SILVER PLATE FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES, 

 USED IN GUERNSEY BEFORE THE 18th CENTURY. 



BY EDITH F. CAREY. 



One of the earliest instances on record of plate in private 

 hands in these islands is to be found in the Inquisition of 

 1274, when Pierre l'Archier complains that Pierre Chaunce- 

 brun — who was then acting Deputy to Arnaud Jean, that 

 Bailiff branded in our history as one of the worst tyrants we 

 ever endured — unlawfully detained a Silver Cup which he 

 had pledged to the said Bailiff as an earnest of the sum of 

 40 livres tournois. This forty livres being the sum he was 

 prepared to pay for the privilege of farming the King's Mills; 

 yet although the money had been duly paid, the Plaintiff 

 complained that he had not received back his Cup. You all 

 know by this time that the " Silver Cups" alluded to in the 

 tradition of Gautier de la Salle are quite apocryphal ; so that 

 I will pass on to the year 1496, when we come to the Note 

 Book of John Bonamy, King's Procureur in Guernsey. He 

 was the son of Pierre Bonamy and Marguerite Patrys, his 

 wife, and married Jenette Le Mesurier, daughter of Pierre. 

 He it was who built the old Bonamy House of Les Caches on 

 the Forest Road, still standing behind Messrs. Hubert & Co.'s 

 Nursery, and his note book relates that in February 1499 

 (O.S.) he finished translating the Exteute of 1331 from 

 Latin into French. His note book also records a pilgrimage 

 to Rome, where he and other pilgrims — of whom we know 

 John de Lisle of St. Peter-in-the-Wood to have been one — 

 arrived on Easter Monday, April 20th, 1500, and there 

 remained until the Tuesday week following. Among other 

 pious acts they caused Masses to be sung for the souls of a 

 long list of friends and relatives at the famous Altar of 

 St. Sebastian. 



John Bonamy had two sons, John and Thomas, and one 

 daughter, Perotine, who married, in 1505, Thomas Carey e, 

 son of Laurence. At her wedding, among many other gifts, 

 her father presented her with a " Silver Knife of Ferrara 

 Make." By his will, dated 1496, he directed that his Silver 

 Cups (hanaps) and Silver Spoons (culys) should be divided 

 among his children " chacun sa part, l'un corarae i'austre." 



