Two commentaries on "The Legend of the Plank", one by Philip Ahier, followed by a second by myself which looks at the possible purpose of the story as a form of propaganda.
The Legend of the Plank
By Philip Ahier
This is one of the oldest traditions which has been handed down through the centuries.
We first meet it in Jean Poingdestre's "Caesarea" (1682, p. 75) in which he scouts the whole idea of Jersey's ever having been linked to the Continent:—
"Neither will I mention another yet more fabulous tale of the conjunction of Jersey to Normandy by a Plank or by a Bridge, which never was, unless it was before the Flood."
Then came Plees, in his "Account of Jersey," (1817, pp. 8-10), who wrote:—
"There is a legendary tradition that this Island was once so contiguous to France that persons passed over on a plank or bridge, paying a small toll to the Abbey of Coutances . . . it must have been at a remote period, as no historical account whatever records or alludes to it."
The story of the fiction was further elaborated in 1829 by M. l'Abbe Manet of St. Malo, who, in a work entitled "De l'Etat Ancien et l'Etat Actuel de la Baie du Mont St. Michel et de Cancales," wrote:—
"There is a belief founded on the most trustworthy authorities that long before the ocean encroached upon the Coast of France in the month of March, 701, Jersey, Guernsey and all the Islands of the Norman Archipelago were part of the Continent.
"There is even a tradition in Jersey—a tradition corroborated by a very old MS. (which we have read) that during the lifetime of St. Lo, who died on the 21st of September, 565, Jersey was separated only from its ecclesiastical diocese of Coutances by a small stream over which the inhabitants were bound to provide a plank for the Archdeacon of the Mother Church whenever he paid the Islanders a visit.
"But even though History remains silent on this point, the overwhelming belt of rocks which surround this Island and the others and which shelve more or less gradually towards the coast of France, would suffice alone to prove what we have put forward, for it is a fact, which can be verified every day by taking soundings, that if the whole of the English Channel were to become entirely dried up from Calais to Havre, only the abatement of the waters would leave equally dry the area between Batz and Ushant in such a way that the Archipelago would revert to what it was in the beginning—an integral part of Lower Normandy." (De La Croix in his "History of Jersey," Vol. 1, p. 4).
"To round off the argument which we have adduced, it is but necessary to glance at the English map of the Channel, published in 1794 by Thomas Geffereys, and better still, that of Mons. Buache, shewing the base of the Canal, inserted in the Journal of the Academy of Science, 1752."
It will be seen that the learned Abbot does not give the source and date of the very old MS. which he had had the privilege of reading. According to this ecclesiastic, the date of this cataclysm occurred in A.D. 701. It will be subsequently seen that various dates from A.D. 701-709 are given.
In 1834, William Inglis wrote his "Channel Islands", (Vol. 1, p. 77), and on the subject of the Plank, said:—
"There are traditions, not only that the chain of rocks formed, in remote times, a part of the Island, but that it was connected by a bridge with France.
"That the former may have some foundation is probable . . but that Jersey ever approached at any period, the shores of the Continent, is an assertion too ridiculous to merit examination. Marvels are always popular, and the people of Jersey are not less credulous than their neighbours."(!)
Both Inglis and Plees, who had probably not read Manet's treatise, were severely criticised by De La Croix for doubting the Legend of the Plank.
In 1835, the Rev. Edward Durell, in his Annotations to Falle's "History of Jersey," refers several times to the inundation or catastrophe:—
"Tradition and the local appearance of Elizabeth Castle confirm the supposition that all betwixt the Castle and the Town was once dry land," but he added, "at what period that precisely happened, it is now impossible to ascertain." (p. 289).
However, on turning to page 377, Mr. Durell makes a reference to M. l'Abbe Manet's hypothesis:—
"According to M. Manet, the great inundation of the sea which formed the Bay of St. Michel in France, happened in 708, long after the arrival of St. Magloire, and the death of St. Helier . . . But, . . . though the fact of those inroads of the sea is unquestionable, the date which we can reason from probabilities, must ever remain uncertain." (loc. cit. p. 377).
Then, when describing The Hermitage on page 433, Durell gave the date of the inundation as A.D. 704.
The next author to tackle the Legend of the Plank was Jean Patriarche Ahier in 1852, in his "Tableaux Historiques de Jersey." He was much influenced by M. l'Abbe Manet's hypothesis:—
"This tradition seems to me to have a sufficiently historical genuineness to mention it in a serious work. I refer to the Plank from which the Bishop or the Archdeacon of Coutances walked from France to Jersey previous to 709. Notwithstanding the fact that the story is similarly reported in Jersey and on the Continent, there is not agreement as to the site where the bridge stood. In Jersey, it is believed that it stood on the East coast at Rozel, at St. Catherine's, or at Mont Orgueil; but in the Cotentin the peasants maintain that it stood in the front of Regneville, at the bottom of the River Coutances.
"This tradition, by reason of its having been transmitted orally, has become distorted in time, but it seems to me easy to give its primitive character and to reconcile oral tradition with written ones." (loc. cit. p. 103).
