In dealing with the Norman period, to make the story of Breage clear, it
is necessary in the first place again to refer briefly to the Earldom of
Cornwall. From the time of the Norman Conquest, when the earldom was
created, to the time of Edward the Black Prince, when it was exalted
into a duchy, the earldom was held by a series of twelve earls. Since
the time of the Black Prince the Duchy of Cornwall has always been held
by the eldest son of the reigning Sovereign.
Giraldus describes the ecclesiastical polity of the Normans in no
flattering terms. If his version be correct--and there seems little
reason in the main to doubt it--the Normans simply regarded the
endowments of the Church as a means of satisfying the rapacity of a
swarm of needy ecclesiastics from the other side of the Channel.
As the possession of the land was torn from the Saxon nobles and handed
over as largess to Norman Knights, so too the endowments of the Church
were regarded as fitting spoil for Norman Priests. According to
Giraldus, the method of the Norman Priest might be summed up in the
words "_pasci non pascere_." He also charges the Norman Clergy with
great ignorance and gross immorality, though many of the Saxon Clergy
were dispossessed by the Conqueror on the specious charge of immorality,
as the Prior and Canons of Plympton St. Mary, near Plymouth. Doubtless
the invectives of Giraldus are somewhat highly coloured, but after all
it seems but too clear that they contain more than a substratum of
truth.
It is evident from existing remains that Norman Churches were built
both at Breage and Germoe, possibly about the year 1100. The building of
these Churches was no doubt at the expense of the Earls of Cornwall, in
accordance with the prevailing custom. Whether Saxon Churches succeeded
the ancient Celtic Churches it is impossible to say. If the Saxons did
find the humble Celtic Churches inadequate and built new ones, at any
rate no vestige or record of them survives. The remains of the Norman
Church built on the site of the present Church at Breage consist only of
a couple of fragments, but yet these two fragments are sufficient to
make it clear that the present Church was preceded by a Norman Church. A
projecting stone of bluish grey colour, let into the northern wall by
the door of the present vestry, bears distinct marks of Norman
workmanship, and some twenty years ago more than a fragment of a Norman
font was found outside the north door of our Church. This interesting
relic was incorporated into the new font at present in use, which was
fashioned on the model of the ancient Norman font at Cury.
At Germoe, on the other hand, the remains of a Norman Church are
altogether more abundant. Here the foundations and lower portions of the
east and south walls are evidently of Norman workmanship, as also the
east and south walls of the south transept. During the restoration of
1891 the head of a Norman window was discovered built into the wall of
the south transept. This little window has been carefully restored by
the addition of two new jambs and a stone sill; on examination it will
be discovered that this Norman window arch is slightly chamfered. Other
discoveries made at the restoration were the Norman corbel heads, now
built into the outside face of the east wall of the north aisle, and the
bowl of a Norman stoup, which has been built into the south wall of the
nave, with a new arch placed over it. In the foundations of the Church
was also discovered the bowl of a mutilated Norman font, which now
stands on a new rough-hewn stem in the north transept. The date of this
font is placed by Mr. Sedding, in his "Norman Churches in Cornwall," at
about 1100. If we regard this date of 1100 as correct, it will serve as
some clue to the date of the building of the Norman Churches at Breage
and Germoe. Assuming this date to be approximately correct, the churches
were built by William Fitz Robert or William de Mortain, Earl of
Cornwall, son of Earl Robert de Mortain of Domesday Book. This
unfortunate nobleman joined his cousin Robert de Belesme in rebellion
against Henry I. with disastrous consequences. He was taken prisoner at
the battle of Tenchebrai and deprived of his estates and honours, and
his eyes were put out by the hands of the executioner. In his blindness
and misery he sought peace in the bosom of the Church, of which it seems
at least probable that he was a benefactor in the days of his
prosperity, and died a Cluniac Monk in the Monastery of Bermondsey.
The question of patronage is one of extreme difficulty; it seems more
than probable that the patronage went to the builders of the Churches;
in this case the patronage of Breage would naturally pass at the
building of the Norman Churches to the Earldom of Cornwall. At any rate
we find the patronage of the benefice attached to the Earldom at the
beginning of the thirteenth century.
Leland states that Germoe was originally a cell of St. Michael's Mount.
In this statement he is followed by Hals. It seems probable that on this
point Leland was misled by some statement made locally to him, as there
is no shred of existing evidence to support this view. Domesday and the
Monasticon are alike silent upon the subject and lend no countenance to
it. It is true Hals, apparently in support of this contention, evolved a
fictitious Inquisition of the Bishops of Winchester and Gloucester from
the depths of his subliminal consciousness. In this precious Inquisition
"Sancto Gordon," as Germoe is styled "in the Deanery of Kerrier," is
valued at £8. More to the point is the fact that in 1246 Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, made over the living of Breage with the Chapels of Cury,
Gunwalloe and Germoe to the Abbey of Hayles.
