64 



FEUDALISM IN GUERNSEY. 



The assizes at this period were tlc\e supreme court of 

 the king, travelling throughout the land executing justice 

 in the king's name to all and sundry. They were held 

 by royally appointed officers, either members of the Ex- 

 chequer or great barons of the king's council, and when 

 they sat all local courts in the neighbourhood were closed, 

 whether those of the vicomtes and baillis, or of the feudal 

 seigneurs, and all had to come to the king's court for justice. 

 But the justices' commission did not end with the adminis- 

 tration of justice, they had also to enquire into the whole 

 administration of the district since the preceding assizes, who 

 of the tenants in chief had died during the interval, who 

 had been enfeoffed with new lands, so that the king might 

 claim his dues, what crimes had been committed and by whom, 

 what had become of the chattels of the felon, and what punish- 

 ment if any had been inflicted. These enquiries had to be 

 answered by the juries, twelve men, chosen from each of the 

 divisions of the district. The whole of the fines inflicted by 

 the justices had to be accounted for to the Exchequer by 

 the fermor or bailli, over and above the sum that he owed for 

 the ferm of his bailiwick, and he or his deputy was subject to 

 a heavy fine if he had not administered justice rightly in the 

 court under his charge. 



We thus see at the end of the twelfth century what 

 we may call political feudalism in the island being gradually 

 restricted. The seignorial courts being supervised by the 

 local ducal court and the latter by the justices of the assizes. 

 Still the government of the Isles was feudal, the knights 

 executed judgment under the duke's officers, not because they 

 were chosen as the best fitted to do so, but because they held 

 their lands as suitors of his court, bound by the service 

 of performing his justice.* 



It is rather difficult to say what were the powers of 

 the fermors of the Isles, whose names figure on the Great 

 Rolls of the Norman Exchequer, whether their functions only 

 consisted of receiving the revenue, of which the balance, if 

 any, went into their own pockets, after paying into the 

 Exchequer the sum due for their ferm ; or whether they also 

 acted as baillis responsible for the administration of justice 

 and for the order and safety of the portion of the duchy 

 committed to their charge ; as did the fermors of the baili- 

 wicks and viscounties on the mainland. Anyway they were 

 usually important barons or knights. The first we know of 

 was no less a personage than William de Courcy, " dapifer " 

 * See Pollock & Maitland's History of English Law, pp. 538-550. 



