140 



Herm. 



The question where was S. Tugual's Church is answered by a 

 parchment in the Archives at St. L6 in Normandy. This docu- 

 ment, dated 1480, is the deed by which Geoffrey, Bishop of Cou- 

 tances, on the presentation of the Abbot and Convent of Cher- 

 bourg, institutes to the priory or parish church of S. Tugual of 

 Herm, a monk of Cherbourg named Jean Guyffart, on the 

 resignation of Brother Eichard de la Place, the late Kector there. 

 What I have said is enough to prove that there was in the 13th 

 century, and that there still existed two centuries and more later, 

 a church in Herm bearing the name of S. Tugual. According 

 to the Livre Noir, the patron was the Abbot of Cherbourg ; 

 the value of the living was the same as that of S. Sampson's 

 Rectory, viz., 30 livres. The Bishop of Avranches owned a 

 portion of the tithe amounting to 6 livres. Is the ancient 

 building now existing in Herm the original parish church of S. 

 Tugual ? Of this we cannot be quite certain, though it is not 

 improbable. In the 15th century, and perhaps earlier, there 

 was in the island a settlement of Franciscan or Minorite Friars. 

 When they came there I cannot tell. But in the year 1440 

 they were made to sign and seal a document, acknowledging 

 that they had no proprietary rights in the island, which they con- 

 fessed belong to the Abbey of Cherbourg, their own possessions 

 being limited to the buildings which they had erected, and pos- 

 sibly among these was the present Church or Chapel. I am 

 inclined however to ascribe the building to an earlier date. It 

 is a simple construction, vaulted in stone, 29 feet long, by 12 

 feet 3 inches wide. On the north side is a little chantry, 12 feet 

 7 inches by 10 feet 6 inches, with a pointed dripstone over the arch 

 on the southern side. The church has been mutilated to some ex- 

 tent and embodied with later buildings, and the windows have 

 suffered so much alteration as to make their original form hard 

 to trace : but the church itself could be easily restored to the 

 purposes for which it was originally designed. Perhaps J ean 

 Guyffart was the last rector of the island : at all events the 

 registers at Coutances contain no record, of a later appoint- 



