Editing Bodmin (section)

==History==
[[File:Former Guildhall and No 22 Fore Street, Bodmin, Cornwall - January 2023.jpg|thumb|left|[[Bodmin Guildhall]]]]
[[Saint Petroc|St. Petroc]] founded a monastery in Bodmin in the 6th century<ref>[[Doble, G. H.]] (1965) ''The Saints of Cornwall: part 4''. Truro: Dean and Chapter; pp. 132–166</ref> and gave the town its alternative name of ''Petrockstow''. The monastery was deprived of some of its lands at the [[Norman Conquest]] but at the time of [[Domesday Book|Domesday]] still held eighteen manors, including Bodmin, [[Padstow]] and Rialton.<ref>Thorn, C. et al. (eds.) (1979) ''Cornwall''. Chichester: Phillimore; entries 4,3–4.22</ref> Bodmin is one of the oldest towns in Cornwall, and the only large Cornish settlement recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://opendomesday.org/place/SX0767/bodmin/|title=Bodmin – Domesday Book|first=Anna|last=Powell-Smith|access-date=12 October 2016}}</ref> In the 15th century the Norman church of St Petroc was largely rebuilt and stands as one of the largest churches in Cornwall (the largest after the cathedral at Truro). Also built at that time was an abbey of canons regular, now mostly ruined. For most of Bodmin's history, the [[tin]] industry was a mainstay of the economy.

An inscription on a stone built into the wall of a summer house in Lancarffe furnishes proof of a settlement in Bodmin in the early [[Middle Ages]]. It is a memorial to one "Duno[.]atus son of Me[.]cagnus" and has been dated from the 6th to 8th centuries.<ref>Discussion, photo and bibliography in Okasha, Elisabeth (1993). ''Corpus of Early Christian Inscribed Stones of South-west Britain''. Leicester: University Press, pp. 126–128</ref>

[[File:Ancient Stone Cross on Old Callywith Road - geograph.org.uk - 757140.jpg|thumb|A Cornish cross on Old Callywith Road]]
Arthur Langdon (1896) records three Cornish crosses at Bodmin; one was near the Berry Tower, one was outside Bodmin Gaol and another was in a field near Castle Street Hill.<ref>He also mentions a fourth cross which is missing, but may have been the same as the third.--Langdon, A. G. (1896) ''Old Cornish Crosses''. Truro: Joseph Pollard; pp. 46, 57, 74 & 227</ref> There is also [[Carminow Cross]] at a road junction southeast of the town.

The [[Black Death]] killed half of Bodmin's population in the mid 14th century (1,500 people).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5749|title=Black Death|access-date=17 September 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071025033431/http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5749 |archive-date=25 October 2007}}</ref> The local seat of government was the [[Bodmin Guildhall]] in Fore Street.<ref>{{NHLE|desc=No. 22 and Guildhall|num=1206466|access-date=4 June 2024}}</ref>

===Rebellions===
Bodmin was the centre of three Cornish uprisings. The first was the [[Cornish Rebellion of 1497]] when a Cornish army, led by [[Michael An Gof]], a [[blacksmith]] from [[St. Keverne]] and [[Thomas Flamank]], a [[lawyer]] from Bodmin, marched to [[Blackheath, London|Blackheath]] in London where they were eventually defeated by 10,000 men of the King's army under Baron Daubeny. Then, in the autumn of 1497, [[Perkin Warbeck]] tried to usurp the throne from [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]]. Warbeck was proclaimed King Richard IV in Bodmin but Henry had little difficulty crushing the uprising. In 1549, Cornishmen, allied with other rebels in neighbouring [[Devon]], rose once again in rebellion when the staunchly Protestant [[Edward VI]] tried to impose a new [[Book of Common Prayer|Prayer Book]]. The lower classes of Cornwall and Devon were still strongly attached to the [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] religion and again a Cornish army was formed in Bodmin which marched across the border into Devon to lay siege to [[Exeter]]. This became known as the [[Prayer Book Rebellion]]. Proposals to translate the Prayer Book into Cornish were suppressed and in total 4,000 people were killed in the rebellion.<ref>Sturt, John (1987) Revolt in the West: the Western Rebellion of 1549. Exeter: Devon Books</ref>

===Bodmin Borough Police===
The Borough of Bodmin was one of the 178 municipal boroughs which under the auspices of the [[Municipal Corporations Act 1835]] was mandated to create an electable council and a Police Watch Committee responsible for overseeing a police force in the town. The new system directly replaced the Parish Constables that had policed the borough since time immemorial and brought paid, uniformed and accountable law enforcement for the first time. Bodmin Borough Police was the municipal police force for the Borough of Bodmin from 1836 to 1866. The creation of the [[Cornwall Constabulary]] in 1857 put pressure on smaller municipal police forces to merge with the county. The two-man force of Bodmin came under threat almost immediately, but it would take until 1866 for the Mayor of Bodmin and the Chairman of the Police Watch Committee to agree on the terms of amalgamation. After a public enquiry, the force was disbanded in January 1866 and policing of the borough was deferred to the county from thereon.

==="Bodmin Town"===
The song "Bodmin Town" was collected from the Cornishman William Nichols at [[Whitchurch, Devon|Whitchurch]], [[Devon]], in 1891 by [[Sabine Baring-Gould]] who published a version in his ''A Garland of Country Song'' (1924).<ref>A more authentic version based on the Baring-Gould MSS. appeared in 1974 in Gordon Hitchcock's ''Songs of the West Country''.--Dave Arthur's notes on Martyn Wyndham Read's ''Andy's Gone'' Broadside BRO 134.</ref>