St. Anthony in Powder is situate in the hundred of Powder; and hath upon the east Gerance and St. Just; north, Carike road, or part of Falmouth harbour; upon the south and west the British Channel. In Domesday Roll there is no such parish or district charged as St. Anthony, neither therein had any church in Cornwall the appellation of Saint given to it, except St. Wene or St. Wena. But this district was then taxed under the jurisdiction of Treligan or Tregeare, and obtained not the name of St. Anthony till the year of our Lord 1124, at which time William Warlewast, Bishop of Exon, founded here a church, and dedicated it to St. Anthony, having before dissolved the dean and four prebendaries in the collegiate church founded at Plympton in Devon by the Saxon kings, and in the room thereof erected a priory of Black Canons (and dedicated the same to the Virgin Mary): who also in this church of St. Anthony erected a priory or cell of two Black Canons, canons regular or Augustines, under the same tutelar guardian as its superior, so called from St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa, who died in the 4th century, and was institutor of their rule; viz. 1. to live in common as the Apostles did, on the stock revenues or endowment of their church. 2. That all such as received baptism should for several days wear a white garment in token of their new birth. 3. That all priests should wear a black cassock over their white garment, as himself did; such afterwards became the habit of his order, whether collegiate or hermits. 5. Over their sculls he appointed a hood or scapular of the same black cloth as their cloaks, and the hair of their heads to be worn at full length, whereas the monks were always shaved. 6. He gave a liturgy or rule to be observed by those of his order in time of divine service (whereas before every one in a monastery served God, prayed, and fasted, as they best liked). 7. To live single persons, without marriage. This Priory was called St. Mary de Vall or de Valle, to distinguish it from St. Mary de Plym in Devon, so named from the rivers on which they are situate. This priory, together with its superior’s revenues, when it was dissolved, was valued at 912_l._ 12_s._ 8_d._ per ann. 26 Henry VIII. See Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum. Ecclesia de Sancto Antoni, in Rosland, 20 Edward I. was valued to the Pope’s first fruits xl_s._ though its value be not mentioned in Valor Beneficiorum, or Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521. The patronage formerly in the Prior of Plympton, afterwards in Hals of Fentongolan, now Boscawen, its revenues being wholly impropriated. The parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound land tax 1696, 45_l._ 4_s._ St. Anthony’s name is derived from ανθος (anthos) flos, a flower; and for his person, he was a native of Egypt, about the yeare of our Lord 253: a most strict and severe Christian, that lived a retired and hermetical and begging life in the deserts thereof.