A tradition, which may be traced up to the time of Edward II., says that certain monks, driven from Mont St. Michel for their dissolute lives, settled in the Vale parish and founded an abbey about the year 968 A.D. The same authority informs us that they reformed their lives and became famous for their sanctity, and that when Robert, Duke of Normandy, visited the island in the year 1032, having been driven here by stress of weather while on his way to England with a fleet to the help of his nephew, Edward the Confessor, he confirmed them in the possession of the lands they had acquired. The same tradition also says that in the year 1061 certain pirates attacked and pillaged the island, and that their leader “Le Grand Geoffroy,” or “Le Grand Sarasin,” had his stronghold on the site of what is now the Castel Church. Complaint having been made to Duke William, he sent over Samson d’Anneville, who succeeded, with the aid of the monks, in driving them out. For this service they were rewarded by the Duke with a grant of one half of the island, comprising, besides the Vale, what are now the parishes of the Castel, St. Saviour’s, and St. Peter’s-in-the-Wood. This grant they divided between them, and the monks, in right of their priory, held that portion of the lands which is still known as Le Fief St. Michel. The rest is now comprised for the most part in the Fiefs Le Comte and Anneville and their dependencies. To the south-east of the Vale Church is an old farm house which still bears the name of L’Abbaye, and which, without doubt, occupies the site of the original priory. Even at the present day, it is easy to trace part of the walls of the earlier edifice, which, however, was in a ruinous state as early as the reign of Henry IV., for we find Sir John de Lisle, Governor of Guernsey, writing to the Privy Council about the year 1406 for permission to use the timber of the building for the repairs of Castle Cornet, and alleging in his letter that the priory had fallen into decay, and giving as a reason for his request that in consequence of the war it was impossible to procure timber either from Normandy or Brittany.