At the time of Cnut’s grant Cornwall had practically lost its independence both civil and ecclesiastical. All the witnesses of his charter, twenty-seven in number, bear Saxon names. Burhwold died in or about A.D. 1043. Lyfing his nephew, who had become bishop of Crediton in 1027, was, in pursuance of an arrangement made long before between him and King Cnut, allowed to hold both sees. On Lyfing’s death, in the third year of the Confessor’s reign (1046), Leofric the King’s chaplain was appointed to the united bishopric (_episcopatum Cridionensis ecclesiae atque Cornubiensis provinciae_) and the see transferred to Exeter. Papal sanction was obtained for the transaction three years afterwards. By his charter of ratification, dated 1050, Edward the Confessor transfers the Cornish diocese which had formerly been assigned to a bishop’s see (_episcopali solio_) in memory of Blessed German and in veneration of Petrock, this, with all parishes, lands, etc., he transfers to St. Peter in the city of Exeter. The absence of clear definition in the last paragraph is sufficiently obvious: no clearer definition was possible. There had been hitherto no Cornish diocese in the English and Roman acceptation of the word. There had been bishops both at Bodmin and at St. Germans within living memory holding lands and exercising jurisdiction, but the monastic tie was still probably stronger than the diocesan. Yet it was obviously important, now that Exeter was to be the seat of ecclesiastical government for the two counties, that ample provision should be made for the great bishop who was to occupy it. Exeter lacked lands, books and almost every church ornament; so stated Pope Leo in his letter to King Edward. Accordingly the King not only gave to it lands of his own but he provided for the transfer of all that could under any reasonable pretext be claimed for its support. In effect, he made it possible for the Exeter bishopric to derive nearly one-half of its entire revenue from Cornish monastic lands. But the endowment of the see of Exeter requires a chapter to itself. ----- Footnote 49: Cornwall’s independence of Rome implied neither repudiation of nor secession from the Roman Church. It was merely the temporary suspension of outward communion with Latin Christianity as the result of political events which had placed Cornwall in a state of isolation. Footnote 50: