On 25th July 1318 [fn1], a fourth Church was dedicated to St Gluvias at Behethlan by the Bishop of Exeter. For, like so many of the Norman Churches, the original Norman building had either begun to deteriorate, or had become too small for its ever growing congregation.
By this time, the Cornish Church had settled under its Roman and Norman masters - and along with the rest of the universal Church, had its fair share of ethical and ecclesiastical problems and difficulties. A Cathedral Visitation of October 15th 1330 reported that "certain Vicars and other Ministers of our Catholic Church - to the offence of God and the notable hindrance of divine service and their own damnation and the scandal of our Catholic Church aforesaid - fear not to exercise irreverently and damnably certain disorders, laughings, gigglings and other breaches of discipline, during the solemn services of the Church; which is shameful to relate and horrible to hear.” [fn2]
From the same Visitation there were reports of: [1] people in the upper stalls throwing drippings or snuffings from the candles onto the heads of the people in the lower stalls; [2] Ministers that "commit plain faults in singing or reading incorrectly"; and [3] Ministers that get confused in what service to conduct, so that half the Church started one service and the other half starting another service, which led to ‘quarrels and discords.’
This corruption was both widespread and evident at all! levels of the Church from the Pope himself, down to the local priest. Illustrating something of the immensity of this problem, J R H Moorman writes, “Mass was probably said about 9 o’clock in the morning and preceded by matins, which appears to have been poorly attended... because of people who preferred to stay in bed ...Mass, on the other hand, would normally be attended by most parishioners. As there were no seats in the church, people tended to wander about talking and gossiping, except when the sanctus-bell rang and reminded them of their devotions. They communicated only about once a year, at Easter, and then in one kind only, since the Chalice was generally withheld from all except the celebrant”. [fn3]
Pluralities were common, (the St Gluvias / Budock / Feock combination being only a small example). Some pluralists collected several parishes and served them with poorly-paid curates; whilst they themselves went absent from all their benefices, Just collecting the Income from them.
The first mention, in documented history, of a Vicer of Budock and Behethlan was in 1310. This also shows that the vicar of the time, Sir Robert de Tredowell, was victim to the financial squeezes of the Church. [fn4] The document concerned was a writ, issued from Westminster, to the bishop of Exeter, summoning Master John de Miltone and Robert, vicar of Gluvias, clerks, “to answer to Philip de Penwres on the plea that the aforesaid Robert owes him 40 shillings”. [fn5]
Sir Robert was also involved in another incident regarding money in 1315 [again, with the Vicar of St Gluvias appearing to have been the victim of the close proximity of Glasney College] . During the Visitation of Bishop Stapledon, he found that Sir Robert was quarrelling with the Provost and Chapter of Glasney over his portion and certain other matters. "The Bishop heard both the parties in the Chapter House of Glasney, and having ascertained that the Vicar's stipend was so small that he decided to provide a remedy, and taking into consideration the fact that this unsatisfactory arrangement was due to previous taxations made under the authority previous bishops he withdrew and cancelled them all, and with the full consent of both parties, he decided that in future the vicars should receive the manse which the said Sir Robert was then occupying, and the whole sanctuary of Behethlan with the gardens adjoining it, the whole alterage (that is. the revenues from offrings and oblations) of the said churches including the tithe of hay growing in the said parishes in meadows already existing or hereafter to be made, the tithe of flax and hemp, as well as the tithe of whatever should be cultivated with spades in curtilages (that is, small courts enclosed with a dwelting house) made, or to be made, in the said parishes; but the sheaf tithe and those of beans, peas and vetches goring in fields, as well as of wool and lambs, were to continue the property of the provost and Chapter, who were to pay the said Sir Robert 40 shillings sterling towards the repairs of books, etc. within their duty as rectors, in equal portions, at the feasts of Michaelmas and Easter next following. Thenceforth the vicars were to keep in repair the books and other ornaments, as well as the chancel roofs and the glass of the chancel windows of both churches, and to bear all the ordinary burdens, the extraordinary burdens being borne by the College.” [fn6]
Sir Robert was succeeded in 1319 by Sir Stephen de Reswalstes, who unfortunately demonstrated how corrupt the Church had become, even at the level of the local priest. For even before he actually commenced his ministry at St Gluvias, he was forced to resign from the post, "owing to a scruple of conscience as to his title to the benefice” [fn7] but was soon reinstated by the Bishop to enable him to start in his new post.
