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96-470: The title is still used on the island of Sark , part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey , to refer to the executive officer of the court. Prévôt is a Middle French term that comes from the classical Latin praepositus , meaning "person placed in charge" (literally "positioned at the front"). The word prévôt (provost) applied to a number of different persons in pre-Revolutionary France. The term referred to

192-663: A Proto-Semitic source for the name. He proposes a comparison between the probable root of Sark, *Sarg- , and Proto-Semitic *śrq "redden; rise (as of the sun); east", noting Sark's position as the easternmost island of the Guernsey group. His theory is based on the early medieval Latin records mentioning Sargia , but many Islands more or less close to Sark have a Latin name ending with -gia , such as Angia (Channel Island), Oye-Plage ( Pas-de-Calais , Ogia 8th century) and Île-d'Yeu ( Vendée , former Augia ). Later records all mention Serc- and not *Sark , that seem to result from

288-516: A fief in perpetuity on condition that he kept the island free of pirates and occupied by at least forty men who were of her English subjects or swore allegiance to the Crown. This he duly did, leasing 40 parcels of land (known as "Tenements") at a low rent to forty families, mostly from St Ouen , on condition that a house be built and maintained on each parcel and that "the Tenant" provide one man, armed with

384-595: A musket , for the defence of the island. The 40 tenements survive to this day, albeit with minor boundary changes. (In 2015, the 450-year anniversary of this event was commemorated with the construction of a modern henge monument , Sark Henge . ) A subsequent attempt by the families to establish a constitution under a bailiff , as in Jersey, was stopped by the Guernsey authorities who resented any attempt to wrest Sark from their bailiwick. In 1844, desperate for funds to continue

480-498: A charge which was strongly developed in the same era. Royal provostships were double faceted. Provosts were initially entrusted with royal power and carried out the royal part of local administration, including the collection of the Crown's domainal revenues and all taxes and duties owed to the King within a provostship's jurisdiction. Also, they were responsible for military defense such as raising local contingents for royal armies. Also,

576-466: A descriptive landmark for Saxon or Scandinavian sailors. In addition Norman toponymy reveals a mixture of (Anglo-)Saxon and Old Norse (Old Danish) place name elements. The Old English form of sark "shirt" (related to Old Norse serkr ) is precisely serċ, syrċ > Middle English serk , serke , sark (through the Anglian variant). In ancient times, Sark was almost certainly occupied by

672-423: A favorable rent by overstating the riskiness of the cash flow stream and effectively managing the assigned debts as a skilled debt-collector and manager. They must ensure their ability to enforce debt payments, including resorting to legal action and paying standard fees for bringing a lawsuit under the government authority that is the farm's lessor. The tenant acts as a principal, not the lessor's agent. Tax farming

768-452: A later anglicising of the /er/ group (compare French merveille > English marvel ; French Clerc / English clerk , clark cf. Clark). The traditional pronunciation of Sark in the native Norman language is sèr [sɛr] , with regular fall of final [k] like clerc in French. Finally, no specialist ever identified any Proto-Semitic element in the French coastal toponymy, even on

864-470: A period of office of four years. In addition, the Seigneur and a speaker (who is elected by the conseillers ) are counted as members; but they have no right to vote. The periods of office are shifted, with the period of half the conseillers starting in the middle of the periods of the other half. Thus, every second year, nine conseillers are elected for the coming four years. The elections are held on

960-608: A seignorial officer in charge of managing burgh affairs and rural estates and, on a local level, customarily administered justice. Therefore, in Paris , for example, there existed both the "Lord Provost of Paris" who presided a lower royal court, as well as the very important and influential "Provost of the Merchants" ( prévôt des marchands ), i.e. the Dean of the City Guilds, who headed traditionally

1056-430: A single bench with sole judicial authority over his Court. He was, however, required to seek the advice of legally-qualified experts (cousellors or attorneys) of his choosing, and, in so doing, was said to "summon his council" ( appelait à son conseil ). In 1578, official magistrates ( conseillers-magistrats ) were created, but were suppressed by the 1579 Ordinance of Blois. The office was restored in 1609 by simple decree of

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1152-501: A total of £1,383 (£6,000 less the sum borrowed and an accumulated interest of £616 and 13s). During World War II , the island, along with the other Channel Islands, was occupied by German forces between 1940 and 1945. German military rule on Sark began on 4 July 1940, the day after the Guernsey Kommandant Major Albrecht Lanz and his interpreter and chief of staff Major Maas visited the island to inform

