Keywords: Ancien Régime, Flanders, French Monarchy, Louis XVI Period, Feudal Property, Land Transfer, Legal Manuscript, Tabellion, Royal Notary, Manuscript Indenture, Archival Ephemera, Vellum Style Script, Genealogy, Local History, Eighteenth Century

Summary:
An original late-18th-century French royal notarial instrument concerning the declaration and adjudication associated with the sale or transfer of a fief. Executed at Lille in Flanders and dated November 24, 1787, during the closing years of the Ancien Régime.

The document consists of approximately eight pages on four leaves, combining a printed notarial opening with extensive handwritten text in French. The printed introductory formula identifies François-Marie de Renty as a hereditary tabellion and keeper of notarial records appointed by the King for the city and castellany of Lille. It states his authority to receive, preserve, engross, seal with His Majesty’s seal, and sign contracts, testaments, obligations, and other acts passed before the royal notaries of Lille.

The remainder is completed in a finely executed period cursive hand and records the appearance of the interested parties before royal notaries resident at Lille. The text sets forth the legal declarations, property interests, obligations, and terms connected with the transaction. References visible within the manuscript include land, buildings or a dwelling, garden and agricultural property, seigneurial rights, annual assessments, and the vingtième, an 18th-century French tax calculated upon income or property revenues. The instrument concludes with a statement that it was completed and passed at Lille before noon on the twenty-fourth day of November 1787.

Measurement: 9 x 6 in. (22.9 x 15.2 cm.)

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