The Celtic Christianity of Cornwall: Divers Sketches and StudiesTaylor, Thomas
History
The Celtic Christianity of Cornwall: Divers Sketches and Studies
Taylor, Thomas
Cornwall (England : County) -- Church history
The final “t” is the only difficulty. If we may regard it as a false
reading for “l,” Listyavehet becomes Lis-ty-amehel, the “court of the
house of St. Michael,” Lesmanaoc being the “Monk’s Court,” and the
change of name easily accounted for by the transfer of the monks’
possessions in Menegland (monastic land) to the house at St. Michael’s
Mount.
The _Itinerary_ of William of Worcester deserves attention. It is a
curious assortment of undigested and ill-arranged odds and ends of
information compiled in the year 1478, that is to say about half a
century after the expulsion of the Benedictines from the Mount and the
introduction of the Bridgettines, only five years after the Mount was
seized by John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and surrendered by him to the
King’s troops after a siege of twenty-three weeks. The _Itinerary_ is
properly speaking a note-book. For the most part William confines
himself to matters of topography, genealogy and hagiology.
Once and again he condescends to men of low estate, as, for example,
when he tells us that about the year 1476 one Thomas Clerk, of Ware,
left Ware on the Octave of St. John the Baptist and rode to the Mount
within ten days and then returned to Ware at the end of another ten
days, thereby covering, according to the route bill which is given,
something over thirty-two miles a day for twenty consecutive days.
William himself rode more leisurely. Leaving Norwich on the 16th of
August, 1478, travelling by way of Truro, he reached Marazion on the
16th of September. The next day he heard Mass at the Mount and in the
afternoon of the same day he began the return journey to Penryn. The
time spent by him in Cornwall was just over a week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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