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Summer 2015 E-Newsletter Dear Reader, Welcome to the Summer

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Summer 2015 e-newsletter Dear Reader, Welcome to the summer edition of our e-newsletter. The newsletter covers news from Cornwall Record Office and the Cornish Studies Library and is sent out quarterly. If you know anyone who would like to subscribe, please ask them to send a blank email to [email protected] with ‘Subscribe to E-newsletter’ in the subject line. We hope you enjoy this edition and have a lovely summer. Kind regards, The Archives and Cornish Studies Team NEWS Kresen Kernow – Trustee’s Visit As you may have read in our previous e-newsletters, we submitted a funding bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a new archive centre for Cornwall, on the former Redruth Brewery site, back in April. We will learn if we’ve been successful with the bid this summer, so wish us luck! You can read all about the project proposals by visiting www.cornwall.gov.uk/kresenkernow. On June 17th we were joined at the site by David Heathcoat-Amory, HLF Trustee and former MP. He heard all about the project and enjoyed a tour of the site; he will report back to the national board about the project’s progress. Lanhydrock project Participants in the Lanhydrock Volunteer Cataloguing Project have been hard at work continuing with their aim to create a new catalogue for the Lanhydrock Robartes collection. The updated catalogue is now live in the public domain, searchable through the Record Office online catalogue under the reference number ‘CL’. Volunteers involved with stewarding and other activities at the house were invited to help catalogue deeds, rentals, correspondence, plans and industrial records from the collection on-site in the estate house. Nearly a year into the project, 31 volunteers have participated; so far they have contributed a total of 1533.55 hours! Although the historical writing has proved challenging at times, the volunteers have commented on the satisfaction and intrigue they feel when completing their allocated bundles and discover a little more insight into the family estate affairs. They have successfully catalogued and completed the preservation of over 1500 deeds and leases and over 740 individual items in the rental series. Work continues on expanding the catalogue entries with the 50 bundles of correspondence which represent the collection relating to Anna-Maria Hunt, miscellaneous estate boxed plans with one volunteer having now catalogued over 180 plans, and another volunteer completing over 50% of the industrial records. Continued interest has led to the decision to continue the project during 2015, with support from CRO and further funding provided by the National Trust. The news of the project continuation has been met by a delighted response from the group of volunteers who feel there is still much to uncover from the archive material. ‘Brewing Up The Past’ - with Tough Dough Building on the success of our Redruth Community History Project with Cascade Theatre Company, we are working with arts practitioners, Tough Dough, to further capture memories and stories from Redruth brewery and work with children in the local community to create animations inspired by them. The animations will premiere in Redruth this autumn, keep an eye on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/kresenkernow, for further details. WHAT'S ON? Did you or your ancestors get married in Cornwall? Do you have memories or photos that you would share with us? If so, we’d love to hear from you! On August 1st we will launch Nice Place for a White Wedding, a new exhibition focusing on weddings in Cornwall (both historic and more recent), and we are looking for community contributions to this. We would love to crowd-source some of the content for this exhibition so if you have photos or material relating to weddings in Cornwall that you would like to share please don’t hesitate to get in touch by emailing them to [email protected] with ‘For Wedding Exhibition’ in the subject line. Alternatively you could pop along to our Wedding Day on Saturday August 1st at the Cornish Studies Library from 10am-1pm and we will scan the items for you for inclusion in the exhibition. The exhibition, part of our Life in the Archive series, runs from August 1st-29th, in Library open hours and will feature photos, invitations, historic pre-nuptial agreements, marriage registers and much more. We will be running a range of activities and events as part of Redruth’s Mining and Pasty Festival and the Heritage Open Days scheme on September 11th and 12th. At the community centre in Redruth there will be a marquee housing a small exhibition about Kresen Kernow, the new archive and local history centre for