Excerpt from Cornwall

Cornwall never thoroughly submitted to either the Roman or the Saxon yoke. It was and still remains emphatically Celtic; in fact, Professor Huxley proclaimed it to be more Celtic than Ire land. Nevertheless, the evidence of the inscribed monumental stones sanctions the belief that there were here and there in Western Wales isolated Christians or Christian families in the days of the Roman occupation. But Cornwall knew little of the Faith until the latter half of the sth cent. And the dawn of the 6th cent., when the invasion Of the saints, as it may not irreverently be termed, took place. British Christianity doubtless, as a whole, took root from Gaul; yet the missionaries who landed in considerable numbers on the Cor nish coasts came chiefly from Ireland and Wales, rather than directly from the Continent.

The story of the saints Of Cornwall and the wonderful way in which they impressed their names on the local nomenclature, as well as on the Churches themselves, is one of great interest and of no small difficulty. It would be idle, in this brief book on the old parish churches, to enter even upon the threshold of such a subject;1 suffice it to say, that in no other part of the British Isles are there near so many actual remains of ancient crosses, chapels, holy wells, and sanctuaries or oratories, all testify ing to holy and devoted lives, as is the case with Cornwall. There is not a single parish in which such remains cannot be found, in greater or less degree.

It may, however, be succinctly added that Corn wall Can boast not only of possessing a far larger number Of inscribed monumental stones than any other county, but that it also contains a far greater number and variety of early crosses. The in scribed stones, from the 5th or 6th centuries down to the loth or 11th centuries, number 43. The erect early crosses of great variety of design are upwards of 350 in number. There are also four coped stones in the respective churchyards of St. Buryan, Lanivet, Phillack, and St. Tudy; and five early cross slabs in the churchyards of Lanivet.

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