1248-541: A vote of 25–15 Chief Pleas voted for a new legislature of the Seigneur, the Seneschal, fourteen elected landowners and fourteen elected non-landowners. But it was made plain by the British Lord Chancellor Jack Straw that this option was not on the table. Offered two options for reform involving an elected legislature, one fully elected, one with a number of seats reserved for elected tenants, 56% of

1344-559: Is a non-heritable tax-farming system and was established under Sultan Mehmet II ; however this changed by the 18th century and holders of grants-for-life ( malikâne ) developed their own landowning class. It was officially terminated in 1856 during the Tanzimat reforms. Besides the Romans, historical examples include the tax collection methods of the Ptolemies , Seljuks , Mamluks , Ottomans ,

1440-537: Is a peninsula joined by a natural but high and very narrow isthmus to the rest of Sark Island. Sark is one of the few remaining places in the world where cars are banned from roads and only tractors, bicycles and horse-drawn vehicles are allowed. In 2011, Sark was designated as a Dark Sky Community and the first Dark Sky Island in the world. Sark consists of two main parts, Greater Sark, located at about 49°25′N 2°22′W  /  49.417°N 2.367°W  / 49.417; -2.367 , and Little Sark to

1536-702: Is also the highest point in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. Little Sark had a number of mines accessing a source of galena . At Port Gorey, the ruins of silver mines may be seen. Off the south end of Little Sark are the Venus Pool and the Adonis Pool, both natural swimming pools whose waters are refreshed at high tide. The whole island is extensively penetrated at sea level by natural cave formations that provide unique habitats for many marine creatures, notably sea anemones, some of which are only safely accessible at low tide. Sark

1632-483: Is an island, part of the Channel Islands in the southwestern English Channel , off the coast of Normandy , France . It is a self-governing British Crown Dependency , with its own set of laws based on Norman law and its own parliament. It was a royal fief until 2008. It has a population of about 500. Sark (including the nearby island of Brecqhou ) has an area of 2.10 square miles (5.44 km ). Little Sark

1728-467: Is derived the English word "Bailiff") to hear complaints against them. With the office of Great Seneschal vacant after 1191, the bailies became stationary and established themselves as powerful officials superior to provosts. A bailie's district is called a bailliary ( bailliage ) and included about half a dozen provostships ( prévôtés ). When previously impossible appeals of provost judgements were instituted by

1824-537: Is made up mainly of amphibolite and granite gneiss rocks, intruded by igneous magma sheets called quartz diorite . Recent (1990–2000) geological studies and rock age-dating by geologists from Oxford Brookes University shows that the gneisses probably formed around 620–600 million years ago during the Late Pre-Cambrian Age Cadomian Orogeny . The quartz diorite sheets were intruded during this Cadomian deformation and metamorphic event. All

1920-539: Is related to other Old English words such as feormehām ("farm"), feormere ("purveyor, grocer"), feormian ("to provision, sustain"), and feorh ("life, spirit"). The Old English word is stated by these sources as having unusually been borrowed by Medieval Latin as firma or ferma and to have provided the Old French ferme "farm", Occitan ferma "farm". This is refuted by those sources which state firma to derive from classical Latin firmus . The word continued

2016-406: Is related to the possibility of some debts forming the revenue stream being defaulted on or paid late, leading to variability in the revenue. The resulting figure becomes the maximum rent the tenant offers to the farm's lessor. The tenant's profit is the excess of revenues extracted from the farm, less the rents, administration, levying, and collection expenses. The tenant's skills lie in negotiating

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2112-461: Is reserved for a particular use at the special request of a national ISO member body, government, or international organization (in this case, the United Kingdom ). Previously Sark was represented by Guernsey's country code (GG). Sark also fought for 20 years to get the .cq country code top-level domain . Christopher Beaumont is the current and twenty-third Seigneur of Sark, having inherited

2208-545: Is used (and often pronounced as in French) in the sense of feudal landholder rather than the common English meaning of lessee . Originally, the word referred to any landowner, but today it is mostly used for a holder of one of the Quarantaine Tenements. Chief Pleas ( French : Chefs Plaids ; Sercquiais : Cheurs Pliaids ) is the parliament of Sark. It consists of eighteen members ( conseillers ), elected for

2304-534: The 2014 and the 2016 elections to the Chief Pleas. Until 2008, the Chief Pleas consisted of the tenants, and twelve deputies of the people as the only representation of the majority, an office introduced in 1922. The Seigneur and the Seneschal (who presided) were also members of Chief Pleas. Since 2000, Chief Pleas was working on its own reform, responding to internal and international pressures. On 8 March 2006 by

