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 next mention of Cornish hermits is found in the _Inquisitio
post-mortem_ of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall.[102] Following the inventory
of honours, lands and services held by him at the time of his death
there is a list of the charges upon his estates and among them the
entry: “alms to St. Philip of Restormel, hermit, and St. Robert of
Penlyn, hermit.” The earldom and its possessions reverted to the King on
Earl Edmund’s death, and we are therefore not surprised to find an entry
in the Close Roll of the following year, 1301, which reads as follows:
“To the sheriff of Cornwall. Order to deliver to brother Robert of
Penlyn, hermit, the island surrounded (_inclusam_) by the water of Fawe
with a rent of 56s. 2d. from certain tenants of the manor of Penkneth,
to be held by him for life as he held them before the death of Edmund,
Earl of Cornwall, by reason of whose death the sheriff took them into
the King’s hands; on the same terms as the earl granted them, together
with the houses built on the island, to Robert by his charter which the
King has inspected.”[103]
All attempts to identify the island have hitherto failed. The manors of
Penlyn or Pelyn and Penkneth or Pennight are in the parish of Lanlivery,
of which the river Fowey is, roughly speaking, the eastern boundary, but
no island is now to be discovered in its course. The site of the
hermitage of Restormel is also uncertain. It may have been that of the
chapel of the Holy Trinity in the park, sometimes called the King’s free
chapel, to which frequent reference is made in the Rolls, and from
which, according to an inventory made in 1338, a bell weighing 100 lbs.
had been removed to the chapel within the castle walls of Restormel.
There is nothing to lead us to suppose that St. Philip and St. Robert
had successors. It is not improbable that royal chaplains were
substituted for them.
In 1339 the Patent Roll records the King’s protection granted to Roger
Godman, hermit of the chapel of St. Mary by Liskeard (Liskerith),
collecting about the realm the alms whereon he depends for
subsistence.[104] It is probable that the chapel of St. Mary was the
same as the King’s free chapel of St. Mary in the park of Liskeard to
which Edward II appointed Roger de Aqua his chaplain in 1316.[105] It
must be distinguished from that of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen.
The former appears to have become a chantry, for, in 1378, a royal grant
was made to Richard Lagge, chaplain, that he might celebrate service in
it, and in the same year the bishop issued a licence to him in which it
is stated that he is to celebrate for the welfare of the King.[106] The
chantry was suppressed by Edward VI, and the “Chapel of our Laydye”
granted to Thomas Pomray in 1549.[107] It is interesting to compare the
fortunes of this chapel with that of the Holy Trinity in the park of
Restormel. Both of them appear to have been served originally by
hermits, to have been converted into royal chapels and to have shared
the same fate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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