In Lysons' Cornwall it is stated that the Chapel of St. Germoe was given
by William, Earl of Gloucester, to the Priory of St. James, Bristol. The
learned authors have here fallen into a mistake for which there is
reasonable excuse; they have confounded the church of St. Breoke[22] in
North Cornwall with St. Breage and a Church of Germot, possibly on the
Norman lands of the Earl of Gloucester, with Germoe. The Earl of
Gloucester never held any lands in this district. This statement of the
Lysons has also been freely used by subsequent writers of county
histories. It seems clear that at no period of its history was Germoe
ever ecclesiastically independent of Breage; it is probable that in
early times it was served like Cury and Gunwalloe by clergy living
together under the collegiate system at Breage. In the _Inquisitio
Nonarum_ of 1346 we read "ecclesia Sanctae Bryacae cum Capellis
Sanctorum Corenti, Wynyantoni et Gyrmough," which makes it quite clear
that at that date Germoe was included in the parish of Breage.
With the coming of the Normans the value of Cornwall's mineral wealth
seems to have been quickly grasped. The successive Earls were greedy
foreigners, who valued their Fief mainly for what it would produce; it
was not so much Cornwall they wanted as Cornwall's wealth. By the time
of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, the mines of Cornwall
had become a source of immense wealth, 1224-72. Possibly the building of
Churches both at Breage and Germoe in Norman times may have been due to
the large influx of population owing to the opening up of local mines.
At the beginning of the Norman period the people of Breage were living
under the ordinary Manorial and King's Courts, but very soon all this
was changed by the Norman Earls in their policy of mine development, and
the rule of the Stannary Courts was added. By the Charter of 1201,
Stannary Courts were set up which held civil and criminal jurisdiction
over the Miners or Tinners, as they were called. A Stannary Parliament,
consisting of twenty-four Senators, met at Hingston Down, near Calstock,
and chose a Speaker of its own; subsequently this Parliament for the
government of the Miners and the regulation of mining affairs seems to
have met at Truro. The Stannaries were divided into five districts, of
which Penwith and Kerrier formed one. The Cornish Miners thus came to be
formed into a little State by themselves; they paid no taxes to the King
but to the Stannaries, and these they paid not as Englishmen but as
Miners, Their Parliament was the mine Parliament, their Courts were the
mine Courts. The influence of this state of things was in the main bad;
it gave opportunity for the oppression and consequent debasement of the
Miners, and tended to make the people lawless and impatient of all
restraint. Long after this ancient system had passed away its evil
fruits remained in a certain lawlessness of disposition. Carew, writing
in the days of Queen Elizabeth, remarks that it was a matter of
notoriety in his day that the mining districts of Cornwall were farthest
behind the general level of culture. The reason of this we take to be
due, to a large extent, to the lawlessness, abuses and evils engendered
by the Stannary Courts, which at one and the same time placed the mining
population above the law and beyond the arm of its protection.
The following letter of King Henry III., written in 1219 to Simon de
Apulia, an Italian Bishop of Exeter, referring to the living of Breage,
which is given in the Patent Rolls, is of interest. The two Vicars of
Breage mentioned in this document are the earliest of whom we have any
record.
"The King to Simon, Bishop of Exeter, greeting; be it known that on the
resignation of William the son of Richard, Parson of the Churches of
Eglospenbroc, Egloscure and Winiton now deceased, i.e. the Churches of
Breage, Cury and Gunwalloe, Our Lord King John conferred the said
Churches on our beloved Clerk, William, the son of Humphrey, the
aforesaid Churches being in his appointment. But since the same William
was prevented from following his claim on account of the disturbed state
of the time, we now send him to your fatherly care, asking you to admit
no one else to those Churches contrary to the gift already made by the
King our Father, but to kindly institute the said William, showing
yourself kindly disposed in this matter for love of us." This document
under the specious phrase "disturbed state of the times" evidently
refers to the period of the Interdict which had only come to a close
some five years previously--a period when by the insensate wickedness of
King and Pope the whole apparatus of the religious life of the country
was thrown out of gear and ceased to perform its functions, to the
infinite sorrow and misery of many thousands of the people.
In 1246 Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, made over the
Church of Breage with the Chapelries of Cury, Gunwalloe and Germoe to
the Abbey of St. Mary, at Hayles in Worcestershire. The story of this
Prince reads more like a romance than a record of sober fact. He was the
second son of King John. Born in 1209, Richard was made a Knight and
Earl of Cornwall at the early age of sixteen. Before his seventeenth
birthday he had shewn himself to be a fearless soldier in the wars of
Gascony. Three years later he took the field again against the French
King, this time in the North of France. The campaign was barren of all
results, but memorable for the terrible slaughter of its battles and the
ruin and misery wrought upon the poor peasants of the country in which
it was waged, who knew less than nothing at all as to what it was all
about. In this terrible campaign Richard lost his friend Gilbert De
Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Richard consoled himself for the loss of his
friend by marrying his widow, whose beauty and golden tresses the old
chronicler delights to dwell upon.