2400-615: The French State prior to Louis XVI (see ferme générale ), and Russia prior to 1862 and the Dutch East Indies (see pacht ) prior to the twentieth century. In many cases, such as the Abbasid practice of Iqta , these rights were granted by an authority, in this example the caliph, for services rendered or promised. In the Byzantine pronoia system, similar rights were often purchased from

2496-491: The Hundred of Normancross to the abbot and monks of Thorney to be held in fee-farm for an annual rent of 100 shillings which I order them to pay to my sheriff at Huntingdon. And I forbid any of my officers to do them injury or insult in respect of this. The Chief Rabbi of Egypt , Sar Shalom ben Moses was accused of tax farming, which led to his excommunication by Maimonides . The iltizam ( Ottoman Turkish : التزام )

2592-784: The Norman conquest of England in 1066, the island was united with the Crown of England . In the thirteenth century, the French pirate Eustace the Monk , having served King John , used Sark as a base of operations. During the Middle Ages , the island was populated by monastic communities. By the 16th century, however, the island was uninhabited and used by pirates as a refuge and base. In 1565, Helier de Carteret , Seigneur of St. Ouen in Jersey , received letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I granting him Sark as

2688-767: The Unelli , the Gallic tribe of the Cotentin Peninsula . These people were conquered by Julius Caesar of the Roman Empire about 56 BC in the Gallic Wars . About three decades later under Augustus , Gallia Celtica was subdivided into three parts, with this area a part of Gallia Lugdunensis , with its capital in Lugdunum , now Lyon . A later division was named Lugdunensis secunda ( Lyonnaise 2nd). A Unelli town, now Coutances ,

2784-557: The gibier des prévôts des maréchaux (Provost Marshal jailbirds; literally "Game of the Provosts of the Marshalls"). They had military jurisdiction in regiments without "Military Provost" ( Prévôt d'épée ; see above), and their rulings were not appealable. However, the provost was required to consult a certain number of ordinary judges or "masters of law". As Presidial judges had concurrent jurisdiction with Provost Marshals for non-military cases,

2880-478: The pies pays , which instead fell to local lordship jurisdiction or lower royal courts. Basically, Provost jurisdiction was restricted to minor and medium delinquency committed in towns under their control, but was often usurped by Burgh/City courts chaired by burgesses . Until the end of the Old Feudal Regime ( ancien régime ), a number of "Military Provost" positions ( Prévôts d'épée , literally "Provosts of

2976-604: The treasury . Farming in this sense has nothing to do with agriculture , other than in a metaphorical sense. There are two possible origins for farm . Some sources derive "farm" with its French version ferme , most notably used in the context of the Fermiers Generaux , from the mediaeval Latin firma , meaning "a fixed agreement, contract", ultimately from the classical Latin adjective firmus , firma , firmum , meaning "firm, strong, stout, steadfast, immoveable, sure, to be relied upon". The modern agricultural sense of

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3072-720: The "Lord High Provost of the Mint" ( Grand Prévôt des Monnaies or de la Monnaie ). The role extended into New France , with Prévôté de Québec  [ fr ] and Prévôt de Montréal  [ fr ] in the 17th and 18th centuries. The most important and best known provosts, as part of the King's personal aids administering the scattered parts of the royal domain, were the "Royal Provosts" ( Prévôts royaux ). The regional title of those provosts varied widely from province to province for traditional reasons: " castellans " ( châtelains ) in Normandy and Burgundy and "vicars" ( viguiers ) in

3168-663: The 28 conseiller option was reinstated in February 2008 and accepted by Privy Council in April 2008. In 2003, Chief Pleas voted to vary the long-standing ban on divorce in the island by extending to the Royal Court of Guernsey power to grant divorces. In 2017, due to a lack of candidates standing for elections, the number of conseillers was reduced from 28 to 18, with nine elected every two years. Bailiwick of Guernsey laws and United Kingdom Acts of Parliament can (the latter as in

3264-475: The 60% majority required for the constitutional change. The decision was replaced by the proposal that Chief Pleas should consist of sixteen tenants and twelve conseillers both elected by universal adult suffrage from 2008 to 2012 and that a binding referendum should then decide whether this composition should be kept or replaced by 28 conseillers . This proposal was rejected by the Privy Council and

3360-600: The City Council and the city's merchant companies, thus being de facto a kind of feudal mayor. In addition to these two, there were "Provost Marshals " a.k.a. "Provosts of the Marshals of France" ( Prévôts des Maréchaux de France ), the "Provost of the Royal Residence" ( Prévôt de l'Hôtel du Roi ), later a.k.a. the "Lord High Provost of France" ( Grand Prévôt de France ), and the "Provost General" ( Prévôt général ) later a.k.a.