Cornwall which will be located inside the historic fabric of the former Redruth Brewery. There will also be guided walks around the neighbourhood looking at the array of businesses formerly on the site as well as the impressive line-up of industrial trailblazers who lived and worked locally, including William Murdoch, Richard Trevithick and James Watt. These will leave from the marquee located in front of the Redruth Community Centre in Chapel Street. To book your place on a guided walk please email [email protected] or call 01872 323127. There will also be an accompanying exhibition of Redruth Brewery related artefacts from the Trevithick Society and documents as well as musical entertainment (Friday only) at the Cornish Studies Library. In late October we will open the final in our series of Life in the Archives exhibitions with a very special event… There will be more details to follow in the coming months so keep your eyes peeled! For the most up to date information about what’s going on, Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/kresenkernow RECENT ACCESSIONS Lack of storage space at the Record Office and the consequent postponement of some accessions is beginning to take effect, resulting in only 33 new accessions between March and May 2015, although this still represents a wide range of new material for our collections. Plymouth and West Devon Record Office gave us a small collection relating to the fascinating career of Richard Dale (born 1877), a master mariner from St Ives. It appears he first went to sea at the age of 15 and by the end of 1894 was engaged as an ordinary seaman on the sailing ship Toxteth of Liverpool. His detailed diary reveals the rhythm of life on board ship: the system of watches, meals, daily tasks including cleaning the decks, setting and furling sails and weather conditions. The voyage gets off to a bad start; they remain windbound at anchor 11 days over Christmas 1894, during which time Richard says he ‘never felt so homesick in my life as I have felt today thinking about Christmas’ though the Christmas dinner of sea pie, duff and a glass of port wine was ‘not so bad as I expected’! Richard later qualified as a master mariner and the collection includes letters from later voyages as well as from the time he spent as a prisoner of war in Germany after he was captured following the sinking of his ship during the First World War (collection reference AD2394). The Record Office has also received important records for two Cornish schools going back to the 19th century: log books for St Agnes, 1865-1952 (SAGN1/1/6-10) and an admission register for Lanreath, 1878-1910 (SLANR1/2/1). School records are some of our most heavily used and are a great way of giving today’s school children an insight into what life was like in the past. Both accessions also shine a light on what the pupils studied at school. A volume for St Agnes School from the 1930s lays out the syllabus for years 1-4 (age 11-15). In nature study pupils were expected to be able to identify grasses including Sheep’s fescue, common Quaking grass and Yorkshire fog while the needlework syllabus included constructing both a run and fell seam and a French seam! At Lanreath School in 1971 pupils were expected to translate ‘Do not walk into the garden with the most beautiful girl’ into Latin – very useful I’m sure! We also received items highlighting Cornwall’s appeal as a holiday destination; these include a range of photos of areas such as Kynance Cove, and a detailed account of a trip to Cornwall given in a scrapbook compiled by Dorothy Craig during a caravanning holiday she made with Jim Robinson and Snuff the dog in the summer of 1953. They arrived in Bude on 30th July, which she describes as ‘a pleasant place’. The following week was spent extensively touring around including taking a day trip to the Isles of Scilly. She comments that St Michael’s Mount ‘is not nearly so fairy like when viewed from below, as it was seen at a distance in the shimmering haze of the setting sun’ whereas Polperro ‘lived up to all I had imagined and besides that produced the best ice cream I have ever tasted!’ In addition to diary entries and photographs the scrapbook contains tickets, postcards and tourist guides picked up during the trip (AD2381/1). A selection of new books is also now available at the Cornish Studies Library including: Wheal Basset: Five centuries of mining at Carnkie by Allen Buckley. Trevithick Society, 2015. (ISBN – 0957566940) This publication begins with fascinating insights into the earliest days of mining in the Carnkie area, progresses through the boom years of the nineteenth century and ends with the struggle for survival of Basset Mines Limited, one of the largest mines ever to work in Cornwall, before its closure in 1918.
Recommended publications