This warlike brother of an unwarlike king bitterly inveighed against the
royal favourites who battened upon the wealth of the nation. "England
has become a vineyard without a wall, wherein all who pass by pluck off
her grapes," he exclaimed.
In 1241 we find Richard at Rome endeavouring to mediate between Pope
Gregory IX. and his mighty brother-in-law the Emperor Frederick II.,
"Stupor Mundi," the most gifted sovereign of his age, if not of any age.
The Pope was practically the Emperor's prisoner at Grotto Ferrata, and
during the terrible August heat, which was accompanied by pestilence,
Richard passed to and fro between Pope and Emperor. At length the
negotiations were put an end to by death claiming the aged Pontiff.
His beautiful wife Isabella de Clare died at an early age, and Richard
with a sad heart went off to the Crusades, where, by liberal largess,
wrung from the serfs of his fiefs no doubt, rather than by the sword, we
read he was able to open the gates of Jerusalem and raise the banner of
the Cross over Nazareth and Bethlehem.
Returning from the Holy Land, the ship in which he sailed was beset by a
terrible storm. In the hour of extreme danger Earl Richard made a vow to
the Virgin that, if by the mercy of God the ship was saved from the
storm, he would build a great abbey to her honour and richly endow it.
On his return, in obedience to his vow, he set about the founding of
Hayles Abbey in Worcestershire on a princely scale, to which we have
seen he made over the Church of Breage with its three Chapelries. The
Church of this Abbey was of the same dimensions as those of Gloucester
Cathedral; it was consecrated in 1251 amidst a scene of the greatest
splendour, the King and Queen with the majority of the Bishops and many
Barons being present. Now only a heap of grass-grown ruins marks the
site of this great foundation.
It was in the days of Earl Richard that the tin mines of Cornwall came
to be developed on a large scale, and they became to him a source of
immense wealth--in fact, a golden key by which he was able to unlock the
doors of attainment both in Palestine and Germany. We gather that this
Earl was most kindly disposed towards the Jewish race, which assertion
lends colour to the statement of Carew that the tin trade of Cornwall in
ancient times was largely in the hands of Jews, who grievously exploited
the Cornish Tinners.
In 1257 Richard was chosen King of the Romans after the payment of
immense bribes to a number of the electing Princes. He returned to
England after two years of fruitless war to maintain his shadowy
kingdom. He commanded a wing of the Royal Army at the battles of Lewes;
on the rout of the royal forces he hid himself in a windmill, from which
he was ignominiously dragged and sent a prisoner to the Tower of London.
He was released in 1265, and on his death in 1272 his body was laid in
the great Abbey which he had founded.
His son, Edmund, succeeded him as Earl of Cornwall; this Prince
presented to the Abbey of Hayles one of the most famous relics of the
Middle Ages, a reputed phial of the Blood of Christ. This revered relic
was kept in a shrine of great magnificence. A curious and interesting
report was made on the nature of this supposed relic by the King's
Commissioners at the time of the Reformation.[23]
We have a practically complete list of the Vicars of Breage from the
appointment of William, son of Humphrey in succession to William, son of
John, in 1219. In the deed already quoted, William, son of Richard, is
described as the Parson of Breage; this means he was the Rector of the
Parish in the full sense of the word. With the grant of the Church of
Breage with its three Chapelries to the Abbey of Hayles the day of the
Rectors of Breage was over.
The Abbey of Hayles now stood in the place of Rector, and the Abbot
appointed a Vicar or substitute in his room, who acted as the deputy of
the Abbot and Convent in the parish. The first of the Vicars was Master
Robert de la More, who, as well as his two next successors, was
appointed by the Bishop, _jure devoluto_; the Abbot of Hayles finding it
difficult no doubt to fill up such a distant and remote appointment.
