--_Milton._ La Chevanchée de St. Michel. “My parks, my walks, my manors that I had, Ev’n now forsake me; and of all my lands Is nothing left me.” --_Shakspeare_, Henry VI. Before giving an account of this curious old custom, now abolished, but which seems to have been instituted originally with a view to keeping the highways throughout the island in a due state of repair, it may be as well to say something of the feudal system, as it existed, and indeed, greatly modified of course, still exists in Guernsey. Though, from the loss in the course of many centuries of the original charters, we are left in the dark on many points, and can only guess at the origin of some of the many small manors--or as they are locally termed, “fiefs”--into which the island is divided. It is known that previous to the Conquest of England by Duke William,[27] Néel de St. Sauveur, Vicomte of Le Cotentin, was patron of six of the ten parish churches in Guernsey--those of St. Samson, St. Pierre Port, St. Martin de la Bellouse, La Trinité de la Forêt, Notre Dame de Torteval, and St. André; and it is probable that he was lord paramount of all the land contained in these parishes. He was one of those barons who conspired against William, and having been defeated by him in the Battle of Val des Dunes, all his possessions were confiscated. On his submission he was again received into favour, and his continental possessions restored, but such does not seem to have been the case with what he held in Guernsey; for the patronage of the churches mentioned above was given by William, a year before the Conquest of England, to the great Abbey of Marmoutier near Tours; and from that time we hear nothing more of the Viscounts of St. Sauveur in Guernsey. The other four parishes, St. Michel du Valle, Notre Dame du Castel, St. Sauveur, and St. Pierre du Bois, were in the patronage of the Abbey of Mont St. Michel, and the lands in the greater part of these parishes were held in nearly equal proportions between that famous Monastery and the Earls of Chester--those held by the Abbey being known as “Le Fief St. Michel,” and those belonging to the Earl being called “Le Fief le Comte.” A local tradition says that it was Duke Robert, the father of William the Conqueror, who first bestowed these lands on the Abbey, and on the ancestors of the Earls, but of this there may be some doubt.