ANCIENT HISTORY OF GUERNSEY. 35 



coasts, rivages peninsulaires of Brittany and lower 

 Normandy. During the reign of Childebert,^ Rouen 

 was not considered as being within the kingdom of 

 Paris : and f the Celtic Gaul of Augustus and Charle- 

 magne, the County of Paris and the Dutchy of France, 

 or Neustria alone comprised those nations situated in- 

 ter duos amnos between the Seine and the Loire. 

 % Paris, situated on the one river, and Orleans on the 

 other, were Childebert's two frontier towns ; and as he 

 resided principally on the banks of the Seine, his Go- 

 vernment was denominated || Sequanica, a title by 

 which the coasts of Lower Normandy were also desig- 

 nated, as an insular anecdote of the 8th century plainly 

 demonstrates. 



It is easy to be understood from old chronicles and 

 legends, that the § Armorican bay of the saints of the 

 middle ages, is the same wdth that in which our islands 

 are situated, its modern appellation 51 is derived from 

 the apparition of the Archangel St. Michael, on that 

 famous rock of peril where our abbots formerly resided. 

 ^^Arinia, Sarnia, Sarnica, and Cjesarea desig- 

 nate Origny, or Alderney, Guernsey, Serk and Jersey 

 in Antoine's Itinerary, a work f f completed up to the 

 fourth or beginning of the fifth century. JJ Arinia, 



* Fridegund, Father Daniel rejects his authority I think without 

 reason. 



t Invent, des chartes T. I. S. Denys, in French. T. iii. p. 304. 

 D'Anville not. de Tancienne Gaule, at the word Tractus arm. 



J Aldrevald, Lib. I. de Mirac. St. Bened. 



II Paul, Diac. His. Longobard. 



§ Gervas, Tilb, &c. — Heylin's Cosmog. 



1[ Sigeb, Gembl, — Cent. Magdeb. ii. x. c. 13. — Caxton*s Golden 

 Legend, pr. an. 1483. 



** Antonin, Itin. Edd. Gale and Wesseling. Simlerus habet 

 Ariniam. Cusaniunus Sarniam (Cardinal Fleuris in the 15th 

 century, who had access to many ancient manuscripts), Ricardi 

 Corin. Edd. omn. Sarnam Sarnicam cellar invenit. 



ft Praef. in Baxteri Gloss brit. 



XI A-RiN-i and Origni, in the Breton, Irish, and probably in the 

 Welch languages, means the island of the point. The Irish write it 

 niuch in the same manner as the Greek and Roman Geographers, 

 RiGN, whence the Rikinh of Ptlomy and the Ricn-ea of Pliny. 



