Saint from St. Piran. Such is the logic of this extraordinary passage! But what is still more extraordinary, the fidelity of it is as bad as the logic; the patronage of Piran Uthnoe being equally in lay hands with that of St. Kevern; and the argument, therefore, if it was not as powerless as it is false, turning against the identity of this St. Piran with the other. Yet what is still more than all, the very patronage of Piran itself was not in the hands of either the bishop or the church of Exeter till the Conquest, till even the reign of Henry I. after it, when he granted the college at Piran to them, as being then in his patronage, when they only succeeded to his in consequence of the grant, and are now patrons of the vicarage from it*. So thoroughly has Dr. Borlase lost himself in the labyrinth of his own reasonings, his clue being very short, his path very long, his resolution to push on very eager, and his quickness to catch the turns very blunt. Piran was the same with Kiaran, Keyran, or Keveryn, the first of the converters of Ireland, prior to Patrick in time, but condescending to rank as second in dignity, and the glorious hermit of Cornwall, who came into Cornwall for the sake of sequestration in a hermitage, not indeed so early as about the year 400, only as early as about 460-another proof additional to the many before in his and Breaca's companions, of the prevalence of Christianity in the country +. *Tanner. With + "Here," cries Dr. Borlase, 388, concerning St. Kevern, in a conjecture which I am happy to applaud after so much reprobation of him, "seems to me to have been a distinct religious house, with lands called Lanachebran, which we find mentioned [in Doomsday Book] as one of our religious houses in Cornwall, but have not known hitherto where to "fix it. 'There was a society of secular canons in a place of this name, at or about the "Conquest, dedicated to Saint Achebrann'." This is said from Tanner; but let us see. Doomsday Book itself: "Canonici Sancti Achebranni tenent Lannachebran, et tenebant tempore regis Edwardi." Yet, as Dr. Borlase goes on, "now this Saint Achebran is "not to be found in Cornwall; but St. Chebran there is, commonly called Kevran, the "same, doubtless, as called Kiaranus, now called St. Keveryn, in the hundred of Kerrier." For "the letter A before Chebran, whereby they make a Saint Achebran, is no more than "a preposition in the Cornish language, signifying of, prefixed to the Saint Chebran or "Kevran." In the text of the new edition of Tanner, we accordingly read of "Lanachebran, or Lan-a-Kebran, alias St. Kevran, in the deanery of Kerrier, Cistercian cell," where With him and with the others came also, I believe, FINGAR, and PIALA, and BUDOC, and BURIEN, and CARANTOC; who complete my catalogue of Irish saints, and close my account of Breaca's companions. Our notices concerning all, however, are very short, little more than sufficient to link them into the great chain that came charged with such a quantity of electrical fire from Heaven, and that dispensed it in such pleasing effusions of light, through a country fully prepared by her own Christianity to retain as well as to receive it. where was a society," &c.; and in a note we are told, that "in the former edition this church [of St. Kevran] was confounded with that of St. Pieran [in the Sands];" that the late learned prelate Dr. Charles Littleton, bishop of Carlisle," from some communications, probably of Dr. Borlase's," informed Dr. Tanner of the mistake; and” that "the "account of both churches, inserted in this edition, are [is] agreeable to the information "communicated by him," bishop Littleton; and I cordially unite with all in embracing the opinion. The want of a parish for the Lannachebran of Doomsday Book, and the want of notice in Doomsday Book for the parish of St. Kevern, unite to shew the one is omitted because the other is mentioned, and the one is mentioned under the name of the other. In the next record too that we have of our churches in Cornwall, the Valor of Pope Nicholas, we find the scene regularly reversed-St. Kevern noticed, and Lannachebran omitted. "Several considerable ruins are still to be seen," adds Dr. Borlase," about a quarter of "a mile from the church of St. Kevern, at a place called Tregonin, where there is a tradi❝tion among the neighbours," still existing, "that formerly there stood a priory; and a "part of these ruins is still called the chapel." The ruins are gone, but the site is known, and bones have been found in digging at a little distance. "This likely was the house, and "St. Kevern the collegiate church, of these secular canons:" the church being a fine old building, very long, very broad, with a nave and two ailes, the marks of its once collegiate dignity. These secular canons," the Doctor should also have noticed, had been changed into monks long before the Reformation; the monks had even deserted the house before it, and even then the whole building was in ruins. This appears from a passage in Leland's Itinerary, which the Doctor has carelessly overlooked, though it follows immediately after the mention of "St. Keveryn, otherwise Piranus." For he says "ther is a sanctuary, "with x or xii dwelling howses," the present church-town of St. Kevern; " and therby "was a sel of monkes, but now goon home to ther hed hows. The ruines of the monastery "yet remenith." Even Tanner had told him, that after the Conquest "there was a cell "of Cistertian monks, subordinate to Beaulieu abbey, in Hampshire; and the manor "here," the very Lannachebran of Doomsday Book, "as parcel of the possessions of "Beaulieu, was granted 2 Eliz. to Francis earl of Bedford." FINGAR FINGAR or Guigner is noticed by Anselm before, catching the sunbeams of history from the mirror of tradition, catching them much distorted and discoloured, yet still catching them, as landed about the year 460, with a large company of Christians from the shores of Ireland, at the mouth of the Hayle. The position of the parish denominated Gwinear at present from him, St. Wynyar, St. Wyner, or St. Gwyner in the last Valor, and St. Wyner in the first, answers very singularly to this descent of sainted persons upon our shores: it lies immediately contiguous to the ancient and present Rivier. He took up his residence at it, as Iä did at Pendinas; and