Documents found
-
134.More information
In New France, books played a key role in acquainting the colonial vivre ensemble with European judicial institutions. They buttressed the Custom of Paris, which governed civil affairs in the colony, and were a mainstay in the royal authority's legislative arsenal. Accordingly, in the early eighteenth century, the acquisition of books relating to judicature became a key issue in the wider debate surrounding New France's judicial administration and the legal aptitudes of its officials. Traditionally left in the hands of magistrates, this task was gradually assumed by the government which sought to make legal reference books more accessible to the local magistrature. As a result of this endeavour, Quebec's Superior Council library became the first secular special library in the St. Lawrence Valley before the British conquest. This article outlines the library's history and provides the reader with a reconstructed catalogue of its collection.
-
138.