History

This Priory was the wealthiest in Cornwall.

Kings and Saints brought ideas into Celtic and Saxon Cornwall from Wales, Ireland and the Mediterranean about the Catholic Church and its beliefs, with its supreme Head being the Pope in Rome. Launceston’s Priory was inspired and built from those beliefs and ideas and was active from 1127 until 1539.

Here, Augustinian Canons fed the poor and the sick and told everyone of God’s love. People were grateful and bequeathed money and land, as well as some paying indulgences to ensure the support of other family members and the wider community and so the Priory’s wealth grew. ‘An indulgence or pardon was remission not of sin, but merely of the penance or temporal punishment believed to be still due to God after a sin had been repented, confessed and forgiven’. Eventually the Priory also had income from extensive lands owned and local Churches.

Its demise came following the legal process of the Dissolution of the Monasteries when King Henry VIII made the English Monarch the supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England and slowly dismantled many Catholic Church establishments.

Here, we will also celebrate the contributions made by our ancestors before the Priory as well as some of the work undertaken and events since the Dissolution.

This modern view of Newport, Launceston, Cornwall, UK has inserted a model of the Priory made by a local historian, Arthur Wills. The picture was developed by Colin Higgs.

Articles or information to be developed;

King Athelstan’s influence on the development of Lanstephenton (now St Stephens).

The religious and political inspiration to build. Why was it needed?

Details of the history of St Stephen’s Church and St Thomas the Apostle Church.

An account of how Launceston’s Prior was invited, and went, to Canterbury to discuss the legalities of King Henry the VIII’s request to divorce his first wife, Catherine. What link this may have with the Act of Appeals?

Politics and religion after the Dissolution.

The extent of the Priory’s lands, wealth and influence.

The causes of the ‘prayer book rebellion’ including the list of the rebels demands.

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History

This Priory was the wealthiest in Cornwall.

Further reading and illustrations;

Articles or information to be developed;