As for the name, if St. Eata, alias St. Eatah, be the tutelar guardian of this church, note that he was a Briton of Wales by birth, and Bishop of Lindisfarne, predecessor of St. Cuthbert 678, who was translated from thence to the diocese of Hexham, by the Latins called Axelodunum; by Bede, Hagulstadiensis, and by us Hexhamshire, in Yorkshire or Northumberland. He was succeeded by ten other Bishops, who enjoyed his chair, till by reason of the Danish depredations it was annexed to York, and made the see of the Archbishopric, and had the reputation of a county palatine; but discontinued by the statute of 37th Henry VIII.
chap. 16, and annexed to the county of Northumberland. In this see St. Etha sat six years after his translation to Hexhamshire, as Bede saith, but two as others; and was buried in his Cathedral Church there.
In the Domesday Book 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Dundagell. At the time of the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, this Church was not endowed, if extant. The parish is rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £156. 8s.
Bodanan, in this parish, was the lands of that old British family of gentlemen surnamed de Cheiney, so called from Cheynoy in St. Endellyan; of which place, name, and family was John de Cheyney, Sheriff of Cornwall, the 5th and 6th of Edward I. 1280. Ralph de Cheyney, his son or grandson, had £20 lands and upwards in Cornwall, held by the tenure of knight’s service 24th of Edward III. Survey of Cornwall, p. 51. Robert de Cheyney, probably his son, held also by the tenure of knight’s service in this place, the fourth part of a knight’s fee of land 3 Henry IV. idem liber, p. 42; whose son William Cheyney, Esq. married the daughter and heir of [Stretch] in Devon, lord of Pinhoe, and made it the place of his residence, and accordingly was made Sheriff of Devon 11 Henry IV. 1410; John Cheyney, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 22 Henry VI. 1444; John Cheyney, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 1 Edward IV. 1480; John Cheyney, his son, was Sheriff of Devon 12 Edward IV. 1472.
In this Church are to be seen the gravestones of some of those gentlemen interred here, and in the same, and the glass window of this Church, the arms of those gentlemen, viz. in a field Gules, on a fess of four lozenges Argent, as many escallops Sable; in memory, as tradition saith, that one of their ancestors, going into the Holy Land and War with King Richard or King Edward I. carried such shells with him for taking water to drink in the hotter clime of Asia.
Sir John Cheyney of this family was chosen Speaker of the Parliament 6 Henry IV. called indoctum Parliamentum, or Parliamentum indoctorum; so called, for that in the writ of summons there was a clause no lawyer should be chosen therein. Sir John Cheyney was also Speaker of the House of Commons 1 Henry IV. and styled not only Parlour, but Procurator, de les Commons. Hakewell’s Catalogue of the Speakers, p. 202.
TONKIN.
St. Teath is in the hundred of Trig, is bounded to the west by Endellian and St. Kew, to the north by the sea and Tintagell, to the east by Lanteglos and Michaelstow, to the south by St. Tudy.
I take St. Tathius to be the tutelar saint of this parish, of whom Mr. Camden saith, (Brit. in Monmouthshire,) that he was a British saint, who governed an academy at Caer Went, and also founded a church there in the reign of King Kradock ap Ynir, circa an. Dom. ——.
This is a vicarage, valued in the King’s Book £12.; the patronage in the Bishop of Exeter; the impropriation of the sheaf in the heirs of the late Matthew Beale, Esq.; the incumbent ——.