46 THE ECCLESIASTICAL SEALS OF COENWALL. 



a Priory, a Monastery, a Nunnery, a Eeligious House or Cell 

 dependent upon Bodmin Priory, &c., &c., but Dr. Oliver lias com- 

 bated these statements. The place is beautifully picturesque. In 

 the rear of the gothic mansion, with its traceried windows, rises 

 the ruined tower of a sacred edifice which has been destroyed 

 C. S. Gilbert wrote thus: — "The chapel together with some 

 beautiful cloisters (from the altar to the Monks' refectory) have 

 been taken down. The tower with its handsome pointed arch is 

 all that remains. The buildings which constitute the present 

 mansion are of early workmanship, perhaps of the reign of 

 Henry VII, and contain several fragments of the figured glass 

 which once adorned the windows of the monastery."* Oliver 

 ^^ites : — " As to St. Bennet's, asserted to have been a Nunnery 

 subordinate to some foreign monastery in Italy, in Prance, or 

 elsewhere (for various places have been named), it was nothing 

 more than a chapel of special devotion, as is proved by a docu- 

 ment dated May 6, 1535, in vol. 2 of Bishop Vesey's Eegister," f 

 and then he adds ''It is indeed a remarkable fact that there was 

 no Nunnery whatever in Cornwall." 



This last statement afEects not only St. Benet's but also 

 Credys X which, situate in Padstow, is reported to have been a 

 Nunnery also, or a cell dependent upon St. Benet's. The lands 

 of Credis at the present day belong to the poor of Lanivet, 



Thus then we may look in vain, if Oliver be correct, for any 

 Seals of St. Benet's or of Oredy's. 



* C. S. Gr.'s Survey of Cornwall, vol. 2 p. 640, vnth note on Credys. Polsue 

 (Hist : Cornwall, Lake, vol. 3, p. 13,) however states that the stained glass was 

 brought from Lanivet Church. 



t Oliver's Monasticon, p.v. (preface). 



X Credys, Credis, (Crede's ?). A medieval fresco, labelled " S. Crede " 

 was found, with others, in Lanivet Church in 1864. See illustration in Eoyal 

 Institution of Cornwall Journal, vol. 3, pp. 162-72, plate 3, which plate I drew 

 from a photograph, after inspecting the original fresco. She was there represented 

 as crowned and royally robed, holding in her right hand a sceptre terminating 

 above in a bud or cone. Perhaps to her may have been dedicated the churches 

 of Creed, Sancreed, and Grade, besides Credys chapel in Padstow, although 

 St. Crida, St. Sancredus, St. Gradus, &c., are stated to have been the patron 

 saints of those churches. Mr. Borlase considers their identification doubtful, and 

 observes "liegisters make the Saints' names alternately masculine and feminine — 

 the result is we have a spurious Hagiology invented by the scribe out of the 

 names of the parishes." See his " Age of the Saints," (Eoyal Institvition of 

 Cornwall Journal, vol. 6,p. 77,with a note referring to Crida in Smith's Dictionary 

 of Christian Biography.) See also Blight's week at Land's End, and E. F. 

 Whitley's remarks on the same subject, in E.G. Qazette, November 26, 1883. 



I 



