Is situate in the hundred aforesaid, and hath upon the north, Crowan; west, Germow; east, Sithney; south, the British Channel. Of the name and titular guardian of this church I have spoken before. By the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, to the Pope’s annats, 1294, ecclesia Sancti Breuc in decanatu de Kerryer, was rated 16l. Vicar ejusdem 36s. It is now the mother church of Cury, Germow, and Gunwallo, and goes in presentation and consolidation with them, though at the time of the inquisition aforesaid they were taxed separate. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, and Valor Beneficiorum, they are valued together in first fruits 33l. The patronage in the crown, the incumbent Trewinard. This parish was rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax 1696, 230l. 4s. temp. William III. At the time of the Norman conquest, if this parish was not taxed under the jurisdiction of Lanmigall, i. e. Michael’s Temple or Church, (now St. Michael’s Mount,) the priors whereof, or the king or duke, endowed it, together with those other before named, it was rated under the
district of Treskeaw, that is to say the skeawe, or elder-tree town, a place, as I am informed, well known and still extant there.
In the pleas of the crown in the Exchequer, 12th Edward I., I found it thus written of Pengelly in this parish.
“Johannes de Treveally tenet in Pengelly, in comitatu Cornubiæ, dimidium acram terræ Cornubiensem, (above a hundred English,) per sergiantiam recipiendi unam capam de grisando ad Pontem de Penleton, cum Rex fuerit inveniendus versus Cornubiam; et intrando Domino de Cabilla, qui eam in adventu domini Regis ibidem deferre debet, et eam tradere eidem Johanni, qui quidem Johannes eandem capam ferre debet cum domino Rege pro totam in Cornubiam;” which Mr. Hals interprets, that the half acre Cornish is held by the duty of its owner receiving a great coat from some one in Devonshire at Penleton Bridge, and to carry it about for the King’s use, so long as he remains in Cornwall.
In this parish stands the barton and manor of Good-ol-gan, also God-al-gan, synonymous words, only varied by the dialect, meaning a place that was altogether a wood down, a name anciently given and taken from the natural circumstances thereof. Otherwise, if the name consist of English-Cornish, God-ol-gan signifies a place that was altogether God’s downs. As for the modern name Good-ol-phin, God-ol-fyn, it, in like manner as the former, admits of no other etymology or construction than that it was a place that was altogether a wood, fountain, well, or spring of water, or altogether God’s fountain or spring of water. But because the words god, gud, good, in Cornish, Belgic, and British, are always taken and adopted in the first sense, to signify only a wood, and the words Du, Due, and Dyu, are the proper appellations of God, and no other in Cornish, I cannot apprehend how that sacred name is concerned in the initial part of this word, Godolphin, which refers,
as I said before, to the circumstances of the place, viz. that no table, fountain, well, or spring of water here, that passeth beneath the house, through the gardens, and the woods and groves of timber that still surround the same.
Contrary to this etymology, Mr. Carew, in his “Survey of Cornwall,” page 153, says that godolphin signifies a white eagle, than which nothing can be more untrue; for, in all those compound words, there is not one particle or syllable relating thereto, or any other than the British language whatsoever: for wen erew, wen eryr, wen eriew, and by contraction wen-er, is a white eagle in the Welch, Little-Britannic, and Cornish tongues. [See Dr. Davis’s British Lexicon, and Floyd upon Aquila.] In like manner Verstegan tells us, that, in the Saxon tongue, blond erna is a white eagle; as also in the German and Dutch tongues; and the French dictionaries inform us that blanch ægle, or aegle, is a white eagle; ἀετος [aetos] in Greek; aquila, in Latin; nesher in the Hebrew; from whence our British erew, erier, eryr, eriew, is derived.
In opposition to all those etymologies of the word godolphin, Mr. Sammes in his Britannia, and the author of the additions to Camden’s Britannia, tells us that godolac in the Phenician tongue signifies a land of tin, from whence they apprehend the name of godolphin is derived, especially because tin is found in the precincts thereof, but surely not comparable in quantity to what is made in forty other places in Cornwall, that yet come not under that denomination of godolphin, as being tin land.
From the name I proceed to the matter or thing itself, viz. the manor and barton of Godolphin; which lands, in the time of Edward III., were the lands of Sir John Lamburne, Knight, of Lamburne in Peransand, whose daughter and heir was afterwards married to Sir Renphry, or John Arundell, of Lanherne, Knight, one
of whose posterity, viz. Edmond Arundell, Knight, tempore Henry VI. sold the same to one Stephens, upon condition of a kind of domineering, lording, or insulting tenure, and reservation of rent to his manor of Lamburne in Peransand, viz. “that once a year for ever the Reeve of the said Manor should come to Godolphin, and there boldly enter the hall, jump upon the table, or table-board, and there stamp or bounce with his feet or club, to alarm and give notice to the people of his approach, and then and there make proclamation aloud three times, ‘Oyes! oyes! oyes! I am the Reeve of the Manor of Lamburne in Peransand, come here to demand the old rent, duties, and customs, due to the lords of the said Manor from the lands of Godolphin.’ Upon which notice there is forthwith to be brought him 2s. 8d. rent, a large quart of strong beer, a loaf of wheaten bread worth sixpence, and a cheese of the like value; which the Reeve having received, he shall drink of the beer, taste the bread and cheese in the place, and then depart, carrying with him the said rent and remainder of those viands, to the lords of the Manor aforesaid, to whom they are still duly paid, which at present are Sir John Seyntaubyn, Bart. and others, who claim it in right of the two daughters and heirs of the said Edmund Arundell, which were married to Danvers and Whitington, as Whitington’s heirs were married to St. Aubyn and others.