BEFORE his primary visitation in l82l bishop William Carey sent out to all the clergy ofhis diocese of Exeter a series of questions, or “ queries ”, printed on forms with a space under each question for the reply. The records printed here are the replies written in by the incumbents. In this volume are the replies from the Cornish parishes, that is, the parishes of the old archdeaconry of Cornwall, now the diocesd of Truro. The replies of the Devon clergy, more than double the present in bulk, will follow in a later volume.

The present volume contains 164 returns, covering 179 parishes or chapelries. Not only rectors and vicars answered, but sometimes, in spite of the bishop's instructions to the contrary, the curates of chapels of ease, for example, at Penzance. The exact number of clergy to whom the queries were originally sent is now impossible to determine. The clergy of about 30 churches either neglected to send in their replies or else their returns were subsequently mislaid by the registrar. Gaps in the records have been filled in as far as possible by printing the entries in the bishop's summary books. This has produced some sort of information, chiefly on the residence of the clergy, for a further 17 parishes and for the 3 prebends of St Endellion. The total of parishes covered is therefore brought up to exactly 200, leaving perhaps a dozen unaccounted for.

Episcopal, Visitation

Broadly speaking, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the diocese of Exeter, all parishes were visited annually by the archdeacon, and, at least after the accession of bishop Keppel in 1765, every three years by the bishop. Where a parish or any other place for some reason or other had in former times obtained exemption, what was called a peculiar jurisdiction resulted. At Padstow, for example, part of the parish had obtained the status of a bishop's peculiar, while the remainder of it stayed under the control of the archdeacon. Peculiars could be of various degrees of immunity, but in Cornwall there were only four such degrees. In the royal peculiar of St Buryan alljurisdiction was vested in the crown. The dean and chapter of Exeter had their peculiars, varying in number according to date, where they exercised all Ordinary powers.