Robert de la More seems to have been a person of note in his day.[24] He
was only Vicar of Breage for three months; he subsequently became a
Canon of Glasney, an ancient Collegiate foundation near Penryn. In 1276
he was Vicar of Yeovil, and of sufficient importance for the King to
address a letter to him with reference to the raising of a loan for the
carrying on of the Scottish Campaign. Of his successor, Master Stephanus
de Arbor, we are able to gather no particulars, though the figure of his
immediate successor, Sir Pascasius rises clear and distinct for a moment
out of the mists of the past. It may be well here to remark that the
prefix "Master" meant one who had taken the degree of Master of Arts at
either of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. "Sir," on the
contrary, was a title given to those who had studied at the Universities
but who had not taken their Master's degree; this we fancy would in the
main be due to poverty rather than laziness or lack of ability, as a
Master's degree in those days entailed a longer period of residence at
the Universities than now. We may conclude that Sir Pascasius was a
Cornishman and a member of the clan Pascoe. His name survives in the
archives of the Bishops of Exeter, embalmed in a document dated July
1310, which gives a lurid picture of the brutal methods of the age. The
Chapel of Buryan was the King's Peculiar, and, as such, was outside the
jurisdiction of the Bishop. It was held by Dean and Canons of its own. A
dispute had long been simmering between the Dean and the Bishop of
Exeter as to the appointment of one John de Beaupré as Canon of Buryan,
the Dean refusing to admit him. As a step in this long dispute it seems
that Bishop Walter de Stapleton must have issued a commission to certain
clergy, possibly for the purpose of instituting John de Beaupré to the
vacant canonry in the Chapel of Buryan. The commission was composed,
amongst others, of Sir Pascasius, the vicar of Breage, the vicars of St.
Keverne, Constantine, St. Erth, Sithney, Grade and Landewednack. Dean
Matthew, in seeking redress through the King's Court, complained that
when this posse of Clergy arrived at Buryan and found the doors of the
Church barred, they proceeded to heap abuse upon him of the most
untoward character, and then, having retired, they returned with a
battering ram and broke in the doors of the Church, proceeding most
unmercifully to beat the defenders of the door in the hour of victory,
and, in the case of one of the Dean's servants, to have danced upon his
prostrate body so that his life was despaired of. Having thus celebrated
their victory they proceeded to exercise jurisdiction[25] in the Chapel.
For this wild assertion, presumably of episcopal authority, they were
all heavily fined.
Shortly after this event Bishop Stapleton pronounced Pascasius to be
old, blind and infirm, and appointed Master Benedict de Arundelle,
Professor of Canon Law, his coadjutor. This coadjutor was a scion of the
ancient family of Arundell of Lanherne; he afterwards became Provost of
Glasney, which office he ultimately resigned whilst still remaining one
of the Canons of that Foundation till the time of his death. In addition
to his Canonry of Glasney, he also held the Rectory of Phillack, the
patronage of which was then vested in the Arundell family. Whilst
speaking of Glasney we may add that a third Vicar of Breage, Sir William
Pers, in 1466 became a Canon of that ancient house.
The first Vicar of Breage appointed by the Abbot and Convent of Hayles
was David de Lyspein in 1313. The name of this man makes it clear that
he was a foreigner, most probably a Gascon; possibly a more correct
rendering of his name would have been David de L'Espagne or David of
Spain. Froissart in his Chronicles has a good deal to say of a gallant
Gascon Knight, Roger d'Espaign, famous for his strength and valour, who
dwelt at the Court of the Count de Foix. Though these two names are
spelt somewhat differently they are practically one and the same, as in
the fourteenth century it was usual to find proper names continually
spelt in different ways. At this time Gascony was a fief of the English
Crown, and our Kings, Bishops and Nobles were continually passing
between the two lands on missions of government, diplomacy or war, and
numbers of Gascon Clergy found their way in their trains to our shores.
It may well have been that David de Lyspein was one of these.
Sir Pascasius, whatever else he may have been, was a Pascoe, and a
Cornishman. It was one thing to pay tithes to a Cornishman who was
moreover the actual _Persona_ of the parish, and another thing to pay
tithes to the Abbot and Convent of Hayles, of whom no Cornishman knew
anything, and whose representative or vicar was a foreigner, possibly
barely able to speak the English language, let alone the Cornish tongue,
and knowing nothing of the ways or habits of the people. England at
this period was overrun with French, Italian and Spanish Clergy, and the
whole of our Western diocese was in a state of ferment at having foreign
clergy thrust into the parishes. At Yealmpton, in S. Devon, the French
vicar thrust upon the people, on the day of his institution, had to fly
from the church with the Archdeacon and his retinue, in momentary danger
of being "detruncated." At Tavistock and Plymouth similar assaults were
perpetrated upon foreign clergy forced upon the people.
In 1339 a brief was issued by the King to Bishop Grandisson, who himself
was a Swiss noble, born on the Lake of Geneva, commanding him to certify
what dignities, prebends and other ecclesiastical benefices were held by
foreigners in the Diocese of Exeter.
