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)
[11] The market continues to deserve this character; the
tolls, persuant to the charter of Queen Elizabeth, are
assigned to the relief and maintenance of the poor.
ST. BLAZEY.
HALS.
St. Blazey is situate in the hundred of Powdre, and hath upon the east
Tywardreth and the Parc; south, the British Channel; north, Luxulion;
west, St. Austell. At the time of the Norman Conquest this district
was rated either under Tywardreth, Towington, Trenance, or Treverbyn.
In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294,
before mentioned, Ecclesia de Fanum, appropriata Dom’ni de Tywardreth,
in Decanatu de Powdre, this parish was taxed to the Pope’s first
fruits, or annats, iiii_l._ vicar ejusdem nihil propter paupertatem.
In Wolsey’s Inquisition, and Valor Beneficiorum, it goes as a daughter
church in presentation and consolidation with St. Austell. The
patronage in the King, the incumbent Hugoe, the sheaf or rectory in
Mr. May; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ in the pound tax, 1696,
£92. 3_s._
Quæry, whether the word fanum be not, by the scribe, a corruption of
Foy-town? In the inquisition aforesaid, however, let it be remembered
that, Ecclesia de Fanum must be interpreted as the church or temple,
consecrated to divine service, appropriated to the house of
Tywardreth, as both those churches of Fowey and St. Blazey are. As for
the tutelar guardian from whom the same and the parish is denominated,
Blaze, he was born in Sebaste, a city of Cappadocia in Asia, whereof
he was bishop, and governed his church so well, that the priests of
the idols (then worshipped comparatively all the world over,) took
distaste at him for his preachments against idolatry; and exhibited a
complaint against him to Agricolaus, the emperor Dioclesian’s
president in those parts, by whom he was examined as to this and other
parts of Christian religion; which he would not retract; wherefore he
was by him committed to prison, scourged with the utmost severity that
could be invented, and afterwards, by a special order, under the hand
of Agricolaus, beheaded by the common hangman, 15th Feb. anno Dom.
298, temp. Dioclesiani. The church celebrateth the festival of this
famous saint, bishop, and martyr, February 3. The Council of Lyons,
ann. Dom. 1244, under the Emperor Frederick and Pope Innocent the
Fourth, amongst other things instituted certain new festivals for
canonizing of saints; after which time, in the Inquisition but now
mentioned, we shall find most of the names of our Cornish churches
distinguished by the prefixed title of saint, viz. such person as the
same when first consecrated was dedicated to (who before that time had
been canonized by the church of Rome); though, as I hinted before,
there is but one church or person named in Domesday Roll to whom is
given the appellation of saint, about two hundred years before. In
this church town of St. Blazey there is a public fair kept on the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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