to replace her.
Cairnech gave a book and his staff to be carried to battle before the
host.
Now it happened that in a battle fought in 524 Murtogh had killed
Shin’s father and brother, and though the beautiful woman continued to
exercise her blandishments on the king, she had vowed revenge in her
heart against him. She awaited her opportunity. It came on the eve of
Samhain, All Hallows, when high revelry was kept in the hall at Cletty,
where Murtogh was residing. She had the hall secretly surrounded by
her men, and herself set fire to it. Murtogh was very drunk, the fire
caught his clothes, and, unable to escape by the doors, which were
guarded, he threw himself into a vat of wine to quench the flames, and
so perished, partly by fire, partly by wine, in 527.
It is possible--I cannot say more--that as this incursion, mentioned by
the Irish writers, took place precisely at the period of the Brychan
descent, it may refer to it, and that Brychan may actually have been
Murtogh’s half-brother, who accompanied him to Britain to carve out for
himself a kingdom.
III. The third group is likewise Irish, but unmixed with Welsh
elements. This consists of a swarm, or succession of swarms, that
descended about the year 500 upon the Land’s End and Lizard district.
Concerning them we know something more than we do about the second
group.
Happily Leland, who visited Cornwall in the reign of Henry VIII., made
extracts from their legends then in existence, very scanty extracts,
but nevertheless precious. Moreover, we have one complete legend, that
of S. Fingar or Gwinear, written by a Saxon monk of the name of Anselm.
And we have the lives of many of those who made a temporary stay in the
Land’s End and Lizard districts, preserved in Irish MSS.
IV. A fourth group is that of saints, half Welsh and half Breton, who
made a short stay in Cornwall on their way to and fro.
According to Celtic law, all sons equally divided the inheritance and
principalities of their father. The consequence was that on the death
of a king the most masterful of his sons cut the throats of such of
his brothers as he could lay hold of. And as these little games were
enacted periodically in Brittany, the breath was no sooner out of the
body of a prince than such sons as felt that they had no chance of
maintaining their rights made a bolt of it, crossed into Cornwall, and
either halted there or passed through it on their way to Wales, where
they very generally got married.
Then either they or their sons returned to Cornwall and lingered there,
watching events in Brittany for the safe moment to go back and reassert
their rights, and as they rarely could recover princely rights, they
became ecclesiastics; a compromise was effected, and they were allowed
to return and set up as founders of saintly tribes.
Whilst they tarried in Cornwall they occupied their leisure in founding
churches.
Such was S. Samson, with his disciples S. Mewan, S. Austell, and S.
Erme.
Such again was S. Padarn, who established a large settlement where are
the Petherwins.
When Samson crossed from Wales to Cornwall on his way to Brittany, he
sent word to Padarn that he was going to visit him. They were first
cousins. Padarn heard the news just as he had left his bed, and had
pulled on one shoe and stocking. So delighted was he to hear that
Samson was approaching that he ran to meet him with one leg and foot
shod and the other bare.
Samson founded churches at Southill and Golant.
V. A fifth group consists of importations. In the year 919 or 920,
on account of the devastations of the Normans, Brittany was almost
depopulated. The Count of Poher fled with a number of his Bretons
to Athelstan, and he took with him Alan his son, afterwards called
Barbe-torte, who was Athelstan’s godson. At this date Athelstan could
do little for them; he did not ascend the throne till 924, and it was
not till 926 that he defeated Howel, king of the West Welsh, as the
Cornish and Devon Britons were called, and forced him to submission.
In 935 Athelstan passed through Cornwall to Land’s End and Scilly,
and possibly enough he may have then allowed some of these fugitive
Bretons to settle in Cornwall; and this explains the existence there of
churches bearing the names of merely local and uninteresting saints,
as S. Meriadoc at Camborne, S. Moran, and S. Corentin of Cury. These
foundations mean no more than that some of the Breton settlers had
brought with them the relics of their patrons in Rennes, Nantes, and
Quimper. But an early Celtic foundation had quite another meaning.
Among the Celts churches were not generally called after _dead_ saints,
but after their founders. The process of consecration was this:--
A saint went to a spot where a bit of territory had been granted him,
and fasted there for forty days and nights, and continued instant
in prayer, partaking of a single meal in the day, that plain, and
indulging in an egg only on Sundays. At the conclusion of this period
the _llan_ or _cell_ was his for ever inalienably, and ever after it
bore his name. Moreover, among Celtic saints there existed quite
a rage after multiplication of foundations, _daltha_ churches, as
they were called. Unless a saint could point to his baker’s dozen
of churches founded by himself, he was nought. But not all churches
bearing a saint’s name, say that of Petrock, were founded by him in
person. A saint was supposed never to die, never to let go his hold
over his territory. And when in after-years a chief surrendered land to
a monastery, he gave it, not to the community, but to the saint; and
the church built on that land would bear the name of the saint whose
property it was.
