It is not my intention to enter on any discussion relative to the remote and obscure antiquity of Bodmin. Tanner, in his Notitia Monasticon, says Bodmin, or Bodmanna.
There was a church built here to the memory of St. Petroc, a religious man born in Wales, but who, coming from Ireland, is said to have built a monastery on the north coast of Cornwall, about A.D. 520, and to have been there buried; but his body being afterwards removed to Bodmin, a church was built to his memory, and the episcopal see for Cornwall was believed to have been therein placed by King Edward the Elder and Archbishop Plegmund, A.D. 705. Here King Æthelstan is reported to have met with old Saxon, or rather British, monks following the Rule of St. Benedict, to whom he granted so great privileges and endowments that he is accounted founder of the monastery here, about A.D. 926. That settlement was destroyed by the Danish pirates, A.D. 981; yet the religious continued here under several shapes, and much alienation of their lands, both before and after the Conquest, till about the year 1120, when Earl Algar, with the King’s license, and the consent of William Warlewach, Bishop of Exeter, re-established this religious-house, and placed
therein regular canons of the Order of St. Austin, who continued till the general suppression, when it was styled the Priory of St. Mary and St. Petroc, and was valued at 270l. per annum according to Dugdale, and 289l. 12s. according to Speed. The site, with the demesnes, were granted, 36th of Henry VIII. to Thomas Sternhold, one of the first translators of the Psalms into English metre.
Any one desirous of learning all that can be known or conjectured respecting the Western Bishopric, is referred to “The Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall historically surveyed,” by the Rev. John Whitaker; where that subject and various others are discussed, with the eloquence, ability, erudition, and confidence, usually displayed by that eminent writer; who appears always to assume throughout the whole of his work the very questionable fact, that monastic historians, distant both in time and in space from the events which they relate, are possessed of perfect information, and that their narratives flow with unerring accuracy, at a period when none of the inventions for rapidly carrying intelligence, and for stamping it with the authentic impression of public notoriety, had yet occurred to the human mind.
I willingly leave these recondite, and, in truth, little interesting researches, for others of a more modern date, the objects of which are still extant, and their effects influencing the present times. Those connected with Bodmin we owe, in a great measure, to the ability, the industry, and the laudable zeal of Mr. John Wallis, the present vicar, on whom I would readily bestow more praise, if his merits had not rendered commendation from me superfluous.
One event, however, intermediate between the Saxon antiquities of Bodmin and those disclosed by Mr. Wallis, is so very curious, and so illustrative of opinions and of habits long passed away, that I cannot help inserting the details of it from Benedictus Abbas, an author of high reputation, Abbot of the great monastery of St.
Peter at Medeshamsted, or Peterborough, and contemporary with the transactions which he relates.
In his work “De Vita et Gestis Henrici secundi et Ricardi primi,” ex editione Thomæ Hearnii, Oxon. 1735, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. i. pp. 228-229.
Eodem anno, quidam Canonicus de Abbatiâ Bothmeniæ, quæ in partibus Cornubiæ sita est, Martinus nomine, statim post Epiphaniam Domini, furtivè asportavit Corpus Sancti Petroci; et cum eo fugiens transfretavit, et illud secum detulit usque ad Abbaciam Sancti Mevenni, sitam in partibus Minoris Britaniæ. Quod cùm Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ & Canonicis ibidem Deo servientibus innotuisset, predictus Prior, consilio Fratrum suorum, D’n’m Regem Angliæ Henricum, filium Matildæ Imperatricis, adiit, ut, per ipsius potentiæ auxilium, Corpus Sancti Petroci, quod per furtum amiserant, recuperassent. Ad instantiam autem illorum, concessit eis præfatus Rex auxilium suum; & mandavit per litteras suas Rollando de Dinamno Justiciaris Britanniæ, quod sine dilatione faceret illud Corpus reddi. Audito itaque mandato Regis, prædictus Rollandus venit cum armatâ manu & potenti ad Abbatiam Sancti Mevenni, et præcepit illud corpus reddi; quod cùm Abbas et Monachi ejusdem loci reddere nollent, ipse minas addidit, jurans se per vim, nisi celerius redderetur, extrahere velle illud. Quod ipsi audientes, noluerunt iram prefati Regis Angliæ incurrere: sed beatum Corpus illud reddiderunt prænominato Rogero Priori Bothmeniæ, die Dominicâ Clausi Pentecosten, festo scilicet Sanctorum Gervasii et Prothasi, Martyrum, scilicet 13 kalendas Julii; redditumque est ei corpus illud Sanctum cum omni integritate, & sine aliquâ diminutione, Abbate & Monachis Ecclesiæ Sancti Mevenni, jurantibus super Reliquias ejusdem Ecclesiæ quòd de Corpore illo nihil retinerent, sed idem Corpus non alternatum redderent. Quod cùm factum fuisset, prænominatus Prior Bothmeniæ cum gaudio in Angliam rediens, Corpus beati
Petroci in Teca Eburnea reconditum, usque Civitatem Wintoniæ detulit; et cùm in conspectu Regis allatum fuisset: Rex, viso eo & adorato, permisit prædictum Priorem in pace, cum Sancto suo, ad Abbatiam Bothmeniæ redire.[18]