Professor Loth, as the result of a careful study of Breton toponomastic, has arrived at the conclusion that the Armorican parishes were placed as early as the sixth and seventh century under the invocation of the saints—national, emigrant, or otherwise—whose names they still bear.[46] It is therefore possible, I think probable, that the Cornish parish is older than the English. The reforms of Archbishop Theodore (668-690) which resulted in the subdivision of dioceses and the formation of parishes, were begun though not completed a little less than a century later. Cornwall and Wales were unaffected by these reforms, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s jurisdiction not being acknowledged by Cornwall until the days of Egbert (803-839), or by Wales until the beginning of the twelfth century. In the absence of clear historical evidence it would be rash to assert that every development in Wales, Brittany and Ireland was followed by a corresponding development in Cornwall, but where the same religious influences were at work in every other Celtic-speaking country it may be assumed that those influences were at work in Cornwall, and the receptivity of the Cornish in the matter of religion, when the influence was held to come from the right quarter, is witnessed by the readiness wherewith they admitted Welsh, Irish and Breton saints into their hagiologies. At the time under discussion it will be borne in mind that the saints reverenced in Cornwall were almost if not wholly Celtic. Even at the present time, in spite of the Saxon conquest and the submission to Canterbury, in spite of the attempt to substitute saints from the Roman Kalendar for the Celtic patrons of Cornish churches in the fourteenth century, and in spite of the ignorant perversion of spelling and the abortive attempts at identification on the part of the English registrars who conducted the business of the bishop’s court at Exeter, it is a matter for wonder and gratitude that so many Cornish churches should still be known by their ancient saints’ names. If we compare the dedications of Derbyshire with those of Cornwall we find that of the 168 ancient churches in the former county, 72 are under the invocation of Scriptural saints, 18 under St. Michael, 28 under All Saints, 34 under historical saints like Martin, Lawrence and Giles and about 16 under English and Saxonised saints, like Edmund, Oswald, Wilfrid, Werburgh and Cuthbert.