Jean Patriarche Ahier did quote three authorities for his statements:—
(1) "The History of the Monks of St. Michel and of the Order of St. Benedict," where there is a reference to the right claimed by the Bishop of Coutances to use this bridge.
(2) Hermant, in his "Biography of the Bishops of Bayeux," speaks of the same bridge.
(3) Le Canu, in his "History of the Bishopric of Coutances," refers to the bridge. "There is an unshakeable tradition that Jersey was situated not far distant from the Continent by the length of a plank; this tradition is more widespread than the Diocese of Coutances." (also quoted by De La Croix "Jersey" Vol, 1. p. 5).
During the whole course of his "Tableaux Historiques," which he described as a "serious work," he only mentions three Legends, viz., The Plank, Caesar in Jersey, and La Hougue Bie, and with regard to the Legend of the Plank, he was compelled to admit that there was not agreement as to where the Plank (or Bridge) actually stood.
The next writer, who discussed at considerable length the "Legend of the Plank," and one who strongly argued in its favour, was De La Croix, in his "Jersey, ses Institutions, etc." (1858), (Vol. 1, p. 4.) He attacked Plees and Inglis. :—
"Si les auteurs ci-dessus avaient consulte de M. l'Abbe Manet, ils n'eussent assurement point ecrit d'une maniere aussi absolue et aussi tranchante sur un sujet qu'ils ne sent point donnes la peine d'approfondir.
De La Croix gave a very graphic account of the cataclysm:—
"In 709 there occurred a violent invasion (encroachment) by the sea of the forest which bounded the area of the Diocese of Coutances.
"A south-westerly wind, which blew incessantly for three months with great violence, overturned the trees in the direction of the wind and gathered together the waters from the Ocean in such quantities from our coasts that the March tide-s overstepped their ordinary limits and overwhelmed a large stretch of country. "Nevertheless, it was only in 860, that all the forest was completely submerged and then the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney found themselves further away from the Continent than hitherto." (loc. cit. Vol. 1, p. 4).
Mr. Joseph Sinel, in his monograph on "The Relative Ages of the Channel Islands", (B.S.J. Vol. VI, pp. 431-2), discusses the Legend of the Plank in two paragraphs:—
"This stream is supposed to have existed where there is now a depression of sea bottom, between the Bank known as "Les Boeufs" and the gently sloping shore of La Rocque at a distance of 9 miles from either shore as the land now stands.
"It was doubtless knowledge of the existence of this depression (it is 3 feet deep) which has given rise to the legend; an attempt to clothe old ideas in modern dress."
There is no doubt whatever that Jersey was at one time joined to the mainland of France, but the precise date when the separation took place is not definitely known; the matter comes within the purview of geology and pre-history rather than that of chronological history.
But whether a plank or bridge joined the Island to France is a moot point and until the original MS. referred to by M. l'Abbe Manet is unearthed, I prefer to suspend judgement thereon.
"In attempting to lift the veil between the historic and the prehistoric, a mass of conjecture, much of it of a controversial nature, is inevitable. There are many theories, one is that the Island was separated from France by a narrow stream spanned by a plank 2,000 years ago, and another that the inundation of the post-glacial forest of Scissy was cataclysmic in origin, the legendary lore of Brittany refers to the great upheaval of the 8th century, whilst others maintain that the process of land subsidence was gradual. Suffice it to say that where geological experts disagree, it is not within the province of the folklorist to arbitrate."
(J. Sinel, "Pre-historic Times and Men of the Channel Islands," p. 17)
The Legend of the PlankBy Tony Bellows
"They say," said Win, "that the space between the castle and the town was once a meadow. For that matter, they also say that the whole channel between here and France was once so narrow that the Bishop of Coutances used to cross to Jersey on a plank." ("The Spanish Chest" by Edna A. Brown)
The story of the plank first appears in Jean Poingdestre’s "Caesarea" of 1682, in which he mentions a "fabulous tale of the conjunction of Jersey to Normandy by a Plank or by a Bridge". This is elaborated by Plees in his 1817 "Account of Jersey" to mention that persons passing over the plank or bridge paid a toll "to the Abbey of Coutances"; Plees also notes that there is no historical records he can find for this.
The story has undergone variant forms since this, one in 1829 by l’Abbe Manet of St Malo in which the plank was laid down for the Archdeacon of Coutances when he visited. This is attributed to the lifetime of St Lo, around 500 AD, according to an old manuscript which Manet cites as having read, but singularly fails to mention where this could be found.
The evidence of geology is for the split from France taking place many years before historical times, yet there still persist people today who take this story, or its variants, as proof that the separation from France occurred in historical times, possible around 400 AD. But apart from this story, one has to ask what other evidence there is for such a theory.
The cave at Belle Hougue is of singular importance for prehistoric times because it supplies evidence (in deer bones) which corroborates the geological record for Jersey being separated from France by a high sea level. One would expect similar evidence in support of this theory, and even better evidence in the form of historical documentation of some description, but none is forthcoming. There is no mention of churches or centres of population in the vast area presumed to have been swept away by the tides. The burden of proof must be on those who would overturn the geological record in favour of one story with poor documentation.
