Bodmin / Bodmine / Bosvenegh

There is an entry for Bodmin [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SX0767/bodmin/] [accessed 17 January 2021] but it mentions neither priest nor church in it. Lysons (1806-1833) note "ornaments in the Saxon style", and give “St. Austell, St. Columb-Minor, Crantock, Cuby, St. Dennis, St. Gorran, Luxulion, Newlyn, Roche, Southill, Tintagell, Veryan, and St. Wen” as cognates, though of smaller dimensions. Noted and illustrated in Upcott (1818) [with reference to Lyson]. Noted and illustrated in Britton's Dictionary of 1838 as "ornamented with rude and grotesque sculptures". Described and illustrated in Paley (1844), who reported that the then [ca. 1844] vicar, the rev, J. Wallis, "removed the Font from the north to the south aisle, and placed it in the centre of the west end, near the south entrance; at the time raising it on two steps of granite, and clearing it of many coats of limewash." Described in 'On the ancient stone fonts of Cornwall' (1851): "magnificent and far famed example in the church of S. Petroc, Bodmin. It is very large, and of granite. The bowl, which is round, and richly ornamented with intricately twisted foliage, is supported by a central and four angular shafts, all of which have good bases, moulded, and with ornaments at the corners. At the corners of the bowl, in the upper part, are winged heads carved upon square blocks slightly projecting." In Murray (1865) as Norman. Listed and illustrated in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908). Cox (1912) notes and illustrates a font of Pentewan stone in this church "of characteristically Cornish design […] Font a grand example of late Norm[an] on large scale, 3 ft. 7 high, and diameter 3 ft. 5J- in. Circular bowl with squared rim supported by central shaft, and 4 corner shafts with angels' heads as capitals ; vigorous carving of bowl shows foliage on two sides and on other sides knotted serpents. Font unfortunately disfigured by lofty but clumsily designed oak cover presented in 1881; a font of this date and style requires a mere flat cover." Stone (1955) describes this font as the finest example of a group of fonts made in the Fal valley of Cornwall. Stone (Ibid.) further out that "in shape the font is probably an imitation of the Tournsai marble group of the 1160s, [...] an example of the retention of Romanesque designs and styles in a backward area already affected by Gothic sculptural virtuosity and the Gothic for naturalistic human heads." In Pevsner (1970): "C12, the best of its type in the county". On-site notes: most magnificient of Norman fonts [the Roche font is a cognate]; the hemispheric bowl rests on a central shaft and four non-constructional colonnettes at the corners; vigorous and emblematic carving: the basin sides have flowers and stems interlacing in every direction forming a Tree of Life (?) on each side, two of the sides with intertwined serpents; the underbowl has four lions on it. The top pillars of the corner shafts have winged heads.