Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/34

 1 8 LAUNCESTON. subsequently to William Shyrc, must at present remain in doubt. John Falmer was Mayor of Dunheved four times from 1432 to 1461-62. We know that in the year 1474 Robert Waryn was Prior of the Priory of St. Stephen, Launceston. By the kindness of Mrs. Lawrence, widow of the late Northmore Herle Pierce Lawrence, Esq., we are permitted to translate from an original Latin Rental in her possession the following important statements. They show the then extensive revenues and rights of the Priory. Our readers will remember that we are still writing of a period more than four hundred years ago. The Rental is written in the clear and somewhat abbreviated style of the age. It is called, "The Rental renewed in the time of Sir Robert Waryn" [Sir (Dominus) was then a common prefix to a person in Holy Orders, or of the degree of Bachelor of Arts ; and is still used in University Lists], " Prior of the Priory of St. Stephen, Launceston, in the year of our Lord 1474, and in the 14th year of the reign of King Edward IV." It commences with the manor of " Launcestonlonde," a name still preserved in Launcestonlands, in which Manor the Rental specifies forty-nine tenements, besides those in the "Town of Neuport and St. Stephen." We propose to subjoin an alphabetical list of all the names of places mentioned in this Rental, as illustrative of the general unchanging nomenclature of places. The first division of the rental appears to comprise mere quit-rents, the sums varying from one-halfpenny to twenty shillings. The payment of a quit-rent discharged the tenant from other services. The forty-nine tenements were held by one hundred and four persons, among whom, and throughout" the Rental, many names occur which, after the lapse of thirteen generations, are still well known to us.