3456-402: The Crown, that competence of appeal was given to the bailie. Moreover, in the 14th century, provosts no longer were in charge of collecting domainal revenues, except in farmed provostships, having instead yielded this responsibility to "royal receivers" ( receveurs royaux ). Raising local army contingents ( ban , draft; and arrière-ban , reserve) also passed to bailies. Provosts therefore retained

3552-536: The Dame and Seigneur ( Sibyl and Robert Hathaway ) of the new regime. British Commandos raided the island several times. Operation Basalt , during the night of 3–4 October 1942, captured a prisoner, and Hardtack 7 was a failed British landing in December 1943. Sark was finally liberated on 10 May 1945, a full day after Guernsey. In late August 1990, an unemployed French nuclear physicist named André Gardes, who believed he

3648-641: The European Convention on Human Rights and his powers were subject to further legal challenges on these grounds. In 2012 the BBC Today programme reported on local disquiet about the influence on the island of the Barclay brothers. The New Yorker magazine further illustrated the ongoing and escalating tensions between the Barclays and some of the longer-term residents. In 2017 Private Eye also reported on

3744-694: The French government. Billionaire brothers David and Frederick Barclay had purchased an island within Sark's territorial waters in 1993 along with the hotels on the island. In the mid-1990s, the brothers petitioned the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg , France, challenging Sark's inheritance law, which mandated their island be left to David's oldest son. The brothers wanted to will their estate equally to their four children. In 1999, women in Sark were given equal rights of property inheritance, mainly due to

3840-460: The French mediterranean side. René Lepelley suggests a Scandinavian etymology that would explain the regular and late records of the root Serc- in the documents, according to him, it could be Old Norse serkr "shirt". He compares with the name given to an island or a mountain by Vikings sailing from Norway to Greenland : Hvítserkr cf. Hvitserk , maybe Mount Forel , so Old Saxon *Serki or Old Norse Serkr > Serc could have been

3936-509: The King for his collections. Farmed provostships ( prévôtes en ferme ) were naturally a source of abuse and oppression. Naturally, too, the people were discontent. Joinville told of how under St Louis the provostship of Paris became an accountable provostship ( prévôté en garde ). With the death of Louis XI , farmed provostships were still numerous and spurred a remonstrance from the States General in 1484. Charles VIII promised to abolish

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4032-616: The King's Council, but it was opposed by the Parlement courts and seems to have been conferred in but few instances. French Provost Marshals were non-judicial officers ( officiers de la robe courte , literally "officers of the short gown") attached to the Marshalcy ( Maréchaussée ) which under the Old Regime was vested with police authority. It would be replaced after the Revolution of 1789 by

4128-604: The Roman model were used in Ptolemaic Egypt , various medieval Western European countries, the Ottoman and Mughal empires, and in Qing dynasty China. As states become stronger, buoyed up by revenues brought in by tax farming, the practice was discontinued in favour of centralized tax collection systems. In part this was because tax farming systems tended to rely on wealthy individuals outside

4224-516: The Sark rocks (and those of the nearby Channel Islands of Guernsey and Alderney ) formed during geological activity in the continental crust above an ancient subduction zone. This geological setting would have been analogous to the modern-day subduction zone of the Pacific Ocean plate colliding and subducting beneath the North and South American continental plate. Sark also exercises jurisdiction over

4320-580: The Seigneur. In 2010, following the decision of the English Court of Appeal, the Chief Pleas decided to split the dual role of the Seneschal. Thus, since 2013 the Chief Pleas has elected its own President, who presides in almost all cases. The Seneschal now presides in Chief Pleas only during the election of the President. The complete list of all the Seneschals of Sark from 1675 is as follows: Pursuant to

4416-563: The Seigneurie in 2016. Before the constitutional reforms of 2008 , the Seigneur (or Dame in the case of a woman holding the office) was the head of the government of the Isle of Sark. Many of the laws, particularly those related to inheritance and the rule of the Seigneur, had changed little since their promulgation in 1565 under Elizabeth I of England . For example, the Seigneur held the sole right to keep pigeons or an unspayed dog. The latter right

