]03 



V. — On the supposed ^^ Saxon Slab" at Bodmin. — By the Rev. W.. 

 I AGO, B.A., Westheath, Bodmin. 



HAVING "been so fortunate as to discover some additional 

 fragments of the slab — mis-called Saxon — in Bodmin Church, 

 it may interest those who have a fancy for inscribed stones if I 

 give an account of the monument, and of the attempts which 

 have been made to decipher it. 



Fifty years ago the stone attracted the attention of the late 

 Rev. J. Wallis, Vicar, when _the Church was in course of renova- 

 tion. He had caused the whole area of the floor to be broken up 

 and explored in 1819, and some time afterwards he had the 

 fragments of this slab removed from the pavement, and cemented 

 together in a shallow box, or framework of wood, for preservation. 

 Thus isolated they have ever since remained ; and Mr. Wallis, 

 imagining that some of the letters incised on the fragments 

 resembled " Saxon," was led to attach importance to the monu- 

 ment on account of. its presumed antiquity. Writing of it in 

 1828,* he described it as " of slate, and probably the oldest in the 

 Church ; on it a cross florae, with an inscription apparently inter- 

 mixed with Saxon characters." Again, in 1838, t when referring 

 to the Saxon and Saxon-Latin entries in the MS. copy of the 

 Gospels once belonging to Bodmin, his words are — " The monu- 

 ment with Saxon characters, discovered in our Church about 

 20 years since, appears to be of nearly the same age [as the 

 entries], and to retain the figures MVIII (1008)." Lastly, in his 

 " Chronological List of Monuments and Inscriptions," % he gives 

 "A.D. 1008. Supposed Saxon Monument in the Church." In 

 his " Cornwall Register," commenced in 1847, he mentions the 

 Saxon antiquities in the county, but makes no mention of this 

 stone; arid during the last ten years of his life he frequently 



* Wallis's "Bodmin Eegister," page 29. 

 f Idp.m, page 389. 

 + Idem, page viii. 



