Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/391

 ^atnt Cljomas tlje Apostle* OUR earliest impression concerning the pretty little church standing on the south margin of the Kensey, a few yards distant from St. Thomas Bridge, was, that it formed part of the ancient conventual buildings. We even sought within it for some remnant or memorial of the "two notable tumbes" of Priors Horton and Tredydan, which Leland "marked." Well, the chapel, now parish church, of St. Thomas, does undoubtedly occupy ground which was in immediate contact with the stately priory, but it had an independent existence. Before the canons of St. Stephen laid the foundations of their sumptuous chapter-house, the parson or vicar of St. Thomas exercised his religious functions in the chapel which preceded the present edifice ; and, throughout the four centuries of life of the priory, a separate chaplain continued his ministrations there, side by side with his Augustine brother. Monasteries and priories were not parishes ; they were within parishes, empires within empires, often supplying from their own bodies the parochial chaplain or priest, while conducting also devo- tional offices in their own cloisters. Sir William Blackstone has defined a parish to be " that circuit of ground in which the souls under the care of one parson or vicar do inhabit." Parishes had become general, perhaps universal, long before the establishment of the Launceston Priory, and tithes were, as a rule, payable for 2 A