4512-592: The South. These titles were retained from earlier times when formerly independent provinces were conquered and subsumed under the French Crown. Royal provosts were created by the Capetian monarchy around the 11th century. Provosts replaced viscounts wherever a viscounty had not been made a fief, making it likely that the domainal provost position was fashioned after the corresponding ecclesiastical provost of cathedral chapters ,

4608-643: The States of Guernsey. Sark has its own United Nations Standard Country or Area Code for Statistical Use (680). That code is used for statistical processing purposes by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Secretariat. The ISO 3166-1 code element CQ has been exceptionally reserved to refer to Sark. An “exceptionally reserved” code element does not represent a country name in ISO 3166-1, but

4704-512: The Sword") survived until being replaced by other judging charges (e.g. lord lieutenants or military auditors) in administering military justice. Since the 11th century, the provosts tended increasingly to make their positions hereditary and thus became more difficult to control. One of the King's great officers, the Great Seneschal, became their supervisor. In the 12th century, the office of provost

4800-616: The United Kingdom approved the Sark law reforms on 9 April 2008. The first elections under the new law were held in December 2008 and the new chamber first convened in January 2009. Some Sark residents have complained that the new system is not democratic and have described the powers the new law granted to the Seneschal, an unelected member whose term the new law extended to the duration of his natural life, as imperial or dictatorial. The Court of Appeal had ruled his powers to be in breach of

4896-571: The approval of the Chief Pleas, although recently Chief Pleas has been delegating a number of ordinance-making powers to the States of Guernsey. Such powers are, however, in each case subject to dis-application, or repeal, by the Chief Pleas. By long standing custom, Sark's criminal law has been made by the States of Guernsey, and this custom was put on a statutory basis in Section 4 of the Reform (Sark) Law, 2008, by which Sark delegates criminal law making power to

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4992-560: The basis of a single multi-member Sark-wide constituency, with the nine candidates receiving most votes being elected. The Prévôt , the Greffier and the treasurer also attend but are not members; the treasurer may address Chief Pleas on matters of taxation and finance. However, if there are not more willing candidates than the numbers of positions to fill (including any casual vacancies), then all candidates are declared elected, without any actual election necessary. This happened both in

5088-432: The brothers' influence. Until 2008, Sark's parliament (Chief Pleas) was a single chamber consisting of 54 members, comprising the Seigneur, the Seneschal, 40 owners of the tenements and 12 elected deputies. A change to the system was advocated largely by the Barclay brothers . Their premise was that a change was necessary to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights , though it was suggested that their objection

5184-415: The case of all the other Channel Islands) be extended to Sark. Normally the consent of Chief Pleas is obtained for this, but the Supreme Court ruled in R v Secretary of State for Justice that it need not be. Sark does not make its own criminal laws; the responsibility for making criminal law was assigned to the States of Guernsey by Section 4(3) of the Reform (Sark) Law 2008 . The executive officers on

5280-429: The city of Chicago needed money and a deal was made to sell all 36,000 of the parking meter spots in the city for 75 years for 1.15 billion dollars to a firm called Chicago Parking Meters . Tax farming is not synonymous with modern privatized tax collection , where private individuals or companies collect taxes and pass them to the state in return for a commission or fee, without bearing any risk consequent of default by

5376-404: The crown. Though such arrangements in some respects seem similar to the feudal system, there are significant disparities, including continuance of state power and, at least in the case of pronoia , theoretical time limits on the grant. In many cases, including those mentioned, tax rights were not transferable or divisible, unlike feudal fiefdoms. Sometimes, as in the case of Miguel de Cervantes ,

5472-399: The designation was granted, Sark Astronomy Society worked to secure funds for an astronomical observatory on the island. In October 2015 Sark's observatory was officially opened by Marek Kukula , public astronomer from the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Until the second half of the 2000s Sark was considered the last feudal state in Europe. Together with the other Channel Islands , it is

5568-422: The direction of the Royal Engineers . Due to its isolation, the inhabitants of Little Sark had their own distinct form of Sercquiais , the native Norman dialect of the island. The highest point on Sark is 374 feet (114 m) above sea level . A windmill , dated 1571, is found there, the sails of which were removed during World War II. This high point is named Le Moulin , after the windmill. The location

5664-435: The efficiency of tax collection within Rome itself but the system quickly spread to the Provinces . Within the Roman Empire, these private individuals and groups which collected taxes in lieu of the bid (i.e. rent) they had paid to the state were known as publicani , of whom the best known is the disciple of Jesus Matthew the Apostle , a publicanus in the village of Capernaum in the province of Galilee . The system

