PERHAPS one of the most interesting divisions of the study of ecclesiology is that which has for its subject-matter the furniture of our churches. Under this head is included everything that is not strictly a part of the edifice itself, but merely accessory to it. And therefore the St. Burian rood-screen, the subject of my paper to-night, comes within this category of "church furniture," if so we may term it.

    All that I saw of the old rood-screen while visiting St. Burian church some time ago consisted of the panelling which formed the base of the screen at the top of the chancel steps, and three fragments of the cornice—two stretching across the entrance to the chancel, a distance of fourteen feet, and a third with one end fixed to the central pier of the southern arcade of the chancel, and the other to the respond to the east of it.

    But enquiry elicited the fact that there was some "old stuff" in a chest in the vestry that was always kept locked, but which luckily, on this occasion, proved not to be so. There I found several portions of the arcading of the screen in good condition, and finely coloured. Still the material in this chest could not have been much of the whole screen, as it extended right across the breadth of the church from wall to wall on either side. On the first stage of the tower I also found several other fragments stowed away in a dark corner, and these proved—as I surmised from the mortice-slots and dowel-holes—to be remnants of the transoms of the lost rood-screen, and also various portions of a rood-loft—not the original rood-loft in all probability but one erected some time after the Reformation.

    I may say, too, for the benefit of some that may not have observed them, that on this same stage there are one or two good bench-ends, and one especially, having carved on it what I take to be a representation of Queen Mary and her consort, Philip of Spain, and another with dolphins, the connection of which with this church I shall show later on.

    The arcade work in the vestry-chest shows that the screen must have been a massive one, which was certainly necessary to support the long rood-soller which once crowned it. It is interesting to observe that the tracery, which is Late Perpendicular, corresponds with the present east window of the chancel.

    It was usual in the construction of chancel and rood-screens to make the arcade-work harmonise with the tracery of the windows of the churches in which they were fixed. Apparently the former east window of St. Burian church did not so correspond in design with the arcading of the rood-screen, for Blight, in his Churches of West Cornwall, notices the fact. The present east chancel-window in all probability dates from the restoration of the church in 1878. One slight difference may be observed between the tracery of the window and the screen. The former is unornamented and without crocketing, while the screen is finely decorated with crocketed-work throughout.

    The panelling of the screen which now spans the chancel of the church is plain. Various floral patterns are carved, one being very similar to the Tudor rose. The edges of the panels have a pattern in imitation of "billet-moulding" painted in blue, white, and green colours. The transoms of the screen and the door-jambs have been cut off level with the top of the panelling. The present door-way leading from the nave to the chancel is five feet in breadth, and probably there were two doors to it. It will be observed that here, as in all rood-screens, this door opened inwards, and not outwards. The reason for this was that the clergy of the mediæval church saw in the entrance to the chancel the symbolism of death. Mors est janua vitæ. "The church forsooth," wrote Fuller, the church historian, "typifies the church militant; the chancel represents the church triumphant; and all who will pass out of the former into the latter must go under the rood-loft, that is, carry the cross (viz., the rood above), and be acquainted with affliction."¹ For the same reason we frequently see carvings and paintings of apostles, saints, and martyrs, on chancel-screens.

    But I think that the cornice is the most interesting remnant of rood-screen and rood-loft. It is, as I have said, in three pieces, and there can be no doubt, I think, that the three parts once formed a connected whole. My informant as to the whereabouts of the arcading also told me that within living memory the part that spans the eastern arch of the southern chancel-arcade stretched across the south aisle, with one extremity resting on the old entrance to the rood-loft, and the other on the corresponding aperture above the pier opposite. Where this portion is now fixed is suggestive of its having formed part of a parclose-screen. On these three portions of the cornice the carving is remarkably good, and finely coloured.

    The execution of the work is peculiar. Apparently the figures and devices were not carved out of the beam itself, but separately, and then nailed on to it. One side only shews this carving. The back, where it was affixed to the base of the rood-soller and the top of the screen, is quite plain and unornamented.

    The subject of this carved work is varied and curious. The upper part consists of a vine-pattern, with the conventional vine-leaf of the Perpendicular style, and occasionally grotesque profiles of human faces interspersed between the foliage. Birds appear in and out plucking the grapes. This vine-pattern with the birds worked in is not uncommon in mediæval decorative work, and appears perhaps most frequently in Perpendicular churches.

    The lower part of the cornice, which is separated from the upper portion by a spiral-fluted pattern, contains a greater variety of figures—impossible dragons, wyverns, cockatrices, grotesque and monstrous creatures, demons, monkeys, and birds. These are connected in one whole by a cable-pattern, running in and out—occasionally forming Runic knots—through the whole length. At places the floriated ends of this connecting work appear wound round animals, or represented as being seized by the various creatures there shown. This ornamentation is suggestive of a Byzantine origin, and I think it very probable that the illuminations and illustrations of the old mediæval bestiaries and ysopets, or fables, formed the patterns for many of the contemporary carvings. It has been suggested that there is a symbolism underlying all these grotesque and chimerical creatures; but, of course, a vivid imagination only is needed to find symbolism in anything. Moreover, we see that this kind of ornamentation was not confined to churches and other sacred buildings. The mansions of the middle ages abounded with such decorative work. Spenser is giving us no more than a description of some mediæval hall when he depicts the House of Imagination as being—

    The literature of the 13th to the 16th centuries gives us a clue to the origin of these mythical creatures. The margins of the missals and psalters contain miniatures and initial letters, formed of the very subjects that are seen in the contemporary carved work, and anyone who has seen both cannot help being profoundly impressed with the striking resemblance between the two. The analogy is certainly suggestive of investigation.