  • A Handbook of the Cornish Language: Chiefly in Its Latest Stages, with Some Account of Its History and Literature Henry Jenner Frontmatter More Information

    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-04702-9 - A Handbook of the Cornish Language: Chiefly in its Latest Stages, with Some Account of its History and Literature Henry Jenner Frontmatter More information CAMBRIDGE LIBRARY COLLECTION Books of enduring scholarly value Linguistics From the earliest surviving glossaries and translations to nineteenth-century academic philology and the growth of linguistics during the twentieth century, language has been the subject both of scholarly investigation and of practical handbooks produced for the upwardly mobile, as well as for travellers, traders, soldiers, missionaries and explorers. This collection will reissue a wide range of texts pertaining to language, including the work of Latin grammarians, groundbreaking early publications in Indo-European studies, accounts of indigenous languages, many of them now extinct, and texts by pioneering figures such as Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Ferdinand de Saussure. A Handbook of the Cornish Language ‘Why should Cornishmen learn Cornish?’ asked Henry Jenner (1848–1934) in the preface to this 1904 publication, dating from the beginnings of the Cornish revival. Jenner admits that ‘the reason ... is sentimental and not in the least practical’. Born in Cornwall, but raised in south-east England, Jenner worked at the British Museum from 1870 to 1909 and was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He eventually retired to Cornwall where he became a leading figure in establishing the Old Cornwall Societies and the Gorseth Kernow. The Handbook begins by marshalling the evidence for the use of the Cornish language from the middle ages to the eighteenth century, and listing the manuscripts and books in which it is preserved.
  • When the Cornish Person Looks Closely Into the Mirror of the Cornish

    When the Cornish Person Looks Closely Into the Mirror of the Cornish

    Historic legacies and modern challenges: the Cornish language If the Cornish person looks closely into the mirror of the Cornish language they might find contemporary Cornwall staring right back out at them. For the Cornish language mirrors the doubts and uncertainties confronting Cornwall at the beginning of the second millennium. The language has a proud history, dating back to Cornwall’s first millennium, a time of shadowy and insubstantial Cornish kings and independent kingdoms. Familiar placenames such as Trewassa, Carnglaze, Rescorla, Creegbrase, Bosullow provide everyday reminders of our Celtic and non-English roots. Yet the texts of the language are heavily suffused with English borrowings even from the earliest miracle play cycle of the 1300s. The reality is that Cornwall, since the ninth century, has been to a greater or lesser degree influenced and structured by its powerful neighbour to the east – England. And so has the Cornish language. For example, words such as pont or nant, which retained that form in Cornish’s sister languages Welsh and Breton, changed to pons and nans in Cornish well before the fourteenth century, an early effect of the influence of English. For centuries the language was marginalised and despised, a thing of no worth, low- status gibberish fit only to call the pigs to their food. However, like Cornwall, the language has been patronised and romanticised in more recent times. Since the 1870s Cornwall has been buffeted by a storm of signifiers as the artistic and literary metropolitan gaze settled on what it perceived as a primitive and simple folk whiling their time away in age-old harmony with the environment on the fringes of ‘civilised’ Europe.
  • A Brief History of the Cornish Language, Its Revival and Its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand University of Wales Trinity Saint David

    A Brief History of the Cornish Language, Its Revival and Its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand University of Wales Trinity Saint David

    e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies Volume 2 Cultural Survival Article 6 12-2-2013 A Brief History of the Cornish Language, its Revival and its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand University of Wales Trinity Saint David Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/ekeltoi Part of the Celtic Studies Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Folklore Commons, History Commons, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, Linguistics Commons, and the Theatre History Commons Recommended Citation Ferdinand, Siarl (2013) "A Brief History of the Cornish Language, its Revival and its Current Status," e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies: Vol. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://dc.uwm.edu/ekeltoi/vol2/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact open- [email protected]. A Brief History of the Cornish Language, its Revival and its Current Status Siarl Ferdinand, University of Wales Trinity Saint David Abstract Despite being dormant during the nineteenth century, the Cornish language has been recently recognised by the British Government as a living regional language after a long period of revival. The first part of this paper discusses the history of traditional Cornish and the reasons for its decline and dismissal. The second part offers an overview of the revival movement since its beginnings in 1904 and analyses the current situation of the language in all possible domains.
  • Cornwall a Celtic Nation Author(S): Henry Jenner Source: the Celtic Review, Vol

    Cornwall a Celtic Nation Author(S): Henry Jenner Source: the Celtic Review, Vol

    Cornwall a Celtic Nation Author(s): Henry Jenner Source: The Celtic Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Jan., 1905), pp. 234-246 Published by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30069809 Accessed: 24-12-2015 01:23 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 138.253.100.121 on Thu, 24 Dec 2015 01:23:14 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 234 THE CELTIC REVIEW CORNWALL A CELTIC NATION1 HENRYJENNER THE history of Cornwall proves it to have been a separate nation in the past-separate from England on the one side and from the rest of Celtia on the other, ever since the progress of the Saxon conquest separated the Britons into different nationalities. No doubt the Cornish on occasions joined with Cambria and Armorica under one leader against their common enemy. They did this under their own Arthur in the sixth century, and under Rhodri Molwynog of Gwy- nedd and Ivor map Alan of Brittany in the eighth century; but these were temporary military emperors, and Cornwall continued to be governed by its own kings, Constantine ap Cador, Conan, Gerrans, Teuder, Blederic, Duniert, Hoel, and the rest, until Athelstan in 935 drove the Cornish out of Devon and set the Tamar for their boundary.
  • The Celto-Cornish Movement and Folk Tradition in Cornwall

