HALS.
Temple is situate in the hundred of Trigg, and hath upon the north Brewar, south part of Cardenham and Warliggan, west Blisland, east part of St. Neot and Altarnun. As for the name, it is derived from the Latin Templum, and signifies amongst Christians, a church, chapel, or temple for performing Divine Service or worship to God, by contemplation or action of body or mind.
But here, in a more especial manner so called for, that this church or chapel was a cell or temple pertaining to the great master of the Knights Templars of Jerusalem, under its superior in the Middle Temple of London, now the lawyers’ Inn, where was their chief manor or commandery. This religious fraternity took an oath of confederacy, for aiding and assisting all persons, pilgrims, and strangers, that intended by way of Joppa to visit Jerusalem and the sepulchre of our Saviour; who, for that by licence of the abbot of a church there called the Temple, in which they had their seats (as is now used in our churches), they were from thence called Templars.
This district now in Cornwall, consisting only of eight tenements of land, and about thirty human souls, in the Domesday Book 1087, was taxed under the jurisdiction of Nietstone, still contiguous therewith. In the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, Capella de Templo was rated to First Fruits at 10s. In Wolsey’s Inquisition it is not named. After the dissolution of the Knights Hospitallers in England (to whom the lands of the Knights Templars had been given) this manor of Temple fell to the Crown.
Temple. This little parish is in the hundred of Trigg, and has to the west Blissland, to the south Cardenham and Warlegon, to the east and north Brewer, alias Symonward.
It is so called, because it belonged formerly to the Knights Templars; and lying in a wild wastrell, exempted from the Bishop’s jurisdiction, many a bad marriage-bargain is there yearly slubbered up [now precluded by the Marriage Act, which is bad in many points, but good in this]; and grass widows with their fatlings put to lie in and nurse here. [This practice still continues, and has given rise to a mode of expression, which sends off unmarried but pregnant women to lie in privately, by despatching them to the Moors, meaning that long range of wilderness which is called Temple Moors. W.]
It is not valued in the King’s Book. In Tax. Ben. anno 1291, 20 Edward I. it is by the name of Capella de Temple, 10s.
THE EDITOR.
This church was certainly founded by the Knights Templars, in compliance with a custom very prevalent among the military monastic orders, of establishing Preceptories in desert and uncultivated places, with the view of introducing inhabitants, or of civilizing the few that might be scattered over a wilderness. The benevolent intentions of these gallant knights failed however in this particular instance: the parish, which, judging from the analogy of similar cases, must have been large, perhaps co-extensive with the Moors to which it imparted a name, has shrunk into one of the least in Cornwall. Its church has disappeared. The churchyard is not distinguishable from any other inclosure; and the few parishioners resort to neighbouring churches for divine service, for marriages, or for the administration of the sacraments.