    At St. Burian church, on that portion of the cornice with which we have been dealing, is a representation of a fight between a unicorn and a wyvern. I especially draw your attention to the existence of the unicorn in this carving for two reasons. Blight, in his Week at the Land's End, gives two or three drawings of this cornice. One is of that part in which this combat is shewn. The animal, in his drawing, that is engaged in conflict with the wyvern is certainly not a unicorn, but a hind or some other such creature, for the horn is conspicuous by its absence. He evidently mistook it for a portion of the connecting thread that unites the whole that I spoke of just now, as he has joined it to the animal's head. The unicorn and the wyvern that I have taken as examples of the subject-matter of this carved-work are, I need hardly remind you, both fabulous creatures. But the people of mediæval England did not think so. Printing was unknown until the end of the 15th century, and as a consequence ignorance and superstition were very rife.

    Books of travels in far countries, recounting adventures with strange people and encounters with curious beasts, were eagerly read by all. The enormous popularity of the Voiage and Travailes of Sir John Maundevile—the 14th century Herodotus—is alone an index of this. At the very time that this screen was erected—early in the 16th century, as I shall shew later on—the travels of Ludovico di Yarthema was one of the most popular books of Europe; and among other wonderful things that that gentleman tells us he saw in his wanderings in the East were two unicorns at Mecca, that "were shewed to the people for a miracle, and not without good reason, for their seldomness and strange nature." The unicorn is found over and over again carved on the stalls of cathedrals and collegiate churches in this country, and is perhaps best known to us as the sinister supporter of the arms of England.

    In the same category of those fanciful creatures that seemed to be half mythical and yet half real was the mermaid, and I do not think, in spite of all that has been said on the subject, that there is any genuine symbolism in the Zennor bench-end, but that it, too, was taken from the old English bestiaries.

    I would also draw your attention to the hunting scene that is to be found in this same portion of the cornice. A man in the early sixteenth century countryman's garb holds in leash a fierce-looking dog, which is—to use an heraldic term—rampant. In one hand is a long forked implement that is evidently some weapon of the chase. In front of him are other hounds—one collared—in pursuit of a stag, which they closely press. One of the dogs is represented as springing on to the stag's back.

    This too is a common marginal drawing of the old MSS., and doubtless had its origin in the old monastic calendars, in which drawings of the occupations and pastimes for the various months, such as reaping, feeding pigs, hunting, hawking, &c., always appear. There is one animal that I looked for in this carved work and failed to find, and that is the fox, which was always a favourite subject with the mediaeval carvers. The story—or rather cycle of romance—of Reynard the Fox was known throughout civilized Europe for centuries, and the bench-ends, cathedral stalls, frescoes, and carved work all over England testify to its influence on the people of this country. At St. Burian, however, I have not been able to find it.

    I come now to what is doubtless to us locally the most interesting feature in the whole, the two heraldic shields that are cut in the same portion of the rood-screen, and the charges on them. The shields are of the Perpendicular pattern which came into "fashion"—if I may use the word in chivalry—towards the end of the fourteenth century, and are known as shields à louche. There was a curved notch in the dexter chief to permit the lance to pass through as the shield hung down the breast. On the first of these shields the charge reads, Per pale (1), a dolphin embowed sa and finned, (2) an eagle displayed with two heads and a fleur-de-lys in chief arg. I did not at first recognize the dolphin, the well known punning crest of the Godolphins, as it is almost a grotesque. The fleur-de-lys too, which is charged in the chief, I took as mark of difference for a younger son. But I find now that this shield forms doubtless the device, or badge of the Godolphin family. Their crest—familiar to us on the helmets in the south aisle of Breage church—was a dolphin with the tinctures just as I have given them (except that or is the metal of the fins), and their arms are given as Gu. an eagle displayed with two heads betw. three fleurs-de-lys ar. These tinctures correspond exactly with the colours on the screen. The carver apparently had not room for the other two fleurs-de-lys, and so omitted them, and he seems also to have committed a great mistake in heraldry by impaling the crest and arms as if they were the armorial bearings of husband and wife.

