Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/89

EARLY HISTORY. 71 whom nothing local is related ; but who, having rebelled against King Henry I., was deprived of the earldom. Henry conferred the earldom upon Stephen of Blois, who afterwards became King of England. Stephen (1135- 11 54) charged upon the revenues of the Priory of Launces- tOn a perpetual pension of £5 in favour of " the Chaplain celebrating in the Chapel within the Castle of Downe- hevede." In the year 1140 Stephen created Reginald de Dunstan- ville Earl of Cornwall. We have seen (page 5) that this Reginald, in his Charter to St. Stephen's Priory, recognizes the Castle of Dunhevede as the site of his Court, and that the Provost and Burgesses of the town were present at that Court. Such a statement made within living memory of the Earl Moriton, concerning an inquiry into the origin of a market, leads to the inference that the Burgesses of Dun- heved held the status and rights of Freemen even in the lifetime of the Conqueror. Provost (Praepositus) was the title of the chief magistrate of a borough. The same officer was sometimes designated Portreeve, governor of a Borough, as distinguished from Shirereeve (Sheriff), the governor of a County. Counties had their Shiregemotes, in which their local affairs were discussed and regulated. Towns had their Burghmotes or Courts-lete. The one assembly was composed of the freeholders of the County, the other of freemen resident in the Borough, and both were charged with duties to their immediate communities. For some reason Reginald de Dunstanville deprived Hameline, a priest of the Dunhevet Castle-Chapel, of certain advantages and gave them to St. Stephen's Priory (see page 6). This either could not have been the pension bestowed by Stephen on the Chaplain, or the deprivation only affected Hameline personally ; for King Stephen's pension was continuing in the time of Henry VIII. Reginald died in 1 176, and was succeeded in the earl-