Taking all these circumstances into consideration it would have been
surprising if David de Lyspein had had a good time amongst his Cornish
parishioners. The few documents that have come down to us all accentuate
the fact that they gave him a rather poor time. In the registers of
Bishop Grandisson we gather from a document bearing date 1335 that at
some time previous, he, together with Brother Thomas, a Monk of Hayle,
and Proctor of his Convent, had been grievously wounded by Henry de
Pengersick, a man of position. No doubt the affray had occurred in an
attempt to collect tithe or other dues. In proceeding to forcible
resistance Henry de Pengersick was but carrying into effect the popular
sentiment, so strong at this time practically throughout the whole of
England. It is interesting to note that this armed resistance came from
an owner of Pengersick. A tradition of the lawlessness and wild deeds of
the owners of Pengersick has been handed down to the present time
amongst the country people of the district, and like most traditions
seems based on truth. Judging from the fierce attack on David de
Lyspein, or David of Spain, and Brother Thomas, the Militons, who came
after, in their wild deeds were but following in the footsteps of those
who had gone before. The greater excommunication was placed upon Henry
de Pengersick, but as the wounds inflicted did not permanently prevent
the two clergy from performing the duties of their office, it was
removed on the payment of due damages. However, matters do not seem to
have mended much; in 1337 a decree was issued[26] granting protection to
the Abbot and Convent of Hayles, "who were grievously hindered in
receiving the fruits and profits of St. Breaca in Kerrier by persons who
threaten and assault their servants and carry away the goods of the
Abbey." The people were evidently of opinion that paying tithes to a
Worcestershire Convent and a foreigner Vicar was beyond all reason. We
see going on in this remote Cornish Parish that which was taking place
all over the country, alienating the Church from the hearts of the
people, and preparing the way for the great upheaval of the Reformation.
No doubt the heart of poor David de Lyspein in the gloom of the Cornish
mists and rain, as the Atlantic tempests howled round his rude tenement,
yearned for the forest-clad hills of the sunny South, the scent of the
pines and the view of the far-off ranges capped with eternal snow that
separated his land from Spain. Cornwall was then rude, barbarous and
remote, whilst Gascony was softened and humanized with Provençal culture
and light.
In 1340 an event occurred which showed that in spite of strained
relationships, clergy and people could at times make common cause in a
common enterprise. A tradition of the eighteenth century still lingers
at Germoe of a clergyman rushing from the pulpit demanding fair play to
participate in the spoil of the wreck which the sea was bearing in upon
Praa Sands. If this tale be not mythical, this clergyman had at any rate
fourteenth century precedent for his action. In 1340 an Irish ship came
ashore at Porthleven, when sixty-one persons, including several
"religious," i.e. persons in orders of religion, broke up the vessel
into pieces and carried away the cargo.[27]
It is not fair to judge the whole life of the community by cases coming
before the Courts, but still these cases are sufficiently frequent to
bring home to us the utter lawlessness and violence of the times. When
we compare the religious life of the fourteenth century as revealed in
the State Papers and the Episcopal and Chapter Records with the outlook
and condition of the Church to-day, in spite of dark streaks across the
horizon of the future, we cannot but be conscious of a wonderful
progress, and an exchanging of crude materialism and superstition for
high and noble ideals.
The greatest event in its consequences and at the same time the most
terrible in the story of the period between the Norman Conquest and the
Reformation is the visitation of the Plague or Black Death. The Plague
seems to have reached England in 1348; it spread from Dorsetshire to
London in the November of that year. In the Eastern Counties whole
districts were depopulated by this terrible scourge; and magnificent
Churches in remote and lonely parishes still attest the large
populations that dwelt around them and gathered in them for worship
before the coming of the Black Death.
In our own immediate neighbourhood, at Bodmin alone 1,500 persons died
in the terrible visitation. The Clergy seem to have been the greatest
sufferers of all, partly no doubt due to their office bringing them in
close contact with the dying, and partly no doubt due to the confusion
between dirt and holiness that subsisted in the mediæval mind. To
realise the awful mortality in the West amongst the Clergy at this
period it is only necessary to go over the endless lists of institutions
in the Registers of Bishop Grandisson; not seldom three institutions to
one parish occur in the course of a single year. As a country engaged in
a long and desperate war is glad almost to accept recruits of any kind
in its closing stages, so the Church, as this awful epidemic proceeded,
accepted recruits for the army of God she would have scorned in its
beginning. The result of this acceptation was altogether bad; her
influence began to wane, and she lost touch with the life of the people.
Slowly but gradually the black shadow moved westwards extending itself
over the County, leaving in its track half-peopled villages and the
survivors dwelling under the shadow of an awful and nameless dread. In
the extreme West of the County the ravages of the pestilence seem to
have been specially terrible in 1362. It seems more than probable that
Sir William Pellour, one of our Vicars of Breage, died of it in this
year. Bereft in many cases of the majority of those they loved, and with
a vision of death and mortality in its most horrible forms graven upon
their minds, the view of life of the mass of the people became utterly
changed, and this naturally reflected itself upon the whole religious
outlook of the time.
