Blair Collection > Surnames & place-names of the Isle of Man

C£n0ltsl| Barnes, 309
respect of it to the lord. The service on which these
lands were held seems to have been that of the pre-
sentation of a staff or crozier, which the proprietors
had to produce for the annual processions on the day
of the saint to whom the parish church was dedicated.
This in the former case would be St. Patrick, in the
latter St. Maughold, or possibly St. Bede, as the
barony of which it formed a part belonged to the
priory dedicated to that saint.*
The service of the Staff of St. Patrick seems to have
been commuted for a money-rent at the time of the
Reformation, while the Staffland in Maughold fell into
the hands of the Christians of Milntown. How they
acquired it no one knows, but there is an old tradition
that, prior to the dissolution of the religious houses, the
Christians acted as agents for the Priory of St. Bees in
Cumberland, and that, when that priory was dissolved,
* It will be seen that these tenures are not peculiar to the Isle of
Man from the following :
'Grant of lands in Free Alms in the Isle of Lismore, with the
custody of the Staff of St. Moloc,
Deed of Confirmatiox.
To all and singular, etc. We, Archibald Campbell, feudatory Lord
of the lands of Argyle, Campbell, and Lorn, with the consent and
assent of our most dear father and guardian, Archibald, Earl of
Argyle . • . have granted, and as well in honour of God omni-
potent, of the Blessed Virgin, and of our holy Patron Molec, and
have mortified, and by this present writing have confirmed to our
beloved John ^McMolmore, and the heirs male of his body lawfully
begotten or to be begotten, all and singular our lands ... in the
Isle of Lismore . . . with the Custody of the Great Staff (Baculi)
of St. Moloc, as freely as the . . . other predecessors of the s'^ John
had from our predecessors ... in pure and free alms.' (Dated
9th April, 1544-)