FEUDALISM IN GUERNSEY. 



63 



Lastly, the Bishop of Coutances held a fief at St. 

 Andrew's, still called the Fief L'Eveqne. 



At the end of the 12th century Ave also find the first 

 record of the existence of a local Ducal Court in Guernsey. 

 When such a court was first established in the island it is 

 impossible to say. It may date from as early as the reign of 

 Henry I. for it is now being recognised that the bulk of the 

 administrative and judicial reforms which were formerly attri- 

 buted to Henry II., had not only their origin but were fully 

 developed under Henry I.* To his reign is now attributed 

 the creation of the Norman Exchequer, with its permanent 

 judicial officers, who not only sat as the judges of the supreme 

 Ducal Court, but were also employed as justices to hold pleas 

 throughout the duchy. Besides these permanent local courts, 

 with restricted jurisdiction, under ducal justices, were already 

 established throughout the duchy to keep in check the oppres- 

 sions of the barons and viscomtes.t 



It is in the great Roll of the Norman Exchequer of 1180 

 that we get the first glimpse of the existence of such a local 

 court in Guernsey, a court under the presidency of a royal 

 officer, who would have executed justice by judgment of the 

 chief tenants, the suitors of the duke's court, whom we still 

 summon three times a year at our Court of Chief Pleas. For 

 at this period in the local courts of the viscounts and baillis 

 in Normandy, and in those of the sheriffs in England, judgment 

 was given by the knights who held lands by suit of court in 

 the district, in other words who owed the service of executing 

 the king's justice. 



The jurisdiction of our court must undoubtedly have been 

 much more restricted at this period than we find it after the 

 alterations made in our constitution by King John. Already 

 the system of assizes, which Henry II. had re-instituted early 

 in his reign in Normandy, had been extended to our islands, 

 for in the Great Roll of 1180 we find Ralph de Havilland, the 

 deputy of Gislebert de la Hougue, the fermor of Guernsey, 

 accounting for £37 19s. 6d., the fines imposed at the last 

 pleas or assizes. Further, he had been president of the local 

 Ducal Court and, as such, had been fined by the justices £40 

 for being present and assisting in compounding a felony 

 of maiming. In other words for allowing the court to exceed 

 its jurisdiction, as maiming was one of the cases reserved 

 for the duke's judgment at this period. This last entry 

 proving the existence of a local court in the island. 



* See Administration of Normandy under Henry I., by Professor C. H. Haskin, 

 p. 209-232, English Historical Review. 1909. 



t Do., do., pp. 220-221. 



