To civil justice, part religious rites.”
—Milton.
La Chevanchée de St. Michel.
“My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Ev’n now forsake me; and of all my lands
Is nothing left me.”
—Shakspeare, Henry VI.
Before giving an account of this curious old custom, now abolished, but which seems to have been instituted originally with a view to keeping the highways throughout the island in a due state of repair, it may be as well to say something of the feudal system, as it existed, and indeed, greatly modified of course, still exists in Guernsey. Though, from the loss in the course of many centuries of the original charters, we are left in the dark on many points, and can only guess at the origin of some of the many small manors—or as they are locally termed, “fiefs”—into which the island is divided.