    The Celto-Cornish Movement and Folk Tradition in Cornwall

    Link to thesis website Chapter 5: Fakelore, revival and survival Chapter 5: Fakelore, revival and survival: The Celto - Cornish movement and folk tradition in Cornwall. Celticity is an inescapable element of contemporary Cornish Studies. This chapter shows that the impact it has had on the canon of musical material described as folk and on the process of oral folk tradition in Cornwall is as varied and debated as the very term Celtic itself. Cornwall has belonged to the Celtic imaginary throughout the evolution of the term since its genesis denoting a linguistic family in Lluyd’s Archaeologica Britannica 1707. Cornwall was represented at the first Celtic conference in St Brieuc, Brittany in 1867.1 Following a campaign by Cowethas Kelto-Kernuak, the Pan Celtic Congress accepted Cornwall as a member in 1904. This campaign culminated in the presentation of a paper by Henry Jenner to the Congress. 2 This paper sought to demonstrate that the Cornish Language was not extinct and therefore Cornwall met the criteria for membership i.e. it had a living Celtic Language. In twenty first century Cornwall, Celticity finds articulation in an increasing variety of forms from the politics of cultural identity, through archaeology to mysticism and spirituality as shown by Hale and Payton.3 This is also illustrated by the programme of papers presented at a symposium entitled “Celticity and Cornwall” held during the Lowender Peran festival in October 2009.4 Critiques of Celticity represented particularly by Hobsbawm et al and Chapman point to its constructed, and by implication, artificial nature. 5 Hale and Payton draw upon Sims-Williams and Colley to show that Celtic is used and understood today to broadly refer to the peoples, languages and cultures of Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, the Isle of Man and Scotland.
  • BRENDAN Mcmahon Tradition and Cultural Resistance in Cornwall

    BRENDAN Mcmahon Tradition and Cultural Resistance in Cornwall

    Tradition and Cultural Resistance in Cornwall BRENDAN McMAHON Before the collapse of Roman rule in the fifth century, what is now Cornwall was part of the canton of Dumnonia, an administrative district which had its centre in Exeter.1 Out of the ruins of Roman Britain Dumnonia, comprising Cornwall, Devon and parts of Somerset, arose as one of several successor states resisting Saxon encroachment, though it was eventually to be absorbed by the kingdom of the West Saxons. Many of the Dumnonian people fled overseas to Brittany where their successors still speak Breton, a Celtic language similar to Cornish. The West Saxon King Ine completed the conquest of Devon in the eighth century and Exeter was taken from the Celts, though resistance continued and the English were checked at the Battle of Kehil in 721 or 722.2 The Cornish King Gereint died in battle and was commemorated by the poet Llywarch Hen.3 Later kings, usually described as “shadowy”, include Huwal, king of the west Welsh, who attended Athelstan’s great court in Exeter in 928 AD, as mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and “Ricatus”, known only from a single inscription at Penzance, which Philip Payton describes as “a semblance, an echo, an assertion of Cornish kingly independence”.4 Though Athelstan fixed the border at the Tamar he was not able finally to incorporate Cornwall into his new English state, and the “echo” continued to sound up to the eve of the Norman conquest in the far west. Although in ancient times Cornwall had trading links with the Mediterranean, it now ceased to exist as an independent political entity, though it did retain a separate cultural identity.
  • Orthographies and Ideologies in Revived Cornish

