Funding has been secured for a major research project examining Jersey’s historic feudal system.
The £250,000 required for the study was raised through private contributions and support from Jersey Heritage, the Société Jersiaise and the Government of Jersey.
A team from Swansea University will carry out the two-year project, titled The Fiefs and Seigneurs of Jersey: History and Significance. The work will be led by Professor Daniel Power, a medieval historian.
“Rich archival evidence offers huge potential for research into Jersey’s system of fiefs and seigneurs,” Prof Power said. “The history of law and landholding in Jersey and the other Channel Islands provides a fascinating link between the medieval and early modern past and today. The islands were culturally Norman, yet politically separated from mainland Normandy from 1204 onwards — a context that allowed their institutions and legal culture to evolve in a unique way.”
Jersey Heritage explained that the island’s former feudal system operated through a hierarchical structure between the Crown, landowners and tenants. Although seigneurial rights — which allowed landholders to derive financial benefits — were abolished in 1966, many of the associated obligations, customs and titles remain embedded in island life.
For example, Jersey still has properties formally referred to as manors and landholders known as seigneurs of fiefs, who attend an annual Royal Court hearing known as the Assise d’Heritage.
