Chapter 15

See Mansi ii. pp. 1095-1122; Hardouin i. pp. 530-540; Hefele 2nd ed., i. pp. 777 sqq. (English trans. ii. pp. 325 sqq.).

CHANNEL ISLANDS(FrenchÎles Normandes), a group of islands in the English Channel, belonging (except the Îles Chausey) to Great Britain. (For map, seeEngland, Section VI.) They lie between 48° 50′ and 49° 45′ N., and 1° 50′ and 2° 45′ W., along the French coast of Cotentin (department of Manche), at a distance of 4 to 40 m. from it, within the great rectangular bay of which the northward horn is Cape La Hague. The greater part of this bay is shallow, and the currents among the numerous groups of islands and rocks are often dangerous to navigation. The nearest point of the English coast to the Channel Islandsis Portland Bill, a little over 50 m. north of the northernmost outlier of the islands. The total land area of the islands is about 75 sq. m. (48,083 acres), and the population in 1901 was 95,618. The principal individual islands are four:—Jersey(area 45 sq. m., pop. 52,576),Guernsey(area 24.5 sq. m., pop. 40,446),Alderney(area 3.06 sq. m., pop. 2062), andSark(area nearly 2 sq. m., pop. 504). Each of these islands is treated in a separate article. The chief town and port of Jersey is St Helier, and of Guernsey St Peter Port; a small town on Alderney is called St Anne. Regular communication by steamer with Guernsey and Jersey is provided on alternate days from Southampton and Weymouth, by steamers of the London & South-Western and Great Western railway companies of England. Railway communications within the islands are confined to Jersey. Regular steamship communications are kept up from certain French ports, and locally between the larger islands. In summer the islands, especially Jersey, Guernsey and Sark, are visited by numerous tourists, both from England and from France.

The islands fall physically into four divisions. The northernmost, lying due west of Cape La Hague, and separated therefrom by the narrow Race of Alderney, includes that island, Burhou and Ortach, and numerous other islets west of it, and west again the notorious Casquets,anangry group of jagged rocks, on the largest of which is a powerful lighthouse. Doubtful tradition places here the wreck of the “White Ship,” in which William, son of Henry I., perished in 1120; in 1744 the “Victory,” a British man-of-war, struck on one of the rocks, and among calamities of modern times the wreck of the “Stella,” a passenger vessel, in 1899, may be recalled. The second division of islands is also the most westerly; it includes Guernsey with a few islets to the west, and to the east, Sark, Herm, Jethou (inhabited islands) and others. The strait between Guernsey and Herm is called Little Russel, and that between Herm and Sark Great Russel. Sark is famous for its splendid cliffs and caves, while Herm possesses the remarkable phenomenon of a shell-beach, or shore, half-a-mile in length, formed wholly of small shells, which accumulate in a tidal eddy formed at the north of the island. To the south-east of these, across the channel called La Déroute, lies Jersey, forming, with a few attendant islets, of which the Ecréhou to the north-east are the chief, the third division. The fourth and southernmost division falls into two main subdivisions. The Minquiers, the more western, are a collection of abrupt rocks, the largest of which, Maîtresse Ile, affords a landing and shelter for fishermen. Then eastern subdivision, the Îles Chausey, lies about 9 m. west by north of Granville (to which commune they belong) on the French coast, and belongs to France. These rocks are close set, low and curiously regular in form. On Grande Ile, the only permanently inhabited island (pop. 100), some farming is carried on, and several of the islets are temporarily inhabited by fishermen. There is also a little granite-quarrying, and seaweed-burning employs many.

None of the islands is mountainous, and the fine scenery for which they are famous is almost wholly coastal. In this respect each main island has certain distinctive characteristics. Bold cliffs are found on the south of Alderney; in Guernsey they alternate with lovely bays; Sark is specially noted for its magnificent sea-caves, while the coast scenery of Jersey is on the whole more gentle than the rest.

Geology.—Geologically, the Channel Islands are closely related to the neighbouring mainland of Normandy. With a few exceptions, to be noted later, all the rocks are of pre-Cambrian, perhaps in part of Archean age. They consist of massive granites, gneisses, diorites, porphyrites, schists and phyllites, all of which are traversed by dykes and veins. In Jersey we find in the north-west corner a granitic tract extending from Grosnez to St Mary and St John, beyond which it passes into a small granulitic patch. South of the granites is a schistose area, by St Ouen and St Lawrence, and reaching to St Aubin’s Bay. Granitic masses again appear round St Brelade’s Bay. The eastern half of the island is largely occupied by porphyrites and similar rocks (hornstone porphyry) with rhyolites and denitrified obsidians; some of the latter contain large spherulites with a diameter of as much as 24 in.; these are well exposed in Bouley Bay; a complex igneous and intrusive series of rocks lies around St Helier. In the north-east corner of the island a conglomerate, possibly of Cambrian age, occurs between Bouley Bay and St Catherine’s Bay. Tracts of blown-sand cover the ground for some distance north of St Clement’s Bay and again east of St Ouen’s Bay. In the sea off the latter bay a submerged forest occurs. The northern half of Guernsey is mainly dioritic, the southern half, below St Peter, is occupied by gneisses. Several patches of granite and granulite fringe the western coast, the largest of these is a hornblende granite round Rocquaine Bay. Hornblende gneiss from St Sampson and quartz diorite from Capelles, Corvée and elsewhere are transported to England for road metal. Sark is composed almost wholly of hornblende-schists and gneisses with hornblendic granite at the north end of the island, in Little Sark and in the middle of Bréchou. Dykes of diabase and diorite are abundant. Alderney consists mainly of hornblende granite and granulite, which are covered on the east by two areas of sandstone which may be of Cambrian age. An enstatite-augite-diorite is sent from Alderney for road-making. Besides the submerged forest on the coast of Jersey already mentioned, there are similar occurrences near St Peter Port and St Sampson’s harbour, and in Vazon Bay in Guernsey. Raised beaches are to be seen at several points in the islands.