    Orthographies and Ideologies in Revived Cornish

    Orthographies and ideologies in revived Cornish Merryn Sophie Davies-Deacon MA by research University of York Language and Linguistic Science September 2016 Abstract While orthography development involves detailed linguistic work, it is particularly subject to non-linguistic influences, including beliefs relating to group identity, as well as political context and the level of available state support. This thesis investigates the development of orthographies for Cornish, a minority language spoken in the UK. Cornish is a revived language: while it is now used by several hundred people, it underwent language death in the early modern era, with the result that no one orthography ever came to take precedence naturally. During the revival, a number of orthographies have been created, following different principles. This thesis begins by giving an account of the development of these different orthographies, focusing on the context in which this took place and how contextual factors affected their implementation and reception. Following this, the situation of Cornish is compared to that of Breton, its closest linguistic neighbour and a minority language which has experienced revitalisation, and the creation of multiple orthographies, over the same period. Factors affecting both languages are identified, reinforcing the importance of certain contextual influences. After this, materials related to both languages, including language policy, examinations, and learning resources, are investigated in order to determine the extent to which they acknowledge the multiplicity of orthographies in Cornish and Breton. The results of this investigation indicate that while a certain orthography appears to have been established as a standard in the case of Breton, this cannot be said for Cornish, despite significant amounts of language planning work in this domain in recent years.
  • Towards a Grammar of Middle Cornish

    Towards a Grammar of Middle Cornish

    Towards a grammar of Middle Cornish Lauran Toorians De Fakkel : http://laurantoorians.com/?page_id=128 Version 1.1 - April 2014 Introduction During the years 1987-1991 I have been working in the department of Comparative Linguistics at Leiden University. My assignment was to write a grammar of Middle Cornish (which was to be my PhD-thesis) and in the mean time I was teaching courses in Middle Welsh, Middle Breton and Middle Cornish. Unfortunately, time and money ran out before the grammar was finished and even though I continued the work during the following two years, the grammar – and so the thesis – remained unfinished. As other assignments occupied me and my interest in Celtic studies shifted away from Cornish grammar, the unfinished grammar remained untouched for many years. This only changed when I was invited as guest-professor for Celtic Studies to Vienna (Winter 2003/2004) where I taught a course in Middle Cornish which inspired me to at least brush up the material I had. On various occasions it has been suggested to me to hand in the work as it stands and to get my doctorate, but two reasons withheld me: 1. The idea that I had done only half the job; and 2. The notion that a published, incomplete grammar would not easily be taken up by others to be completed. Having a website of my own allows me to find at least a partial solution to this latter problem. By publishing my material on this site it becomes available to all interested. Thus the material was first published on the internet in February 2011.
  • Broadhurst, K. Cornish Language

    Broadhurst, K. Cornish Language

    h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 4 7 9 6 7 / Q H K F 3 7 9 1 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 V O L U M E 6 T H E D E A T H A N D S U B S E Q U E N T R E V I V A L O F T H E C O R N I S H L A N G U A G E Kensa Broadhurst University of Exeter Abstract Cornish is the vernacular language of Cornwall, the most South-Western part of Great Britain. It is widely believed the language died out in the eighteenth century with the death of Dolly Pentreath, the so-called last speaker of the language. What caused the language to become extinct, and why do minority languages fall into disuse? After the subsequent Cornish language revival at the beginning of the twentieth century, what lessons can the language community learn from linguists who have researched language extinction and revival? I. Introduction po dres dispresyans heb dyskans. Gwell My a vynnsa skrifa a-dro dhe’m hwithrans yw gans nebes tus kewsel an yeth rann yn kever mernans yethow yn ollgemmyn vrassa rag achesonyow politek po erbysek, ha mernans an yeth Gernewek yn ha wosa termyn hir an poblans a dhalleth arbennek. Yn ow breus vy yma meur a dhe dhos ha bos diwyethek. Rag an nessa dhyskansow rag an gemeneth henedhow gwella yw kewsel an yeth rann kernewegoryon dhe dhyski dhyworth fatel vrassa hepken ha wortiwedh, an yeth wra hedhi mernans an yethow.
  • In Search of a Single Voice: the Politics of Form, Use and Belief in the Kernewek Language

    In Search of a Single Voice: the Politics of Form, Use and Belief in the Kernewek Language

    Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE 12-2013 In Search of a Single Voice: The Politics of Form, Use and Belief in the Kernewek Language Jesse Owen Harasta Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the European Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Harasta, Jesse Owen, "In Search of a Single Voice: The Politics of Form, Use and Belief in the Kernewek Language" (2013). Dissertations - ALL. 22. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/22 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation is based upon fieldwork performed between 2007 and 2011 in Cornwall, a region of Southwestern Britain notable for its ambiguous ethnic identity – caught between England and the Celtic nations – and its unique, revived Celtic language, Kernewek. During the course of the research, work focused upon the role of the language revival movement as a tool for ethnic identification: hardening boundaries, shoring up faltering communities and nationalist purification. However, the language movement is divided into three primary factions, which take differing approaches to the language, and to their corresponding language ideology based upon their relationship to Cornish identity. These relationships are based upon speakers’ sense of ethnic self as formed through class, kinship, linguistic self-perception, religious and political affiliations and place of birth and childhood. However, since the 2006 recognition of the language by the British states, all of these debates have become intensified due to pressure to standardize.
  • Peswora Gradh Notennow

    Peswora Gradh Notennow

    Peswora Gradh Notennow Here are some notes for the paper on the History of the Cornish Language. Cornish Literature (* in English) c1100 Old Cornish Vocabulary 1265 In Polsethow ywhylyr anethow c1340 Charter endorsement (Golsough ty cowez) c1380 Ordinalia (Origo Mundi, Passio Christi, Resurrexio Domini) 1450 Pascon agan Arluth 1504 Beunans Meriasek, Beunans Ke 1560 John Tregear translation of Bonner's Homilies 1602 Carew's Survey of Cornwall* 1611 Gwreans an Bys 1665 Nicholas Boson - John of Chyanhor 1675 Nicholas Boson - Nebez Gerriau 1680 William Scawen - Reasons for Decline in Cornish* 1693 John Tonkin - If Cornish People would but listen 1703 Edward Lluyd - On the Death of King William III 1707 Edward Lluyd - Archaeologica Britannica* 1710 John Boson - Pilchard Curing Rhyme 1776 William Bodinar's letter 1904 Jenner - Handbook of the Cornish Language 1929 Nance - Cornish for All 1938 Nance - Cornish-English Dictionary 1939 Smith - Cornish Simplified Number of Cornish Language Speakers Year Speakers Total Pop Area % 1200 30000 35000 93 1300 73 1500 35000 69000 54 Fowey/Camel line 1600 22000 1650 14000 1700 500 13.06.2020 Folen 1 Peswora Gradh Topics of Cornish History 1497 Rebellion. Henry VII confiscated Stannary charters. But mainly new taxes to finance war in Scotland. St Keverne leader Michael Joseph the blacksmith. Bodmin lawyer Thomas Flamank intellectual leader. Marched to Salisbury, Winchester, then 25000 English beat 1000 Cornish at Blackheath. Flamank and Angove hung, drawn and quartered. Later that year Perkin Warbeck landed at Lands End and proclaimed King at Bodmin but this rebellion failed at Taunton. Later Stannary powers restored and enhanced in Charter of Pardons.
  • Cornish Language and Literature: a Brief Introduction

    Cornish Language and Literature: a Brief Introduction

    ACTA UNI VERSITATIS LODZIENSIS FOLIA LITTER ARIA ANGLICA 3, 1999 Piotr Stalmaszczyk CORNISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION Cornish is a South-Western British Celtic language, closely related to Breton and Welsh. In the period between 600 and 800 AD the westward movement of Anglo-Saxon peoples separated the Celts of Strathclyde, Cumbria, Wales, and the Cornish peninsula. The dialects of Common British1 developed into Primitive Welsh, Primitive Cornish and Primitive Breton, the earliest stages of separate languages spoken in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, respectively. The further history of Cornish is conventionally divided into Old Cornish (from its beginnings to the end of the twelfth century), Middle Cornish (1200-1600) and Late Cornish (1600-1800). The last phase is also known as Traditional Cornish, in contrast to Modern Cornish, the result of various contemporary attempts at reviving the language.2 1 This reconstructed form of the ancestral language is also called Old British, Brittonic or Brythonic, sometimes the names are used interchangeably, in other cases, however, they refer to distinct phases in the development of the language. The most important study on the early linguistic history of the British Isles remains the monumental work by Kenneth H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1953, reprinted 1994, Dublin: The Four Courts Press). Cornish language and literature is discussed by Peter Berresford Ellis in The Cornish Language and its Literature (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974); Brian Murdoch provides the most comprehensive account of the literature to date in Cornish Literature (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993); cf.