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THE

ANCIENT CATHEDRAL

OF

CORNWALL

HISTORICALLY SURVEYED.

I

CHAPTER FIFTH.

SECTION I.

HAVE now brushed away those grains of dust in the telescope, which prevented Dr. Borlase from beholding the bright constellation of stars, that was darting its united effusion of radiance upon the Christianity of Cornwall. I have pointed out the stars by name to my readers, and entered them in form upon my catalogue. Yet I have not named all: others remain, provoking my attention, and challenging my admiration. To some of these I now direct my telescope; antiquarianism, like astronomy, continually opening a new world upon the eye, and so carrying on the range of vision to the very extremity of the system.

"The paroch chirch," says Leland, concerning St. Ives, at the mouth of the very same current of the Hayle, within which Breaca landed; and, with a reference to one of the very same company of Irish saints that attended Breaca, "is of IA, a nobleman's daughter of Ireland, and disciple of S. Barricius," the companion of St. Patrick *. "lä and "Elwine," the very person that we have seen mentioned in the chapter immediately preceding, as one of Breaca's companions, "with many "others," as we have already seen, "came into Cornewaul and landed

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66

* Leland's Itin. iii. 15: "Barricius socius Patritii,' ut legitur in Vitâ S. Wymeri."

VOL. II.

B

"at

66

stony rok, wher

"at Pendinas. This Pendinas is the peninsula and "now the toun of S. Iës (or St. Ives) standith †." The company of Breaca thus appears to have been embarked in two vessels, and to have entered the Hayle in the night, as I have previously supposed, unseen by each other. One, therefore, having Breaca herself on board, pushed ashore at Rivier, on its eastern bank; and the other, having St. Iä, put to land at the present site of St. Ives, on its western, a site then a “stony rok” merely, and a "peninsula" denominated "Pendinas." But "one Dinan, a great lord in Cornewaul, MADE A CHIRCH at Pendinas, AT THE REQUEST "of lä, as it is written in St. Ie's Legende," in the history drawn up at or near the time of her death, preserved with religious fidelity at the church erected upon her solicitation, and read with devout attention in that church, during the offices of religion, on the day of her death every year. The Hayle of St. Ives was equally with the Alan of Padstow then, a commodious port of passage from Ireland into Cornwall; but had no town at the mouth of it, as the Alan had, and was therefore entered by this company of high rank and fortune, we may be sure, against their intentions, which must have pointed to Padstow, even merely in their eagerness to reach the land, when they had been driven from their destination. Breaca and her party found Theodore the king of Cornwall, residing in his palace of Rivier, where they landed, and living in the profession of Christianity; while Iä and her party equally found one Dinan, a great lord of the country, inhabiting his house near the ground on which they landed, and equally living in the same profession. Those were permitted by Theodore to fix upon any sites in his kingdom for their habitations, and therefore penetrated

↑ Pen-dinas signifies literally Hill-head, and was therefore a very common appellation for places in Cornwall. Thus "the very point of the haven mouth," at Falmouth, "being an "hille, whereon the king hath buildid a castel, is caullid Pendinant." (Itin. iii. 26.) "The king hath set his castel on Pendinas-Pendinas almost an isle." (Ibid. ibid.) "The point of land betwixt S. Just creke and S. Maws," and nearly opposite to the other, which is still so denominated, "is of sum caullid Pendinas.” (Ibid. 29.)

* Leland's Itin. iii. 21, 22.

Hence comes the name legenda or legend, by the Protestant interpretation of these histories having now lost its original meaning, and come to signify merely a lying story. deeply

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