Poor

notwithstanding the prior of St. Michael's appeared to the summons, and produced sufficient proof that this religious house could not be included under this description, the Bishop of St. David's, then treasurer to the king, set it to farm at 20l. per annum ; a rent afterwards remitted to 10l. on account of the monks being unable to pay the former, and maintain at the same time the buildings of the monastery in repairs which were considered at that time as no mean protection to the neighbouring county. however, as the priory might be, when this remission was made in its annual rent, it became afterwards much enriched by the resort of pilgrims, and the donations of the rich; and Henry VI. on building King's College in Cambridge, conferred it upon the prior and monks of St. Michael's Mount. At the dissolution of religious houses by Henry VIII. it was valued at 110/. 125. That monarch conferred its revenues and government on Humphrey Arundell, esq; who enjoyed it till his death, in the first year of the reign of Edward VI. when it was granted on a lease to John Milton, esq; at the yearly rent of 40 marks. It afterwards came into the family of the present possessor.

The most remarkable circumstance connected with the ecclesiastical history of St. Michael's Mount is the prodigious resort of pilgrims to it in former times, and the salutary spiritual consequences which were supposed to result from this pious visit. We have seen that the holiness attributed to it was of force sufficient to draw a royal dame of the fifth century from her father's court, and fix her within its precincts; and that a similar spirit of superstition produced a similar conduct in her nephew. But what occasioned the greatest influx of votaries to its shrine was an immunity granted to all such visiters by Pope Gregory, in the eleventh century, and confirmed by Pope Leofric. "Know all men," says the latter," that the most holy father Gregory, "in the year of our Lord 1070, bearing an extra"ordinary devoutness to the church of St. Michael's "Mount, in the county of Cornwall, has piously

granted to the said church, and to all the faithful "who shall seek and visit it with their oblations and "alms, a remission of a third part of their penances." The importance of such a privilege as this, in an age when morality was sufficiently lax, and the religion professed not calculated to purify the heart or regulate the life, will satisfactorily account for the number of persons who for some time flocked to this sequestered spot, on the holy errand of pay

ing their vows and their money on its altar. It is however a very curious fact, that privileged places of the same description multiplied so rapidly in after ages, that before three centuries had elapsed from the grant of Gregory, penitents, accommodated with nearer and more convenient resorts for the remission of their acts of penance, had entirely discontinued their visits to St. Michael's Mount; and even the circumstance of its possessing such a privilege had faded from the knowledge of the very monks themselves who inhabited the spot. The accidental discovery of an old register put their successors in possession of the secret in the beginning of the fifteenth century; who, too wise to let it sink again into oblivion, painted upon the doors of the church a notification of the privilege of their house; and addressed a circular letter to all the clergy of the kingdom, requesting them to publish in their several churches a formal annunciation of the indulgence that would be granted to those penitents who visited as heretofore the church of St. Michael's Mount.* Thus notified and announced, the troops of pilgrims who availed themselves of the remission of penance offered by the monastery of St. Michael's became

• William of Worcester, p. 102.

more numerous than ever, and we have. accounts still remaining, which prove that so low down as the year 1500, it reaped considerable profits from these wretched zealots of a wretched superstition. To increase the mummery of this pilgrimage, and to make a greater impression on the minds of the votaries, by adding difficulty and danegr to ceremony, it is probable, that at this recommencement of the exercise of their privilege, the monks constructed the celebrated chair on the battlements of the tower, known by the name of St. Michael's Chair. By climbing to this terrifying seat, and placing himself within it, the pilgrim, it is likely, was considered as performing an act of peculiar holiness, and had to boast a contempt of danger in the service of religion, that soothed his own mind with the idea of acquiring thereby a more than ordinary share of the divine favour; and at the same time procured him the respect of less enthu siastic or less insensible devotees than himself. It is to this self-gratulation, the result of having accomplished the dangerous feat, that an old poet, cited by Carew, seems to allude in the following lines:

"Who knows not Mighel's Mount and Chaire,

"The Pilgrim's holy vaunt?"

We were naturally desirous of seeing an object which had been so famous in its day; and following

our guide up a narrow circular stair-case to the top of the church tower, were soon conducted to the

*

en

elevated seat, learning by the way, as an couragement to place ourselves in it, that since the Reformation its magic virtue had experienced a considerable change for the better; for as before it certainly ensured to any one who sat in it the happiness of heaven after death, so now it produced to every married man who enthroned himself in it, a heaven upon earth, by giving him the management of

•

It must not be concealed, however, that Antiquaries are divided with respect to the original use of this member of the tower: Some contending that it exhibits merely the remains of a stone lantern, in which a light was kept by the monks during the night, and in hazy weather, for the direction and safety of ships navigating the neighbouring sea: (see Warton's note, and Grose :) Others, on the contrary, maintain. that it was constructed for the purpose mentioned in the text, (Whitaker.) But perhaps, after all, the truth may lie as it generally does in all disputed points, between the two opinions. This little appendage to the tower might have originally been formed for the purpose of a light-house; but afterwards falling into decay, through neglect, or on account of the expence attending its maintenance, it might then be consecrated to superstition; and a seat within its holy cavity. be made an occasion of additional immunities to the pilgrims, and additional profits to the monastery.

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