Of the twenty-three religious houses enumerated the first nine are mentioned in Domesday Book, which also mentions the priests of St. Neot, the lands of St. Constantine and of St. Goran and the honour of St. Che (Honor St. Chei). There are also a few churches which call for examination like those of St. Kew, Mawnan and Manaccan whose religious character is omitted in both. Languihenoc and Gerrans have been already considered. It is obvious that to give a full and complete review of all of them would require not a chapter but a volume.
Before attempting to deal with the subject, within even the narrowest possible limits, we may profitably ask ourselves what courses were open to the members of monastic communities, which had been in the ascendant until the Saxon Conquest of Cornwall, in order that they might come into line with the new ecclesiastical régime? Three courses presented themselves. The first was to allow themselves to be disbanded as the regular clergy were compelled to be at the time of Henry’s reformation; the second was to conform to the rules of one or other of the recognised western orders and to become affiliated to it; the third was to transform their convents of regular clergy into colleges or collegiate churches of secular clergy. No doubt there was a strong conservative party who resisted all change, otherwise it would be difficult to understand the spoliation of which there are traces during the Saxon period and of which after the Norman Conquest there is abundant proof in Domesday Book. Of the three courses which have been suggested the third seems to have been favoured under the Saxons and the second under the Normans.
Taking the nine monastic bodies which stand at the head of the foregoing list in order, it will suffice to say that after serving as the seat of an abbot-bishop the monastery of St. Petrock probably became collegiate and parochial. In Domesday Book it is always referred to as St. Petrock or the Church of St. Petrock. The date of its reconstruction as a monastery is obscure. There does not appear to be any evidence to show to which of the religious orders it belonged until the Ordinatio of the Priory by Bishop Grandisson in 1347, in which it is ordained that the prior and convent shall celebrate the Divine Office and observe vigil, fast, silence and prayer according to the rule of Blessed Augustine. Long before that date it had therefore doubtless become a convent of the Black Canons. Sir John Maclean expressly states, though on what authority I have not been able to discover, that it was Bishop William Warelwast (1107-1136) who settled therein regular canons of St. Augustine. In the Taxatio of the vicarage, by Bishop Bronescombe in 1269, the vicar was assigned, as a part of his emolument, the victuals (liberacionem) of one canon.
The monastery of St. Germans was served by secular canons before the Norman Conquest. Bishop Leofric (1046-1073) removed them and introduced canons regular. In 1270 Bishop Bronescombe ordered the excommunication of certain persons concerning whom he vouchsafes no particulars save that they were Sathane satellites, proprie salutis immemores and that they had expelled those whom he had sent to take charge of the priory during the vacancy caused by the death of Richard the late prior. His letter is valuable because it affords evidence that the bishop of Exeter claimed absolute power over the priory and its possessions so long as there was no prior appointed, and apparently the right of confirming the prior’s appointment.
Of St. Michael’s Mount some particulars will be found in [Chapter X].
The church of St. Stephen by Launceston was like that of St. German served by secular canons at the time of the Domesday Survey. By Bishop William Warelwast (1107-1138) to whom Ralph the dean of St. Stephens had surrendered the deanery it was made an Augustinian priory and so remained until the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII. Harassed and despoiled by Robert Count of Mortain in the years which followed the Norman Conquest, under the fostering care of Reginald Earl of Cornwall (1140-1175) and Richard King of the Romans (1225-1272), it soon became the wealthiest of the religious houses in Cornwall. The relations between the parochial church of St. Stephen and the priory are somewhat obscure. The church was taxed independently of the priory in 1291, but in the Inquisitio nonarum of 1346 the church was assessed at £10, of which 40s. was chargeable to the prior.