Another subtle and deep influence was beginning to stir at this period,
even in the remote wilds of Cornwall. On the Continent, in Italy
especially, the human mind in the previous century had begun to awake
from the torpor and lethargy of a thousand years. The thirteenth century
was a glorious springtime of the human soul, when art, philosophy and
the desire to know, came back to the human mind. This tide of new life
and light in the fourteenth century began to throb and move, even in the
remote backwaters of English life, filling the minds of the people with
vague yearnings after better things, and producing a condition of deep
spiritual dissatisfaction. This spirit found some expression in the
great number of Oratories in the leading private houses, that were
licensed, all over the Western Diocese. At this time here in Breage, we
read that on 2nd Dec. 1398, John Rynsy of Godolghan, and Elinora, his
wife, obtained a licence from Bishop Stafford, for Oratories both at
Rynsy and Godolghan, with the stipulation that on Sundays and other
Feasts they should resort to their Parish Church, whenever it was
conveniently possible for them to do so. Again on 6th September 1400,
John Pengersick and Joan, his wife, obtained from Bishop Stafford, a
licence for a third Oratory in the Parish at their mansion of
Pengersick.
Whilst the gentry were making provision for regular worship in their own
houses, new Parish Churches were being built in almost every parish.
Practically nine-tenths of the Parish Churches in Devon and Cornwall are
the product of this age. The people were seeking to express in stone the
new ideal that was moving in their minds, and which was destined to find
fuller and deeper expression in the Reformation.
Our Churches of Breage and Germoe we owe to this wonderful quickening of
religious life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The old Norman
Church at Breage was pulled down in the fifteenth century as inadequate
and unworthy, and the present cruciform Church, with its tower sixty-six
feet in height, of beautiful workmanship and restful proportions, reared
in its place. The Church outwardly to-day is very much as the fifteenth
century builders left it. The tiny transepts, which, like the beautiful
south porch, externally suggest small battlemented towers, were
evidently originally used as side chapels. The frescos with which the
whole of the interior walls were once covered, were doubtless painted
shortly after the building of the Church.
[Illustration: Frescos of St. Christopher and Our Lord in Breage
Church.]
Fresco painting is the oldest of the arts, its crude beginnings reaching
back to the days when palæolithic man sought to exercise it upon the
walls of the caverns of the Dordogne. In Egypt the ancient monuments
bear witness to its existence from the remotest antiquity. The Etruscans
seem to have brought the art with them from the East to Italy, which
became in future ages its true home, and where it attained to its
highest perfection and beauty. The Romans, probably owing to Greek
influences, carried the art much farther than the Etruscans had done.
Revived in Italy in the thirteenth, the art reached its highest
perfection in the fifteenth century. From Italy the fashion of mural
painting spread, and by the fifteenth century seems to have become
common even in Cornwall, judging by the records of the survival of
numerous fragments. Our frescos were probably painted very soon after
the building of the Church, in the latter half of the fifteenth century.
An important fact bearing upon fresco painting was the extreme rapidity
with which the work had to be accomplished, as the secret of its
permanency rested in the plaster upon which it was placed, being damp
and newly laid. It will strike the observer at Breage that the fresco of
St. Christopher and that of the Christ, though crude in execution, are
full of character and force, which the wooden and purely conventional
figures of the other frescos entirely lack. It seems evident therefore
that the former owe their origin to a different hand than the latter.
The fresco of St. Christopher arrests the eye immediately on entering
the Church through the south door. This was doubtless the intention of
the designer of the fresco, as to see St. Christopher on entering a
Church, according to mediæval superstition was a harbinger of good luck.
This may partly account for the superstition that still lingers, that to
enter the Church by the west door, which is never used, save for the
bearing out of the dead at funerals, foreshadows untimely death.