5760-406: The goods to create a second profit source. Such abuses stifle economic growth by restricting the ability of the tradesman to reinvest in his business, limiting the quantity of taxes generated over the long-term. In Bangladesh and India tolls on bridges and roads and dues from public properties such as lakes and forests are often leased to private persons or firms. After the 2008 financial crisis,

5856-405: The holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from the contractor. It is most commonly used in public finance , where governments (the lessors ) lease or assign the right to collect and retain the whole of the tax revenue to a private financier (the farmer), who is charged with paying fixed sums (sometimes called "rents", but with a different meaning from the common modern term) into

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5952-417: The income stream itself. In 1999 the National Board of Revenue in Bangladesh (NBR) negotiated with cigarette producing firms a minimum amount of value added tax (VAT) that should be paid per month even though VAT is an ad valorem tax, that is to say of variable yield. The NBR took this step because under the self-clearance system monitoring of production and sales of cigarettes proved to be difficult. It

6048-418: The inhabitants expressed a preference for a totally elected legislature. Following the poll, Chief Pleas voted on 4 October 2006 to replace the twelve deputies and forty tenants in Chief Pleas by 28 conseillers elected by universal adult suffrage. This decision was suspended in January 2007 when it was pointed out to Chief Pleas that the 56% versus 44% majority achieved in the opinion poll did not achieve

6144-406: The island are: The Seneschal, Prevôt, and Greffier are chosen by the Seigneur, while the Treasurer, Constable and Vingtenier are elected by Chief Pleas. The list of current Officers of the Island of Sark: Tax farm Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by legal contract to a third party and

6240-469: The island failed to win any seats in the elections held in 2008 and 2010 . Sark is probably first mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary ( Itinerarium Antonini Augusti , part II: itinerarium maritimum ) 3rd – 4th century AD together with the other main Channel Islands as Sarnia , Caesarea , Barsa , Silia and Andium , but it is unclear to which it refers. It has been suggested that Silia referred to Sark . The earliest record to evoke possibly

6336-415: The island of Brecqhou , only a few hundred feet west of Greater Sark. It is a private island , but it has recently been opened to some visitors. From 1993 Brecqhou was owned by the brothers David and Frederick Barclay , until David Barclay died in 2021 and Frederick Barclay became sole owner. The brothers contested Sark's control over the island. The candidates endorsed by their various business interests on

6432-403: The island's volunteer connétable approached the Frenchman and complimented him on the quality of his weapon. Gardes changed the gun's magazine to illustrate how it worked, allowing the constable to tackle and arrest him. He was given a seven-day sentence, which he served in Guernsey. Gardes attempted this again the following year, but was recognized in Guernsey, arrested, and handed over to

6528-453: The last remnant of the former Duchy of Normandy still belonging to the Crown . Sark belongs to the Crown in its own right and has an independent relationship with the Crown through the Lieutenant Governor in Guernsey. Formally, the Seigneur holds it as a fief from the Crown, reenfeoffing the landowners on the island with their respective parcels. The political consequences of this construction were abolished in recent years, particularly in

6624-418: The name of Sark are the Life of saint Samson and the Life of saint Magloire , bishops of Dol-de-Bretagne . They spell it Sargia , with the neighbouring island Bissargia , all the other documents are from the 11th to the 12th century and the forms are: Serc, Serch, Sercum, Serco . Richard Coates has suggested that in the absence of a Proto-Indo-European etymology it may be worthwhile looking for

6720-615: The newly created Gendarmerie nationale . Originally, they were assigned to judge crimes committed by people in the army, but over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, they gained the right to judge certain types of misdemeanors and felonies committed by the military and civilians alike. They became fixed with set areas of authority, and the offences falling within their jurisdiction came to be called provost crimes ( cas prévôtaux , literally "provostal cases"). Provost crimes included high violent crimes and crimes committed by repeat offenders ( repris de justice ), who were familiarly known as

6816-424: The office in 1493, but the office is mentioned in the Ordinance of 1498. They disappeared in the 16th century, by which time the provosts had become regular officials, their office, however, being purchasable. Further oversight and weakening of provostships occurred when, to monitor their performance and curtail abuses, the Crown established itinerant justices known as bailies ( bailli , plural baillis , from which

6912-404: The operation of the silver mine on the island, the incumbent Seigneur, Ernest le Pelley , obtained Crown permission to mortgage Sark's fief to local privateer John Allaire. After the company running the mine went bankrupt, le Pelley was unable to keep up the mortgage payments and, in 1849, his son Pierre Carey le Pelley , the new Seigneur, was forced to sell the fief to Marie Collings for