In fact, I see the treatment of the story here very much like that of the Creationists who take the book of Genesis as depicting literal historical events; there is an inability to understand what the story is really about.
The form of the plank story is clearly that of folklore rather than history. The story lacks any historical underpinning, and in its variant forms shifts forward and backwards quite easily, being set at the time of St Lo, around 500 AD, and at later times mentioned in connection with a catastrophic inundation around AD 700. The location of the plank is not mentioned on either side of the divide, but also shifts about. But the key to the story does exist, and it lies in one of the authorities mentioned by later writers - "The History of the Monks of Mont St Michael and of the Order of St Benedict", which contains a reference to a right by the Bishop of Coutance to use the plank or bridge.
Form criticism is the method of examining stories, in which we consider why a story was told in its original setting, and what purpose it had in the community in which it arose, and how the form developed. In stories like the plank, as with stories in which dragons feature, the story is told in a coded form akin to allegory. Symbols are representatives of something else, but this makes the story accessible to everyone, and so it is successfully communicated widely.
If we look at the legend of the plank from this context, we see that above all else it is an argument for the authority of the diocese of Coutance over the Jersey. It is saying that Coutance has religious authority and ties over Jersey, and the people of Jersey must pay respect to this authority. It is a story told when such authority might be a matter of dispute, when the Island might be becoming too independent in religious affairs, and it is set in the distant past precisely to give it the weight of authority; it says that this was the case in the distant past, before the present situation. This also explains the strange connection of the plank with the Bishop (or Archdeacon) of Coutances. Why else tell a story about the connection with France, and just mention a Bishop crossing?
Having said that, when do we date the story, and what communities do we place it in? The fact that one of the authorities ties back to Mont St Michel suggests that it is placed between 1000 AD and 1100 AD, when (according to Balleine) the continental Church was taking significant control over the Jersey Churches. If we place the writing of the Life of St Helier around this time, then we have two stories written to make differing claims.
The Life of Helier was clearly written to establish the independence of the Priory of St Helier from Coutances, while the Story of the Plank does the exact opposite. Notice how the Life of Helier talks of Helier as a hermit on an Island, which could only be reached by boats. The Plank says that this is untrue, around this time Jersey was almost part of France, an Island in name alone, and the Bishop used to visit regularly. It is the answer to the Life of Helier - the counter claim! The medieval map which once existed in Mont St Michel which showed an enlarged Jersey and a small channel between Jersey and France, is the geographical support for the same claim.
This was a time when the practice of forged documents purporting to have ancient provenance was rife. It must not be forgotten that with religious control came economic dues from the area under control, and so considerable wealth was involved; it was not just a religious matter, but one which also involved considerable financial gain!
Of course, the original context became lost in time, and like so many folk and fairy tales, it probably survived largely as an oral tradition, and was in time mistaken for history. People realised that Jersey was once part of France, but were not being able to date this scientifically; in this context, the story was retained as a "just so" story, and with the story of a great inundation around 700 AD, it changed its function.
There may well have been great inroads into the Jersey coast around 700 AD, but linked to the story of the plank, and with the need to separate Jersey geographically by the time of the Norman rulers, what was probably a purely local affair becomes a grand catastrophe, and a new ending to the story of the plank. Now it is Jersey’s own version of a Flood myth, or a Lost Continent (like the myth of Atlantis), where a vast tract of land is wiped out in a deluge, and is lost beneath the waves.
Postscript:
My piece was referenced in "Semantics of the Sea – Stories and Science along the Celtic Seaboard."
K. E. Kavanagh and M. R. Bates, School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales.
The part of the text referencing it is as follows:
Let
us sail out from the British coast for a moment to the skirts of Jersey, where
we can consider the Bishop of Coutances and his Plank. Whilst
this story is a familiar one to Jersey islanders it is not so to other shores.
In 1682 the historian Jean Poingdestre writes of a “fabulous tale of the conjunction of Jersey to Normandy”
(Poingdestre, 1889) wherein the Bishop would cross back and forth by manner of
a plank, or bridge. He maintains that the locals affirm the crossings to have
occurred in the sixth century, which he queries. His queries are met with
assertions explaining that until the eighth century the boundary was still
shallow but a storm was caused by a priest in La Rocque profaning on hallowed
soil, causing divine retribution in the form of a storm which swallowed the
marshy plain beneath an engulfing sea. Variant forms of the alleged legend
exist, setting it sometimes during a cataclysmic inundation in 700 AD and
sometimes two hundred years earlier in the time of St Lo and some four hundred
years later amongst the Monks of Mont St. Michel.
The local historian Tony Bellows (Bellows, 2014)
has taken a different slant to the interpretation, proposing the flood to be no
more than a symbol of independence, the traversed plank to be a political
allegory for Norman religious authority over Jersey. Geologically we can be confident that the creation
of a seaway between Jersey and France was created between 6500 and 7000 BP
(Sturt et al., 2013) and despite the
presence of significant stretches of terrain in the vicinity of the Ecrehous it
would have been impossible to cross without sea-going craft from at least the
Neolithic period thereby perhaps lending credence to Bellows hypothesis.
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