The reader may like to hear something about the organisation of the
Church in Celtic lands. But to understand this I must first very
shortly explain the political organisation.
This among all Celtic people was tribal. The tribe, cinnel, clan, was
under a chief, who had his _dun_ or fort. Every subdivision of the
tribe had also its camp of refuge and its headman.
When the British became Christian, Christianity in no way altered
their political organisation. This we may see from the conduct of S.
Patrick, who converted the Irish. He left their organisation untouched,
and accommodated his arrangements for the religious supervision of
the people to that, as almost certainly it existed in Britain, except
perhaps in the Roman colonial cities.
Now this was very peculiar, quite unlike anything that existed in the
civilised Roman world.
This organisation consisted in the creation of an ecclesiastical tribe
side by side with the tribe of the land. The saint was given by the
king or chief a certain territory, and at once he set to work thereon
to constitute an ecclesiastical tribe subject to his rule, precisely
similar to the secular tribe subject to the rule of the chieftain. A
rill of water usually divided the two settlements. The idea of the
church and the priest in the midst of the tribe of the land, acting as
chapel and chaplain did to the Saxon thane or the Norman baron, did not
occur to the Celt. The two tribes coexisted as separate units, but tied
together by reciprocal rights.
The saint having been given a bit of land, at once constituted his
sanctuary. He put up stones or crosses marking his bounds, a thousand
paces from his cell, in a circle.
Every noble, _arglwyd_, or _flath_ exercised rights of sanctuary, and
the extent of his sanctuary constituted his _llan_, or lawn. The lowest
grade of noble had the limits of his lawn marked at the distance of
three throws of a spear or a ploughshare from his door; the _rig_ or
king had his as far as sixty-four pitches.
Now all those who took refuge within the lawn had sanctuary for a
limited period, and the noble or the saint employed this time of
respite to come to terms with the prosecutor, and furnish the fine
(_eric_) appointed by law for the offence committed by the refugee.
If he could not pay the fine he surrendered the man who had come for
sanctuary, but if he paid it, thenceforth that man became his client,
and he provided him with a _bod_ or _both_, a habitation, and land
to cultivate; he became one of his men. This was an important means
whereby the saint recruited his tribe.
Throughout Cornwall a number of sanctuaries remain, under the name of
“sentry fields.” If we could find out how many and where they are, we
should know what were the mother _llans_ of the early saints.
But a saintly tribe was recruited in another way. Every firstling
of the secular tribe was made over to the saint: the first son of a
family, the first lamb and calf. The son did not necessarily become an
ecclesiastic, but he passed into the ecclesiastical tribe, and became
subject to the jurisdiction of the saint.
But it may be asked, What happened when the saint died?
Every chief had his _taanist_, or successor, appointed during his
life, and enjoying certain privileges. So every saint had his _coarb_
chosen to rule in his name, his steward, his representative on earth.
Here came in an usage very strange to Latin minds. The _coarb_
must be of the royal or chieftain’s race, and the right to rule in
the ecclesiastical tribe belonged to the founder’s family, and was
hereditary, whether he were in ecclesiastical orders or not, to a
female as well as to a male. Thus, although in an ecclesiastical
establishment there was always a bishop to confer orders, he did not
exercise jurisdiction. The rule was in the hands of the head of the
sacred tribe. Thus S. Bridget kept her tame bishop, Conlaeth, who was
wholly under petticoat government. He did kick once, and was devoured
of wolves as a judgment, having strayed, against Bridget’s orders,
among the mountains. S. Ninnocha had as many as four bishops under her
command. Bishop Etchen was subject to the jurisdiction of S. Columba,
who was in priest’s orders.
The Celtic Church as we know it, till gradually brought under Roman
discipline, was purely monastic. The monasteries were the centres
whence the ministry of souls was exercised. Within the sanctuary a
rampart was thrown up, generally of earth, and within this was the
church, and about it the separate circular cells occupied by the monks.
Outside the sanctuary and throughout the lands belonging to the saint
lived those subject to the rule of the saint or his coarb.
