180 EARLY CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



important Guernsey family, who gave their name to the fief 

 des Grantais, one of the dependencies of fief du Comte. They 

 seem to have held certain rights over the church of St. 

 Saviour's, for when Robert de Torigni, the famous Abbot of 

 Mont Saint Michel, visited Guernsey in 1156 he came to an 

 agreement with Ralph de Grentais concerning his claim to 

 fifteen quarters of wheat from the church of St. Saviour's, 

 which he abandoned to the Abbot in return for 

 twenty sols of Anjou. (1 ) At the same time Robert 

 de Grentais and his son Richard were witnesses to an agree- 

 ment between the Abbot and Nigel, son of Drogo, whereby the 

 latter and his son Gervase also abandoned all their claims on 

 the same church. (2) This Robert, de Grentais was uncle of 

 Richard, son of Robert Malmarchie, probably the Richard 

 Malmarchie, or Mauxmarquis,who also witnesses Peter Vivier's 

 charter in 1 179, who restored to Mont Saint Michel, by an un- 

 dated charter, the land of the Great Mill in Guernsey, by the 

 advice of his uncle Robert de Grentais, ® which he had 

 unjustly withheld. These lands were probably on the fief des 

 Grantais which almost adjoins the King's Mills to the west. 

 Richard Malmarchie was possibly Seigneur of the fief des 

 Mauxmarquis, one of the fiefs still owing suit of court at the 

 Court of Chief Pleas. 



William Viteclin was probably the owner of the fief du 

 Vidclin, an arrear fief of fief du Comte, adjoining the fief du 

 Groignet to the south. 



Gilbert the prevost is no doubt Gilbert the prevost of the 

 Yale who witnessed the agreement between Robert, Abbot of 

 Mont Saint Michel, and Nigel, son of Drogo, in 1156, as well 

 as that of the Abbot and Ralph de Grentais. (4) 



With the help of the Great Rolls of the Norman 

 Exchequer of 1180, 1195 and 1198, the charters of the 

 abbeys of Cherbourg, Montebourg, Mont Saint Michel, etc., 

 and with the aid of Haskin's " Norman Institutions," 

 Powicke's " Loss of Normandy," Valin's "Due de Normandie 

 et sa Cour," Stapleton's introduction to his " Magnus Rotulus 

 Scaccarii Normanniae," Pollock and Maitland's chapter on 

 Norman administration in the first volume of their " History 

 of English Law," etc., we are able to reconstruct the Norman 

 administration of Guernsey fairly accurately during the latter 

 half of the 12th century. 



(1) Fonds Mont Saint Michel, Archives de la Manche. 



(2) Fonds Mont Saint Michel. 



(3) Fonds Mont Saint Michel, Archives de la Manche. 



(4) Fonds Mont Saint Michel, Archives de la Manche. 