Climate.—The climate is mild and very pleasant. In Jersey the mean temperature for twenty years is found to be—in January (the coldest month) 42.1° F., in August (the hottest) 63°, mean annual 51.7°. In Guernsey the figures are, for January 42.5°, for August 59.7°, mean annual 49.5°. The mean annual rainfall for twenty-five years in Jersey is 34.21 in., and in Guernsey 38.64 in. The average amount of sunshine in Jersey is considerably greater than in the most favoured spots on the south coast of England; and in Guernsey it is only a little less than in Jersey. Snow and frost are rare, and the seasons of spring and autumn are protracted. Thick sea-fogs are not uncommon, especially in May and June.

Flora and Fauna.—The flora of the islands is remarkably rich, considering their extent, nearly 2000 different species of plants having been counted throughout the group. Of timber properly speaking there is little, but the evergreen oak, the elm and the beech are abundant. Wheat is the principal grain in cultivation; but far more ground is taken up with turnips and potatoes, mangold, parsnip and carrot. The tomato ripens as in France, and the Chinese yam has been successfully grown. There is a curious cabbage, chiefly cultivated in Jersey, which shoots up into a long woody stalk from 10 to 15 ft. in height, fit for walking-sticks or palisades. Grapes and peaches come to perfection in greenhouses without artificial heat; and not only apples and pears but oranges and figs can be reared in the open air. The arbutus ripens its fruit, and the camellia clothes itself with blossom, as in more southern climates; the fuchsia reaches a height of 15 or 20 ft., and the magnolia attains the dimensions of a tree. Of the flowers, both indigenous and exotic, that abound throughout the islands, it is sufficient to mention the Guernsey lily with its rich red petals, which is supposed to have been brought from Japan.

The number of the species of the mammalia is little over twenty, and several of these have been introduced by man. There is a special breed of horned cattle, and each island has its own variety, which is carefully kept from all intermixture. The animals are small and delicate, and marked by a peculiar yellow colour round the eyes and within the ears. The red deer was once indigenous, and the black rat is still common in Alderney, Sark and Herm. The list of birds includes nearly 200 species, nearly 100 of which are permanent inhabitants of the islands. There are few localities in the northern seas which are visited by a greater variety of fish, and the coasts abound in crustacea, shell-fish and zoophytes.

Government.—For the purposes of government the Channel Islands (excluding the French Chauseys) are divided into two divisions:—(1) Jersey, and (2) the bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes Alderney, Sark, Herm and Jethou with the island of Guernsey. The constitutions of each division are peculiar and broadly similar, but differing in certain important details; they may therefore be considered together for the sake of comparison. Until 1854 governors were appointed by the crown; now a separate military lieutenant-governor is appointed for each division on the recommendation of the war office after consultation with the home office. The other crown officials are thebailiff (bailli) or chief magistrate, theprocureur du roi, representing the attorney-general, and theavocat du roi, or in Guernsey thecontrôle, representing the solicitor-general. In Jersey thevicomteis also appointed by the crown, in the position of a high sheriff (and coroner); but his counterpart in Guernsey, theprévôt, is not so appointed. The bailiff in each island is president of the royal court, which is composed of twelve jurats, elected for life, in Jersey by the ratepayers of each parish, in Guernsey by the Elective States, a body which also elects theprévôt, who, with the jurats, serves upon it. The rest of the body is made up of the rectors of the parishes, thedouzaines, or elected parish councils (“dozens,” from the original number of their members) of the town parish of St Peter Port, the four cantons, and the county parishes, and certain other officials. The royal court administers justice (but in Jersey there is a trial by jury for criminal cases), and in Guernsey can pass temporary ordinances subject to no higher body. It also puts forwardprojets de loifor the approval of the Deliberative States. Alderney and Sark have a separate legal existence with courts dependent on the royal court of Guernsey. In both Jersey and Guernsey the chief administrative body is the Deliberative States. The Jersey States is composed of the lieutenant-governor (who has a veto on the deliberation of any question, but no vote), the bailiff, jurats, parish rectors, parish constables and deputies, theprocureurandavocat, with right to speak but no vote, and thevicomte, with right of attendance only. Besides the veto of the lieutenant-governor, the bailiff has the power to dissent from any measure, in which case it is referred to the privy council. In Guernsey the States consists of the bailiff, jurats, eight out of ten rectors, theprocureurand deputies; while the lieutenant-governor is always invited and may speak if he attends. By both States local administration is carried on (largely through committees); and relations with the British parliament are maintained through the privy council. Acts of parliament are transmitted to the islands by an order in council to be registered in the rolls of the royal court, and are not considered to be binding until this is done; moreover, registration may be held over pending discussion by the States if any act is considered to menace the privileges of the islands. The right of the crown to legislate by order in council is held to be similarly limited. In cases of encroachment on property, a remarkable form of appeal of very ancient origin calledClameur de Harosurvives (seeHaro, Clameur de). The islands are in the diocese of Winchester, and there is a dean in both Jersey and Guernsey, who is also rector of a parish.

