Pre-Reformation

Parishes

Parishes began to develop in western Europe in the second half of the first millennium. They arose primarily from the setting of territorial boundaries around churches to determine the area from which the tithe (intended to support a priest) would be collected. In Guernsey, evidence points to the establishment of parishes by the early eleventh century.

In the course of time, Rome's imposition of a duty on the inhabitants of all parishes to share in the upkeep of their churches necessitated the establishment of communal church maintenance funds. The earliest such funds were established in twelfth-century France and Germany, and lay office-holders charged with their management appeared soon afterwards. In France, these were known as fabriciens, marguilliers or trésoriers. In England, such officers first appeared in the thirteenth century, and came to be known as churchwardens. Guernsey's records indicate that parishioners were actively contributing to church upkeep and running costs by at least the fourteenth century. There is litigation dating from the 1360s on the division of these costs between the parishioners of the Vale and the Prior of St Michel du Valle, in which the parish was represented by its thesaurius (trésorier), who was by then annually presenting his accounts in the parish church.

Nowhere in medieval Europe was there a clear distinction between the ecclesiastical and secular activities of parishes. Sunday Mass provided an opportunity to announce news or discuss issues, and, in the absence of other public buildings, churches served a variety of communal purposes. Aside from their religious function, Guernsey's medieval churches served as storage places for parochial weaponry and as venues for the public passing of contracts and the election of Jurats. Such activities would have created a need for some form of secular parochial organisation. Evidence of such in Guernsey exists from the fifteenth century: there are records of a Douzaine appointing a granger of St Peter Port in 1444 and of parish constables from 1481.

Welfare

Under the Roman Catholic regime of pre-Reformation Europe, charity towards the poor was seen as a Christian duty through which salvation could, in part, be earned. Scripture deemed the poor to be closer to heaven than the wealthy, and the latter at risk of damnation if they took pride in their wealth.