There was a right exercised by the saint which had previously been
accorded to the bard. It was that of _ill-wishing_. The right was a
legal one, but hedged about with restrictions. A bard, and after him a
saint, might not ill-wish unless he had been refused a just request. If
he ill-wished unjustly, then it was held that the ill-wish returned on
the head of him who had launched it.
And there can be no doubt that this legal power conferred on the saints
inspired terror. If a chief’s horse fell under him, or his cows refused
their milk, if he got a bad cold or rheumatic pains, he immediately
supposed that he had been ill-wished, and sent for the saint, and
endeavoured to satisfy him.
That this supposed power may have been employed occasionally for
ambitious purposes is likely enough, but in general it was exercised
only for good, to release captives, to mitigate barbarities, to stay
bloodshed, to protect the weak against the strong.
A cheap and easy way of explaining the exercise of this power by the
saints is that of saying that they traded on the credulity of the
people. But it is, I am sure, a false appreciation. They were of the
people, steeped in their ideas, and did not rise above them. To trade
on credulity implies a superiority they did not possess. Besides, it
was the exercise of a formal legal right.
There is one rather significant feature in all the missionary work
of the Celtic saints which contrasts sharply with that of our modern
emissaries into “foreign parts.”
What we do is to collect moneys and start a missioner, who, wherever he
goes, draws for his supplies on the mother-country, and depends, and
his entire mission depends, on the charity of those at home. The Celtic
method was absolutely the reverse. The missioner went among strange
people, and threw himself on their hospitality. That is just one of the
great virtues of a savage race, and these Celtic saints caught at the
one noble trait in the characters of the half-barbarians among whom
they went, and worked upon that and from that point.
The chiefs and kings felt themselves bound in hospitality to maintain
them, to protect them, and to give them settlements. How strongly
this feeling operated may be judged by an instance in the life of S.
Patrick, who went to Laogaire, the Irish king, without any backing
up from behind and without presents. When Laogaire refused Patrick
something he wanted, the apostle and his little band refused to eat.
The king was so alarmed lest they should be starved to death, and it be
imputed to him as due to his niggardliness, that he gave way, and let
Patrick have what he desired.
But this system worked on the material interests of the chiefs. They
argued in their calculating way, “Here are all these missionaries. We
have been feeding them, giving them land and cattle; it is a drain on
our resources. We must really get something out of them in return.”
And so, out of that frugal mind which was not the exclusive prerogative
of Mrs. Gilpin, they accepted the gospel--at least, the ministrations
of the saints--as a return for what they had themselves granted them:
acres and cows.
There is a story in the life of S. Bridget that illustrates this
somewhat sordid view taken of their dealings with the saints.
Bridget’s father had been lent a sword by King Illand, son of Dunlaing
of Leinster. He asked his daughter to negotiate with the king that this
sword should become his personal property. She agreed. At the same time
one of Illand’s men threw himself upon her, and begged her to put him
into her tribe. So she asked the king for two things: the man and the
sword.
“Humph!” said he. “What am I to have in return?”
“I will obtain for you eternal life, for one thing, and for the other
the assurance that the crown shall remain to your sons.”
“As to eternal life,” replied the practical and sceptical king, “I have
never seen it, and so do not know what it is worth; as to the boys, if
they are worth their salt, they will maintain their own rights. Give me
victory over those Ulster rascals, and you shall have my man and the
sword.”
So Bridget agreed to this.
These Celtic saints certainly appropriated to themselves the right of
the keys, to give heaven to whom they would, and to exclude from it
whoever offended them. Of course they could appeal to the Bible for
their authority, and who were these half-wild men to dispute it with
them and quibble the text away? That they were sincere in their belief
that the power of the keys was given to them is certain.
I have mentioned reciprocal rights.
Now one of those demanded of the saint by the chief of the land was to
march with him to battle and to curse his enemies.
This had been what was expected and exacted of the chief Druid; and in
this, as in many another particular, the saint stepped into the shoes
of the Druid. This is frankly enough admitted in one life, in which
we are told that the king sent for S. Finnchu to curse his enemies,
because the Druid was too old and feeble to do the job effectively.
When a saint passed out of this world he left a bell, a book, or a
crosier, to be the _cathair_ of the tribe, and his coarb marched with
it in his name before the tribesmen.
When the tribe was successful in battle, then certain dues were paid to
the saint for his assistance.
In the lives of some of the early Celtic saints we are told strange
stories of their self-mortification, their rigorous fasts. This was due
to a very curious cause.
According to the Celtic law of distress, the appellant took the matter
into his own hands. There was no executive administration of law.
