Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/347

Rh rectory in possession of, and the parish rated to the four shillings in the pound Land Tax 1696, 163l. 10s.

The History of St. David. He was a Welsh Briton by birth, but of what place in Wales I know not, about the year 840; bred up in the Christian religion; afterwards became learned in all the liberal arts and sciences; was ordained priest, and by reason of his regular living and sanctity of life, was constituted Presul or Bishop of Menevia, and held the Christian faith in great purity, opposite to the doctrines of Arius and Pelagius.

Near this church is situate the barton of Davidstowe, formerly the lands ofPearse, Gent, whose daughter and heir carried it, together with herself, in marriage, to John Nicholls, Esq. whose son married Erisey, his grandson a daughter of Sir Joseph Tredinham, Knight, as his father did Pearse.

Since which time the heir general of this family of Nicholls is married to Glynn, of Glynn, Esq.

That this parish was called Davidstow from St. David, the titular saint of the Welsh, I make no question; for I have never heard that the holy King David was ever enlisted for the patron of a Christian church. I shall say no more of St. David, than that he was uncle to King Arthur, and therefore it is not wonderful that this church should be dedicated to him; and that after he had attained the age of a hundred and forty-six years he died at his bishopric of Menevia, in Wales, since called from him St. David's, A.D. 642.

St. David appears to have been a very extraordinary person, in reference to the period in which he lived. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerarium Cambriae, published with annotations by David Powell, at London, 1585, 8vo. and by Sir Richard Hoare, in 2 vols. 4to. 1806, gives