These peculiar constitutions are of local development, the history of which is obscure. The bailiff was originally assisted in his judicial work by itinerant justices; their place was later taken by the elected jurats; later still the practice of summoning the States to assist in the passing of Ordinances was established by the bailiff and jurats, and at last the States claimed the absolute right of being consulted. This was confirmed to them in 1771.

It is characteristic of these islands that there should be compulsory service in the militia. In Jersey and Alderney every man between the ages of sixteen and forty-five is liable, but in Jersey after ten years’ service militiamen are transferred to the reserve. In Guernsey the age limit is from sixteen to thirty-three, and the obligation is extended to all who are British subjects, and draw income from a profession practised in the island. Garrisons of regular troops are maintained in all three islands. Taxation is light in the islands, and pauperism is practically unknown.

In 1904 the revenue of Jersey was £70,191, and its expenditure £69,658; the revenue of Guernsey was £79,334, and the expenditure £43,385. The public debt in the respective islands was £322,070 and £195,794. In Jersey the annual revenues from crown rights (principally seigneurial dues, houses and lands and tithes) amount to about £2700, and about £360 is remitted to the paymaster-general. In Guernsey these revenues, in which the principal item is fines on transference of property (treizièmesor fees), amount to about £4500, and about £1000 is remitted. In Alderney the revenues (chiefly from harbour dues) amount to about £1400.In Jersey the English gold and silver coinage are current, but there is a local copper coinage and local one-pound notes are issued. Guernsey has also such notes, and its copper coinage consists of pence, halfpence, two-double and one-double (one-eighth of a penny) pieces. A Guernsey pound is taken as equal to 24 francs, and English and French currency pass equally throughout the islands.

In Jersey the English gold and silver coinage are current, but there is a local copper coinage and local one-pound notes are issued. Guernsey has also such notes, and its copper coinage consists of pence, halfpence, two-double and one-double (one-eighth of a penny) pieces. A Guernsey pound is taken as equal to 24 francs, and English and French currency pass equally throughout the islands.

Industry.—The old Norman system of land-tenure has survived, and the land is parcelled out among a great number of small proprietors; holdings ranging from 5 to 25 acres as a rule. The results of this arrangement seem to be favourable in the extreme. Every corner of the ground is carefully and intelligently cultivated, and a considerable proportion is allotted to market-gardening. The cottages are neat and comfortable, the hedges well-trimmed, and the roads kept in excellent repair. There is a considerable export trade in agricultural produce and stock, including vegetables and fruit, in fish (the fisheries forming an important industry) and in stone. There is no manufacture of importance. The inhabitants share in common the right of collecting and burning seaweed (calledvraic) for manure. The cutting of the weed (vraicking) became a ceremonial occasion, taking place at times fixed by the government, and connected with popular festivities.

Language.—The language spoken in ordinary life by the inhabitants of the islands is in great measure the same as the old Norman French. The use of thepatoishas decreased naturally in modern times. Modern French is the official language, used in the courts and states, and English is taught in the parochial schools, and is familiar practically to all. The several islands have each its own dialect, differing from that of the others in vocabulary and idiom; differences are also observable in different localities within the same island, as between the north and the south of Guernsey. None of the dialects has received much literary cultivation, though Jersey is proud of being the birthplace of one of the principal Norman poets, Wace, who flourished in the 12th century.

History.—The original ethnology and pre-Christian history of the Channel Islands are largely matters of conjecture and debate. Of early inhabitants abundant proof is afforded by the numerous megalithic monuments—cromlechs, kistvaens and maenhirs—still extant. But little trace has been left of Roman occupation, and such remains as have been discovered are mainly of the portable description that affords little proof of actual settlement, though there may have been an unimportant garrison here. The constant recurrence of the names of saints in the place-names of the islands, and the fact that pre-Christian names do not occur, leads to the inference that before Christianity was introduced the population was very scanty. It may be considered to have consisted originally of Bretons (Celts), and to have received successively a slight admixture of Romans and Legionaries, Saxons and perhaps Jutes and Vandals. Christianity may have been introduced in the 5th century. Guernsey is said to have been visited in the 6th century by St Sampson of Dol (whose name is given to a small town and harbour in the island), St Marcou or Marculfus and St Magloire, a friend and fellow-evangelist of St Sampson, who founded monasteries at Sark and at Jersey, and died in Jersey in 575. Another evangelist of this period was St Helerius, whose name is borne by the chief town of Jersey, St Helier. In his life it is stated that the population of the island when he reached it was only 30. In 933 the islands were made over to William, duke of Normandy (d. 943), and after the Norman conquest of England their allegiance shifted between the English crown and the Norman coronet according to the vicissitudes of war and policy. During the purely Norman period they had been enriched with numerous ecclesiastical buildings, some of which are still extant, as the chapel of Rozel in Jersey.