Everyone who was aggrieved had to exact the penalty as best he might.
If he were too weak to recover the penalty by force, then the legal
proceeding for him was to fast against the debtor or aggressor. He sat
down at his door and starved himself. The person fasted against almost
always gave way, as the fact of the institution of the fast doubled the
fine, and as he did not venture to allow the creditor to proceed to the
last extremities lest he should entail on himself a blood feud.
When S. Patrick wanted to carry a point with King Lear (Laogaire) he
adopted this method and succeeded, and the king gave way.
There is a very odd story--of course mere legend--of S. Germanus
when he came to Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy. He found one
particular city mightily opposed to the orthodox doctrine, and as he
could not convince the citizens by reasoning with them, he and his
attendant clerks sat down at the gates and starved themselves to force
the citizens into adopting the true faith.
The same law of distress is found in the code of Menu, and the British
Government has had to forbid the _dharma_--_i.e._ the legal fasting
against a creditor--from being put in practice in India.
Now, very naturally, and by an easy transition, the early Celtic
saints carried their legal ideas into their religion, and just as when
S. Patrick, wanting something from King Lear, fasted against him till
he obtained it, so did the followers of Patrick, when they desired
something of God for themselves or for others, proceed against Him by
the legal method of levying a distress.
This is frankly admitted in an odd story in the _Book of Lismore_.
Three clerks agreed together that they would each recite a certain
number of psalms daily, and that should one die the other two would
share his psalms between them. All went smoothly enough for a while.
Then one died, whereupon the survivors divided his portion of the
Psalter between them. But soon after a second died, whereat the
third found himself saddled with the sets of psalms that appertained
to both the others. He was very angry. He thought the Almighty had
dealt unfairly by him in letting the other two off so lightly and
overburdening him, and in a fit of spleen and resentment _he fasted
against Him_.
But this view of asceticism was held only at the outset, and rapidly
sounder ideas gained the mastery, and we find self-denial in the saints
assume quite another complexion.
An instance in point is in the life of S. Columba. One day he saw a
poor widow gathering stinging-nettles, and he asked her why she did it.
“For the pot,” said she; “I have no other food.”
The good old man was troubled. He went back to the monastery and said
to the cook, “I will eat nettles only now.”
When this had gone on for some time, his disciple who cooked the
nettles for him saw that he was falling away in flesh, so he took
a hollow elder-stick, put butter into the tube, and by this means
enriched the dish.
S. Columba said, “The nettles do not taste as before. They have a
richer flavour. What have you done to them?”
“Master dear,” answered his disciple, “I have put nothing into the pot
but this stick, wherewith I stirred its contents.”
Nor were they pedantic in observance of rule.
Travellers came to S. Cronan, and he had meat and ale set on the board,
and he himself and his monks sat down to make merry with them.
“Humph!” said a formalist among them, “at this rate I do not see much
prospect of matins being said.”
“My friend,” answered Cronan, “in receiving strangers we receive
Christ; as to the matins, the angels will sing them in our room.”
Finding that some travellers had wandered all night unable to find
shelter, “This will never do,” said he; “I shall move my quarters to
the roadside.”
Though rough in their treatment of themselves, they were tender-hearted
and kind to bird and beast and man. It was through a frightened fawn
flying for refuge to S. Petrock that Constantine was brought to
repentance. S. Columba prayed with his arms extended till the birds
perched on his hands. Another Columba, the founder, as I suspect, of
Columb Major and Minor, was almost incommoded with their affection,
fluttering about his face.
“How is it,” asked one of his disciples, “that the birds avoid us and
gather round you?”
“Is it not natural,” answered the saint, “that birds should come to a
bird?”
A play on his name, for Columba signifies a dove.
S. Cainnech saw a rich lady with a starved dog.
“Who feeds that poor brute?” he asked.
“I do,” answered the lady.
“Feed it? Maltreat it. Go and eat what you cast to the poor hound, and
in a week return and tell me how you relish such treatment.”
One day an abbot saw a little bird with drooping wings.
“Why is the poor thing so wretched?” he asked.
“Do you not know,” said a bystander, “that Molua is dead? He was full
of pity to all animals. Never did he injure one. Do you marvel then
that the little birds lament his decease?”
It was the same with regard to children.
One day King Eochaid sent his little son with a message to S.
Maccarthen. The child’s mother gave him an apple to eat on the way.