The windows of the Church, before the pillage and vandalism let loose
upon it by the Reformation, were all of stained glass, of which several
beautiful fragments have come down to us, as the head of St. Veronica in
the chapel at the end of the north aisle, and the heads of the two
angels in the south window of the chapel, on the south side of the
Church. The Reformation, like all great upheavals, beneficent in
themselves, led to the unchaining of the spirit of fanaticism and
rapine. The spirit of liberty was fanned into a flame in France before
the Revolution by the noblest and purest spirits in the country; yet who
could blame them for the frenzied orgies of the Terror? The few
fragments of fifteenth century glass were discovered with the bones and
skulls of two almost complete skeletons in the walled-up staircase
leading to the Rood Loft, in the north wall of the Church, at the time
of the restoration in 1891. The probable solution seems that the
Commissioners, who visited Breage 22nd April, 1549, to ascertain that
the injunctions of Edward VI. were duly fulfilled, ordered the
destruction of the windows, as containing figures of the Saints and
emblems of idolatry. Possibly also stone tombs were destroyed and
desecrated, partly in a spirit of iconoclasm, and partly from the spirit
of plunder. We can imagine at this juncture some one more pious or
superstitious than his fellows gathering the fragments of beautiful
glass, and bones torn from their tombs within the Church, and placing
them in the cavity of the broken stairway in process of being walled
up.[28]
The granite support of the Credence Table and the Piscina in the chancel
were exhumed from the foundations of the Church during the restoration
and placed in their original situation: also the rose Piscina and the
pedestal on which it at present stands were unearthed at this time. The
pedestal in question, it may be stated, has nothing whatever to do with
the Piscina, the date of which is most probably coeval with the Church,
but is evidently the base of a font of Jacobean origin. The granite bowl
masquerading as a stoup in the porch is not of ecclesiastical origin at
all; its original use was evidently for grinding corn in primitive
times. It may be interesting to mention the discovery during the
restoration, beneath the floor of the Church, near where the pulpit now
stands, of six skeletons lying uncoffined side by side, the skulls of
all of them being perforated with bullet wounds; the teeth in each skull
were almost perfect, suggestive of violent and untimely deaths. The
story of this tragedy has long since faded into oblivion; possibly these
skeletons belonged to victims of some fierce act of military discipline
or retaliation in the Parliamentary Wars.
The restoration of Germoe Church was taken in hand a century earlier
than that of Breage, for what reason it is impossible to say. At this
period the mining operations of the Parish were mainly centred round
Germoe, from Trewarvas Head to Laseve, and between the two hills of
Tregoning and Godolphin. It may well have been that the restoration of
Germoe Church was begun at an earlier date because it stood in the most
populous portion of the parish. Sometime in the fourteenth century a
north aisle was added to the small Norman cruciform Church, and then a
little later a further enlargement and embellishment was made by the
addition of the north transept, and the present chancel to some extent
reared upon Norman foundations; the south transept, as we have
previously stated, was of Norman origin. For some reason or other, the
work seems to have been arrested when half carried through; the builders
had gone as far as to replace the Norman arch in the south transept by a
twin archway,[29] the natural development of which would have been the
addition of a south arcade. Instead of this the present south doorway
was added to the Church, superseding an earlier entrance. The porch
built over this door was not added until the next century, possibly
about the time of the rebuilding of Breage Church. The grotesque
carvings of monkeys on the corbel stones supporting the ends of the
copings of the porch have evidently been taken from the older building.
A feature of the chancel at Germoe is the canopied arch over the present
sedilia and piscina. I take it that this beautiful arched aperture
originally contained a tomb, possibly of a de Pengersick, or it may have
been used as a sepulchre in connection with the Easter Festival; at
any-rate, its true significance has long been lost sight of under the
hand of the spoiler and the restorer.
[Illustration: St. Germoe's Chair.]
The most interesting feature for the ecclesiastical antiquarian is not
the Church itself, but the curious edifice in the Churchyard, known as
St. Germoe's Chair. Tradition says this was erected by a member of the
de Pengersick family. When Leland, the great antiquary, visited Cornwall
in the reign of Henry VIII., he mentions both St. Germoe's Tomb, St.
Germoe's Chair and St. Germoe's Well. The water still gurgles and
bubbles from the spring by the roadside, from whence the Saint slaked
his thirst and supplied his simple wants, but the very site of his tomb
is long forgotten, the crude and vulgar bigotry of an intervening age
having no place in its system for such memories. Germoe's Chair has been
the fruitful source of many curious speculations and ingenious theories
as to its origin. There can be but little doubt, however, that its
original use was in connection with the Palm Sunday celebrations of the
mediæval Church. It seems to have been customary on Palm Sundays for
some of the Clergy, bearing a cross which was covered or muffled at some
point in the service, to issue from the Church, followed by a portion of
the congregation in procession bearing palms or their substitutes in
their hands. A booth was erected in the Churchyard: sometimes this was
of stone and of a permanent character like Germoe's Chair. Arrived at
this erection the officiating Priest read the Gospel for the day; at
this point another procession issued from the Church, headed by a Priest
bearing the Host, and a number of children following a cross, decorated
with wreaths of green leaves and singing "Blessed is He that cometh in
the name of the Lord." The two groups then mingled together, the muffled
cross was removed, and a distribution of bread or alms was made from the
booth or pavilion, or, as in the case of Germoe, from what is now
called Germoe's Chair. The united processions then, following the
Priests, returned to the Church, where the service was continued to its
close.[30]
Cornwall from its position escaped the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses.
