The suggestion offered in Chapter VI, viz. that the Meneage was at an early period monks’ land both in name and in fact, may possibly account for the entire series of transactions. Grants to religious houses and for religious purposes have not infrequently been a trifling recompense made to Paul for the spoiling of Peter. It was notably so in the reign of King Henry VIII. If in the early part of the eleventh century the Meneage represented alienated, that is, usurped monastic land, no one would have been more disposed than King Edward to make restoration or to honour St. Michael by granting it to the Mount. It is not unlikely that the grant remained inoperative owing to the difficulty of making terms with the layfolk in possession. In the appendix[121] to volume iv. of his _Norman Conquest_, Mr. Freeman, after referring to the doubtful authenticity of Edward the Confessor’s charter, goes on: “doubtful as this charter is, the spuriousness of that which accompanies it (the charter of Robert Count of Mortain) is still more manifest.” He then recites the fact that whereas the latter charter is dated 1085, it bears the signatures of Queen Matilda, who died in 1083, and of Bishop Leofric, who died in 1072; also the exemption from ecclesiastical jurisdiction granted by Leofric at the instance of Pope Gregory, who did not become Pope until after Leofric’s death—altogether a most formidable indictment—and he proceeds to quote from the Exeter Domesday, with a view of establishing the real date of the foundation of St. Michael, the following passage (which will also be found below labelled A.): “Sanctus Michahel habet i. mansionem quae vocatur Treiwal quam tenuit Brismarus eâ die qua Rex E. fuit vivus et mortuus.... De hac mansione abstulit Comes de Moritonio i. de praedictis ii. hidis quae erat de dominicatu beati Michahelis.” “This,” he says, “is the only mention of the house I can find, and it would seem to imply a foundation between 1066 and 1085. Brismar was a man of large property in all the three shires. He is not unlikely to have been the founder of the Cornish Saint Michael, and if so he must have founded it, or at least have given the estate, after Edward’s death.” “It seems plain ... that whoever was the founder of the Cornish house it was not Earl Robert.” And he concludes, “a note in the _Monasticon_ (vii. 989) speaks of another tradition as naming Robert’s son William as the person who gave the Cornish house to the Norman one. Here we most likely have the clue to the mistake.”