A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



In addition to the foregoing there are still to be reckoned some fifty 

 or sixty early cross-bases with empty sockets, scattered about the county, 

 and representing all that now remains of the original monuments. The 

 crosses once belonging to these have been used as gate-posts or applied to 

 some other utilitarian purpose, 1 and in some cases wilfully destroyed. 

 Moreover, it seldom happens that a year passes without one or two more 

 examples being brought to light, so that a list of this kind cannot hope 

 to be complete while such a probability of further discoveries continues. 



The two principal classes of monuments, i.e., the inscribed stones 

 and the crosses, are so closely allied that it is impossible to separate them. 

 This is clearly established by the forms of lettering being identical on 

 both, and since the dates of the various alphabets are known it is 

 possible to assign an approximate date to an inscribed cross having Celtic 

 ornament, and by inference to those crosses which have similar ornament 

 but no inscriptions. 



Before attempting to deal with the monuments in detail it will be 

 necessary to glance briefly at the scanty notices relating to Cornwall in 

 early Christian times, 2 to see how far it was in communication with other 

 countries and to what extent its monuments were influenced by that 

 intercourse. 



It is impossible to determine the exact date when Christianity was 

 first introduced into Cornwall, since no structures, monuments, objects, or 

 other remains have as yet been discovered in this part of Britain to show 

 that the inhabitants were anything but pagan during the period of the 

 Roman occupation, and history throws no light up ?n the matter prior to 

 the fourth century. 



A review of the dedications of the churches seems to prove that 

 Cornwall was more intimately connected with Brittany and South Wales 

 than with Ireland, and, as will be seen subsequently, this is fully sub- 

 stantiated by the character of the inscriptions on the early pillar stones 

 and the style of ornament on the later sculptured crosses. For it was in 

 Ireland and North Britain that the peculiar Celtic patterns were most 

 highly developed ; and generally speaking, the decoration of the Christian 

 monuments from 700 to 1 1 oo found in the south and west of England 

 is of a different kind and often of an inferior quality. The Celtic 

 ornament on the Cornish crosses is more akin to that occurring in 

 Wales than to those in Ireland, Scotland, or Northumbria. A few 

 Christian inscribed stones are found in Brittany having points in common 

 with those in Cornwall, but as a rule there is an entire absence of inter- 

 laced work or other ornament. 



Leland in his Itinerary, 1 530 37, notices the inscribed pillar stone at 

 Castle Dor, and Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, 1 602, 1 29, gives a quaint 

 little woodcut of the inscription on the Redgate cross-base. Camden's 

 Magna Britannia contains very few illustrations of the inscribed stones, 



1 See ' A list of the different purposes for which the Cornish crosses have been re-used.' 

 Langdon, OU Cornish Crosses, 22-24, I2 3- 



8 J. R. Allen in Journ. Brit. Arch. Asiac. xliv (1888), 301. 



408 



