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
Now to come to the remaining chapels. The Extente of Edward III. speaks
of the King’s Chaplain, John de Caretier, who received a salary out of
the revenues of the island, and was bound to say mass daily for the
King, and for the souls of his ancestors either in the chapel of Castle
Cornet or in the chapel of His Majesty’s manor of La Grange. It is
not exactly known where this manor was situated, but as the estate of
the late John Carey, Esq., has always borne this name--the Grange--it
is reasonable to suppose that it was thereabouts. The more so, as
Richard II. founded the Convent of Cordeliers or Francisian friars on
the ground now belonging to Elizabeth College, probably then comprised
in the Grange estate. It must be said, however, that there are also
reasons for supposing that the King’s Grange may have been situated
elsewhere, probably in the vicinity of the Tour Gand, a fortress which
defended the approaches of the town from the north, and this opinion
derives some support from the fact that the Plaiderie, or Court House,
is known to have existed in ancient times in this locality, and that in
the middle ages a chapel was considered an almost essential adjunct to
a Court of Justice.
To return to the Convent of the Cordeliers, it is known that the site
of their church, called in Acts of Court “La Chapelle des Frères,” is
said to have stood opposite to the entrance of Le Cimetière des Frères,
which was the burial ground belonging to this church, and, together
with the site of the church, a considerable portion of land appears
to have been alienated from the college, probably by the arbitrary
act of some Governor of the island. The church consisted of a chancel
and nave, the latter, on the building being given for the use of the
college, serving as a school-room, and the former being occupied by the
master. After its alienation the burial ground fell into the hands of
an individual of the name of Blanche, who turned it into an orchard,
but, a plague having broken out in 1629, the Court made an order that
all who died of that disorder should be buried there, since which time
it has served for a cemetery for the Town parish. How the burial ground
attached to the Town Church came to acquire the name of “Cimetière des
Sœurs” cannot now be known, as there can be no doubt that from time
immemorial it was no other than the parochial cemetery. There is no
document known to exist which points to any conventual establishment
for females in the island, though there are traditions to that effect.
There was, however, among many other fraternities, a “confrèrie de
frères et sœurs” connected in some measure with this cemetery, and
which may have given it the name. At the Reformation the land and rents
due to this fraternity were seized by the Crown, and the list of them
is still preserved among the records at the Greffe, with the following
heading--“Confessions de rentes dues aux frères et sœurs de la
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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