Cornwall: A History

Philip Payton

Description

A new edition of Philip Payton’s modern classic Cornwall: A History, published now by University of Exeter Press, telling the story of Cornwall from earliest times to the present day.

Drawing upon a wide range of original and secondary sources, it begins with Cornwall’s geology and prehistory, moving through Celtic times to the creation of the kingdom of Kernow and its relationship with neighbouring England. The political accommodation of medieval Cornwall by the expanding English state through the twin institutions of the Duchy and Stannaries is examined, as is the flowering in the middle ages of literature in the Cornish language. Resistance to English intrusion – in the rebellions of 1497 and 1549 and in the Civil War – is explored.So too is Cornwall’s role in the subsequent expansion of Britain’s global influence, and Cornwall as an early centre of the industrial revolution is also discussed.

Mining and Methodism became twin strands of an assertive transnational identity which emigrant Cornish transplanted across the globe in the nineteenth-century. Thereafter, as the book shows, a vigorous Celtic revivalist movement championed the rebirth of the Cornish language and Cornwall’s status as a Celtic nation. At the same time, tourism, with its emphasis on Cornish distinctiveness, moved in the twentieth century to fill the gap left by the decline of mining.

The book concludes by examining the nature of twenty-first century Cornwall, contrasting an apparent heightening of Cornish consciousness with the increasing threats to Cornwall’s environment and identity.

Foreword

Introduction

Ancient Stones

The Mystery of the Celts

From Dumnonia to Cornubia

Anglia and Cornubia

‘We Utterly Refuse… This New English’

‘These is Much Danger in a Cornish Hugg’

‘The Large Continent of Cornwall’

‘So Many Brilliant Ornaments’

‘If You Haven’t Been to Moonta’

Re-Inventing Kernow

Whither Cornwall?

Notes and References

Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Cornualles
• Local history
• University of Exeter Press
• Celtic nations
• Cornubia
• Stannary
• Duchy of Cornwall
• General officer
• Cornish
• History of Europe
• Cornish language
• Great Britain
• General
• Celtic revival
• Cornwall
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 31 décembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780859892322
• Langue: English

Extrait

Cornwall: A History
Revised and updated edition
A new edition of Philip Payton s modern classic Cornwall: A History , published now by University of Exeter Press, telling the story of Cornwall from earliest times to the present day.
As the only full-length study of Cornwall to have been written for many years, Cornwall: A History is essential reading for everyone with a passion for, or a passing interest in, Cornwall. The distinctiveness of Cornwall and of the Cornish identity is a constant theme in the book: it argues that in many respects Cornish history is different from English history, and that the Cornish are one of the distinct nationalities of these islands. The book is written in an authoritative but accessible style. This new edition incorporates the latest research and brings the story of Cornwall right up to date, examining the events and debates of the early twenty-first century.
Philip Payton is Emeritus Professor in the University of Exeter and Professor of History at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and is the former Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies in the University of Exeter. He edited Cornish Studies , published annually from 1993-2013, the only series of publications that seeks to investigate and understand the complex nature of Cornish identity, as well as to discuss its implications for society and governance in contemporary Cornwall.
Cornwall: A History
Revised and updated edition
. . . a new edition of Cornwall: A History is very welcome indeed. It is a key text for anyone working on the history of the Celtic nations, peoples and languages and a very valuable addition to the literature on modern British history. Professor Christopher Williams, Cardiff University
Philip Payton is the leader of a new generation of historians exploring Cornwall s ambivalent position within the English state, and questioning the view of Cornwall as just another English county . In this book he argues the case for the Cornish as a separate Celtic people, fully deserving a history of their own, and amply succeeds in his stated aim of bringing that history to the widest possible audience. Professor Mark Stoyle, University of Southampton
From reviews of the previous edition . . .
Payton brilliantly brings together myth, fact, people, places, events . . . gripping . The Times
. . . will rank among the classic books on Cornwall, if not the finest ever published. Western Morning News
. . . awesomely researched . . . the essential book for anyone who loves the county. Observer