In the reign of John of England the future of the islands was decided by their attachment to the English crown, in spite of the separation of the duchy of Normandy. To John it has been usual to ascribe a document, at one time regarded by the islanders as their Magna Carta; but modern criticism leaves little doubt that it is not genuine. An unauthenticated “copy” of uncertain origin alone has been discovered, and there is little proof of there ever having been an original. The reign of Edward I. wasfull of disturbance; and in 1279 Jersey and Guernsey received from the king, by letters patent, a public seal as a remedy for the dangers and losses which they had incurred by lack of such a certificate. Edward II. found it necessary to instruct his collectors not to treat the islanders as foreigners: his successor, Edward III., fully confirmed their privileges, immunities and customs in 1341; and his charter was recognized by Richard II. in 1378. In 1343 there was a descent of the French on Guernsey; the governor was defeated, and Castle Cornet besieged. In 1372 there was another attack on Guernsey, and in 1374 and 1404 the French descended on Jersey. None of these attempts, however, resulted in permanent settlement. Henry V. confiscated the alien priories which had kept up the same connexion with Normandy as before the conquest, and conferred them along with the regalities of the islands on his brother, the duke of Bedford. During the Wars of the Roses, Queen Margaret, the consort of Henry VI., made an agreement with Pierre de Brézé, comte de Maulevrier, the seneschal of Normandy, that if he afforded assistance to the king he should hold the islands independently of the crown. A force was accordingly sent to take possession of Mont Orgueil. It was captured and a small part of the island subjugated, and here Maulevrier remained as governor from 1460 to 1465; but the rest held out under Sir Philip de Carteret, seigneur of St Ouen, and in 1467 the vice-admiral of England, Sir Richard Harliston, recaptured the castle and brought the foreign occupation to an end. In 1482-1483 Pope Sixtus IV., at the instance of King Edward IV., issued a bull of anathema against all who molested the islands; it was formally registered in Brittany in 1484, and in France in 1486; and in this way the islands acquired the right of neutrality, which they retained till 1689. In the same reign (Edward IV.) Sark was taken by the French, and only recovered in the reign of Mary, by the strategy (according to tradition) of landing from a vessel a coffin nominally containing a body for burial, but in reality filled with arms. By a charter of 1494, the duties of the governors of Jersey were defined and their power restricted; and the educational interests of the island were furthered at the same time by the foundation of two grammar schools. The religious establishments in the islands were dissolved, as in England, in the reign of Henry VIII. The Reformation was heartily welcomed in the islands. The English liturgy was translated into French for their use. In the reign of Mary there was much religious persecution; and in that of Elizabeth Roman Catholics were maltreated in their turn. In 1568 the islands were attached to the see of Winchester, being finally separated from that of Coutances, with which they had long been connected, with short intervals in the reign of John, when they had belonged to the see of Exeter, and that of Henry VI., when they had belonged to Salisbury.

The Presbyterian form of church government was adopted under the influence of refugees from the persecution of Protestantism on the continent. It was formally sanctioned in St Helier and St Peter Port by Queen Elizabeth; and in 1603 King James enacted that the whole of the islands “should quietly enjoy their said liberty.” During his reign, however, disputes arose. An Episcopal party had been formed in Jersey, and in 1619 David Bandinel was declared dean of the island. A body of canons which he drew up agreeable to the discipline of the Church of England was accepted after considerable modification by the people of his charge; but the inhabitants of Guernsey maintained their Presbyterian practices. Of the hold which this form of Protestantism had got on the minds of the people even in Jersey abundant proof is afforded by the general character of the worship at the present day.

In the great struggle between king and parliament, Presbyterian Guernsey supported the parliament; in Jersey, however, there were at first parliamentarian and royalist factions. Sir Philip de Carteret, lieutenant-governor, declared for the king, but Dean Bandinel and Michael Lemprière, a leader of the people, headed the parliamentary party. They received a commission for the apprehension of Carteret, who established himself in Elizabeth Castle; but after some fighting had taken place he died in the castle in August 1643. Meanwhile in Guernsey Sir Peter Osborne, the governor, was defying the whole island and maintaining himself in Castle Cornet. A parliamentarian governor, Leonard Lydcott, arrived in Jersey immediately after Sir Philip de Carteret’s death. But the dowager Lady Carteret was holding Mont Orgueil; George Carteret, Sir Philip’s nephew, arrived from St Malo to support the royalist cause, and Lydcott and Lemprière presently fled to England. George Carteret established himself as lieutenant-governor and bailiff. Bandinel was imprisoned in Mont Orgueil, and killed himself in trying to escape. Jersey was now completely royalist. In 1646 the prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II., arrived secretly at Jersey, and remained over two months at Elizabeth Castle. He went on to France, but returned in 1649, having been proclaimed king by George Carteret, and at Elizabeth Castle he signed the declaration of his claims to the throne on the 29th of October. In 1651, when Charles had fled to France again after the battle of Worcester, parliamentarian vessels of war appeared at Jersey. The islanders, weary of the tyrannical methods of their governor, now Sir George Carteret, offered little resistance. On the 15th of December the royalist remnant yielded up Elizabeth Castle; and at the same time Castle Cornet, Guernsey, which had been steadily held by Osborne, capitulated. In each case honourable terms of surrender were granted. Both islands had suffered severely from the struggle, and the people of Guernsey, appealing to Cromwell on the ground of their support of his cause, complained that two-thirds of the land was out of cultivation, and that they had lost “their ships, their traffic and their trading.” After the Restoration there was considerable improvement, and in the reign of James II. the islanders got a grant of wool for the manufacture of stockings—4000 tods1of wool being annually allowed to Jersey, 2000 to Guernsey, 400 to Alderney and 200 to Sark. Alderney, which had been parliamentarian, was granted after the Restoration to the Carteret family; and it continued to be governed independently till 1825.

