[17] This ancient Manor of Methleigh was much bigger than the present estate of Methleigh. It most probably comprised a large portion of the present district of Kenneggie. This conclusion finds interesting support from the names of two fields in Kenneggie, viz. the "Sentry" or "Sanctuary Field" and "Church Field." It may be added that the Manor of Methleigh passed from the Bishops of Exeter to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, and by them was alienated from the Church. [18] For the conditions of life on Anglo-Saxon Manor see Seebohm's "Village Communities." [19] The exact size of the ancient Cornish acre is unknown. [20] Inderwick's "The King's Peace." It is fair to add that the Rev. T. Taylor informs me:--"An examination of the Court Rolls given by Maitland makes it evident that where there were few freemen, the villeins were suitors at the Court, and that it is impossible to say that the absence of the former drove the villeins to the Hundred Court." [21] In the _Inquisitio Nonarum_ of 1346 the phrase "ecclesia Sanctae Bryacae cum capellis Sanctorum Correnti Wynyantoni et Gyrmough" occurs. From the Norman Conquest to the Reformation. CHAPTER III. In dealing with the Norman period, to make the story of Breage clear, it is necessary in the first place again to refer briefly to the Earldom of Cornwall. From the time of the Norman Conquest, when the earldom was created, to the time of Edward the Black Prince, when it was exalted into a duchy, the earldom was held by a series of twelve earls. Since the time of the Black Prince the Duchy of Cornwall has always been held by the eldest son of the reigning Sovereign. Giraldus describes the ecclesiastical polity of the Normans in no flattering terms. If his version be correct--and there seems little reason in the main to doubt it--the Normans simply regarded the endowments of the Church as a means of satisfying the rapacity of a swarm of needy ecclesiastics from the other side of the Channel. As the possession of the land was torn from the Saxon nobles and handed over as largess to Norman Knights, so too the endowments of the Church were regarded as fitting spoil for Norman Priests. According to Giraldus, the method of the Norman Priest might be summed up in the words "_pasci non pascere_." He also charges the Norman Clergy with great ignorance and gross immorality, though many of the Saxon Clergy were dispossessed by the Conqueror on the specious charge of immorality, as the Prior and Canons of Plympton St. Mary, near Plymouth. Doubtless the invectives of Giraldus are somewhat highly coloured, but after all it seems but too clear that they contain more than a substratum of truth.