| Many of the saints were
missionaries from Ireland who came to support the church in Cornwall.
To this day many places and churches bear the names of these saints such as Ia (St Ives), Winwaloe (Gunwallow), Austol (St Austell). A story says that saint Piran sailed on a millstone from Ireland to land on the north Cornish coast (near modern Perranporth = St Piran's port). On the beach he made a fire and surrounded it by black stones taken from the cliff. In the heat a silvery metal ran out of the rocks. This is supposed to have given rise to the tin-mining industry in Cornwall and the Cornish flag of a white cross on a black background.
Only later after the norman conquest did the English system of parishes, bishops and monasteries become established in Cornwall. Only in the last hundred years did Truro the capital town of Cornwall have a cathedral built and have a bishop. Previously the Bishop of Exeter ruled over the see of Devon and Cornwall.
The English language became the main language and by 18th century most people were either bilingual or spoke only English.
However there were still bilingual people in the 19th century and quite a few people knew stories and songs in Cornish. Even until the present day there are many Cornish words and celtic sentence construction in the English dialect of Cornwall. As the colonisation confined the Cornish language to a smaller and smaller area of the western tip of Cornwall it became more and more influenced by English loan words and pronunciation and so gradually became more and more debased. As writing was introduced with the church using Latin or by the national administration using Anglo-Saxon and later English, Cornish did not benefit from a standardised spelling and remained a verbal language with oral tradition. The Cornish learnt and spoken today was constructed from all available written and spoken sources and uses a standardised spelling that is phonetic and corresponds most closely to the language of its middle period when it was distinctive and not so much influenced by English.
The industrial revolution hit Cornwall early and hard. It was one of the most heavily populated counties and had an influx of people from the rest of Britain. New villages, towns and roads were set up in association with the mining of tin and copper and the ports used to import coal for smelting and to export the metals.
It is in this period that the Cornish language suffered and that the present pattern of habitation evolved. The industrial population were a target of the non-conformist Christian sects and Methodists and Baptists became very numerous.
However the mining gradually declined and the population with it.
In the early 19th century the new mines in Australia and North America attracted skilled and unskilled workers. In the 20th century the more economic mineral deposits elsewhere in the world have all but killed the Cornish mining industry. The many deep harbours of Cornwall provided both the shipping and fishing industry. The coming of the train service to Cornwall improved the fishing industry by providing a fast route to export fish to the cities of England. It also provided Cornwall with a new industry of early flowers and vegetables. Recently this industry has died as European countries with a more favourable climate have taken much of this trade. The fishing industry is generally thriving though technology, quotas and dwindling fish stocks have reduced the employment in the industry. Thus Cornwall is general an area low in employment opportunities. The seasonal industry of tourism and holiday-making provided another industry but this too has suffered through cheap foreign travel especially in sunnier areas of Europe.
Cornwall is seen by most people to be just a county of England.
However there has been a revival of things Cornish including the language, customs and flag. It is now possible to study the language for school examinations. There are some connections between the celtic nations that try to maintain these 'roots' against the dominating cultures. There are even a few militant people who wish to obtain some autonomy from England and have tried to set up a currency, parliament, a nationalist political party and a resistance 'army'. Only the party has had any success.
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