By William of Orange the neutrality of the islands was abolished in 1689, and during the war between England and France (1778-1783) there were two unsuccessful attacks on Jersey, in 1779 and 1781, the second, under Baron de Rullecourt, being famous for the victory over the invaders due to the bravery of the young Major Peirson, who fell when the French were on the point of surrender. During the revolutionary period in France the islands were the home of many refugees. In the 18th century various attempts were made to introduce the English custom-house system; but proved practically a failure, and the islands throve on smuggling and privateering down to 1800.

Authorities.—Heylin,Relation of two Journeys(1656); P. Falle,Account of the Island of Jersey(1694; notes, &c., by E. Durell, Jersey, 1837); J. Duncan,History of Guernsey(London, 1841); P. le Geyt,Sur les constitutions, les lois et les usages de cette île[Jersey], ed. R.P. Marett (Jersey, 1846-1847); F.B. Tupper,Chronicles of Castle Cornet, Guernsey(2nd ed. London, 1851), andHistory of Guernsey and its Bailiwick(Guernsey, 1854); S.E. Hoskins,Charles II. in the Channel Islands(London, 1854), and other works; Delacroix,Jersey, ses antiquités, &c.(Jersey, 1859); T. le Cerf,L’archipel des Îles Normandes(Paris, 1863); G. Dupont,Le Cotentin et ses îles(Caen, 1870-1885); J.P.E. Havet,Les Cours royales des Îles Normandes(Paris, 1878); E. Pégot-Ogier,Histoire des Îles de la Manche(Paris, 1881); C. Noury,Géologie de Jersey(Paris and Jersey, 1886); D.T. Ansted and R.G. Latham,Channel Islands(1865; 3rd ed., rev. by E.T. Nicolle, London, 1893), the principal general work of reference; Sir E. MacCulloch,Guernsey Folklore, ed. Edith F. Carey (London, 1903); E.F. Carey,Channel Islands(London, 1904).

1A tod generally equalled 28 ℔

CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY(1780-1842), American divine and philanthropist, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on the 7th of April 1780. His maternal grandfather was William Ellery, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; his mother, Lucy Ellery, was a remarkable woman; and his father, William Channing, was a prominent lawyer in Newport. Channing had as a child a refined delicacy of feature and temperament, and seemed to have inherited from his father simple and elegant tastes, sweetness of temper, and warmth of affection, and from his mother that strong moral discernment and straightforward rectitude of purpose and action which formed so striking a featureof his character. From his earliest years he delighted in the beauty of the scenery of Newport, and always highly estimated its influence upon his spiritual character. His father was a strict Calvinist, and Dr Samuel Hopkins, one of the leaders of the old school Calvinists, was a frequent guest in his father’s house. He was, even as a child, he himself says, “quite a theologian, and would chop logic with his elders according to the fashion of that controversial time.” He prepared for college in New London under the care of his uncle, the Rev. Henry Channing, and in 1794, about a year after the death of his father, entered Harvard College. Before leaving New London he came under religious influences to which he traced the beginning of his spiritual life. In his college vacations he taught at Lancaster, Massachusetts, and in term time he stinted himself in food that he might need less exercise and so save time for study,—an experiment which undermined his health, producing acute dyspepsia. From his college course he thought that he got little good, and said “when I was in college, only three books that I read were of any moment to me: ... Ferguson onCivil Society, ... Hutcheson’sMoral Philosophy, and Price’sDissertations. Price saved me from Locke’s philosophy.”

After graduating in 1798, he lived at Richmond, Virginia, as tutor in the family of David Meade Randolph, United States marshal for Virginia. Here he renewed his ascetic habits and spent much time in theological study, his mind being greatly disturbed in regard to Trinitarian teachings in general and especially prayer to Jesus. He returned to Newport in 1800 “a thin and pallid invalid,” spent a year and a half there, and in 1802 went to Cambridge as regent (or general proctor) in Harvard; in the autumn of 1802 he began to preach, having been approved by the Cambridge Association. On the 1st of June 1803, having refused the more advantageous pastorate of Brattle Street church, he was ordained pastor of the Federal Street Congregational church in Boston. At this time it seems certain that his theological views were not fixed, and in 1808, when he preached a sermon at the ordination of the Rev. John Codman (1782-1847), he still applied the title “Divine Master” to Jesus Christ, and used such expressions as “shed for souls” of the blood of Jesus, and “the Son of God himself left the abodes of glory and expired a victim of the cross.” But his sermon preached in 1819 at Baltimore at the ordination of the Rev. Jared Sparks was in effect a powerful attack on Trinitarianism, and was followed in 1819 by an article inThe Christian Disciple, “Objections to Unitarian Christianity Considered,” and in 1820 by another, “The Moral Argument against Calvinism”—an excellent evidence of the moral (rather than the intellectual) character of Unitarian protest. In 1814 he had married a rich cousin, Ruth Gibbs, but refused to make use of the income from her property on the ground that clergymen were so commonly accused of marrying for money.

