[1] a la diligence dudis subtitut donné
au Conseil Souverain tenu a québec
le treize Janvier mil six cents
soixante dix.
[5] Daine
Ins BoisLure
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.