It was rendered unarmed, on bended knee, with joined hands placed in those of the king's representative, and was accompanied by an oath on the Gospels. It was to be presented to the authorities by the seigneur upon each change of ownership and at the Intendant's request. As well as a description of the seigneur's domain, it included information concerning each of the land parcels granted—the name of the tenant, the area of his land and the various buildings, the number of arpents under cultivation, and the dues payable in kind and in money for the cens and rentes.
At the time of the concession, the land was not usually surveyed. The tenant took his parcel of land without knowing its exact boundaries. In some seigneuries, however, the habitants were required to survey their land sometime after it was granted. An exact knowledge of the boundaries of the lot avoided potential conflicts between neighbours and with the seigneur.
Every title holder of a lot paid the cens and rentes to the seigneur annually. These dues were set according to the lot's frontage or width. In Canada, this generally varied from two to five arpents , although the majority of the lands granted had a frontage of three arpents. The rate of the cens and rentes varied within the same seigneury, as well as from one seigneury to another. The seigneur kept part of his seigneury for his own use.
This was known as the domaine direct. He could hire salaried workers to cultivate the land or "rent" it out, under a farming lease.
The farmer then agreed to work and maintain the domain. Every year, the parties involved shared the produce of the harvest and the livestock. The seigneury of Batiscan is the classic model of the division of territory within a fief in the St. Lawrence Valley. It displays an overall geometric regularity. The portions of land, or censives , allotted to each of the habitants were long contiguous rectangles, perpendicular to the water's edge. The dwellings were lined up along the shore.
With this arrangement, each tenant had access to the water and could use the river as a means of transportation. When all river front land was granted, the seigneur began a second rang [row] of concessions. The holder of a seigneury was obliged to concede a parcel of land the censive to individuals the censitaires who requested it. In many cases, the seigneur did not immediately provide an official certificate of concession, but instead first issued a deed of temporary ownership called a billet de concession.
The two parties later signed a duly notarized contract. In possession of this final deed, the censitaire might "enjoy the use [of his land] in full ownership in perpetuity," sell it or bequeath it, as long as he fulfilled the obligations stipulated in the contract. One of these stated that he had to deliver the annual cens and rentes , fixed dues payable in perpetuity in money or in kind. Many of the Loyalists settled in the Sorel area, Eastern Townships, and some in the Chateauguay Valley areas, where an early attempt at a Crown grant scheme, instead of the Seigneurial system, was made.
Seigneurial System Abolished in From to , various schemes were tried to move from the Seigneurial system. Finally in , it was abolished, and all land became freehold, not without problems, and more years were to pass before it was finalized. In the conversion process, the land identification also had to be rationalized and a renumbering took place. Under the British system, acquisition of Crown land was by petition to the Governor, stating the reason for a grant.
Generally a petition, when found, will give more genealogical information than the subsequent patent or deed, which will give, however, a land description, location and acreage. The land of the habitant was a kind of economic unit essential for survival. Everyone hoped to be the sole tenant, producing most of what he required in order to live.
The system of land tenure, which placed rural inhabitants close to one another, and in the early 19th century the village, were the foundation upon which the family, neighbour relations and community spirit developed. The closeness of this agricultural society to the soil led naturally to a feeling that land was included in one's patrimony, to be passed from generation to generation. After Canada was ceded to Britain in see Treaty of Paris , new British laws respected the private agreements and the property rights of francophone society, and the seigneurial system was maintained.
But as new land was opened for colonization, the township system developed. As time went on, the seigneurial system increasingly appeared to favour the privileged and to hinder economic development. After much political agitation, it was abolished in by a law that permitted tenants to claim rights to their land.
Every year on St. While the Seigniorial Act of abolished the system of rights and obligations, neither seigneurial property nor the relationship between seigneurand censitairewas abolished. The amount received was then transferred to the SNRRS to be used to repay the loan over a year period. In short, the impact and importance of the seigneurial system goes beyond landscape and toponymy see Place names.
Some former seigneurs played central roles in municipal politics and became the first mayors of their localities. For example, in the 20th century, several seigneurial honours were bestowed on descendants of seigneurial families, including Pierre Boucher of Boucherville , who was interred beneath the Sainte-Famille church in Boucherville in Perceptions of the Tessier family of Beauport and the Taschereau family of Sainte-Marie de Beauce are influenced by their ties to the seigneurial system.
Le territoire Colin M. Cole Harris, The Reluctant Land. Society, Space and Environnment in Canada before Confederation Jacques Mathieu et Alain Laberge, dir.
Jacques Mathieu, La Nouvelle-France. Text in French. New France, New Horizons To mark the th anniversary of French presence in North America, in , France and Canada re-created their singular adventure, sparking new interest in their shared history.
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