He was now entering on his public career. Even in 1810, in a Fast Day sermon, he warned his congregation of Bonaparte’s ambition; two years later he deplored “this country taking part with the oppressor against that nation which has alone arrested his proud career of victory”; in 1814 he preached a thanksgiving sermon for the overthrow of Napoleon; and in 1816 he preached a sermon on war which led to the organization of the Massachusetts Peace Society. His sermon on “Religion, a Social Principle,” helped to procure the omission from the state constitution of the third article of Part I., which made compulsory a tax for the support of religious worship. In 1821 he delivered the Dudleian lecture on the “Evidences of Revealed Religion” at Harvard, of whose corporation he had been a member since 1813; he had received its degree of S.T.D. in 1820. In August 1821 he undertook a journey to Europe, in the course of which he met in England many distinguished men of letters, especially Wordsworth and Coleridge. Both of these poets greatly influenced him personally and by their writings, and he prophesied that the Lake poets would be one of the greatest forces in a forming spiritual reform. Coleridge wrote of him, “He has the love of wisdom and the wisdom of love.”

On his return to America in August 1823, Dr Channing resumed his duties as pastor, but with a more decided attention than before to literature and public affairs, especially after receiving as colleague, in 1824, the Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett. In 1830, because of his wife’s bad health, Channing went to the West Indies. Negro slavery, as he saw it there, and as he had seen it in Richmond, more than thirty years before, so strongly impressed him that he began to write his bookSlavery(1835). In this he insists that “not what is profitable, but what is right” is “the first question to be proposed by a rational being”; that slavery ought to be discussed “with a deep feeling of responsibility, and so done as not to put in jeopardy the peace of the slave-holding states”; that “man cannot be justly held and used as property”; that the tendency of slavery is morally, intellectually, and domestically, bad; that emancipation, however, should not be forced on slave-holders by governmental interference, but by an enlightened public conscience in the South (and in the North), if for no other reason, because “slavery should be succeeded by a friendly relation between master and slave; and to produce this the latter must see in the former his benefactor and deliverer.” He declined to identify himself with the Abolitionists, whose motto was “Immediate Emancipation” and whose passionate agitation he thought unsuited to the work they were attempting. The moderation and temperance of his presentation of the anti-slavery cause naturally resulted in some misunderstanding and misstatement of his position, such as is to be found in Mrs Chapman’sAppendixto theAutobiography of Harriet Martineau, where Channing is represented as actually using his influence on behalf of slavery. In 1837 he publishedThoughts on the Evils of a Spirit of Conquest, and on Slavery: A Letter on the Annexation of Texas to the United States, addressed to Henry Clay, and arguing that the Texan revolt from Mexican rule was largely the work of land-speculators, and of those who resolved “to throw Texas open to slave-holders and slaves”; that the results of annexation must be war with Mexico, embroiling the United States with England and other European powers, and at home the extension and perpetuation of slavery, not alone in Texas but in other territories which the United States, once started at conquest, would force into the Union. But he still objected to political agitation by the Abolitionists, preferring “unremitting appeals to the reason and conscience,” and, even after the prominent part he took in the meeting in Faneuil Hall, called to protest against the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, he wrote toThe Liberator, counselling the Abolitionists to “disavow this resort to force by Mr Lovejoy.” Channing’s pamphletEmancipation(1840) dealt with the success of emancipation in the West Indies, as related in Joseph John Gurney’sFamiliar Letters to Henry Clay of Kentucky, describing a Winter in the West Indies(1840), and added his own advice “that we should each of us bear our conscientious testimony against slavery,” and that the Free States “abstain as rigidly from the use of political power against Slavery in the States where it is established, as from exercising it against Slavery in foreign communities,” and should free themselves “from any obligation to use the powers of the national or state governments in any manner whatever for the support of slavery.” In 1842 he publishedThe Duty of the Free States, orRemarks Suggested by the Case of the Creole, a careful analysis of the letter of complaint from the American to the British government, and a defence of the position taken by the British government. On the 1st of August 1842 he delivered at Lenox, Massachusetts, an address celebrating the anniversary of emancipation in the British West Indies. Two months later, on the 2nd of October 1842, he died at Bennington, Vermont.