Third, revised and updated edition
published in 2017 by
University of Exeter Press
Reed Hall, Streatham Drive
Exeter EX4 4QR
UK
www.exeterpress.co.uk
Philip Payton 1996, 2004 and 2017
The right of Philip Payton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBNs
EPUB 978 0 85989 232 2
PDF 978 0 85989 227 8
Hardback 978 0 85989 021 2
Paperback 978 0 85989 027 4
Cover image: Early Morning, Newlyn , 1926 (oil on canvas), Procter, Dod (1892-1972)/Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Collection/ Estate of Dod Procter/Bridgeman Images
CONTENTS Map of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Preface Chapter One Ancient stones Chapter Two Ancient peoples Chapter Three The mystery of the Celts Chapter Four From Dumnonia to Cornubia Chapter Five Anglia et Cornubia Chapter Six ‘We Utterly Refuse . . . This New English’ Chapter Seven ‘There is Much Danger in a Cornish Hugg’ Chapter Eight ‘The Large Continent of Cornwall’ Chapter Nine ‘So Many Brilliant Ornaments’ Chapter Ten ‘If You Haven’t Been to Moonta’ Chapter Eleven Re-Inventing Kernow Chapter Twelve Whither Cornwall? Select Bibliography Notes and References Index
Map of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
( Tim Absalom, The GeoMapping Unit, Plymouth University )
PREFACE
It is now more than a decade since the appearance of the second edition of Cornwall: A History . The book has been in print for almost the entire period, and only recently has it become more difficult to find, with second-hand copies often selling for inflated prices on on-line sales sites. I am delighted, therefore, that University of Exeter Press has graciously decided to publish a third edition as part of its expanding Cornish list, and I am especially grateful to Simon Baker, my publisher, for his enthusiasm for the project.
Much has happened in Cornwall in recent years, and I have attempted to bring the story up to date by considering some of the more important events, especially on the political front where there have been dramatic and often unexpected developments. It has been fashionable since at least the 1980s to declare that Cornwall is at the cross-roads . Now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the phrase rings especially true. On the one hand, Cornwall s identity is expressed with increasing confidence, and the Cornish have won recognition in ways thought unlikely, if not impossible, just a few years ago. At the same time, however, the pressures of development have reached new heights, threatening Cornwall s environmental sustainability and poised to overwhelm Cornishness in a rush to urbanised sameness. How these tensions will be resolved is not yet clear, although the answer must lie in greater devolution of power to Cornwall.
As well as reporting and commenting upon recent developments, I have also taken the opportunity to judiciously update the text where necessary in earlier chapters, taking account of recent research, correcting errors, and replacing clumsy phraseology with more felicitous use of English. As ever, I have been assisted in this by many friends and colleagues-in Cornwall, and here in Australia-and it remains a great privilege to be part of the exciting community of scholars and others writing about Cornwall and the Cornish. And as always, I have been supported by my wife, Deidre, not least as we travel the globe in search of the Cornish, and in her compilation of the index that graces this volume.
Philip Payton, Flinders University Adelaide, 2017
CHAPTER ONE
ANCIENT STONES
A S WE SHALL SEE as the story of Cornwall unfolds in this book, this Cornish land is many things to many people, its history so often contradictory and paradoxical. Cornwall is a far-flung half-forgotten remnant of the Celtic world; or maybe it is the limelit stage upon which the global, earth-shattering acts of the Industrial Revolution were first performed. The Cornish are the last of an ancient race, their moribund way of life fast disappearing in response to the homogenising pressures of international Western culture. Or perhaps, like other ethnic groups across the Continent, the Cornish have at last the self-confidence to express a vibrant separate identity that will ensure their place in the rich regional mosaic of twenty-first century Europe. For outsiders, Cornwall is peace and tranquillity, a haven to which one might retire from the mad rush of modern life; for insiders, Cornwall is often poverty and poor housing and a struggle to make ends meet in a low-wage economy.
But behind this fluidity of interpretation there are certainties, and none more so than the bedrock of the land itself. On cliffs and moors, in architecture, in mines and quarries, in the fabric of the landscape, geology is in Cornwall (for even the most casual of observers) a powerful determinant of territorial character and identity. Thus Cornwall is The Granite Kingdom for the contemporary Cornish poet and novelist, D.M. Thomas, while for writer James Turner the essential defining feature of Cornwall is that it is The Stone Peninsula . 1 For the romantic fancy of popular fiction, the stones of Cornwall are old, as old as time itself, and this is something with which the scientist will readily concur. The stones of Cornwall are old. The oldest rocks are on the Lizard peninsula, a veritable mecca for geologists, but most of Cornwall consists geologically of strongly deformed sediments which were intruded by granites in the late Carboniferous or early Permian periods, about 300 million years ago.
Throughout the preceding Carboniferous and Devonian periods, most of what is now Cornwall lay beneath the sea. In a complex series of geological events sedimentary material was laid down on the sea-bed while, at the end of the Carboniferous period, the cataclysmic collision of two landmasses-one southern, one northern-threw this material up into a mountain range. The process is known to geologists as the Variscan orogeny, and its consequences for the physical creation of Cornwall have been described in detail by Colin Bristow. 2 Briefly, the story is this. Some of the sea-bed caught up in the early phases of this collision was thrust up to the surface to become the Lizard peninsula, known today for its distinctive geological and topographical features. Elsewhere, huge volumes of debris slipped down from the colliding northern landmass and are detected now in the geology of the southern Cornish coast-in the Roseland peninsula and westwards along the southern side of the Helford River towards Mullion. As Colin Bristow has remarked, the geology of these areas has more in common with that of Brittany than any other part of Britain-a fascinating echo of the cultural bonds that were for so long to tie Brittany and Cornwall together, and which in recent years have been re-affirmed in contexts such as inter-Celtic wrestling contests and the twinning of Cornish and Breton towns and villages.
About 10 million years after the Variscan collision had reached its climax (a mere bat of the eyelid in geological time) came the granitic intrusion. A great mass of molten granite welled up in a line from what is now the Isles of Scilly to Dartmoor so that, in Colin Bristow s memorable phrase, we may truthfully say that