7008-418: The past would have understood them well, whether done mentally or by making marks in the sand. To determine the maximum rent they are willing to pay, the tenant estimates the long-term average yearly gross value of the revenue stream, based on past records and accounts, adjusting for any new circumstances affecting the future. They then deduct a risk element and a discount for the time value of money. The risk

7104-426: The provosts administered justice with very limited judicial powers. For instance, they never had any jurisdiction over noblemen or feudal tenants ( hommes de fief ) who instead fell under the jurisdiction of either a regional royal court (parlement) or their respective lord's court where they were tried before a jury of their peers, that is, the lord's other vassals . Provosts had no jurisdiction over purely rural areas,

7200-447: The reform of the legislative body, Chief Pleas, which took place in 2008. Although part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey , Sark is fiscally separate from the rest of the Bailiwick. Together with the islands of Alderney and Guernsey, Sark from time to time approves Bailiwick of Guernsey legislation, which, subject to the approval of all three legislatures, applies in the entire Bailiwick. Legislation cannot be made which applies on Sark without

7296-410: The right to vote in Chief Pleas, but in 1604 this right was restricted to the 39 original tenements required by the letters patent, the so-called 'Quarantaine Tenements' ( French : quarantaine : a group of forty). The newer parcels mostly did not have the obligation to bear arms. In 1611 the dismemberment of tenements was forbidden, but the order was not immediately followed. In Sark, the word tenant

7392-465: The royal letters patent , the Seigneur was to keep the island inhabited by at least 40 armed men. Therefore, from his lands, 39 parcels or tenements , each sufficient for one family, were subdivided and granted to settlers, the tenants . Later, some of these parcels were dismembered, and parts of the Seigneurial land were sold, creating more parcels. Originally each head of a parcel-holding family had

7488-573: The same senses of "rent, farmed office, source of revenue, feast". The meaning "rent, fixed payment", which was already present in the Old English word, was further strengthened due to the word's resemblance to the unrelated (so say these sources) Latin firmus ("firm, solid"), and firmitas ("security, firmness"). The tenant of a farm can only make a profit after carefully assessing its value. While modern financial management theory employs scientific formulae for such calculations, astute financiers of

7584-485: The situation, following the Barclays' decision to close their vineyard and a number of hotels and shops they own on Sark. In January 2011, the International Dark-Sky Association designated Sark as Europe's first Dark Sky Community and the first Dark Sky Island in the world. This designation recognises that Sark is sufficiently clear of light pollution to allow naked-eye astronomy . Although Sark

7680-420: The sole function of inferior judges over vassals with original jurisdiction concurrent with bailies over claims against noblemen and actions reserved for royal courts ( cas royaux , royal cases). This followed a precedent established in the chief feudal courts in the 13th and 14th centuries in which summary provostship suits were distinct-guished from solemn bailliary sessions ( assises ). The provost as judge sat

7776-415: The south. They are connected by a narrow isthmus called La Coupée which is 300 feet (91 m) long and has a drop of 330 feet (100 m) on each side. Protective railings were added in 1900; before then, children would crawl across on their hands and knees to avoid being blown over the edge. A narrow concrete road covering the entirety of the isthmus was built in 1945 by German prisoners of war under

7872-543: The state machinery, gangs , and secret societies . The key flaw in the tax farming system is the tension between the state, which seeks a long-term source of taxation revenue, and the tax farmers, who seek to make a profit on their investment in as short a time as possible. As a result, tax-farmers often abuse the taxpayers in various ways, tending them to switch their economic activity from strategic long-term projects to short-term revenue generation. In barter systems, tax farmers commonly undervalue taxes in kind , reselling

7968-415: The tax farmer was a government employee, paid a salary, and all money collected went to the government. Tax farming was an important step in the history of economic development by providing a method for collecting taxes across a large area without the need for a tax-collecting bureaucracy , or during periods when such a bureaucracy is unworkable or impossible to maintain. Systems of tax farming similar to

8064-729: The taxpayer. Tax farming is speculative , meaning that the tenant of the farm bears the full risk of defaulted debts. In addition, a tenant is often required as a term of the lease to make an early rent payment, which must be financed from his own resources until the revenue stream subject to the farm has started to be collected. In the United Kingdom , some tax collection of "lower value debts" by HMRC has been outsourced to debt collection agencies from July 2010. However, debt collection agencies, like invoice factors, are not truly farmers of revenue streams, as they do not bear any risk of default. Rather they make loans in expectation of future receipts, such loans being always recoverable and secured on

