A high and heavenly life
may have been induced to promise or to give Cornish lands to the Norman St. Michael and that his friends may have styled him Rex Anglorum, knowing that only when he became de facto King of the English could any benefit accrue to the abbey. But it seems more probable that a gift of lands was made by him to the Cornish St. Michael after Hardicanute’s death and that after the Norman Conquest when the two religious houses were united by the cession of the Cornish priory to the Norman abbey the deed which may have borne the signature of Robert, archbishop of Canterbury, was altered so as to bear that of Robert, archbishop of Rouen. In that case the grant would have been made between 1050 and 1066. There were undoubtedly bold and fruitless attempts made on the part of the Norman abbots to enrich the Norman at the expense of the Cornish house, just as at a later period there were bold and successful attempts made to enrich the latter by borrowing the legends and traditions of the former.
The substantial genuineness of Edward’s charter will be regarded as probable when it is remembered that no ultimate advantage can be shown to have accrued from it to either house. A spurious document would hardly have been preserved in the face of facts witnessing to its failure. Neither Domesday Book nor the Inquisitio Geldi makes mention of any possessions in Meneage belonging to St. Michael.
The suggestion offered in Chapter VI, viz. that the Meneage was at an early period monks’ land both in name and in fact, may possibly account for the entire series of transactions. Grants to religious houses and for religious purposes have not infrequently been a trifling recompense made to Paul for the spoiling of Peter. It was notably so in the reign of King Henry VIII. If in the early part of the eleventh century the Meneage represented alienated, that is, usurped monastic land, no one would have been more disposed than King Edward to make restoration or to honour St. Michael by granting it to the Mount. It is not unlikely that the grant remained inoperative owing to the difficulty of making terms with the layfolk in possession.
In the appendix[[121]] to volume iv. of his Norman Conquest, Mr. Freeman, after referring to the doubtful authenticity of Edward the Confessor’s charter, goes on: “doubtful as this charter is, the spuriousness of that which accompanies it (the charter of Robert Count of Mortain) is still more manifest.” He then recites the fact that whereas the latter charter is dated 1085, it bears the signatures of Queen Matilda, who died in 1083, and of Bishop Leofric, who died in 1072; also the exemption from ecclesiastical jurisdiction granted by Leofric at the instance of Pope Gregory, who did not become Pope until after Leofric’s death—altogether a most formidable indictment—and he proceeds to quote from the Exeter Domesday, with a view of establishing the real date of the foundation of St. Michael, the following passage (which will also be found below labelled A.):
“Sanctus Michahel habet i. mansionem quae vocatur Treiwal quam tenuit Brismarus eâ die qua Rex E. fuit vivus et mortuus.... De hac mansione abstulit Comes de Moritonio i. de praedictis ii. hidis quae erat de dominicatu beati Michahelis.”
“This,” he says, “is the only mention of the house I can find, and it would seem to imply a foundation between 1066 and 1085. Brismar was a man of large property in all the three shires. He is not unlikely to have been the founder of the Cornish Saint Michael, and if so he must have founded it, or at least have given the estate, after Edward’s death.” “It seems plain ... that whoever was the founder of the Cornish house it was not Earl Robert.” And he concludes, “a note in the Monasticon (vii. 989) speaks of another tradition as naming Robert’s son William as the person who gave the Cornish house to the Norman one. Here we most likely have the clue to the mistake.”
When therefore Mr. Round is found endorsing Mr. Freeman’s opinion[[122]] that “Treiwal was given to St. Michael between the death of Edward the Confessor and the making of the great Survey,” and suggesting that Earl Brian (who could have had no footing in England before the Conquest) may have been the founder, it may seem presumption to express an opinion clean contrary to both. But let Domesday Book tell its own story. There are three references in the Exeter Book and two in the Exchequer Book which bear upon the subject. They are given below and labelled A, B, C, D, E for convenience of reference—those portions only being omitted which do not concern the present discussion. The extensions are for the use of those who are not familiar with the abbreviated Latin text.
A. Exeter Domesday, fol. 208b. (Ed. 1816, p. 189).
Terra Sancti Michahelis de Cornugallia. Sanctus Michahel habet unam mansionem quae vocatur Treiwal quam tenuit Brismarus eâ die qua rex Edwardus fuit vivus et mortuus. In ea sunt ii hidae terrae quae nonquam reddiderunt gildam. Has possunt arare viii carrucae. Ibi habet Sanctus Michahel i carrucam.... De hac mansione abstulit comes de Moritonio i de praedictis ii hidis quae erat de dominicatu beati Michahelis.