Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/452

410 this church is called Ecclesia Sancti Ivonis in Decanatu de Eastwellshire, and valued to First Fruits iiiil. xiiis. iiiid. In Wolsey's Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum 26l. The patronage heretofore belonged to the preceptor of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John Baptist, at Jerusalem, who endowed it; now to Coryton. The incumbent Holden; and the parish rated to the 4s. in the pound Land Tax, by the name of St. Ive, 1696, that is to say, St. Ivonis or John, 170l. 8s. 8d.

At the time of the Domesday Tax, 20 William I. 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Bicketone, id est, little town, then and long before, by prescription, the voke lands of a manor, barton, and court leet; the same now extant by the name of Tre-bighe, or Tre-bicke, that is town little; but not so little but that it was a kind of franchise royal, exempted and privileged in some respects against the common law, and within its precincts held pleas of debt and damages before the steward thereof, life, land, and limb, excepted, and had its prison and bailiff for the public service, as the hundred courts have. Now the writ to remove an action at law depending in this court must be thus directed: Senescallo et Ballivo Manerii sui de Trebiche, alias Trebighe, in comitatu Cornubiæ salutem.

This lordship was either by King Stephen or King Henry II. given to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John Baptist of Jerusalem, about the year 1150; (who endowed this church as aforesaid, where they had their preceptory or commandery, a corporation under a preceptor or commander, who took care of all their revenues, lands, and tenements, churches, chapels, and tithes; and those, their churches, were wholly appropriated to them, though they were not in holy orders, to preach or administer the Sacraments. These followed the rules of Augustine and Bernard.

This order originated in the time of the first Crusade, about the year 1100, when the members were called Knights of the Military Hospital of St. John Baptist of Jerusalem. They were most amply endowed throughout Christendom,