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
An interesting illustration is supplied by the three Cornish words,
Eglos (_Ecclesia_), Escop (_Episcopus_) and Pleu (_Plebs_)—interesting
because the final judgment must be held in suspense until a survey has
been made of their ramifications. All three words are found in the
place-names of this county. Eglos is found in Lanteglos, Egloskerry and
in some other places; Escop is found in Trescobeas in Budock, formerly
appendant to the bishop’s manor of Penryn, also in Mainen Escop
(Bishop’s Rock), in the Isles of Scilly; Pleu is found in Plunent, the
ancient name of Pelynt, in Pluvathack (Budock) and possibly in Bleu
Bridge in Gulval. Names beginning or ending in Eglos are numerous in
Cornwall; those having Pleu for the first syllable are very few in
number. In Brittany very few place-names are composed of Eglos and
Escop, whereas Pleu enters into many. Why does Pleu rather than Eglos
lend itself so readily in Brittany to the exigencies of ecclesiastical
nomenclature? Were it not that Lan (monastery) is equally distributed in
the two countries, we should be tempted to say that in Cornwall a Celtic
word (lan) was preferred to a Latin word (plebs) to describe the
ecclesiastical unit. Some difference of condition or of association
there must have been to account for it. That which most readily occurs
is that Armorica was thoroughly Latinised before the insular Celts
arrived there, whereas Cornwall was probably never brought into close
contact with Roman civilisation as such except on and near the coast; in
other words, that Plebs was in use in the former country before it
became Christian and acquired afterwards a specific ecclesiastical
signification, whereas in Cornwall it was introduced along with
Christianity or after Christianity had taken root. Very few traces of
Roman civilisation are to be found in this county. The Roman milestone
at St. Hilary is almost unique. Roman coins, of which many have been
found in the county, do not prove Roman settlement. It is certain,
however, that Britain had become Christian, at least in name, before the
Roman legions were withdrawn, and it is therefore probable that the
words Eglos, Escop and Pleu had been received into the Cornish language
before that time. And the true explanation of the persistence of Pleu in
the place-names of Brittany seems to be that the insular Britons, who
had acquired the word Plebs during the Roman occupation, converted it,
for ecclesiastical purposes, into Pleu and took it with them when they
emigrated to Armorica, where very soon it had to give place to the word
Pares (from the French Paroisse), though not before it had taken root in
the place-names. In Cornwall and Wales, on the other hand, Pleu remained
in current use and is therefore seldom found in the place-names of those
countries. Making allowance for changed conditions, the same explanation
accounts for the persistence of the word Lan in the place-names of all
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