30 THE ECCLESIASTICAI. SEALS OF CORNWALL. 



Main facts are clear. Missionary teachers had crossed the seas 

 to christianize heathen Cornwall, some of them lajdng down 

 their lives in the attempt. Man)' of the oratories they founded 

 still preserve their names, and to this day remind us of Brittany 

 and Ireland, whence most of them came. Much intercourse was 

 carried on between the Welsh, the Cornu- Welsh, and the 

 people of those not far distant shores. 



We know that in this British peninsula bishops and their subor- 

 dinate clergy were exercising their sacred functions long before 

 Western Christendom was dominated by the see which had been 

 founded in Eome, and it has been alleged that Cornwall was 

 the seat of an Archbishopric. 



The submission of the British ecclesiastics to distant authority 

 at a subsequent period, has been traced, and in more recent 

 times our branch of the Catholic Church cast off the foreign 

 yoke, reformed itself, and resumed such duly regulated freedom 

 as was alone consistent with its original simplicity of order. 



But, to revert to the definite introduction of the Church's 

 system into our land, in a form that we can recognize. Mr. 

 Borlase's words on this point are worth particular notice. He 

 writes, in his Age of the Saints ' ' The route by which Christianity 



" arrived in Britain is clear enough According to the facts 



"brought together,*' the British Church was, directly speaking, 

 " an offshoot and reflection of the Church in Gaul, the original 

 <' seat of which was fixed at Lyons, perhaps early in the second 



" century The numerical strength of Christians in Britain 



"in the fifth century was by no means inconsiderable. Their 

 " fountain-head was however still in Q-aul, and the mission of 

 " St. Patrick to Ireland (he received his commission from St. 

 " Grerman) was an offshoot from Graul also. " 



During some hundreds of years Cornwall had its episcopal 

 residents.! It is said that at Celliwig an archbishop dwelt. 

 However this may have been, when submission had been made to 

 the power of Eome and Canterbury, and considerations of safety 

 from marauders suggested the arrangement, the espiscopal 

 thrones were removed — first, from St. Petrock's, Bodmin, to St. 



* See Hallan und Stubbs's " Councils," Vol. I, p. 153; Todd's " St. Patrick," 

 p 316- and Borlase's " Age of the Saints," Royal [nstitution of Cornwall 

 Journal, Vol. VI, p. 29. 



\ It seems that at first there was no settled abode of the Bishops. 



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