FEUDALISM IN GUERNSEY. 



67 



the feudal seigneurs of the districts, who more often than not 

 studied their own particular interests rather than those of the 

 State. Many of our privileges, which differ from the customs 

 .of Normandy, bear such a marked resemblance to those 

 of many towns in Gascony, which owe their communes to the 

 early Plantaganet kings, that it is evident that they have a 

 common origin in the general policy of the English kings for 

 the government of their continental dominions after the loss 

 of Normandy. 



With King John's establishment of what, for want of a 

 better expression, we may call our " commune," political 

 feudalism came to an end in Guernsey. True, the chief 

 tenants of the Crown still retained some share in the adminis- 

 tration of the island even at the time of the assizes in the 

 early part of the fourteenth century, but this share was con- 

 sultative only, and gradually even this was lost. It is an 

 instance of the continuity of our customs that to this day the 

 Abbots of ruined Norman Abbeys and the Seigneurs of the 

 principal manors in the island should still be summoned to 

 appear three times a year at our Court of Chief Pleas. 



We must now turn from what may be called the political 

 side of feudalism in Guernsey to glance at the tenures of our 

 manors and then at the economical side of feudalism in the 

 island, the relations existing between the lord of the manor, 

 the owner of the soil, and his tenants. What first strikes one 

 is the marvellous vitality of the manorial system. Once 

 a manor always a manor. It matters not whether, as in 

 the case of many of our Guernsey fiefs, that a manor was 

 escheated to the Crown in the days of King John, or at 

 a much later period, it never loses its identity, is never merged 

 into one general royal fief, but preserves through all these 

 centuries its own individuality. It had its own court and 

 administration, and even to this day it is its " douzaine," 

 twelve sworn men, tenants of the manor, who draw up the 

 " extente," or survey, of the holdings of the tenants. 



There were two classes of manors in Guernsey, (1) those 

 held by military service, grand serjeantry or little serjeantry, 

 what are styled in France " fiefs hauberts," and " fiefs nobles," 

 and (2) those held by yearly rent or its equivalent, such as a 

 pair of spurs, &c, which may be compared with vavassories. 



Fief du Comte, the largest in the island, was held in 

 1240, by Baldwin de Vere, of Hugh Wake, as half a knight's 

 fee, and an annual rent of £6 sterling. Its Seigneur, Nicholas 

 de Chesney, claimed in 1309 the right of court of his tenants ; 

 one fourth of the wreck of the sea of the whole island, 