Physically Channing was short and slight; his eyes were unnaturally large; his voice wonderfully clear, and like his face, filled with devotional spirit. He was not a great pastor, and lacked social tact, so that there were not many people who became his near friends; but by the few who knew him well, he was almost worshipped. As a preacher Channing was often criticised for his failure to deal with the practical everyday duties of life. But his sermons are remarkable for their rare simplicity and gracefulness of style as well as for the thoughtthat they express. The first open defence of Unitarians was not based on doctrinal differences but on the peculiar nature of the attack on them made in June 1815 by the conservatives in the columns ofThe Panoplist, where it was stated that Unitarians were “operating only in secret, ... guilty of hypocritical concealment of their sentiments.” His chief objection to the doctrine of the Trinity (as stated in his sermon at the ordination of the Rev. Jared Sparks) was that it was no longer used philosophically, as showing God’s relation to the triple nature of man, but that it had lapsed into mere Tritheism. To the name “Unitarian” Channing objected strongly, thinking “unity” as abstract a word as “trinity” and as little expressing the close fatherly relation of God to man. It is to be noted that he strongly objected to the growth of “Unitarian orthodoxy” and its increasing narrowness. His views as to the divinity of Jesus were based on phrases in the Gospels which to his mind established Christ’s admission of inferiority to God the Father,—for example, “Knoweth no man, neither the Son, but the Father”; at the same time he regarded Christ as “the sinless and spotless son of God, distinguished from all men by that infinite peculiarity—freedom from moral evil.” He believed in the pre-existence of Jesus, and that it differed from the pre-existence of other souls in that Jesus was actually conscious of such pre-existence, and he reckoned him one with God the Father in the sense of spiritual union (and not metaphysical mystery) in the same way that Jesus bade his disciples “Be ye one, even as I am one.” Bunsen called him “the prophet in the United States for the presence of God in mankind.” Channing believed in historic Christianity and in the story of the resurrection, “a fact which comes to me with a certainty I find in few ancient histories.” He also believed in the miracles of the Gospels, but held that the Scriptures were not inspired, but merely records of inspiration, and so saw the possibility of error in the construction put upon miracles by the ignorant disciples. But in only a few instances did he refuse full credence of the plain gospel narrative of miracles. He held, however, that the miracles were facts and not “evidences” of Christianity, and he considered that belief in them followed and did not lead up to belief in Christianity. His character was absolutely averse from controversy of any sort, and in controversies into which he was forced he was free from any theological odium and continually displayed the greatest breadth and catholicity of view. The differences in New England churches he considered were largely verbal, and he said that “would Trinitarians tell us what they mean, their system would generally be found little else than a mystical form of the Unitarian doctrine.”

His opposition to Calvinism was so great that even in 1812 he declared “existence a curse” if Calvinism be true. Possibly his boldest and most elaborate defence of Unitarianism was his sermon onUnitarianism most favourable to Piety, preached in 1826, criticizing as it did the doctrine of atonement by the sacrifice of an “infinite substitute”; and the Election Sermon of 1830 was his greatest plea for spiritual and intellectual freedom.

Channing’s reputation as an author was probably based largely on his publication inThe Christian ExaminerofRemarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton(1826),Remarks on the Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte(1827-1828), and anEssay on the Character and Writings of Fénelon(1829). AnEssay on Self-Culture(1838) was an address introducing the Franklin Lectures delivered in Boston September 1838. Channing was an intimate friend of Horace Mann, and his views on the education of children are stated, by no less an authority than Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, to have anticipated those of Froebel. HisComplete Workshave appeared in various editions (5 vols., Boston, 1841; 2 vols., London, 1865; 1 vol., New York, 1875).

Among members of his family may be mentioned his two nephews William Henry (1810-1884), son of his brother Francis Dana, and William Ellery, commonly known as Ellery (1818-1901), son of his brother Walter, a Boston physician (1786-1876). The former, whose daughter married Sir Edwin Arnold, the English poet, became a Unitarian pastor, for some time in America, and also in England, where he died; he was deeply interested in Christian Socialism, and was a constant writer, translating Jouffroy’sEthics(1840), and assisting in editing theMemoirs of Margaret Fuller(1852); and he wrote the biography of his uncle (see O.B. Frothingham’sMemoir, 1886). Ellery Channing married Margaret Fuller’s sister (1842), and besides critical essays and poems published an intimate sketch of Thoreau in 1873.

See theMemoirby William Henry Channing (3 vols., London, 1848; republished in one volume, New York, 1880); Elizabeth Palmer Peabody,Reminiscences of the Rev. William Ellery Channing, D.D. (Boston, 1880), intimate but inexact; John White Chadwick,William Ellery Channing, Minister of Religion(Boston, 1903); and William M. Salter, “Channing as a Social Reformer” (Unitarian Review, March 1888).

(R. We.)

CHANSONS DE GESTE,the name given to the epic chronicles which take so prominent a place in the literature of France from the 11th to the 15th century. Gaston Paris defined a chanson de geste as a song the subject of which is a series of historical facts orgesta. These facts form the centre around which are grouped sets of poems, called cycles, and hence the two terms have in modern criticism become synonymous for the epic family to which the hero of the particular group or cycle belongs. The earliest chansons de geste were founded on the fusion of the Teutonic spirit, under a Roman form, into the new Christian and French civilization. It seems probable that as early as the 9th century epic poems began to be chanted by the itinerant minstrels who are known as jongleurs. It is conjectured that in a base Latin fragment of the 10th century we possess a translation of a poem on the siege of Girona. Gaston Paris dates from this lost epic the open expression of what he calls “the epic fermentation” of France. But the earliest existing chanson de geste is also by far the noblest and most famous, theChanson de Roland; the conjectural date of the composition of this poem has been placed between the years 1066 and 1095. That the author, as has been supposed, was one of the conquerors of England, it is perhaps rash to assert, but undoubtedly the poem was composed before the First Crusade, and the writer lived at or near the sanctuary of Mont Saint-Michel. TheChanson de Rolandstands at the head of modern French literature, and its solidity and grandeur give a dignity to the whole class of poetry of which it is the earliest and by far the noblest example. But it is in the crowd of looser and later poems, less fully characterized, less steeped in the individuality of their authors, that we can best study the form of the typical chanson de geste. These epics sprang from the soil of France; they were national and historical; their anonymous writers composed them spontaneously, to a common model, with little regard to the artificial niceties of style. The earlier examples, which succeed theRoland, are unlike that great work in having no plan, no system of composition. They are improvisations which wander on at their own pace, whither accident may carry them. This mass of medieval literature is monotonous, primitive and superficial. As Léon Gautier has said, in the rudimentary psychology of the chansons de geste, man is either entirely good or entirely bad. There are no fine shades, no observation of character. The language in which these poems are composed is extremely simple, without elaboration, without ornament. Everything is sacrificed to the telling of a story by a narrator of little skill, who helps himself along by means of a picturesque, but almost childish fancy, and a primitive sentiment of rhythm. Two great merits, however, all the best of these poems possess, force and lucidity; and they celebrate, what they did much to create, that unselfish elevation of temper which we call the spirit of chivalry.

