From dying flesh and dull mortality.”
—Fletcher’s “Faithful Shepherdess.”
Though not strictly speaking “Folk-Lore,” the ancient priories and chapels of Guernsey are so closely connected with the holy wells that it may be as well here to give some details concerning them. It appears that these chapels must have been of more than one kind. Some were endowed, and had a priest permanently attached to them with probably a certain cure of souls. Others were most likely wayside oratories, where divine service was only performed occasionally by the rector of the parish, or someone acting under him, on certain anniversaries. Some may have been connected with religious guilds or fraternities.
To begin with those churches and chapels known to have been endowed, and which were probably—at least after the suppression of alien priories—under the patronage of the Crown.
A Commission was appointed in the reign of Henry VIII. for the purpose of ascertaining the value of all livings within the kingdom, with a view to the duty called first-fruits, owing on the appointment of every ecclesiastic to a benefice, being henceforth paid to the Crown. From this document we learn that besides the ten parochial churches there were four other benefices—the vicarage of Lihou worth five pounds sterling, that of St. Brioc worth twelve shillings, the chaplaincy of St. George worth sixty shillings, and that of “Our Lady Mares,” no doubt Notre Dame des Marais, worth three pounds.
The first of these four, Lihou, was originally a priory dependent on the Priory of St. Michel-du-Valle, which was of itself a dependency of the great Abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy. The Prior of Lihou had probably pastoral care of the district comprised in the Fief Lihou, extending along the coast called Perelle,[81] from L’Erée to Rocquaine Castle, where the district of St. Brioc begins. It also comprised certain possessions in the Castel parish and elsewhere, and its feudal court was held near the western porch of the Castel Church, a little northward of the path leading to it, where are still to be seen three flat stones, which mark the spot.
St. Brioc was situated in the valley leading from Torteval Church to Rocquaine. There is reason to suppose that it had a certain district allotted to it, but its limits are not now known.
St. George was only a chaplaincy, intimately connected with the Fief Le Comte, the court of which formerly assembled in the chapel, and still meets in its immediate vicinity. The earliest notice we have of this chapel is contained in the Bull of Pope Adrian IV., dated 1155. In the year following Dom Robert de Thorigny—or, as he is sometimes called, “Du Mont”—abbot of the famous monastery of Mont St. Michel, visited this island, and found one Guillaume Gavin established at St. George as chaplain: he was anxious to retire from the world, and, at his request, the abbot admitted him into his community as a monk, and appointed Godefroy Vivier to succeed him as chaplain at St. George. After some time Vivier followed the example of his predecessor, and took the frock at Mont Saint Michel, having previously made over certain lands which he possessed in the neighbourhood of St. George to the abbey which afforded him shelter.