178 EARLY CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



1168, were certain lands in Guernsey which had formerly 

 belonged to his father, who Henry II. in his confirmation of 

 Hugh's gift calls Geoffrey Wac. (1) This land is the fief de 

 Longues in St. Saviour's parish. How Geoffrey Wac became 

 possessed of fief du Comte in succession to the Earls of 

 Chester, who had given their name to it, is unknown. It 

 remained in the possession of his descendants till 1240, when 

 Hugh Wake enfeoffed Baldwin de Vere with it, to hold it of 

 him as half a knight's fee. (2 > 



Gilbert de la Hougue, the Vicomte, is already known to 

 us, for he was fermor of Guernsey in 1180, and his accounts 

 figure on the Great Roll of the Norman Exchequer for that 

 year. He also at the same date farmed the ministcrium of 

 Gorroic, one of the three administrative divisions of Jersey at 

 that period. He was probably a Jerseyman, for he figures in 

 1156 as witness when the Abbot of Mont Saint Michel, 

 Robert de Torigni, " crossing to Jersey " (Gersie), made 

 Roger, the son of Ranulf, a monk, (3) but the name is found in 

 both islands in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. 



Of the witnesses to this charter, Robert de Havilland, we 

 learn from the accounts of Gilbert de la Hougue, had been 

 the latter's deputy in 1179, and in 1180 he accounts person- 

 ally to the Exchequer for the fines which had been inflicted 

 at the late pleas. He also pays a portion of the very heavy 

 fine of 40 livres for having been present and assisting in 

 compounding a crime of maiming. In other words he had 

 been fined by the Justices for maladministration of justice. 

 He also figures as witness to a charter of Jordan de Barneville, 

 giving land in Jersey to Benjamin Abbot of St. Helier, 

 some time before 1179.^ It is hardly necessary to add that 

 he came from a Guernsey family which has held a prominent 

 position in the island down to the present day. 



Peter de Belueir, or de Beauvoir, is the earliest member 

 of this old Guernsey family that has so far come to light. He 

 figures amongst the " clarks," but it does not necessarily follow 

 that he was a priest. 



Oliver de Barneville was son of Robert de Barneville, 

 who held a rent of 100 sols angevin on certain lands in Sark, 

 of which he gave 20 livres to the abbey of Montebourg near 

 Valognes< 5 > about the year 1174, with the consent of Williajn 



(1) Victoria County Histories, Northamptonshire families, G. O. Barron, 

 «' Wake." 



(2) Lincoln. Fines and Concords, Vol. I., p, 318. 3rd February, 1239-40. 



(3) Cal. Doc. in France, p. 267, No. 734. 



(4) Cal. Doc. in France, p. 339, No. 953. 



(5) Cart, de Montebourg, Archives de Manche, No. 209. 



