The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 1 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 1 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
There was extant in the Welsh tongue in bard’s verses 1170, temp. Hen.
II. a song which said that the body of King Arthur was buried at the
Isle of Avallan, near Glastonbury, between two pyramids. Whereupon
King Henry ordered search to be made after his corpse, as that most
classical and authentic author Giraldus Cambrensis, who was an eye
witness thereof saith, who relates, that after the pioneers had sunk
about seven foot deep, they lighted upon a stone in form of a cross,
to the back part thereof was fastened a rude leaden cross, something
broad, with those letters inscribed: “Hic jacet sepultus inclitus Rex
Arturius in Insula Avalonia.”
Two feet beneath this cross they then also found two coffins made of
hollow oak, wherein were the bones and skeletons of King Arthur and of
Genevour his wife, the hair of the said lady being then whole and of
fresh colour, as Fabian saith, but as soon as touched it fell to
powder. This history, for substance is gathered out of Galfridus and
other chronologers, John Trevisa’s book of the Acts of King Arthur,
temp. Henry IV. John Lidgate, a monk of St. Edmondsbury, who wrote a
tract of King Arthur’s Round Table, anno Dom. 1470, William Caxton,
the author of that Chronicle called Fructus Temporum, who also wrote
the history of King Arthur, 1484, Nicholas Upton, Canon of the
Cathedral Church of Wells 1440, and others.
King Arthur’s three admirals at sea, as appears from the book of
Thriades in British, were Gerint ab Erbyn, a nobleman of Cornwall, for
then Cornwall and Devon were one county or province, slain at
Lhongporth, now London, by the Saxons, anno Dom. 540; March ab
Meircyon, and Gwenwynwyn ab Nau.
There is yet extant in the British tongue an elegy upon the death of
this Gerint, which amongst others contains those words. Ray
Rhytharmaur mab Erbin.
Yn Longborth yllas Gerint,
Gur deur o godir Dyfneint,
Wyntwys yn Lladhgyt as ledeint
Yn Llongborth llas y Arthur,
Guyr deur Kymmuvint o dur
Amheravdyr llywyadyr llauur.
In Longporth was slain Gerint,
A man beloved of Devon,
Overcome in fight or vanquished
In Longporth where he was slain for Arthur,
A man beloved, that commanded over the water,
Admiral or General of a fleet great.
King Arthur also, by reason of the great schism in the Church between
the Arian and Catholic Clergy, instituted the order of Knights of the
Holy Trinity, and built the Chapel of Trinity at Restormell.
Pierce Gaveston being made Earl of Cornwall by King Edward II. and
afterwards banished for his wicked practices, and put to death by
licence of that king, took out of the jewel house a table of gold, and
tressells of the same, that once belonged to King Arthur, and
delivered them to Amery of Friscoband, a merchant, to be carried into
Gascoigne, where they were sold at a great price to his own private
advantage, as our chronologers tell us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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