Transplantation Of Feudalism.—Precautions.—Faith And Hope —Age.—The Seignior.—The Censitaire.—Royal Intervention.—The Gentilhomme.—Canadian Noblesse.
Canadian society was beginning to form itself, and at its base was the feudal tenure. European feudalism was the indigenous and natural growth of political and social conditions which preceded it. Canadian feudalism was an offshoot of the feudalism of France, modified by the lapse of centuries, and further modified by the royal will.
In France, as in the rest of Europe, the system had lost its vitality. The warrior-nobles who placed Hugh Capet on the throne, and began the feudal monarchy, formed an aristocratic republic, and the king was one of their number, whom they chose to be their chief. But, through the struggles and vicissitudes of many succeeding reigns, royalty had waxed and oligarchy had waned. The fact had changed and the theory had changed with it. The king, once powerless among a host of turbulent nobles, was now a king indeed. Once a chief, because his equals had made him so, he was now the anointed of the Lord. This triumph of royalty had culminated in Louis XIV. The stormy energies and bold individualism of the old feudal nobles had ceased to exist. They who had held his predecessors in awe had become his obsequious servants. He no longer feared his nobles; he prized them as gorgeous decorations of his court, and satellites of his royal person.
It was Richelieu who first planted feudalism in Canada. * The king would preserve it there, because with its teeth drawn he was fond of it, and because, as the feudal tenure prevailed in Old France, it was natural that it should prevail also in the New. But he continued as Richelieu had begun, and moulded it to the form that pleased him. Nothing was left which could threaten his absolute and undivided authority over the colony. In France, a multitude of privileges and prescriptions still clung, despite its fall, about the ancient ruling class. Few of these were allowed to cross the Atlantic, while the old, lingering abuses, which had made the system odious, were at the same time lopped away. Thus retrenched, Canadian feudalism was made to serve a double end; to produce a faint and harmless reflection of French aristocracy, and simply and practically to supply agencies for distributing land among the settlers.
The nature of the precautions which it was held to require appear in the plan of administration which Talon and Tracy laid before the minister.
* By the charter of the Company of the Hundred Associates,
1627.
They urge that, in view of the distance from France, special care ought to be taken to prevent changes and revolutions, aristocratic or otherwise, in the colony, whereby in time sovereign jurisdictions might grow up, as formerly occurred in various parts of France. * And, in respect to grants already made, an inquiry was ordered, to ascertain “if seigniors in distributing lands to their vassals have exacted any conditions injurious to the rights of the Crown and the subjection due solely to the king.” In the same view the seignior was denied any voice whatever in the direction of government; and it is scarcely necessary to say that the essential feature of feudalism in the day of its vitality, the requirement of military service by the lord from the vassal, was utterly unknown in Canada. The royal governor called out the militia whenever he saw fit, and set over it what officers he pleased.
The seignior was usually the immediate vassal of the Crown, from which he had received his land gratuitously. In a few cases, he made grants to other seigniors inferior in the feudal scale, and they, his vassals, granted in turn to their vassals, the habitants or cultivators of the soil. ** Sometimes
* Projet de Réglement fait par MM. de Tracy et Talon pour
la justice et la distribution des terres du Canada, Jan. 24,
1667.
** Most of the seigniories of Canada were simple fiefs; but
there were some exceptions. In 1671, the king, as a mark of
honor to Talon, erected his seigniory Des Islets into a
barony; and it was soon afterwards made an earldom, comté.
In 1676, the seigniory of St. Laurent, on the island of
Orleans, once the property of Laval, and then belonging to
François Berthelot, councillor of the king, was erected into
an earldom. In 1681, the seigniory of Portneuf, belonging to
Réné Robineau, chevalier, was made a barony. In 1700, three
seigniories on the south side of the St. Lawrence were
united into the barony of Lcngueuil. See Papers on the
Feudal Tenure in Canada, Abstract of Titles.
the habitant held directly of the Crown, in which case there was no step between the highest and lowest degrees of the feudal scale. The seignior held by the tenure of faith and homage, the habitant by the inferior tenure en censive. Faith and homage were rendered to the Crown or other feudal superior whenever the seigniory changed hands, or, in the case of seigniories held by corporations, after long stated intervals. The following is an example, drawn from the early days of the colony, of the performance of this ceremony by the owner of a fief to the seignior who had granted it to him. It is that of Jean Guion, vassal of Giffard, seignior of Beauport. The act recounts how, in presence of a notary, Guion presented himself at the principal door of the manor-house of Beauport; how, having knocked, one Boullé, farmer of Giffard, opened the door, and in reply to Guion’s question if the seignior was at home, replied that he was not, but that he, Boullé, was empowered to receive acknowledgments of faith and homage from the vassals in his name. “After the which reply,” proceeds the act, the said Guion, being at the principal door, placed himself on his knees on the ground, with head bare, and without sword or spurs, and said three times these words: “Monsieur de Beauport, Monsieur de Beauport, Monsieur de Beauport, I bring you the faith and homage which I am bound to bring you on account of my fief Du Buisson, which I hold as a man of faith of your seigniory of Beauport, declaring that I offer to pay my seigniorial and feudal dues in their season, and demanding of you to accept me in faith and homage as aforesaid.” *