86 CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS. III. — S. CONSTANTINE. 



Chronicle of St. Cuby, that whenever an ancient church bears 

 the name of a British Saint, that Saint was its founder ; churches 

 only which owe their origin to monastic institutions being an 

 exception to this rule, and sometimes deriving their names from 

 that of the parent monastery. We may believe then tha^t on the 

 site of the Parish Church of St. Constantine, as well as on that of 

 the old chapel on the sands of St. Merrin, oratories of the Saint 

 himself once stood. At what time of his life he occupied those 

 places, we have not sufficient data to determine ; but we are told 

 in an old Life of S. Petrock that, on his return to Cornwall, a 

 certain rich man called Constantine, who lived in the vicinity of 

 the Saint's hermitage, was restored to health by his prayers, and 

 afterwards became a christian teacher.'^ May we not venture to 

 identify this Constantine with the Saint of that name, and sup- 

 pose that he built those oratories immediately after his conversion, 

 and before his dej)arture to Ireland ■? It may be that he was 

 attracted to the coast of St. Merrin by its contiguity to Petrock's 

 abode at Padstow ; and, as regards the other centre of his minis- 

 terial labours in the Parish which still preserves his name, there 

 could have been no spot in his native land more likely at that 

 time to kindle the interest and zeal of a courageous follower of 

 Christ, for it was one of the strongholds of Druidism, and on 

 the bleak granite downs in its vicinity there were many druiclical 

 monuments, which in those remote days were high places of 

 superstition, t 



* " Quadam die [Petrocus] vidit eervum ad se fugientem, quern Cou- 

 stantini cujusdam divitis servi venatores cum cauibus sequebantur. Hunc 

 sanctus pietatis affectu conservavit illfesum, et venatores, eervum sub 

 tutamiue Sancti tangere verentes, rem Domino per ordiuem retulerunt. 

 Qui iudignatus, et acri ira permotus, cum Dei servum giadio ferire niteretur, 

 subito stupore totis membris diriguit, quousque liumilitatum interveutu 

 militum, piis Sancti precibus persolvit ; et sibi et viginti militibus suis fidem 

 Cliristi docens, es tyrannis mites et ex paganis reddidit Christianos. 



Vita S. Petroci; Acta Sanctorum. June 4tii. 



f Borlase describes three remarkable stone monuments in this Parish. 

 "In a village call'd Men-Perhen," he says, "in Constantine Parish, there 

 " stood about five years since a large Pyi-amidal Stone, twenty foot above the 

 " ground, and four foot in the ground ; it made above twenty Stone Posts for 

 " gates, when it was clove up by the Farmer, who gave me this account." 

 — Antiquities, p. 156. Ed. 1754. 



He tells us also that he observed in the same village a stone of a very 

 uncommon shape, somewhat resembling a Cap, or the Greek letter Omega. 

 " It was 30 feet in girt and 11 feet high," and the ground around it appeared 