    The second shield that I have mentioned bears a simple charge that I read as Az. a wolf passant gu. This device I have not been able to find as being the arms of any Cornish family. The wolf that is borne faces the sinister half, which is a rather unusual way of charging a single animal on the field. I can only conjecture that this is the cognizance or crest of the Trewoofes of Trewoofe, who were once the most important family in the deanery and parish of St. Burian. The arms of this old family are given by Hals, the Cornish historian, in his own peculiar way of describing armorial bearings, as "In a field (?) three wolves' (sic) heads." In this case we have a good example of allusive heraldry. The heralds in their ignorance of Cornish made three of the Cornish prefix tre—which of course here has its usual meaning of "the place of"; and wolves of the termination woofe; and probably thought that they had manufactured a fair specimen of canting arms. But apparently at some time in the history of the Trewoofe family there existed another coat of arms, which is given as Arg. a chev. sa. betw. three hoops (black-birds) ppr. This seems to have been the more usual bearing, and is blazoned in the fourth quarter of the Levelis' arms on the monumental slab in St. Burian church.

    The Trewoofes of Trewoofe (or Trove, as it is now generally called), whose cognizance I assume this carving to represent, became extinct in the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. (Hals), when Joanna, the sole heiress of John Trewoofe, "carried" herself and the family mansion of Trewoofe into marriage with Thomas Levelis, of Castle Horneck and Landewednack.² After his marriage Thomas Levelis went to live at Trewoofe, in St. Burian. We must therefore dismiss as utterly fictitious the claim of the Levelis family to have been domiciled at St. Burian "since William's Conquest full 600 year," as the tombstone of the last of the name in the west end of St. Burian church would seem to say. Doubtless, however, they were originally an old Norman French family, as their name suggests. Their arms—to be seen on the east doorway at Trewoofe House—were Arg. three calf's heads couped gu., and their crest a garretted turret or surmounted with three small turrets.

    How came these badges and crests on this cornice of the rood-screen, and in what way are the Godolphins connected with St. Burian, are two questions which strike us. The first may be answered briefly. It was and is common now, to perpetuate the arms and names of benefactors of a church by introducing them into the ornamental details of it—as witness the new bench-ends in Sancreed church. We may presume that both the Trewoofes and the Godolphins, whose devices thus appear, were liberal benefactors of St. Burian church. With regard to the second question, as to how the Godolphin family was connected with St. Burian, I am fortunately able to answer from a contemporary survey of the parish, and of the chief landowner's in it.

    Between 1509 and 1523 a valuation of the lands and goods of the inhabitants of Penwith was made, for the purpose of a subsidy, and a return of this is to be found in the Exchequer Q.R. Mr. H. M. Whitley read an account of this valuation before the Royal Institution of Cornwall in 1887.³ In this survey we find that one of the principal landowners is "William Gotholghan," whose lands and tenements are assessed at a yearly value of £3 16s. 6d.⁴ Of course, in reference to the smallness of this sum we must bear in mind that the value of money was then much greater than it is now. This William Gotholghan, or Godolphin, was possibly a member of a collateral branch of the Godolphins of Godolphin, as John seems to have been the family name of the main branch for many generations. But it is probable that William Godolphin was the younger son of John Godolphin, who, Hals tells us, was "struck sheriff of Cornwall" in 1504.

    William, afterwards Sir William, Godolphin lived to a great age. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall (ed. Tonkin, p. 372), says that he "demeaned himself very valiantly in a charge which he bore at Boulogne, towards the latter end of the reign of King Henry the Eighth." He died in 1570, and was buried at Breage church.

    This same document shows us the assessment of the lands and goods of Thomas Levelis, who had then lately migrated to Trewoofe from Castle Horneck. The former are valued at £3 per annum, and the latter at £15. If we multiply these sums by twelve we shall get approximately their modern value.

    With regard to the date of the screen I will not keep you long on that account, as I am afraid I have already begged the question. I place the work in the first decade of the 16th century, and several things point to that period. It could not be much later, or the arms or device of the Levelis family would be found instead of the Trewoofes. And on the other hand it could not be earlier than the end of the 15th century. The dress of the peasant in the hunting-scene is the common attire of an English countryman towards the end of Henry the Seventh's reign.

    The low-crowned hat, with the brim turned up and secured by buttons; the very manner in which the hair and beard are worn; the large sleeves and puckered doublet, the shoes and hose, are all the peasant's dress of the early 16th century. The Godolphins too, it is very probable, did not bear arms until the time of Henry VII. We must not, however, place too much credence in the story told by the romancer Hals of the change of name by the king from Knava to Godolphin. Yet it shews clearly the period when the family began to rank among the important Cornish families of those times—the Killigrews, Arundells, Trevelyans, Seynt-Aubyns, Bevylls, and other "cousins," as Carew fondly calls them.

    In conclusion I must apologize for the paper being a rambling one—a medley of antiquity, natural history, and genealogy; but it shews what a flood of light these old church-carvings throw on the history of a parish centuries and centuries ago. Of the interesting history of this old screen I have not had time to speak.

    1. History of Waltham Abbey (1655), 16.

    2. See Lieut.-Col. Vivian's Visitations of Cornwall (1887), p. 286.

    3. Journal of Royal Institution of Cornwall, vol. ix. pt. ii. p. 260.

    4. Guilelm. Gotholghan valet in terris et tenementis ibidem (sc. Parochia de Berian) per annum—iijl. xvjs. vjd.

Extracted from the Report and Transactions of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 1891-92, New Series, Vol. III, pp366-373, and with illustrations from A Week at the Land's End by J T Blight, 1861.