Guernsey Folk Lore / a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that island

by Sir Edgar MacCulloch

The Parish Church of S. Peter Port. A.D. 1846.

Local Customs—Ceremonial.

“What art thou, thou idle ceremony?

What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more

Of mortal grief than do thy worshippers!

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form?”

—Shakespeare.

Although the doctrines of the Reformation were introduced into Guernsey in the reign of Edward VI., and perhaps earlier, and the Liturgy put forth by authority in the reign of that monarch was translated into French and used in the churches,[36] it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that the island became wholly Protestant.