In this parish is St. Laurence, so called from the chapel dedicated to his guardianship. The name is derived from the Latin words, laureat and ensis, that is, a laureat sword, or a sword of triumph. St. Laurence was a native of Osca, in Spain, born about the year 280. He received holy orders from St. Xysten, who was raised to the chair of St. Peter in 257. During the persecution by the Emperor Valerian, St. Laurence, finding that not even the sacred vestments nor the decorations of the church were safe from profane hands, availed himself
of the office of chief deacon, which he then held, to dispose of the whole, and to distribute the wealth thus acquired among the indigent of his spiritual brethren. This having been made known to the Prefect of Rome, a man devoted to the worship of false gods, but more, as the biographer observes, to the adoration of silver and gold, he demanded from St. Laurence the riches of the church, who promised in three days to produce them; and on the third day he returned with the poor persons among whom their value had been divided. When the Prefect, transported with rage, is said to have ordered his destruction by the most cruel death. The legend reports him to have been fastened on an iron bed, and consumed by fire placed under it. Hence the familiar emblem attributed to this martyr, of a gridiron. The event is referred to the 10th of Aug. 261.
In this parish the town, or rather village of St. Laurence, is situated between two hills, and with a pleasant river running through its street, about a mile and a half west from Bodmin. In it stands a lawres hospital, that is to say, a hospital for lepers (loure, or lower, in British is a leper), which hath good endowment of lands and revenues appertaining thereto, founded by the piety and charity of the well-disposed people of this county in former ages, for the relief, support, and maintenance of all such people as should be visited with that sickness called elphantiasy, in Latin lepra or elphantia, in English leprosy, in British lowerery; being a white infectious scurf running all over the bodies of such persons as are tainted therewith. Which disease heretofore in many families was hereditary, and infected the blood for generations.
This disease, though common in Asia, was thought to have been first brought into England from Egypt by seamen and traders, so that generally it spread itself over this kingdom about the year 1100. Soon after
which, a general collection of charitable benevolences was gathered throughout the land by one of the Mowbrays, a gentleman tainted with the disease, for erecting and endowing the lazar-house or hospital of Burton, in Leicestershire, to which place was made subject all other hospitals of this sort in England, as the Master of Burton Hospital was afterwards made subject to the Master of St. John’s Hospital of Jerusalem, in London, and then, soon after the erection of lazar-houses throughout this kingdom, was invented that writ called Leproso amovendo, for removing a leper from his country-house to the hospital. But the custom in this place was such, that none were to be admitted by the governors of the same for the time being, unless the person so brought in paid them 5d. a pot for dressing their meat, a purse and a penny in it to receive alms. At present I hear of no lepers in this hospital, nor any person visited with this disease in Cornwall: however, daily in the chapel of Lawrence, by the townspeople, God is duly worshipped by a chaplain in deacon’s orders, who reads divine service to them according to the church of England; and at three several times at least in the year the Vicar of Bodmin, and Rector of Lannerat, for a small stipend preach and administer the sacraments to them. Infants baptized, and the dead bodies thereof buried, at Bodmin church.
The lands, customs, and privileges of this lazar-house,[17] or lower hospital, were much augmented or enlarged, and also confirmed by a charter from Queen Elizabeth, in the beginning of her reign, with the jurisdiction of a court-leet within the precincts of its manor of Ponteby, (id est, by the ford or bridge whereon the town of St. Lawrence is situate,) the white-rod erected or held up yearly whilst the court is sitting. It is also by that charter privileged with a weekly market, to be kept on Wednesday, within the town of St. Lawrence, though of
late discontinued; as also with fairs yearly on the 10th of August and the 18th of October.
TONKIN.
In respect to the etymology of the name Bodmin, or Bodman, I have no difficulty. I looke upon the word as Saxon-Kernawish, bode and man, or bode-men in the plural, which may safely, and without a catachræsis, be interpreted, the preacher-man, or men. That bode signifies priest, or preacher, in the Cornish, the Gaelic, and other cognate tongues, I confirm by the authority of Alfred, the Saxon grammarian, and of Verstegan, from which is derived our modern Kernawish word for a priest.
And this sense is preserved in the names of divers other churches throughout the land; as in the hundred of Weston, Herefordshire, where we find Boddenham Vicarage, bod-den-ham, preacher-man-dwelling, den being in Kernawish synonymous with man.