8160-403: The two vied openly to be vested. [REDACTED]   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh , ed. (1911). " Provost ". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Sark in the Bailiwick of Guernsey  (red) Sark ( Sercquiais : Sèr or Cerq , French : Sercq )

8256-469: The word farm comes from Middle English ferme ("farm, rent, revenue; revenue collected from a farmer; factor, stewardship, meal, feast"), from Old English feorm, farm ("provision, stores of food, supplies, possessions; provisions supplied to the king or a lord by a tenant or vassal; rent, feast, benefit, assylum"), from Proto-Germanic * firmō, *firχumō ("means of living, subsistence"), from Proto-Indo-European * perk u- ("life, strength, force"). It

8352-399: The word stems from the same origin, in that a medieval land-"holder" (none "owned" land but the king himself under his allodial title) under feudal land tenure might let it (i.e. lease it out) under a contract as a going concern (not as a sub-infeudated fee ), that is to say as a unit producing a revenue stream, together with its workers and livestock, for exploitation by a tenant who

8448-668: Was aided in its achievement by its location, its historic ban on cars and the fact that there is no public lighting, it was also necessary for local residents to make adjustments, such as re-siting lights, to cut the light pollution. The designation was made in January 2011, following an audit by the IDA in 2010. The award is significant in that Sark is the first island community to have achieved this; other Dark-Sky Places have, up to now, been mainly uninhabited areas, and IDA chairman Martin Morgan-Taylor commended Sark residents for their effort. After

8544-410: Was licensed by the contract, or firma , to keep all the revenue he could extract from the holding in exchange for fixed rents. Thus the rights to the revenue stream produced by the land had been farmed by the lessor. Because this was the form of the farming transaction most known to popular society, the word "farmer" became synonymous with a tenant of an agricultural holding. According to other sources,

8640-626: Was more likely at odds with certain property tax requirements and primogeniture laws affecting their holdings. The old system was described as feudal and undemocratic because the tenants were entitled to sit in Chief Pleas as of right. On 16 January 2008 and 21 February 2008, the Chief Pleas approved a law to reform Chief Pleas as a 30-member chamber, with 28 members elected in island-wide elections, one hereditary member (the Seigneur) and one member (the Seneschal) appointed for life. The Privy Council of

8736-618: Was named Constantia in 298 by the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus . Around 430, the bishopric of Coutances (much later under the archbishopric of Rouen ), was established in Coutances , having about the same limits as the Lyonnaise 2nd. In 933, Sark was included in the Duchy of Normandy , based on the traditional boundaries of the Lugdunensis secunda and the archbishopric of Rouen . Following

8832-489: Was originally a Roman practice whereby the burden of tax collection was reassigned by the Roman State to private individuals or groups. In essence, these individuals or groups paid the taxes for a certain area and for a certain period of time and then attempted to cover their outlay by collecting money or saleable goods from the people within that area. The system was set up by Gaius Gracchus in 123 BC primarily to increase

8928-419: Was put up for bidding, and thereafter provosts were farmers of revenues. The provost thus received the speculative right to collect the King's seignorial revenues within his provostship. This remained his primary role. Short-term appointments also helped stem the heritability of offices. Very early, however, certain provostships were bestowed en garde , i.e., on condition the provost regularly render accounts to

9024-419: Was repealed in 2008. Until 2013 the Seneschal of Sark was the head of the Chief Pleas. From 1583 and 1675 judicial functions were exercised by five elected jurats and a juge, but since 1675 the Seneschal has also been the judge of the island. The Seneschal was historically appointed by the Seigneur, but nowadays there is an Appointment Committee consisting of the Seigneur and two other members appointed by

9120-407: Was the rightful holder of the Seigneur's title, attempted an invasion of Sark armed with a semi-automatic weapon . The night Gardes arrived, he put up two posters declaring his intention to take over the island the following day at noon. The following day he started a solo foot patrol in front of the manor, in battle-dress, weapon in hand. While Gardes was sitting on a bench waiting for noon to arrive,

9216-432: Was widely abused, and reforms were enacted by Augustus and Diocletian . Medieval English kings frequently made grants "in fee -farm", a form of feudal tenure . An example is the following writ of King William II (1087–1100) granting a hundred court to be held in fee-farm by Thorney Abbey : William, king of the English, to all the sheriffs and barons of Huntingdonshire , greeting. Know that I have granted

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