Guernsey Folk Lore: a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that islandMacCulloch, Edgar, Sir
History
Guernsey Folk Lore: a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that island
MacCulloch, Edgar, Sir
Folklore -- Guernsey
St. George was only a chaplaincy, intimately connected with the Fief Le
Comte, the court of which formerly assembled in the chapel, and still
meets in its immediate vicinity. The earliest notice we have of this
chapel is contained in the Bull of Pope Adrian IV., dated 1155. In the
year following Dom Robert de Thorigny--or, as he is sometimes called,
“Du Mont”--abbot of the famous monastery of Mont St. Michel, visited
this island, and found one Guillaume Gavin established at St. George as
chaplain: he was anxious to retire from the world, and, at his request,
the abbot admitted him into his community as a monk, and appointed
Godefroy Vivier to succeed him as chaplain at St. George. After some
time Vivier followed the example of his predecessor, and took the frock
at Mont Saint Michel, having previously made over certain lands which
he possessed in the neighbourhood of St. George to the abbey which
afforded him shelter.
In 1408 the chaplain was Dom Toulley, who obtained an order from the
Royal Court prohibiting any one from trespassing on the road leading to
the chapel, it being reserved exclusively for persons attending divine
service, or sick people visiting the fountain, the small coin left as
an offering at the well being doubtless a perquisite belonging to the
chaplain.
This chapel was originally endowed with some lands or rents, probably
with the territory still known as Le Fief de la Chapelle, which is one
of the many dependencies of the Fief Le Comte.
After the Reformation St. George became in some way the property of
the de Jersey family,[82] and by the marriage of Marie de Jersey,
an heiress, to Jacques Guille, which took place about the middle of
the seventeenth century, it passed into the possession of the latter
family, by whom it is still held. This Marie de Jersey made a gift of
the chapel to the inhabitants of the Castel in about 1675 to serve as
a school house. A more convenient building was erected in 1736 on the
site of an old mill, and endowed with nine quarters of wheat rente by
Marie de Sausmarez, widow of Mr. William Le Marchant, and the chapel
ceased to be used as a school house. Bickerings as to rights of way
across the estate, under the pretence that there was a thoroughfare
leading to a public building, ensued, even after the removal of the
school; so finally Mr. Guille ordered the chapel to be demolished, and
only a few ruins are now left.
The Chapel of “Our Lady Mares”--Notre Dame des Marais--is thus
mentioned in the Extente of Edward III., “Nostre Sire le Roy n’a rien
des vacations des eglises et chapelles, fors la Chapelle de Nostre Dame
des Maresqs qui vaut XXX lbts en laquelle iceluy Roy doit présenter en
tems de la vacation, et l’Evesque de Coutance en a l’institution.” The
chaplain then in possession, 1331, was Robert de Hadis.[83]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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