FEUDALISM IN GUERNSEY. 



7? 



The Manor of Anneville. 



As already stated, it derived its name from the Seigneurs 

 d'Anneville-en-Saire, in the Cotentin, its owners in the 

 twelfth century. After the separation of Normandy in the 

 reign of King John, it was forfeited by John and Sampson 

 d' Anneville, who adhered to Philip Augustus. It remained in 

 the hands of the Crown until 1248, when Henry III. gave it to 

 Sir William de Chesney, a kinsman of the Governor of 

 the Isles, Philip d'Albigny, the elder, whom he had accom- 

 panied on his last voyage to the Holy Land in 1236, where 

 Philip died and was buried in the church of the Holy 

 Sepulchre at Jerusalem. William de Chesney also owned 

 large estates in the counties of Devon, Herts, Somerset 

 Lincoln and Cambridge, as well as several manors in Jersey. 

 He was also an important personage at the Court of Henry III. 

 In 1253 he purchased the Fief du Comte from Baldwin 

 de Vere, and thus became the largest landowner in Guernsey. 



For two hundred and fifty years the de Chesneys occupied 

 in insular affairs a position very similar to that of the de 

 Carterets in Jersey, but they only occasionally resided in the 

 island. No less than three of them were Governors of the 

 Isles. Sir Nicholas de Chesney, 1297-1298, Sir William de 

 Chesney, 1331 and 1343, and Sir Edmund de Chesney from 

 1359 to 1366. Another, Edmund de Chesney, member of a 

 junior branch of the family, was Bailiff of Guernsey in 1480, 

 but was deposed from that office the following year. He then 

 became jurat of the Royal Court, but would seem to have 

 been a sort of extra jurat, as during his term of office there 

 were no less than thirteen jurats on the bench. 



The de Chesneys, as jurats, claimed precedence over 

 all their colleagues, a precedence allowed to Nicholas 

 Fouaschin, Seigneur of Anneville, on his election in 1519. 

 Lord Willoughby de Broke, heir through his grandmother of 

 the senior branch of the de Chesneys, sold, in 1509, the manors 

 of Anneville, Le Comte, and the whole of his estates in 

 Guernsey to Nicholas Fouaschin, of Guernsey, merchant 

 of Southampton, one of the gentlemen ushers of the Household 

 of Henry VIII. 



In 1595 Queen Elizabeth sent commissioners to Guernsey 

 to hold an enquiry concerning the manors held of the Crown, 

 and Thomas Fashion, then Seigneur d'Anneville, was called 

 upon to show by what tenure he held his lands. This inquiry 

 w T as the origin of the extraordinary legends that have passed 

 for history concerning the manor of Anneville. Thomas 

 Fashion produced before the commissioners what purported to 



