There has been much doubt concerning the identity of St. Piran. From the inventory of 1281 it would seem that at that time he was identified with St. Kieran of Saighir in Ireland, otherwise it would be difficult to account for the presence at Perranzabuloe of relics of St. Brendan, the friend to whom the saint sent a supply of milk in the form of a milch cow, and of those of St. Martin the founder of churches in Ossory, St. Kieran’s native county, a person so highly esteemed by the saint that he extracted a promise from him that when they died they should be buried in the same grave. It is certain that in the thirteenth century, and a fortiori in the eleventh century, the foundation of St. Piran was regarded as Celtic and that the church claimed to have in its custody the crozier of its episcopal founder.

“The canons of St. Probus have one manor which is called Lanbrabois (Lamprobus. Exch. D.) which King Edward held at the time of his death.” Such is the testimony of Domesday Book. The name of the manor suggests a monastic origin, but nothing whatever appears to be known of the saint or of the founder of the prebendal church. Had St. Edward been the founder it is probable that some use would have been made of the circumstance by succeeding generations. King John confirmed the grants of the church made by his ancestor (avi) Henry I and by his father Henry II to the bishop and cathedral church of Exeter.[[90]] By Bishop Briwer it was appropriated to the office of treasurer of the cathedral, together with the patronage of the five prebends, but the patronage was subsequently transferred to Bishop Bronescombe and exercised by him and his successors until the suppression of the prebends by Edward VI.

Having briefly considered the religious houses—using that term in its widest sense—concerning which mention is made in Domesday Book, it is worth while to pass on to those whose endowments either excited not the rapacity of the Norman, or were too slender to find a place in the Great Survey, and to those which were evidently founded after the Norman Conquest. Taking them in the order already indicated, we have the five establishments dignified by the name of priories.

The priory of St. Cyricus or St. Cyriacus in the parish of St. Veep is stated by Lysons to have been founded by William Count of Mortain, but no authority is quoted for the statement. In 1236 Bishop Briwer wishing to relieve the church of St. Nonn (probably the neighbouring church of Pelynt) from a yearly charge of six marks, four shillings and three pence heretofore payable to the little cell (cellula) of St. Cyricus, granted to the latter out of the revenues of his see a yearly payment of five marks. The cell was affiliated to the Cluniac priory of Montacute in the county of Somerset and was for a long time in the patronage of the family of that name. It is futile to speculate respecting its origin, and it is not safe to say that it was of Saxon or Norman origin, for St. Carreuc is found in three Breton parishes.[[91]]

The priory of Minster or Talkarn described as the church of St. Merthian of Laminster was, somewhere about the year 1130, given by William, son of Nicholas (Botreaux), to the monks of the Benedictine abbey of St. Sergius at Angers. Here again we have monastic associations suggested by the locality of the priory. Laminster was apparently already a place-name when the gift was made little more than half a century after the Norman Conquest. The priory, by reason of its connection with the French abbey, was suppressed during the fourteenth century.

The priory or cell of St. Nicholas, situated on the island of Tresco, Scilly, was probably Celtic in origin. The Charter of Henry I granting to the abbot and church of Tavistock and to its monk Turold, the churches and land in Scilly uses the following words to limit and describe the tenure of the land—it is to be held “just as the monks or rather hermits (monachi aut heremite melius) held it in the time of King Edward of Burgald bishop of Cornwall.”

Tavistock was a Benedictine abbey founded in the latter half of the tenth century. The rule of St. Benedict was broad and elastic, and monasteries could and did embrace it without parting entirely with their traditions.[[92]] It was, in fact, the only rule recognised in England during the whole of the Saxon period. Admitting all this the phrase “monks or rather hermits,” is so studiously vague as to imply a doubt as to whether the brothers had in the Confessor’s day submitted to any recognised rule whatever. It is certain that while bringing them into a closer relationship with Tavistock the King intended to enforce a stricter discipline, otherwise his further provision that they should, like “the King’s own prebendaries” have his peace and protection, would have been unnecessary. The King does not confirm any supposed charter of Athelstan or of Edward, but gives the religious community at Scilly to the abbey at Tavistock, and, apart from the reference to the latter King, there is nothing to lead us to regard the monks as Benedictine or as affiliated to the abbey until Henry’s charter was granted. As a cell of Tavistock, the Scilly monastery appears to have existed until the suppression of the mother house, but little is known of it subsequent to the middle of the fifteenth century.

Tregony Priory. At an early date the churches of St. James, Tregony, and of St. Cuby, appear to have accepted the rule of St. Augustine and to have been constituted a cell of the abbey of de Valle in Normandy. When and by whom this appropriation was made is unknown, but it is certain that it was made after the Norman Conquest. In the year 1278 Bishop Bronescombe gave his sanction to the transfer of the priory of Tregony to the priory of Merton in the county of Surrey. This was in furtherance of an arrangement between the prior of Merton and the abbot of de Valle, whereby the possessions of the former in the diocese of Bayeux were exchanged for those of the latter in England. Bishop Quivel confirmed the sanction of his predecessor in 1282, and until the dissolution of the religious houses the cell, which had become a vicarage, belonged to the monastery of Merton.

Of Tywardreath Priory little need be said here. At the time of the Domesday Survey, Tywardreath was one of the thirty manors in Cornwall which had been given by the Conqueror to Richard Fitz Turold. By Richard the priory was founded and affiliated to the great Benedictine abbey of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at Angers. The list of charters recording successive endowments is exceptionally complete, and for genealogical purposes the charters are of very great value, but they afford no suggestion of a pre-Norman foundation.

The cell of St. Anthony in Roseland represented a survival of an order of things of which we have little recorded evidence. In the thirteenth century it derived its main support from the church of St. Gerrans. In the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV the prior of St. Anthony is assessed at the same amount for his portion in the church of St. Gerrans as the rector himself. A little more than a century later, in the Inquisitio nonarum, St. Anthony is described as a chapel (capella) of St. Gerrans. Such information as we have points to a quasi-monastic establishment of St. Gerrans, followed by a parish church at Gerrans and a small monastery at St. Anthony. The latter was made, at an early date, dependent on the Augustinian priory of Plympton, and in the earlier half of the sixteenth century consisted of two canons.