therefore lent his appellation to that, as she lent hers to this. But what became of "his sister PIALA ?" To ascertain the point we must take a large range in local intelligence, and move in a kind of cometary orbit to our focus, collecting and diffusing light as we sweep along. In all countries the vallies have been inhabited before the hills, as enriched by the washings of soil from the sides, and as lying more sheltered from the stroke of the winds. In Cornwall they would be peculiarly so, as the land is exposed by its position to peculiar violence of wind, and as the old houses, in consequence of that, are almost all in the bottoms. Thus the parishes of Veryan and Ruan Lanyhorne, each of which has its church in a valley, would there be inhabited before the high grounds to the west of them; those parishes naturally spread up the hills about them, but kept the low lands near their houses for corn and hay grounds, and used the distant grounds above for sheepwalks. At the top of those hills actually lay a large range of land' adjoining to the two parishes upon their western side, but bounded by the Fal and the Channel on the other side. These hills reared their heads for ages in one extensive heath, belonging assuredly to both; the northern part to Ruan Lanyhorne, and the southern to Veryan; and they were naturally denominated Rós, the mountain or the heath; and were as naturally denominated when the English came to settle among us us in 936, ROSE-LAND; nor are we here deceiving ourselves, as critics often are, in playing with the meteors of etymology. Fact comes in to raise surmise into certainty. Hence only could have originated that traditionary fondness, which is still so predominant in the region, for Roseland mutton in preference to all other. The first parish probably that was formed upon this Rós, or sheep-walk, was one, which therefore took the appellation of it, is denominated Eglos-rós, or Heath Church, in the first Valor, and has an estate of the same appellation, lying close to the church at present. Thus, in the third of Henry IV. we find the heir of one Joceus Dynnan possessed of a fee in Trelewith and Eglos-ros*. And what shews the new parish to have been formed out of Ruan Lanyhorne, as the old, there are two fields titheable in common betwixt them; the Higher Congier paying two sheaves to the old and one to the new, while the Lower Congier pays sheaf for sheaf to both. Hence we may learn to wonder at the folly of foreigners, who have turned the name of Roseland into a compliment to the soil, have honoured the mountain above the valley, for fruitfulness, and interpreted a mere range of heath into a garden of roses. Hence too we may learn to smile at the equal folly of the inhabitants, who still pretend to fancy the Roseland mutton, just as the people of Bristol do the Welsh; so continue the language, which was used when that mutton was fed, like this, upon the heathy mountain; yet still affect to continue it, when the mountain is enclosed like the valley, and the heath is formed into rich pastures †. The northern point of the heath being thus graced with a church, and the adjoining parts of the heath being thus moulded into a district by themselves, a chapelry first, and a parish *Carew, 44: "Hæres Jocei Dynnan ten. in Eglosroset (Eglos-ros), ac in Trelewith, "I feod." 86 "Their sheep thrive exceedingly," notes Borlase, 82, concerning the Sylley isles, "the grass on the commons being short and dry, and full of the same little snail, which "gives so good a relish to the Sennan and Phillac mutton in the west of Cornwall." The same snail probably abounded on the Rôs, or heath, as it still abounds in some fields of the parsonage at Ruan Lanyhorne; but is generally destroyed by cultivation of the land, though now and then it escapes destruction; upon one field it abounds so much, in spite of all cultivation, as to be felt frequently crashing under the foot in walking. afterwards; Eglos-rôs, or the Heath Church, now looks down from a mountainous eminence, upon the well-watered vale of Ruan Lanyhorne at its feet +. About the same period probably, that is, about a couple of centuries after this religious descent of the Irish upon our coast, such part of the mountain-heath as lay most adjacent to Veryan, was moulded equally into a parish; and from the royal saint, lately deceased there, was denominated St. Gerens. That this church and the church of Eglos-ros were formed originally about the same period, is suggested not merely by the regular analogy of operation at the sides of Veryan and Ruan Lanyhorne, but by the striking similarity in the site of each to the other's, and the opposition as striking in the sites of both to the sites of their mother-churches; these being lodged in the warm bosoms of two vales, and those perching boldly upon the windy summits of two hills, Eglosros upon the northern promontory of the whole, and Gerens upon the southern. But that experience, which had originally driven our ancestors into the shelter of a valley for the mothers, seems to have soon beaten them back into it again for the daughters. The daring deviation could not be recalled indeed; but it was not repeated, in the two parishes that successively occupied the remainder of this tract of hills. The third parish won from the waste, appears to have been that little intake to the west of Gerens, which now constitutes the petty district of St. Anthony; but seems from its very pettiness to have once constituted a part of Gerens district. It seems also, from its participation with Gerens, in being detached from the main body of the county, as to the spiritual jurisdiction over it, being made independent of the archdeacon, and subjected immediately to the bishop himself*. And it seems once more, from that How directly then, in contradiction to fact, does Mr. Tonkin in MS. interpret Eglosrôs, "a church in a valley?" Just as directly as he interprets Roseland the name of a congeries of hills, rising one upon the back of the other, with scarce a gully between them; into a "circuit of land in the vale, with a promontory?" It asks discretion e'en in running mad. * In the first Valor is "Taxatio peculiaris jurisdictionis domini episcopi." There, under "Decanatus de Penryn," are equally Gerens and St. Anthony. VOL. II. D extraordinary |