The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 2 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 2 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
The precept from the Sheriff on the Parliament writ, as also to remove
an action at law depending in this leet to a superior court, must be
thus directed: “Majori et Burgensibus Burgi sui de Penrin in Comitatu
Cornubiæ salutem,” otherwise, “Proposito, Ballivis, et Burgensibus
Burgi sui de Penryn;” and to remove an action from the court leet of
Penryn foreign: “Senescallo et Ballivis manerij de Penrin forreigne
salutem.”
But, alas! notwithstanding all its privileges, our Cornish historian,
Mr. Carew, in his time, tells us that on the top of a creek Penrin
town hath taken up its seat; rather passable than notable for wealth,
buildings, or inhabitants. Though now, _tempore_ Charles II. I take it
to be much altered for the better in these particulars, and to be
parallel with, or equal therein, with any other town in Cornwall. And,
moreover, I look upon it as the most commodious, pleasantly situated,
and healthful borough within that province, it being situated upon a
hill, and having continually passing through its streets a useful
river of water, and through the gardens and orchards of the town,
behind the street-houses on each side, pass two considerable
mill-leats, or rivers of water, met daily by the flux and reflux of
the sea.
Where, on the south of this town, on one of those rivers, Walter
Brounscomb, Bishop of Exeter, 1260, at a place called Glasnith, or
green-ford, so named from the estuaries, or ebbing and flowing of the
sea under it, founded and endowed a collegiate church of Black Canons,
or Canons Augustine, that could not marry wives, consisting of twelve
prebends and a dean; “Clerici tresdecem, personæ discretæ,” are the
very words of the leger book of its foundation; and then endowed and
confirmed all by a charter in these words, as translated from Bishop
Brounscomb’s original Latin.
“To give to God, the blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Thomas of
Canterbury, in Budock, Penryn, and Glasnith College, and his
thirteen canonical brothers and their successors, all lands,
woods, meadows, waters, pastures, mills, laws, rents, and courts,
and all things to the same pertaining, to possess, have, hold,
and enjoy for ever. This agrees with the register,
ROBERT MICHELL, Register, 1611.”
Afterwards this collegiate church, thus founded and endowed, and
dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of
Canterbury, received a greater augmentation of wealth, lands, and
revenues from John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, 1358, who had
persuaded all rich priests of his diocese to make him his heir and
executor, in order to build and endow churches with their riches;
which trust, in a great measure, he performed to his lasting credit
and renown; so that at length, amongst others, this collegiate
church’s yearly revenues, at the suppression, 26 Henry VIII. was
valued at 205_l._ 10_s._ 6_d._ according to Speed and Dugdale’s
Monasticon Anglicanum, now worth 1200_l._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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