52 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
extending so far as Perran, is specially full of Irish saints, who 
came . . . from the province of Munster. The Lizard district, 
Mount's Bay, and the southern coast, supply us with names asso- 
ciated with Brittany ; while the remaining and far larger portion 
of the county eastward is filled with those of Welsh extraction. 1 
Planted during the latter part of the Roman occupation, Chris- 
tianity in the West came under the fostering care of Irish mission- 
aries towards the close of the fifth century (we find some traces of 
them on this side of the Tamar) ; Welsh influence was exercised 
later ; but the Bretons covered the entire period assigned by Mr. 
Borlase to the "Saint Age" — 450 to 700 a.d. — giving also the 
final colouring to a Christianity which Ireland had presented in 
"the weird form it had assumed under the influence of Pagan 
assimilation." Frequent intercourse was maintained between the 
chief branches of the Keltic race ; and Cornwall, central alike for 
Brittany, Wales, and Ireland, was peculiarly exposed to the 
influence of each in turn. 2 
Though of various periods, it is probable that the inscribed 
memorial stones — commonly called Romano-British — and partially, 
at least, the crosses (so common in Cornwall, and by no means un- 
common in South and Dartmoor Devon) originated in Irish inter- 
course. The memorial stones are simply the old menhir, with a 
specific personal appropriation ; and the Latin form of the inscrip- 
tion indicates an ecclesiastical origin. So with the wayside crosses, 3 
in which the commemoration of the individual gives place to the 
declaration of the Christian faith. These likewise continue the 
ancient menhir, and I believe, in the majority of cases, have the 
like sepulchral origin. 
It is not easy to date those remains. M. Hubner throws back 
the earlier inscribed stones of Cornwall to the period assigned by 
Mr. Borlase as the special time of Irish influence — the middle of 
the fifth to the early part of the sixth century. What we have 
left are but the poor remainder of a host, and probably the succes- 
sion is complete down to the present day. The curious fact is that 
1 Vide "The Age of the Saints," W. C. Borlase, Jour. R. I. Corn. xx. 
p. 70. 
2 By Cornwall is here meant all those parts of Dunmonia that remained 
British at each successive stage of limitation. 
3 The churchyard crosses, in some cases, had a different purpose, and 
marked the sites of places of religious assembly. 