The collegiate church of St. Buryan is undoubtedly an early instance of the conversion of a Celtic monastery to a recognised English type. King Athelstan by charter gave a small piece of his land in a place which is called the church of St. Berrian ... to be free of all taxation unless the clerks who had promised him their prayers, viz. 100 masses, 100 psalters and daily supplications failed, to perform their task. The place which is called the church of St. Berrian was evidently Eglosberria or Eglosveryan, of which we have already spoken. In later times it was advantageous to the dean and his fellows to cite Athelstan as their founder and their church as a royal chapel. All that the Saxon King did for them was probably to guarantee to them security of tenure for the lands which they already held and freedom from payment of geld.
The Canons of St. Crantock who held the manor of Langorock at the time of the Survey (1086) also survived the various changes made in the constitution of their community until their dissolution in 1536. Robert, Count of Mortain, had already seized their lands when the Survey was made. His son, Count William, founded the Cluniac house at Montacute in Somerset, and to it he is said to have given the church of St. Crantock. It is certain that in 1236 the prior of Montacute transferred the church and its possessions to William Briwer, bishop of Exeter. The bishop thenceforth became patron of the deanery and prebends. In 1291 there were on the foundation a dean and nine prebendaries. St. Crantock had become a typical collegiate church. The several stages through which it passed leave no doubt that as Langorock it had established its claim to considerate treatment by Saxon and Norman alike.
Of St. Keverne we learn from Domesday Book that the canons of St. Achebran had one manor which was called Lannachebran, which the same saint had held in the Confessor’s time. There is, however, evidence of its quasi-prebendal character more than a century before the Survey was made.[[87]] By Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, the church was given to the abbot and convent of Beaulieu for the good of his own soul and that of King John his father.[[88]] The vicarage was taxed by Bishop Bronescombe, in 1260, very unfavourably to the vicar, there being assigned to the abbot and convent of Beaulieu more than five-sixths of the income. Leland, writing about the year 1530, states that near “The Paroch church of S. Keveryn otherwise Piranus,” there is a sanctuary with ten or twelve dwelling houses and hard by “there was a sel of monkes but now gonn home to ther Hed Hows.” These monks were doubtless Cistercians from Beaulieu who, for some reason or another, had been temporarily resident in the parish. The appropriation of the church by Earl Richard, and its taxation by Bishop Bronescombe, had left it a rather poorly endowed vicarage, of which the patronage and greater tithes belonged to Beaulieu. That Lannachebran was originally Celtic and monastic does not admit of doubt.
The account supplied by Domesday Book respecting St. Pieran (Perranzabuloe) is very illuminating. “The Canons of St. Pieran,” so the statement runs, “have a manor called Lanpiran, which in the time of King Edward they held freely.... From this manor have been taken away two manors which in the time of King Edward rendered to the Canons of St. Pieran four weeks’ farm (firmam iii septimanarum). Of these manors Berner holds one of the Count. And from the other hide which Odo holds of St. Pieran the Count has taken away all the stock (pecuniam). These two manors rendered to the Dean by way of custom 20s. in addition to the said farm (firmam).” The first of these two manors was that of Tregebri, which elsewhere in Domesday Book is described as being “of the honour[[89]] of St. Perann.” The Count of Mortain took from both all that had formerly belonged to the saint. Dean and canons were swept away at an early date and the church given by Henry I to the dean and chapter of Exeter. When the vicarage was taxed in 1269, to the vicar was assigned the altarage of the mother church of St. Piran and of the chapel, together with all the offerings derived from the exposition of the relics, the vicar rendering a yearly tribute of six marks to the dean and chapter. The relics referred to were those of St. Piran the founder of the church, concerning which some interesting particulars are supplied in an inventory of the year 1281. Among other treasures mention is made of a reliquary in which is kept the head of St. Pyeran, with the rest of the relics secured with iron and a lock, a hearse in which the body of Pyeran is placed for processions, a tooth of St. Brendan and a tooth of St. Martin within a silver box, also a pastoral staff of St. Pyeran adorned with silver and gold and precious stones. Two centuries later when making St. Agnes parochial, the bishop ordained that if the parishioners of St. Pyran should bring the saint’s relics to St. Agnes in procession as formerly, on Rogation Tuesday, they should receive honourable welcome and the oblations presented in the chapel of St. Agnes according to custom.