At the time of the Norman Conquest this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of the Abbey town, now St. German’s. In the inquisition of the Bishop of Lincoln aforesaid 1294, Ecclesia de Sevyock, in decanatu de Est, was rated cvis. viijd. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, at £26. 14s. 6d.; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax, for one year 1696, at £166.
This church was founded and endowed by those knightly gentlemen, lords of the barton and manor aforesaid, surnamed Daunye or Dawney. Mr. Carew tells us in his Survey of Cornwall, that the funeral monuments of two of those knights are yet extant in this church, though the inscriptions about them are worn out by time. Certes, this was a very famous and flourishing family on the barton of Shevyock aforesaid, for several descents, till the time of King Richard II. when the sole daughter and heir of Sir John de Dawney, knight, named Emelyn, was married to Edward Courtenay, 11th Earl of Devon, 1380, by whom he had issue Edward Courtenay, surnamed the blind, the 12th Earl of Devon, and Sir Hugh Courtenay of Haccomb, knight; the which Edward, at the request of his said mother, by his deed bearing date the 2d of King Henry Fifth, settled upon the said Sir Hugh Courtenay his brother, the manors of Gotherington, South Allington, and Stancomb Dawney in Devon, which were the lands of her ancestors the Dawneys. Afterwards, the said Edward died, 7th Henry V. 1418. (See Brooke in his Catalogue of Devon Earls.)
By this Emelyn Dawney, as traditions amongst the family of the Courtenays have it, Boconock came first into their tribe, though others say that it came to Sir Hugh Courtenay of Haccomb, by Lerchdeacon’s heir, but more truly that his said mother settled it upon him on his marriage with Lerchdeacon of Haccomb’s heir.
One Nicholas de Dawney, 3 Henry IV. held in the hundred of East, by the tenure of knight service, two knight’s fees and a half. (Survey of Cornwall, page 41.) Of the arms of those gentlemen thus speaks Nicholas Upton in his Latin manuscript, before printing was invented 1440. Monsieur Gwilliam Dawney port d’Argent, oue trois popinjays en bend oue deux cottises. Again, Monsieur John Dawney port d’Argent, en une bende Vert trois rose de Or, oue deux costs de Azure; from whence I infer there were either several families of those Dawneys, that gave different arms, or that in those days they had no positive record of their bearings.
One Sir John Dawney, knt. of Cowick, in Yorkshire, Sheriff of that county 35 Henry VIII. gave for his arms, in a field Argent, on a bend cottised Sable, three annulets of the Field, which is the recorded arms of Dawney.
TONKIN.
This church is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book at £26. 14s. 6d. The patronage in Sir William Carew, Bart.; the incumbent Mr. Archdeacon Kendall.
In anno 1291, 20 Edw. I. this church was valued (Tax. Benef.) at 106s. 8d. having never been appropriated.
THE MANOR OF SHEVIOCK.
“The next parish upon this river (Lyner),” saith Mr. Carew, (lib. 2, fol. 108), “is called Sheviock, sometimes the ancient Dauny’s inheritance and inhabitance, by whose