182 CHURCH OF ST. JTJST-IN-PENWITH. 



We hope that the good sense of the vicars led to the early- 

 removal of all their tythes, whether high- smelling or otherwise, 

 and that none of them imitated the vicar of St. Mary Church in 

 Devon, who at a "Visitation in 1301 was reported for that " he 

 causes his malt to be prepared in the church, and stores up his 

 wheat and other things there. And hence his labourers, coming 

 in and going out, open the door, and the wind in stormy times 

 gets into the church, and often blows off portions of the roof." 



Another entry in this book reads " Whitesoule. To be 

 brought to the Chaunsler at two several! sondayes, that is to say 

 sondaye next after mydsomar and sonday next after our ladye 

 daye in August," (meaning probably the Sunday after the Assump- 

 tion of the Virgin). The most interesting word in the entry is 

 Whitesoule. From Carew's Survey we learn that the "meat" of 

 the ordinary Cornish husbandman was " Whitsul, as they call it, 

 milk, sowre milk, cheese, curds, butter, and such as came from the 

 cow and ewe." In the printed copy of the 1726 Terrier of St. 

 Feock occurs the word whitfoole, but a reference to the original at 

 Exeter shows that this is a mere misprint.* In the 1 727 Terrier of 

 St. Keverne we read "It is to be understood that the white sowle 

 is 9 days milk turned into cheese and the cream into butter, and 

 to be paid at the vicarage house, or on the Communion Table " 

 Here again it will be noticed that the place of payment is within 

 the chancel, and not at the font. At St. Feock also whitsul was 

 all the butter and cheese of nine days gathering, so that was 

 possibly the general custom. For the etymology of this interest- 

 ing word it is probably sufficient to point to the north country 

 dialect word sool, meaning anything used to flavour bread, a word 

 which occurs also in the old poem of Havelock 



Kam he nevere hom hand bare, 

 That he ne brouchte bred and sowel. 



This tythe of whitsul was worth having; in 1590, for 

 instance, the Vicar received no less than 196 cheeses, and 240 

 pounds of butter. 



There are many other customs I should have liked to notice, 

 but must not ; the payment of Easter Eggs ; the tythe of fish, 



* A similar misprint occurs in Lord de Dunstanville's edition of Carew's 

 Survey. 



