CUBERT, or ST. CUTHBERT.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Pider, and hath upon the north St. George’s Channel, or the Irish Sea; west Peransabulo; east Crantock. This new name of Cuthbert is Saxon, and compounded of Cuth-bert, id est, knowledge, skill, wisdom, or understanding, clear or bright, and refers to St. Cuthbert, the tutelar guardian and patron of this church; for in Domesday Roll, 20 Will. I. 1087, this district was taxed under the name of Chynowen, now Chynoweth. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the revenues of Cornish benefices, Ecclesia Sancti Cuthberti in Decanatu de Pider, is valued iiiil. xviis. viiid. Vicar ibidem, xs. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, and Valor Beneficiorum, is rated 8l. 6s. 8d. The patronage formerly in the prior of Bodman, who endowed it; now Prideaux. The incumbent Bradford; the rectory or sheafe in Prideaux; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax 1696, 99l. 9s. 6d.
The history of St. Cuthbert.—He was born in Cumberland, of British Saxon parents, about the year 600; and had his Christian education as a monk in Bangor Monastery, in Ireland; from whence he removed to the abbey of Landisfarne, opposite to Northumberland and North Durham, where, after he had remained some years, he was chosen or made a bishop of that diocese. I remember to have seen in this church, painted against the wall, about thirty years past, the portraiture of a bishop, attired in his episcopal robes, with mitre or crown on his head, a crosier or shepherd’s crook or staff in his hand, and an inscription in ancient character near it, viz. St. Cuthbertun. Which picture, I am told, is since covered over with lime by the churchwardens.
Now, it happened after the death of St. Cuthbert, that the island of Landisfarne was extremely troubled with the piratical thievish Danes, who wasted the same, without regard of secular or religious persons and places. Whereupon the Bishop of St. Ethelwin, with his monks, privately escaped into Northumberland, and left their houses and estates a prey to their enemies, anno Dom. 800, carrying with them as their chief treasure the enshrined relics or skeleton of St. Cuthbert, with which, during the lives of twelve titular bishops of Landisfarne, they wandered up and down Northumberland for the space of ninety years, without any fixed place of abode or settlement, till Aldwyn, titular bishop of that island, obtained leave of King Alfred, ann. Dom. 890, to pitch and settle his episcopal church at Durham, where he and his monks laid the foundation thereof; which, after it was by them finished, was consecrated and dedicated to the honour of Almighty God in the name of St. Cuthbert, where they again erected his shrine or relics; thereby transferring or translating the bishopric of Landisfarne to that place, and no more styling themselves bishops thereof, but of Durham.
But this fabrick of Bishop Adelwyn, though a stately church, was pulled down by William Carilepho, the 29th bishop (13 Will. I. 1080), who in the place thereof laid the foundation of that cathedral church now extant there; though he did not live to see it finished; but Ralph Flambard, his successor, Lord Treasurer of England, went on with the work, and brought it to that perfection it now showeth; though some additions indeed were made by Nicholas de Farnham, and Thomas Welscomb, prior thereof, 1242.
King Alfred, and Guthrun the Dane, his deputy-governor of Northumberland, gave much lands to this church between the rivers Tees and Tyne, which King Alfred confirmed by his charter.
In William the Conqueror’s days it was reputed a county palatine or principality, and did engrave upon its
seal an armed chevalier, holding a naked sword in one hand, and in the other the arms of the bishopric, viz. Azure, a plain cross between four lions rampant Or.