FEUDALISM IN GUERNSEY. 



three Chief Pleas. They also paid dues called chef-rente or 

 " rente censiere," but were free from all villein servitudes. 

 This suit of court is still demanded by the seigneurs of 

 our manors from their tenants, and if the latter fail to appear 

 they are subject to a fine, and if defaulters for more than 

 three years their lands may be seized by the seigneur. There 

 is nothing of the nature of homage in this attendance of the 

 tenants at the Manor Court. Homage was only done on 

 succession of a new seigneur to the fief or of a new tenant to 

 his lands and never more than once in either case. Suit to a 

 Manorial Court was exactly the same as suit to the King's 

 Court. The principal suitors, the chief tenants of the 

 seigneur, were in early times the judges of the court, which 

 could not be held except the requisite number were present. 

 They were also required to attend for the equally important 

 purpose of giving the seneschal and court information of all 

 that had happened in the manor since the preceding Chief 

 Pleas. 



The villein tenants did not formerly owe suit of court. 

 Besides chef rente they had to pay their seigneur tithes 

 of their crops, champart, the twelfth sheaf of their corn, or 

 the twelfth bundle of flax, " revart de champart," on lands 

 uncultivated, " poulage," a couple of chickens for each house, 

 " pesnage," for the right of running their pigs loose on 

 the manorial common, "moulage," a tithe on their wheat 

 ground in the manorial mill, &c. They also owed a number 

 of personal services to their seigneur, which varied on 

 different manors. We hear little of these services on Fief 

 du Comte, only of the duties of the villeins in carrying 

 their corn rents to the manor corn stack, and covering and 

 watching it day and night until it was threshed and 

 garnered into the manor barn. On Fief Sausmarez, St. 

 Martin's, we find numberless personal services demanded by 

 the lord of the manor from his tenants. The documents 

 which refer to these services are of 1330, Inquisition Post 

 Mortem, and two " Lettres " under the seal of the island, 

 of 1390, and 1487. These give the fullest and most 

 valuable details we have of services due by villeins in the 

 island. From the deed of 1390 it would seem that most if not 

 all the holdings on this fief were villein. The tenants had to 

 carry their lord's corn to Normandy, whenever required, 

 between Vauville and Mont St. Michel at their own cost, to 

 cart his wine and ale to the Manor House, give him one white 

 and one black loaf from every baking of bread, the half 

 of each fat beast or the quarter of each sheep they killed, and 



