It is known that previous to the Conquest of England by Duke William,[27] Néel de St. Sauveur, Vicomte of Le Cotentin, was patron of six of the ten parish churches in Guernsey—those of St. Samson, St. Pierre Port, St. Martin de la Bellouse, La Trinité de la Forêt, Notre Dame de Torteval, and St. André; and it is probable that he was lord paramount of all the land contained in these parishes. He was one of those barons who conspired against William, and having been defeated by him in the Battle of Val des Dunes, all his possessions were confiscated. On his submission he was again received into favour, and his continental possessions restored, but such does not seem to have been the case with what he held in Guernsey; for the patronage of the churches mentioned above was given by William, a year before the Conquest of England, to the great Abbey of Marmoutier near Tours; and from that time we hear nothing more of the Viscounts of St. Sauveur in Guernsey.
The other four parishes, St. Michel du Valle, Notre Dame du Castel, St. Sauveur, and St. Pierre du Bois, were in the patronage of the Abbey of Mont St. Michel, and the lands in the greater part of these parishes were held in nearly equal proportions between that famous Monastery and the Earls of Chester—those held by the Abbey being known as “Le Fief St. Michel,” and those belonging to the Earl being called “Le Fief le Comte.” A local tradition says that it was Duke Robert, the father of William the Conqueror, who first bestowed these lands on the Abbey, and on the ancestors of the Earls, but of this there may be some doubt.
These lands were held direct from the Sovereign, to whom these lords were bound to do homage, but in process of time they came to be sub-fieffed by their possessors—that is, divided into smaller manors, which, instead of owing direct allegiance to the Crown, depended on their own lords, to whom they had certain services to render, and dues to pay, and in whose Courts they were bound to make an appearance thrice in the year. These Courts had jurisdiction in civil matters, in causes arising between the tenants on their respective fiefs, and had their seals, by which all written documents emanating from them were authenticated, the seals of the Court of the Priory of St. Michel representing the Archangel trampling Satan under foot, and that of the Fief le Comte, St. George, near whose ruined chapel the Court still holds its sittings. As there was always an appeal from the decision of these Courts to the supreme tribunal of the island, the Royal Court, they gradually ceased to be held, except for the purpose of collecting the seignorial dues, and, by an Order of Her Majesty in Council, the Court of the Fief St. Michel was abolished, the life interest of the seneschal, vavassors, prevôts, bordiers, and other officers of the Court being preserved.
One of the duties of the Court of St. Michel was to see that the King’s highway (le chemin du Roi), and certain embankments against the encroachments of the sea were kept in proper order and in due reparation; and in order to insure this they were bound to make an inspection once in three years.
We will now go back and consider the origin of the Fief St. Michel. Among the many fiefs in Guernsey, held in chief from the Crown, one of the most ancient and important is certainly that of St. Michel-du-Valle, extending over the greater part of the northern and western shores of the island. According to a tradition generally accepted by the historians of the island, and which is in part corroborated by documentary evidence, preserved in the “cartulaires” of the famous Abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, and in the Record Office in England, certain monks who had been expelled from that monastery for their irregularities, or had left voluntarily in consequence of reforms in the community which they disapproved of, came over to Guernsey about the year 966 and established themselves in a part of the island called Le Clos du Valle, which at that period, and until the beginning of the present century, was cut off from the mainland by an arm of the sea, and could only be reached by a way across the sands when the tide had receded. The monks are said to have brought the whole of the western part of the island into cultivation, and to have led such a pious life, and effected such a reform in the manners of the inhabitants, that Guernsey acquired the appellation of “l’île sainte.”[28][29]
It is also said that Robert I., Duke of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, called by some Le Magnifique and by others Le Diable, having been driven by stress of weather to take refuge in Guernsey, when on his way to England with a fleet to assist the Saxon Princes Alfred and Edward in their resistance to the Danish invader Canute, was received and hospitably entertained by the monks, and in return confirmed them in the possession of the lands they had been the means of reclaiming, at the same time constituting the community a priory in dependance on the great monastery from which they had originally come; a connexion, which although frequently interrupted during the long wars between England and France for the possession of Normandy, existed until the suppression of alien priories in England by Henry V.
Like all other fiefs the priory had its own Feudal Court, by means of which it collected its rents and dues, and which had jurisdiction in civil matters between all its tenants, subject, however, to an appeal to the higher authority of the Royal Court of the island.
The Court of St. Michel-du-Valle consisted of a seneschal and eleven vavassors, who, in virtue of their office and in consideration of their services, held certain lands on the fief. The officers of the Court were a greffier or registrar, four prevôts, who had duties analogous to those of a sheriff, six bordiers, who had certain services to perform in collecting dues and attending the meetings of the Court, and, though last, not least, an officer styled porte-lance—of whom more hereafter. The principal duties of the Court seem to have consisted in legalizing sales of real property, in which tenants on the fief were interested, and settling disputes concerning the same arising among them. But there appear to have been attempts made from time to time to encroach on the prerogatives of the Royal Court, and various ordinances of the latter are in existence restraining the seneschal and vavassors from doing certain acts, and even fining them for having gone beyond their powers. There was one function, however, of the Court of St. Michael which it seems to have exercised without dispute from time immemorial, but which it is impossible to account for—the inspection and keeping in order of the King’s highway throughout the island, and of certain of the works for preventing the encroachments of the sea. Possibly it may have originated in marking out the bounds of the Fief St. Michel and its dependencies only, and with this keeping in order the sea defences.[30] Once in three years, the seneschal and vavassors of the Court were bound to perform this duty, which, judging from their later records, they appear to have considered rather onerous, as we find several Acts of the Court dispensing with the ceremony, the reason given being generally the interruption it caused in agricultural labours, and the loss occasioned thereby, at a time when farmers were far from being in the prosperous condition in which they are at present.
Another very substantial reason was the expense, which had to be defrayed out of the Crown revenue. According to some of our historians, who, however, give no evidence in support of their assertion, this inspection of the roads, commonly known as “La Chevauchée” from the fact of the principal performers being mounted on horseback, was originally annual, and was instituted with a view to having the roads put in order preparatory to the grand religious procession of the Host on Corpus Christi Day, but this origin of the ceremony seems hardly probable, as it is well known that the procession in question is strictly limited in Roman Catholic countries to parishes, and is conducted by the parochial clergy. It is difficult to understand how it came to pass that a subaltern Court, such as was that of the Fief St. Michel, came to be allowed to exercise a quasi jurisdiction over lands which had never been subject to it, but as it was impossible for the Court to proceed to every part of their domain without occasionally trespassing over other manors, what was originally allowed by courtesy came to be looked upon at last as a right. A somewhat similar means of assuring the keeping in due repair of the high roads existed, and probably in a modified form still exists, in the sister island of Jersey, where it is conducted by the vicomte, assisted by two or more jurats of the Royal Court, and the officer, called the “porte-lance,” who exercises the same functions as the official bearing the same designation in the “Cour St. Michel.” It is known in Jersey as “La Harelle.”
But it is time to come to a description of how this ancient ceremony was conducted in Guernsey. As has been said before, it ought to have taken place every third year, at which time the Court of St. Michael used to meet in the spring to settle preliminaries in fixing the day on which the ceremony was to take place, regulating the costume to be worn by the “pions” or footmen in attendance on the Court, and other matters. The month of June was usually chosen, and on the day appointed the Court assembled, with all the officers who were to take part in the procession, at the small Court House adjoining the remains of the ancient monastic buildings still dignified with the name of “L’Abbaye,” although the establishment had been for centuries no more than a priory dependent on the famous monastery of Mont St. Michel in Normandy.