The boy played with it, and it rolled from him and was lost. He hunted
for his apple till the sun set, and then, tired, laid himself down in
the middle of the road and fell asleep. Maccarthen was going along the
road and found the sleeping child there. He at once wrapped his mantle
round him, and sat by him all night. Many horsemen and cars passed
before the child woke, but the old man made them get by as best they
might, and he would neither suffer the child to be disturbed, nor let
an accident befall him in the dark.
Great as were the powers conferred on the Celtic saints or arrogated to
themselves, there can be no doubt but that they employed them mainly
as a means of delivering the innocent, and in putting down barbarous
customs.
S. Erc--in Cornwall Erth--made use of his influence to prevent the king
of Connaught from baptising his new lance, after pagan custom, in the
blood of an infant; S. Euny his in rescuing a boy from being tossed
on the spears of some soldiers. Again, finding after a battle that it
was the custom to cut off the heads of all who had fallen, and stack
them at the king’s door to be counted, he with difficulty induced the
victors to take turves instead of the heads.
I do not think we at all adequately appreciate the service the saints
rendered to the Celtic nations in raising the tone of appreciation of
woman.
Next to founding their own monastic establishments, they were careful
to induce their mothers or sisters to establish communities for the
education of the daughters of the chiefs and of all such maidens as
would be entrusted to them.
The estimation in which woman had been held was very low. In the gloss
to the law of Adamnán is a description of her position in the house. A
trench three feet deep was dug between the door and the hearth, and in
this, in a condition almost of nudity, the women spent the day cooking,
and making candles out of mutton suet. In the evening they were
required to hold these candles whilst the men caroused and feasted, and
then were sent to sleep in kennels, like dogs, outside the house as
guardians, lest a hostile attack should be made during the darkness.
The current coin seems to have been, in Ireland, a serving-maid, for
all fines were calculated by _cumals_--that is, maidservants--and the
value of one woman was the same as that of three cows.
A brother of one of the saints came to him to say that he was bankrupt;
he owed a debt of seven maidservants to his creditor, and could not
rake so many together. The saint paid the fine in cows.
Bridget’s mother was sold as a slave by the father of Bridget to a
Druid, and the father afterwards tried to sell his daughter; but as the
idea had got about that she was wasteful in the kitchen, he could not
find a purchaser.
But this condition of affairs was rapidly altered, and it was so
through the influence of the saints and the foundation of the great
schools for girls by Bridget, Itha, Brig, and Buriana.
Till the times of Adamnán women were called out to fight as well as the
men, and dared not refuse the summons. Their exemption was due to this
abbot. He came on a field of battle and saw one woman who had driven
a reaping-hook into the bosom of another, and was dragging her away
thereby. Horror-struck, he went about among the kings of Ireland and
insisted on the convocation of an assembly in which he carried a law
that women were thenceforth exempted from this odious obligation.
I have but touched the fringe of a great subject, which is one that has
been unduly neglected. The early history of Cornwall is inextricably
mixed up with that of the saints who settled there, or who sprang from
the native royal family. We have unhappily no annals, hardly a Cornish
record, of those early times. Irish, Welsh, Bretons, have been wiser,
and have preserved theirs; and it is to them we are forced to appeal to
know anything of the early history of our peninsula. As to the saintly
lives, it is true that they contain much fable; but we know that they
were originally written by contemporaries, or by writers very near the
time. S. Columba of Tir-da-Glas, whom I take to have been the founder
of the two Columbs in Cornwall and Culbone in Somersetshire, caught one
of his disciples acting as his Boswell, noting down what he said and
did, and he was so angry that he took the MS. and threw it in the fire,
and insisted on none of his pupils attempting to write his life.
S. Erc was wont to retire in Lent to jot down his reminiscences of
S. Patrick. The writer of the _Life of S. Abban_ says, “I who have
composed this am the grandson of him whom S. Abban baptised.” But about
the eleventh century a fashion set in for rewriting these histories and
elaborating the simple narratives into marvellous tales of miracle,
just as in James I.’s reign the grand simple old ballads of the English
nation were recomposed in stilted style that robbed them of all their
poetry and most of their value.
Now it is almost always possible to disengage the plain threads of
history from the flourish and frippery that was woven in at this late
period. The eye of the superficial reader is at once caught by all the
foolery of grotesque miracle, and turns in disgust from the narrative;
but if these histories be critically examined, it will almost always be
found that the substratum is historical.
Surely it affords an interest, and gives a zest to an excursion into
Cornwall, when we know something of the founders of the churches, and
they stand out before us as living, energetic characters, with some
faults, but many virtues, and are to us no longer _nuda nomina_.