In 1066 the Battle of Hastings took place, and with it, came both Britain's last conquerors, together the full weight of Rome - for the conquerors were Normans, who were the closest of the allies of the papal reformers, who had united and strengthened the Papacy under the See of St. Peter.
Until this date, although the Church in England had accepted the Pope as the Supreme Head of the Church, it had maintained a measure of independence as regards worship. But when William I arrived, together with his Norman knights, he brought with him his own bishops, who immediately replaced the Saxon ones. These new Bishops "brought in the learning and science, the architecture and ritual, the spirituality and energy which had been lately attained by the foremost spirits of the age, to elevate a church which had grown torpid and backward by lying out of reach of the great movements of European thought in this remote and isolated corner of Christendom"[fn1]. What had happened to the English Church, as a result of this, is not something that the Church of Jesus Christ can be proud of: corruption, divisions and worldliness - all, unfortunately; being marks of Roman Christianity in this stage of history.
While all of this had been happening in far-off places, Cornwall's Church continued to grow and strengthen throughout the late Saxon period, as it had done in the days of St Gluvias. With the rise and growth of the various ‘lans’ in Cornwall, these had outgrown themselves by this period, and were either regrouped or reconstructed.
Some, like that in Penryn; were abolished to provide endowment for the Cornish See and for new parochial churches. Thus the beginning of the dependency of Penryn on the See of Exeter, in later centuries. For the town was to be founded on land that was part. of the See's estate, despite the distances from the Seat of the Diocese.
It was also during this late Saxon period that the parochial system took shape - with the parish church being associated with the local manor and its lord, and with the local priest tilling the land given to him, while ministering to the souls of the parish. Each of the Cornish parishes were, at this time, subject to the Bishop of Cornwall at St Germans. But when Bishop Burhwold died in 1043, he was succeeded as Bishop by his nephew, Lvfing, who was already Bishop of Crediton. Thus Lying became the first Bishop of the united See, formed in 1046, the Seat of which was moved from Cediton to Exeter in 1050. So Cornwall became a mere Archdeaconry in the Diocese of Exeter until the formation of the See of Truro in 1876.
The lands, manors and property of the See of St Germans, and lands once in the possession of communities founded by the Cornish Saints, passed into the hands of the Bishops of Exeter, who to the great majority of Cornish-folk throughout the medieval period were remote and therefore ‘awful’ figures.
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Cornwall, like the rest of Britain, was brought under the close supervision of the Roman See with the coming of the Normans - for with a Norman Bishop at Exeter, the Celtic monastic foundations were reconstituted, with the parishes being once again reformed, and the church buildings being replaced with more ambitious Norman structures. Altogether there were 135 new churches built in Cornwall under the Normans, including a third Church building dedicated to St Gluvias, in that creek where he had first preached to the heathen Cornish.
In the Domesday survey of 1086, this ecclesiastical area was called ‘Behethlan’; which was afterwards corrupted to ‘Behelland’, and then Bohelland. Taken from the Welsh words ‘bendigai’ and ‘Ian’ it means ‘Blessed Monastery’, which most likely bore reference to the Celtic Monastery that stood on this land in pre-Norman days. This Behethlan Manor, which belonged to the Church, covered an area that today includes the whole of the boroughs of Penrvn and Falmouth, and parts or whole of the parishes of Budock, Mawnan, Mabe, Constantine and Manaccan.
The Bishops held their manors on the same terms as other barons under the feudal system, developed by the Normans, therefore having to render ‘knight's service’ for them. However, they could grant out fiefs to compensate for this.
Although there had been people on these lands for centuries, there were in Cornwall, as such, no towns until the coming of the Normans, who created the ‘ancient boroughs’ filling them mainly with French or English inhabitants. Penryn itself was founded as a borough by Bishop Simon in 1216, when a number of houses were built to form the first considerable community within the Manor. The borouah itself was enfranchised by a charter in 1236 by Bishop William Brewer. The contents of this charter are embodied in a confirmatory [inspeximus] charter by Bishop Walter Bronescombe in 1275:
"To all the Faithful of Christ who shall see or hear of these Present Letters Walter by divine mercy Bishop of Exeter Health in the Lord. We have inspected the Letters of William formerly Bishop of Exeter our predecessor of pious memory in these words To all the faithful of Christ to whom this present writing shall come; William by Divine Mercy Bishop of Exeter eternal Health in the Lord. Know ye that we for ourselves and our successors have granted and by this our Charter have confirmed to the honest men our Burgesses of Penryn and to their heirs or assigns that they hold their burgages freely of us and for each acre whole and measured after the accustomed manner they pay to us and to our successors 12 pence of rent by the year at two terms, to wit at the Feast of All Saints and on the Kalends of May for equal portions for all service. We have likewise granted to the same our burgesses that when they themselves on surrender or death the aforesaid burgesses ought to be relieved for each whole acre they pay to us and to our successors twelve pence. Those moreover who hold more and those who less may pay in like manner as of rent so of relief according to the quantity of the holdings which they may have obtained and if they shall reasonably fall into our mercy or into that of our successors by the judgment of the Court - they shall give to us or to our successors six pence for the purchase of each mercy unless by chance (which God forbid) by rash daring they shall have laid violent-hands on us or any one of ours. Wherefore will will and command that our burgesses aforesaid may have and possess all things above mentioned with all liberties and free customs for ever Which that it may remain ratified and firm to future times we have caused our seal to be affixed to the present page.
Given at Penryn on the day of the beheading of the Blessed John the Baptist in the year of year 1236 in the 13th year of our Consecration.
...In witness whereof we have caused our Seal to be affixed to these Presents. Given at Exeter on the Vigil of Easter in the year of our Lord 1275 and of our consecration the 18th."[fn2]
Even before the date of the Bronescombe Confirmatory Charter, the rights of the Borough were being usurped, with the Earl of Cornwall taking certain of the secular rights of the Bishop within his Cornish manors, resulting in him having to confess his wrongs to the Bishop in 1270. But while the Church at Exeter was gathering or dispersing secular powers and rights, the actual Church of St Gluvias in Behethlan was going through a period of spiritual weakness. This was because the new Borough was not built around the Church, but about a quarter of a mile away, and therefore as the Borough began to grow it looked to spiritual guidance from within the town itself.
Even before 1267, St Gluvias' Church shared its Rector with the neighbouring Church of St Budock, but in that year their tithes (together with that of Feock) were united [a union that lasted until 1890] and were appropriated to Glasney Co!lege. At first, St Gluvias was a mere chapelry or Portion to Budock, which seems to have been a Collegiate Church. But from the Fourteenth Century onward, with the ecclesiastical interest being attracted to the Behethlan lands with Glasney College, St Gluvias began to grow in influence, so much so that St Budock soon began to be esteemed as the daughter Church.
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fn1: Taken from "Turning Points of English Church History": Cutts.
fn2: Taken from “Penryn” by R J Roddis
