SOCIAL LIFE IN GUERNSEY IN THE 

 SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE REFORMATION. 



BY MISS EDITH CAREY. 



This lecture is an attempt to penetrate into what is virtually 

 a " salle des pas perdus " — namely, some of the social con- 

 ditions of Guernsey four hundred years ago. It is compiled, 

 as far as possible, from contemporary records, mostly from 

 those which are as yet unpublished and inaccessible to the 

 general public. For each of these records, however prosaic in 

 substance, has its own background of ancient people, of an- 

 cient manners and obsolete customs, because the sixteenth 

 century marked a general change of spirit and outlook of 

 the people. With the advent of the Reformation came the 

 spirit of secular Reform, and the spread of Education and the 

 wider distribution of wealth marked the rise of the middle 

 classes, and the downfall of the old " Noblesse d'epee." 



It is difficult to imagine what our Island must have 

 looked like four hundred years ago. There were no high 



roads. Even the " Chemin du Roy " — the King's highway 



was nothing but a steep, unlit, winding country lane overhuno- 

 by trees; and the other roads were merely bridle paths 

 between fields and hedgerows, so deep and shaded as to be 

 almost impassable in muddy weather. The richer classes 

 rode from one district to another, frequently with their wives 

 sitting on pillions behind them ; the " mounting steps " can be 

 seen outside many old farmhouses to this day. The poorer 

 classes had only the most primitive of ox-carts or their own 

 feet as methods of conveyance. So that it can easily be 

 believed that communication, even between parish and parish, 

 was rare. This is corroborated in going through the old 

 registers and noticing how certain family names were peculiar 

 to certain parishes for generation after generation, proving 

 that not only did the islanders seldom marry out of the island, 

 but even seldom outside their own immediate neighbourhood. 

 We know, that even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century, there were country folk who had not only never been 



