Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/255

 as it is recorded in 1524 that 3s. 4d. was paid to Cornysshe by the prior. He also owned a corrody in the monastery of Malmesbury. The exact date of his death is unknown, but he was dead in November 1524, when the Malmesbury corrody was granted to Edward Weldon. Of his music not much remains. Four pieces by him are printed in Wynkyn de Worde's collection of twenty songs (1536), and other songs for two, three, and four voices are to be found in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 5465 and 31922). He seems to have been principally a composer of secular music, and set several poems by Skelton. Of his church music there are extant the medius part of a ‘Salve Regina’ (Harl. MS. 1709, fol. 51 b), and a setting for four voices of Skelton's ‘Wofully Araid’ (Add. MS. 5465, fol. 63 b). Hawkins (History of Music, iii. 2) has reprinted two of the songs from the latter manuscript, in which Cornysshe is described as ‘John Cornysshe, Junior.’ This has led Hawkins and other writers to conclude that there were two contemporary composers of the same name, but it seems probable that this was not the case, especially as the ‘Libri Computi’ of Magdalen College chronicle the payment of 27s. 7d. in 1502–3 to ‘Cornysshe, pro hymnali,’ and in 1508–9 of 7s. 7d. to Thomas Cornysshe ‘pro scriptura 13 tabularum pro æde sacra,’ and in the British Museum (Add. MS. 5665) is a motet ‘Dicant nunc Judei,’ signed Johannes Cornysshe. The suffix ‘Junior’ was therefore most likely added to distinguish William Cornysshe from these individuals, either of whom may have been his father. 

CORPRE CROMM (Corpre the bent or stooping), (d. 900), became abbot of Clonmacnois in 886, in succession to Maeldari, who died in that year. He was regarded as the ‘chief ornament of his age and country, a cherisher and promoter of religion,’ or, as the ‘Lebar Brecc’ has it, ‘the head of piety and charity in Ireland in his time.’ The ‘Martyrology of Donegal’ in giving his pedigree represents him as the son of Feradach, a descendant in the fourth generation of Mainè Mor, from whom were the Ui Mainè of the race of Colla da Chrioch, but this is a very strange mistake. The author has, in fact, supplied the saint with a pedigree belonging to a totally different person, who bore the name of Corpre Cromm, but was a layman, not an ecclesiastic. He was a prince of Ui Mainè who flourished three centuries earlier, having been a contemporary of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois [q. v.], who died in 549, and to whom he made several grants for the benefit of his monastery. The ‘Book of Leinster,’ in which Corpre is styled correctly ‘Episcopus,’ gives a brief notice of his parentage, and he is there stated to have been the son of Decill, son of Adsluag, son of Aelbad.

In the church of Clonmacnois he gathered round him a band of twelve presbyters, the number being suggested, as Bishop Reeves has observed, in this and other instances, by the desire which prevailed in the early ages of christianity to imitate even the accidental features of the apostolic system.

In 895 he was engaged in holding a ‘synod of seniors,’ or learned men, at Inis Aingean (now Hare Island) in Loughrea on the Shannon, some nine miles higher up the river than Clonmacnois. Here St. Ciaran [q. v.], the founder of that famous monastery, had erected his first church. The synod was rudely interrupted by a party of Connaughtmen, who had made an inroad into Westmeath. They showed entire disregard to the sanctity of the bishop and of the shrine of St. Ciaran which he had with him, and in the tumult which took place the island was profaned by murder. In the community of Clonmacnois, however, Bishop Corpre was held in such reverence that the anniversary of his death was observed as a festival, and his memory was perpetuated by an inscription in the Irish language, described by Dr. Petrie as still to be seen there, and containing the words, ‘Pray for Corpre Cromm.’ Though few particulars of his life have been preserved, he is well known in Irish hagiology in connection with the story of the apparition of King Moelsechlainn. Thus the ‘Four Masters,’ in recording his death, add that ‘it was to him the spirit of Moelsechlainn showed itself.’ The legend is of considerable antiquity, being found in the ‘Lebar Brecc,’ a compilation of the fourteenth century. It was intended to enforce on kings the duty of liberality to the church, the only alleviation to his sufferings which the king of Ireland enjoyed after death being derived from the ring and the shirt which he had bestowed in his lifetime. It further proved the advantage of burial in the sacred soil of Clonmacnois, where the deceased had the benefit not only of the intercession of the departed founder, the great St. Ciaran, but of his successor, the living St. Corpre, and his twelve priests.

In the modern summary of the legend in the