Perhaps the most important cycle of chansons de geste was that which was collected around the name of Charlemagne, and was known as theGeste du roi. A group of this cycle dealt with the history of the mother of the emperor, and with Charlemagne himself down to the coming of Roland. To this group belongBertha GreatfootandAspremont, both of the 12th century, and a variety of chansons dealing with the childhood of Charlemagne and of Ogier the Dane. A second group deals with the struggleof Charlemagne with his rebellious vassals. This is what has been defined as the Feudal Epic; it includesGirars de VianeandOgier the Dane, both of the 13th century, or the end of the 12th. A third group follows Charlemagne and his peers to the East. It is in the principal of these poems,The Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that Alexandrine verse first makes its appearance in French literature. This must belong to the beginning of the 12th century. A fourth group, antecedent to the Spanish war, is of the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th; it includesAiquin,FierabrasandOtinel. The fifth class discusses the war in Spain, and it is to this thatRolandbelongs; there are different minor epics dealing with the events of Roncevaux, and independent chansons ofGui de Bourgogne,GaidonandAnseïs de Carthage. TheGeste du Roicomprises a sixth and last group, proceeding with events up to the death of Charlemagne; this containsHuon de Bordeauxand a vast number of poems of minor originality and importance.

Another cycle is that of Duke William Shortnose,La Geste de Guillaume. This includes the very early and interestingDeparture of the Aimeri Children,AliscansandRainoart. It is thought that this cycle, which used to be called theGeste de Garin de Monglane, is less artificial than the others; it deals with the heroes of the South who remained faithful in their vassalage to the throne. The poems belonging to this cycle are extremely numerous, and some of them are among the earliest which survive. These chansons find their direct opposites in those which form the great cycle ofLa Geste de Doon de Mayence, sometimes called “la faulse geste,” because it deals with the feats of the traitors, of the rebellious family of Ganelon. This is the geste of the Northmen, always hostile to the Carlovingian dynasty. It comprises some of the most famous of the chansons, in particularParise la duchesseandThe Four Sons of Aymon. Several of its sections are the production of a known poet, Raimbert of Paris. From this triple division of the main body of the chansons de geste intoLa Geste du Roi,La Geste de GuillaumeandLa Geste de Doon, are excluded certain poems of minor importance,—some provincial, such asAmis and AmilesandGarin, some dealing with the Crusades, such asAntioche, and some which are not connected with any existing cycle, such asCiperis de Vignevaux; most of this last category, however, are works of the decadence.

The analysis which is here sketched is founded on the latest theories of Léon Gautier, who has given the labour of a lifetime to the investigation of this subject. The wealth of material is baffling to the ordinary student; of the medieval chansons de geste many hundreds of thousands of lines have been preserved. The habit of composing became in the 14th century, as has been said, no longer an art but a monomania. Needless to add that a very large proportion of the surviving poems have never yet been published. All the best of the early chansons de geste are written in ten-syllable verse, divided into stanzas orlaissesof different length, united by a single assonance. Rhyme came in with the 13th century, and had the effect in languid bards of weakening the narrative; the sing-song of it led at last to the abandonment of verse in favour of plain historical prose. The general character of the chansons de geste, especially of those of the 12th century, is hard, coarse, inflexible, like the march of rough men stiffened by coats of mail. There is no art and little grace, but a magnificent display of force. These poems enshrine the self-sufficiency of a young and powerful people; they are full of Gallic pride, they breathe the spirit of an indomitable warlike energy. All their figures belong to the same social order of things, and all illustrate the same fighting aristocracy. The moving principle is that of chivalry, and what is presented is, invariably, the spectacle of the processional life of a medieval soldier. The age described is a disturbed one; the feudal anarchy of Europe is united, for a moment, in defending western civilization against the inroads of Asia, against “the yellow peril.” But it is a time of transition in Europe also, and Charlemagne, the immortal but enfeebled emperor, whose beard is whiter than lilies, represents an old order of things against which the rude barons of the North are perpetually in successful revolt. The loud cry of the dying Ronald, as E. Quinet said, rings through the whole poetical literature of medieval France; it is the voice of the individuality of the great vassal, who, in the decay of the empire, stands alone with himself and with his sword.

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