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 is a chapel of St. ―――― at the west ende of the toune. There
is another chapel in Bodmyn beside that at the west ende of the toune,
and an almose house, but not endowid with landes.” (Leland, Itin. ii.
114, 115.) Query, says Tanner, respecting the latter, Whether this
alms-house was St. Anthony’s or St. George’s? for the will of John
Killigrew, proved A.D. 1500, gives legacies Pauperibus Sancti Antonii
de Bodmyn, et Pauperibus Sancti Georgii de Bodmyn. Both these chapels
had an almshouse. The latter is that chapel which stood on the summit
of a hill north of Bodmin, called Berry, from some castle or fort upon
it, I suppose, and giving name to the valley below it, Berrycoomb, or
Bereum. The remains of this chapel are merely a tower, neat but
slight, making a considerable object to the road from its elevation,
yet small in its rise, or its pitch, and carrying a face of no great
antiquity, being merely three hundred years old. The town, says
tradition, stood formerly here, was burnt down, and then removed to
its present site. That this is false as history we know for certain,
as we know the town to have been where it now stands, but that the
town in the days of its high prosperity had shot out hither.
“The showe and the principale of the toun of Bodmyn,” says Leland, “is
from west to est along in one streate.” (Itin. ii. 114.) There were
(says Mr. Hals upon the credit of information) within these sixty
years past no less than thirteen churches, or free chapels, remaining
either whole or ruined in the town and parish, and this was one.
The church of the priory, notes Mr. Hals, after the dissolution of
religious houses, was converted to a parochial church. It was, indeed,
such from the beginning: so Leland tells us concerning it in his time,
“that the parish church standeth at the east end of the town,” &c. It
was even converted as such from a rectorial to a vicarial church
before 1290.
This prioral rectory church, Mr. Hals himself informs us, (long before
the dissolution, and therefore not after the dissolution of the
priory, as said before,) was converted by the Prior into a vicarage
church; for in the Inquisitions of the Bishops of Lincoln and
Winchester, Ecclesia de Bodman was rated to the Pope’s annats at 6_l._
13_s._ 4_d._ Vicar. ejusdem nihil propter paupertatem. So directly
does Mr. Hals confute himself; but the words of the record are not
cited fairly, and are in reality these:
Ecclesia de Bodmynia vi_l._ xiii_s._ 4_d._
Vicar. ejusdem xi_s._
Nor could any one of the thirteen be a free chapel, as no such chapels
existed in the first or in the second valuation, and therefore none
are mentioned therein.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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