Ruling of the Sovereign Council on the matter of blessed bread

Three-page manuscript. The residents of New France parishes had to pay their priest a tithe 1/26th of harvested products. They also had to help build or renovate the church p...
and also/sed etiam…
 Original
 French
 English

[1] De la justice, police et finances 

      en la Nouvelle-France ; ouï le substitut 

      Du procureur-général, le Conseil 

      par provision et jusqu’à ce que les 

[5] paroissiens ayent été formées et 

      les territoires séparés, a ordonné et 

      ordonne que tous les habitans, 

      tant de cette ville que des villages 

      des environs, rendront le pain bénit 

[10] à leur tour en Eglise ou Chapelle où 

      ils seront obligés de faire leurs 

      pasques, a peine d’amende arbitraire, 

      contre les contrevenans, aplicable 

      a l’hopital de cette ville et fera 

[15] le present arrest publié au prosne

  Paleographic comments
The blessed bread

This document is written in beautiful 17th-century calligraphy and its elegance highlights the official aspect of its content. While medieval documents are characterized by their compact nature and their preference for abbreviations modern documents have evolved toward greater and greater clarification which this sample ruling from the Sovereign Council demonstrates very well.

Note too that besides the text itself which is very clean since only one thing is crossed out this document shows traces of its life as an archived text: added to it are a label that summarizes the content of the ruling and an inscription doubtlessly on the upper side of the fold that the document still bears traces of that has the document’s inventory number and title.

The two signatures are remarkably legible.
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