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
confrerye et fraternité de la charité, fondeye pour la dilyvrance des
ames de purgatoyre, par les dis frayres et sœurs, constytuée, establye
et ordonnée, en la Chapelle de Sepulcre estante dedans le cymetyere de
St. Pierre Port,” &c., &c.
This proves the existence of a chapel in the churchyard, but whether
it was the building known by the name of “Le Belfroi,” and which was
demolished in 1787, cannot now be ascertained. “Belfroi” is the name
given in the mediæval ages to a Town Hall. The edifice known by that
name in St. Peter Port belonged to the Town, and was used latterly as
a store-house for militia requisites. It is described as having been
built of stone, vaulted, and divided into two apartments, an upper
and a lower, the latterly partly underground. Probably the lower part
of the building was used as a charnel house, in which the bones of
the dead, after they had lain long enough in the ground to become
quite dry, were piled up; for, among the duties to be performed by
the officiating priest, we find that they were required to chant a
“recorderis” over the bones of the dead. Such charnel houses are
still very common in Brittany, and many country places throughout the
continent.
Of the other chapels which existed in the Town parish the memory even
has perished. The estate known as Ste. Catherine may possibly have
derived its name from a chapel dedicated to that virgin martyr, but all
that is known is that there was a fraternity or religious association
under the patronage of this saint, which was endowed with wheat rents.
Some of the rents seized by the Crown, and afterwards made over to
Elizabeth College, were due to the “Frerie de Ste. Catherine,” and
possibly this body possessed its own chapel. The site of the Chapel of
St. Jacques is well known, and traces of the foundations were still to
be seen till comparatively lately. It was situated in a field on the
Mon Plaisir estate, on the right hand side of the lane which leads from
the Rue Rozel to the back of the Rocquettes, at the head of a little
valley, just where the roadway is at the lowest. The orchard to the
east of this spot, on the opposite side of the lane, is still known by
the name of Le Cimetière, and human bones are still occasionally met
with in digging. It had some land attached to it by way of endowment,
which was sold by the Royal Commissioners in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, as we learn from the Livre de Perchage, temp. Elizabeth, in
which it is called “La Chapelle de _l’ydolle_, St. Jacques,” and that
Thomas Effard was in possession of land that had belonged to it. From
the same document we learn that there was also a chapel called “La
Chapelle de Lorette,” which, there is reason to suppose, may have been
in the vicinity of Candie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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