Articles

The Library's unique collections are a treasure chest of unusual, interesting and sometimes surprising material just waiting to be found. This anthology, written by the Editor, is based on an eclectic selection of our archive. The author asserts her copyright on all material on the Priaulx Library website except where copyright of other authors is expressly notified. Permission to reproduce material from this website and full attribution to the author is required in all cases.

Religion

Acts of the Ecclesiastical Court: II

List of names taken from Edith Carey's full-text extracts of the Acts of the Ecclesiastical Court, Library 41B. 17/18th century. II: Marriages annulled; Disputed Ownership of Pews; Abjurations of Rome; and Forbidding the Banns.

Acts of the Ecclesiastical Court: I

List of names taken from Edith Carey's full-text extracts of the Acts of the Ecclesiastical Court, Library 41B. 17/18th centuries. I: Those charged with Breaking engagements; Paillardize; Incontinence: Seduction under promise of marriage; and Cohabitation.

James Rougier and Jeanne Brouard, 1696; Samuel Le Mesurier and Elizabeth Brett, 1690

A case heard in the Ecclesiastical Court in May 1696 by the Rector, Jean Bonamy.

The Guernsey Lily again: De Beauvoir, Bonamy, and De Jersey

From Jacob's Annals, Volume II, pp. 170-1.

Walter St John: a background

John St John courtesy of Lydiard Tregoze

A short introduction to the main characters in the 16th-century tragedy of Walter St John and Isaac Daubeney, pupil and teacher. The portrait is of Walter's younger brother, John, aged 17; he was very close in age to Walter. The portrait was kindly provided by Lydiard Tregoze house.

French Dirt is the Worst

An amusing anecdote from a Methodist pioneer in the island.

Thomas Andros' Commonplace Book

Thomas Andros' Commonplace Book, by the Seigneur of Saumarez Manor, from a family 'whose penmanship was far from good;' a handwritten pamphlet of herbal medicine and fruit-growing, dated 1589, Guernsey, and an exploration of other texts quoted in it.

Elie Brevint on witchcraft

Detail of torment by touch, Perier 1724, Priaulx Library Collection

Elie Brevint (1587-1674) was minister of Sark from 1612. His father Cosmé, also a minister, was a Huguenot refugee from Angoulême who had accompanied Helier De Carteret from Jersey in his colonisation of Sark. Transcriptions and microfilm of Elie's 14 Notebooks, which were found in a loft in Sark in the 19th century, are held in the Priaulx Library. Elie appears to be a sensible and rational man with a curious and detached mind, until he turns to these sorts of subject: the Pousseresse, perturbateurs, and salamanders. The illustration is of the Tormento do Tacto, or Torture, from Alexander Périer's O Desengano dos Pecadores of 1724, in the Library.

Guernsey in America, 1924

From the Guernsey Free Churchman, December 1924 and January 1925.

The murder of Brother Jean de L'Epine, Prior of Lihou

From the Guernsey Free Churchman, November 1935, p. 80. Written originally in French by George Rabey.

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