Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/29

10 twelfth century, says: "Cornubia vero et Armorica Britannia lingua utuntur fere persimili, Cambris tamen propter originalem convenientiam in multis adhuc et fere cunctis intelligibili. Quae, quanto delicata minus et incomposita magis, tanto antique linguae Britanniæ idiomati, ut arbitror, est appropriata."

In the fifteenth-century cartulary of Glasney College, belonging to Mr. Jonathan Rashleigh of Menabilly, an old prophecy is quoted: "In Polsethow ywhylyr anethow, in Polsethow habitaciones sen mirabilia videbuntur." This is supposed to date before the foundation of the college in 1265.

In a letter of 1328-9 from John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, 1327-1369, to Pope John XXII., the writer speaks of Cornwall as looking on the south upon Vasconia [Gascony] and Minor Britannia [Brittany] ; "Cujus lingua ipsi utuntur Cornubici." And in another letter in the same year to certain cardinals he says: "Lingua, eciam, in extremis Cornubie non Anglicis set Britonibus extat nota." With this comes another passage in the Register of Bishop Grandisson, quoted by Dr. Oliver in his Monasticon Dicecesis Exoniensis (p. n), which, in an account of the submission of the parish of St. Buryan to the bishop, after a certain quarrel between them, states that a formal submission was made by the principal parishioners in French and English (the name, are given, thirteen in number), and by the rest in Cornish, interpreted by Henry Marseley, the rector of St. Just, and that after this the bishop preached a sermon, which was interpreted by the same priest for the benefit of those members of the congregation who could only speak Cornish. These records are to be found in Mr. Hingeston Randolph's edition of the Grandisson