Petroci in Teca Eburnea reconditum, usque Civitatem Wintonise detulit; et cùm in conspectu Regis allatum fuisset: Rex, viso eo & adorato, permisit prædictum Priorem in pace, cum Sancto suo, ad Abbatiam Bothmeniæ redire.[1]
Which may be thus translated:
"In the same year (1177), immediately after the Epiphany of our Lord, a certain Canon of the Abbey of Bodmin, in Cornwall, by name Martinus, secretly took away the body of St. Petroc. Flying with it, he passed beyond the seas, and carried the body to the Abbey of Saint Mevennus, in Lesser Britany.
"When this transaction became known to Roger the Prior of Bodmin, and to the Canons who served God in the same place, the aforesaid Prior, with the advice of his brethren, went to Henry King of England, son of the Empress Matilda, that by his powerful aid they might again get possession of the body of St. Petroc, of which they had been fraudulently deprived. The King granted his aid to their entreaty, and by his letters commanded Rollandus de Dinamnus, the Justiciary of Britanny, that, without any delay, he should cause the body to be restored. When, therefore, Rollandus had received the King's command, he came with a powerful and armed band to the Abbey of St. Mevennus, and ordered that the body should be given up; and when the
- ↑ A similar account of this curious affair is given by Hoveden, another contemporary author, who continued the history of England from the year 731, where that of Bede ceases, to 1202, the fourth year of King John.
A.D. 1177. Eodem Anno, Martinus, canonicus regularis ecclesiae de Bomine, furtive asportavit corpus Sancti Petroci, et fugiens secum detulit in Britanniam ad Abbatiam Sancti Mevenni. Quo comperto, Rogerus Prior Ecclesiae de Bomine, cum saniore parte capituli sui, adiit Regem Anglise Patrem; et adversus cum effecit, qubd praecipiendo mandavit Abbati et Conventui Sancti Mevenni, ut sine delatione redderent corpus Beati Petroci, Rogero Priori de Bomine, jurantes super Sancta Evangelia, et super sanctorum reliquias, quod ipsi idem corpus, et non alternatum, cum omni integritate reddiderunt.
But King Athelstan is said to have given a part of the bones, the hair, and the garments of this saint to the church of St. Peter at Exeter.
