Short History Of St. Michael's Mount Cornwall

By J. R. Fletcher

St. Michael's Mount is one of the most beautiful and recognizable places in the United Kingdom. This well researched and in-depth history of the area is a must for anybody with a passion for local history or in interest in this enigmatic place. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Dec 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781447498544

Book preview

Guides

Part I

I

ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT

THE Mount is a large granite rock, about a mile in circumference forming an islet in Mount’s Bay, three miles east of Penzance. The rock is surmounted by a church and fortress,¹ the top of the church tower standing 238 feet above low water. At the nearest point on the mainland lies the market town of Marazion with which the Mount is connected by a stone causeway, half a mile long.² This causeway is serviceable for only eight out of the 24 hours in the day and even at low tide certain conditions of wind and tide may make it impassable.

A steep rocky path leads up to the Mount, passing the Giant’s well from which no doubt the monks drew their supply of fresh water.³ A little higher you come to a gateway with the remains of a guard house and still ascending you reach a platform cut in the rock on which have been constructed the main buildings. The church cruciform in plan has a central tower. The dimensions of the church as given by William of Worcester in his Itinerary 1478 are, length sixty feet and breadth twenty-four feet. It was consecrated by Robert Chichester, Bishop of Exeter in 1144 (see page 23) but in course of time has been much restored and it is said that no part of the structure to-day is older than the fourteenth century. From an inventory taken in 1430 (see page 42) we learn that in addition to the High Altar there were altars to our Lady, St. Michael, and the Crucifix.¹ The pilgrim shrine was on the south side of a walled courtyard. To the north-east of the church and separate from it was the Lady Chapel, forty feet long by twenty feet wide which William of Worcester in 1478 speaks of as nove capelle edificate.² To the west of the church lay the conventual buildings and the lodging of the military commandant, now converted into the residence of Lord St. Levan, the Chevy Chase Room being the former refectory of the monks.

At the summit of the church tower in the south-west angle are the remains of a moor-stone lantern from which a light was displayed to direct fishermen on dark nights. It is known as "St. Michael’s Chair and will admit one person to sit down. Sir John Arundell, by will 18 April, 1433, left money for the maintenance of this light Lego lumini Sancti Michaelis in Monte xiii. s. et iv.d. Item lego operi cancellarie ibidem faciendi xiii.s. et iv.d. It is hardly likely that a lantern would be called a chair" and I suspect that this title chair has been transferred from a rock chair³ that existed on the Mount known as St. Keyne’s Chair. This chair was said to give the mastery to the first of a married couple who sat upon it.⁴

The shrine of St. Michael at the Mount was the most popular in the west of England and pilgrims from all England visited it. The pilgrims arrived at Marazion where they collected and were catered for. While waiting for the fall of the tide that they might make the crossing to the Mount they gathered together at the Chapel of St. Catherine. The site of this Chapel, destroyed in 1645, is marked by the greenstone rock at the end of the causeway, still known as Chapel Rock. No vestige of the Chapel remains.

A similar tradition of extensive lands and forests submerged by the sea is attached to the Abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy and Mount St. Michael in Cornwall. William of Worcester says that between St. Michael’s Mount and the Scillies were formerly meadow and arable land and masses of forest and that 140 intervening churches had perished by the encroachment of the sea.¹

MARAZION (Market Jew) on shore opposite the Mount.

Marketjew = Marghas yew the Thursday Market (Taylor).

Marghas; plural, marghason = markets.

Formed in twelfth century by the union of two hamlets Marghasbygan, Marazion (little market) and Marghas-dyon, Market jew.

St. Hilary, the mother church.

Had a Chapel of St. Ermes before 1308 (which survived the Reformation, but became ruinous and rebuilt 1753 and new church 1861; became a parish 1893).

The port of the Mount and its emporium Marazion was for long the most important port in West Cornwall. The port and market were widely known at the time of the Conquest. Mousehold was of little use and the only other port was Fowey. Penzance came centuries later.

¹ Besides being a religious house, the Mount was regarded as a place of military importance and its holders were expected to defend it against the King’s enemies. It had a garrison as early as the time of Richard I. and in the early part of the fifteenth century is styled as fortalitium (Rymer 59). In 1400 the Abbey of Syon was charged with the maintenance of soldiers and munitions. As Carew sings of it Both fort and port of haunt the Mount was a place of strategic importance when England was at war with France.

² Halfway across the causeway is a square stone with a socket in which a cross at one time was fixed. The cross has disappeared, but the stone is still called the cross.

³ In the folk-lore of the country, the well where Jack the Giant-Killer is said to have slain the giant Cormoran.

¹ In the church is a chandelier of latten, probably late fifteenth century. Scones radiate from a figure of St. Michael slaying the dragon; above St. Michael a figure of B.V.M. with the Divine Child.

² The Lady Chapel was in a ruinous state in 1730. Sometime between that date and 1770 it was rebuilt and converted into two drawing-rooms.

³ The great rock jutting out on the western side of the Mount.

⁴ The Holy Well of St. Keyne near the village of St. Keyne, two miles south of Liskeard, is said to possess the same virtue (?); the first of a married couple who drinks of its water obtains the mastery.

The quality, that man or wife

Whose chance, or choice attains,

First of this sacred stream to drink

Thereby the mastery gains.

¹ In neolithic times a forest of oak and hazel existed in what is now Mount’s Bay: the petrified remains may be seen at low tide in the sands between Penzance and Marazion. As the land sank still further, the bay became a salt marsh such as now exists to the north of the railway west of Marazion. With further subsidence, the sea encroached, forming the bay.

II

THE CHARTER OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

IN the following pages I have followed the Priory’s own account of itself as found in its charters, etc., but about the period immediately preceding the Conquest there is much obscurity, and by some recent writers the Confessor’s charter is considered an early forgery though probably based on fact. If so, the priory is not the only monastic establishment which concocted charters to replace originals which had been lost, or to give written evidence of a grant of law, etc., for which otherwise the legal title was defective.

The situation before the Conquest, according to Canon Taylor, appears to have been as follows:—

The Domesday Survey (1086) shows that in the reign of the Confessor the Mount was already under the patronage of St. Michael; it was held by Brismar the priest; and that its demesne, the manor of Truthwall, then consisted of two hides of land which had never paid geld.

A large portion of the Lizard peninsula before the Norman Conquest already bore the name of Amaneth or Meneage, that is, monastic land. In Cornwall monastic land was free from payment of geld-tax.

In the Domesday survey there is a close resemblance between the landowners of Pawton (who held of St. Petroc) and the landowners of Winnington (Kerrier) (who held of the Count of Mortain); they are described as thegns who could not be separated from the Manor, There were 17 of these thegns at the Lizard in Edward’s reign who held land in Winnington geld-free. When, therefore, we find Edward’s grant to St. Michael, for the use of the brothers serving God in the same place, St. Michael near the sea, with all the appurtenances, etc., adding also the land of Vennesire (Winnington) and part of Ruan Minor (Cadgewith) with towns, vills, etc., we can hardly fail to recognize in Edward’s grant of Vennesire (Winnington) the same lands as were held in his lifetime by the 17 thegns whose lands had never paid geld.

St. Michael near the sea with all the appurtenances, etc. doubtless included the Mount and the Saint’s demesne manor of Treiwell or Truthwall, a manor described as never having paid the king’s geld but as having paid geld to St. Michael.

If the monastic lands in Cornwall had never paid geld, they had been monastic long before Domesday was compiled and we can conclude that there had been considerable monastic influence at work in Cornwall before Edward granted his