In August 1328, Bishop Garndisson issued a mandate to Sir Stephen saying, "We have recently learned, by the complaints of our beloved sons William Edward and William Hemmynge, burgesses of Dartmouth, that thou, to the disgrace of the clergy and of thy calling. and to the manifest prejudice of the Liberty of the Church, are summoning them before a secular judge in a cause of blood." [fn8] Whatever this 'cause of blood', under canonical obedience, he was ordered to desist the offence, until the Bishop came into his neighbourhood; but failing this, he was cited to appear "before us, or our commissionaries, at the first meeting of the Ecclesiastical Court after the Feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross [Sept 14th] to answer personally as to these matters, and also other matters which will then be raised against you by our official.” [fn9]
Three years later, in 1331, Sir Stephen was given a dispensation of non- residence from Michaelmas to February [no doubt to get rid of their thorn-in-the-flesh for a while] so that he could go on a Pilgrimage to Rome. But even after this break, he was stilll causing havoc on himself - for in 1334 a royal writ was issued against him on behalf of Queen Isabelle, for the debt of 53s 4d which he owed her. A second writ was also issued against him in the same year, this time at York - with the return stating that distraint had been made upon him through his benefices,
While Sir Stephen was disgracing the name of Christ at St Gluvias, the townsfolk of Penryn were dealing with their spiritual welfare themselves: by establishing their own Chapel, of the Virgin Mary (sometimes referred to as St Thomas' Chapel, after St Thomas Becket) in Our Lady Street [now Market St.].
Unfortunately the good folk of Penryn could not free themselves from the Church and its Vicar, who was supposed to provide their spiritual guidance, for in October 1322 a dispute arose between Sir Stephen and the ‘Commonality of Burgesses' and other townsfolk of Penryn who were claiming the right to have a Chantry in their Chapel, to be maintained at their own cost and by offrings and legacies bequeathed to it. In the record of the agreement:
"The Bishop appointed his official Peculiar to call the parties before him at Glasney College to hear the evidence and make an award accordingly. This was done and it was settled that all offrings except those made on Christmas Day, Easter, Whitsunday, All Saints, the Circumcision, the Epiphany and the Ascension should be enjoyed by the Chaplain without hindrance from the Vicar. The Chaplain celebrating in the Chapel was to have, of the goods of the chapel, as his stipend 24 shillings yearly. He was to be presented (with the consent of the Vicar) by the Burgesses to the Ordinary and bv him admitted to the Chantry as was the custom. The Burgesses were to receive all the legacies left to the Chapel and all offrings as well in candles as in ready money: except those made in the chapel while the body of a deceased person should be present awaiting burial at the mother church or elsewhere and except the offrings made on Easter Day in the Chapel by strangers communicating, which was wholly reserved to the Vicar and his successors. The Burgesses were to pay 12 pence of the goods of the Chapel every year on the Day of St Gluvias [May 3rd] to the Vicar at the high altar of St Gluvias in token of subjection.
Should this 12 pence be unpaid, the Vicar could suspend the Chantry to compel payment. The Vicar moreover should from thenceforth receive the best upper garment of every sojourner or servant dying in the Borough as a Mortuary as of ancient custom - but that the Burgesses, Tax Payers, the wives, sons and daughters, should be free of such payment.” [fn10]
In December 1374 their Chapel was licensed; remaining until the Reformation, when its ruins were replaced by the Town Hall of the Borough. As a Chapel it was often used for ecclesiastical businesses. Ordinations were occasionally held here; in 1365 it witnessed the acquittal of the Prior of St Michael's Mount in a case touching the tithes of St Hilary; and in 1529 it was appointed as a place of repayments of a debt.
Throughout history, one of the most effective tests to gauge the strength of the esteem towards the Church was to see how the ordinary citizens responded to it in times of national disaster. Take for example the Black Death. How did people respond to the Church when the threat of this was upon them? The truth was: it demonstrated the adversity of the common man to the Church, in fact it brought about an increase in violence against them - in 1383 a priest was dragged through the streets of Penryn, showing the feelings of Penryn folk to the Church at that period in history.
But out of a Church that seemed to have little thought as regards the ways of God and the Christian message of redemption, a spiritually reformed Church was emerging. In England this was happening under the hand of John Wyclif, who although a Roman Catholic Priest throughout his life, declared that "the only head of the Church is Christ. The Pope, unless he be one of the predestinate who rule in the spirit of the Gospel, is the Vicar of Antichrist ... The power-grasping hierarchy, and the monks and friars, who claim special religious sanctity are without Scriptural Warrant.” [fn11] He rejected transubstantiation [fn12]; denied the infallibility of the Roman Church in matters of faith; rejected auricular confession; and criticised belief in Purgatory, Pilgrimages; Worship of Saints and Veneration of relies - as all being unscriptural.
During the time following the. Black Death, with the dissatisfaction of the established clergy, the ideas of Wyclif and his followers, the Lollards, began to make inroads across the Nation - thus causing the beginnings of a new wave of devotion in the Fifteenth Century.
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fn1: The mayor of Penryn was allowed to appoint one of the Churchwardens from this date onward.
fn2: Taken from "Life in the Middle Ages - volume 1” by Coulton
fn3: “A History of the Church in England” by J R H Moorman
fn4: See following Chapter on Glasney College
fn5: Taken from the unpublished notes “Vicars of St Gluvias”
fn6: Also taken from the notes: "Vicars of St Gluvias"
fn10: Taken from the “Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall" Volume I: "The Collegiate Church of St Thomas of Glasney” [C R Sowell]
fn11: Taken from "The Story of the Church” by A M Renwick
fn12: The doctrine that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are changed into the very body and blood of Christ on being consecrated by the priest.