During this outwardly brutal and sordid period, whilst the Barons were
hacking themselves in pieces, and successive Kings were merely
"landlords" of England for the time being, the true heart of the nation
was beginning to throb slowly with the pulses of a new life. I doubt
much if Master William Pensans and his successors onward to Sir William
Pers, and their flocks at Breage and Germoe, troubled themselves very
much about the battles and rebellions and judicial murders that made up
the history of England during the times in which they lived. Rumours of
these terrible stirrings would be brought to them from time to time by
wandering Friars or the Pilgrims passing through the Parish on their way
to St. Michael's Mount, which was then one of the most popular places of
pilgrimage in England. Doubtless many of the Pilgrims would make Breage
the last halting place for the night, and move on to St. Michael's Mount
on the following morning. These Pilgrims would be a motley crew of every
class and grade, some seeking no doubt for the forgiveness of heinous
deeds and crimes through the mediation of St. Michael, others seeking
health and often finding it, not by the help of the Saint but through
change of air and scene. Childless parents of great possessions often
made pilgrimages to distant shrines in search of an heir, and still
others were pilgrims because they loved change and to live close to
Nature, though perhaps they never knew it.
In 1471 after the Battle of Barnet a strange band of Pilgrims visited
St. Michael's Mount. John, Earl of Oxford, who had escaped from the
slaughter of that terrible battle, came by sea to the Mount with a band
of followers disguised as Pilgrims. They landed, simulating deep
devotion, and obtaining admittance to the Castle, drew arms from beneath
their Pilgrims' cloaks and rushed upon and overpowered the small
garrison. Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, who was sent to retake the
Castle, was slain in the attempt on the sands between the Mount and the
shore--in his death, it is said, fulfilling a curse of former years.
After a siege of six months the Earl of Oxford and his men surrendered
upon terms, the Earl being allowed to retire to France, from whence he
returned with Henry of Richmond, to share in the victory of Bosworth
Field.
Pilgrims, wandering, preaching Friars and merchants, who came to the
West for the purchase of tin, would practically at this time be the sole
sources of news and connecting links with the outer world. Men then led
isolated lives, less dependent upon their fellows for daily needs and
wants. The phrase "we are all members one of another" has a fuller and
deeper meaning for us than it had for them.
We cannot conclude the account of this period without a brief allusion
to the names of the incumbents from the time of David de Lyspein
onwards. The particulars of their lives have long since faded into
oblivion; whether good or bad, wise or foolish, their memories have
utterly faded. The fact of the nationality, however, of many of them
survives in their names. Henry Cretier (1362) from his name we take to
have been one of the swarm of French Priests that at this time were
spread over the country. The great majority of the others seem to have
been Cornishmen: Sir John Yurl bears a name common enough amongst the
Cornish Clergy at this time. Sir William Pellour of course was one of
the numerous Cornish family of Pellar and Sir William Pers would now be
known as William Pearce. Sir John Gode or Ude bears also a name common
in the Cornish Priesthood of the period. Sir William Lehe (1445) was, we
fancy, from the Penwith Peninsula, from the similarity of his name to
the name of a manor in that district. Master William of Penzance (1403)
and Master Thomas Godolphin (1505) were, of course, undoubtedly
Cornishmen, the latter, we are led to conclude, being a son of Sir John
Godolphin, Sheriff of Cornwall in 1504, the founder of the fortunes of
his family. Of the lives of these men, alas! we can know nothing, beyond
the fact that in varying degrees they testified to the unseen and
spiritual, and, in spite of imperfections and weaknesses, held up the
torch of a Divine light for the illumination of a dark and degraded age.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[22] "Carta W. Com. Glouc. testificante quod R. Com. pater suus dederat
Richardo Clerico suo omnes ecclesias terrae suae de Cornubia cum
capellis et pertinentis suis viz: ecclesiam de Eglosbrec, ecclesiam
Commart, ecclesiam de Egloshiel, ecclesiam de Eglosvant, ecclesiam de
Egloscraven et capellam Sancti Germot" etc., etc. See Dugdale's
Monasticon.
[23] See Gasquet's "Henry VIII. and the Monasteries."
[24] See Mr. Thurstan Peter's "Collegiate Church of Glasney."
[25] See Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph's Registers of Bishop Stapleton.
"Et in ea jurisdiccionem ordinariam exercere et alia diversa in hac
parte attemptare presumpserunt."
[26] Patent Rolls.
[27] State Papers, 14 Edward III.
[28] It is possible that this vandalism may have been committed during
the time of Independent ascendancy.
[29] See Sedding's "Norman Architecture in Cornwall."
[30] See Walcott's "Sacred Archæology" pp. 421, 423. Also Dr. Roch's
"Church of our Fathers," etc.
The Reformation to the end of the Commonwealth.