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
Quite the most valuable extant document of Cornish Christianity,
however, is the List of _Manumissions on the Bodmin Gospels_ which dates
from the year 942 and carries us almost to the middle of the eleventh
century. From this precious manuscript we gather that there were during
that period the following bishops in, or connected with, Cornwall: (1)
Athelgea[rd] possibly bishop of Crediton, (2) Comoere contemporary with
Edgar (958-975), (3) Wulfsige of a slightly subsequent date, (4)
Burthwold mentioned in Cnut’s charter and described by William of
Malmesbury as uncle of Living or Lyfing the penultimate bishop of
Crediton. Charters also disclose two additional bishops: Ealdred
(993-997) and Aethelred (1001). Of these Comoere, Wulfsige and Ealdred
are identified by Mr. Haddan with Bodmin and Burthwold with St. Germans.
Comoere’s name is Celtic; the rest of the names are Saxon. But the
important point is that they are all, except possibly the first,
contemporary with, though not identical with, bishops of Crediton, in
other words, some measure of independence continued to exist between the
Saxon see and the see or sees of Cornwall. There is nothing to show
that, before the days of Wulfsige (967), i.e. until within 80 years of
Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, the greater part of Cornwall was
not Celtic both in religion and language. The change of ecclesiastical
organisation was made at a period much later than is commonly
supposed.[62]
The charter of King Aethelred to Bishop Ealdred (994) seems to point to
a period of transition. He gives to Bishop Ealdred episcopal
jurisdiction in the province of Cornwall that it (the province?) may be
free and subject to him and his successors, “that he may govern and rule
his diocese (_parochiam_) in the same way as other bishops who are in
his realm, both the monastery (_locus_) and the domain (_regimen_) of
St. Petrock being under the control of him and his successors.” If the
English conception of diocesan jurisdiction had been generally known and
allowed in Cornwall there would have been no need to require the
stipulations contained in the concluding paragraph. Ealdred was to
administer the see of St. Petrock on English lines. History does not
tell us what was, in the meanwhile, happening at St. Germans; but
twenty-four years later (in 1018) we meet with a grant of lands, in
Landrake and Tiniel, by King Cnut to Burhwold bishop of St. Germans; the
Landrake lands were to be held by the bishop during his life and after
his death they were to be held for the good of the souls of him and the
King. The Tiniel lands were to be used as the bishop thought fit. It is
interesting to note that these lands were not annexed to the bishopric
but continued to be held by the prior of St. Germans until the
dissolution of the priory in the sixteenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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