COUTUMES DE PROVENCE

£1,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

A rare and early collection of five Provencal arrests, a searing condemnation of corruption in Aix. The first two are indictments of the financial and moral corruption of the clergy of Aix, and its convents, which, instead of administering ‘le service divin…se livre a des actes de paillardise non convenables a la devotion chretienne’. The next denounces the corruption of the merchants of Aix, whose monopolies led to the exploitation of the populace (‘les grands officiers et majeurs mangent de la bonne chair et la populaire est mal servi’), with particular emphasis on the town’s butcher (who sold dirty and diseased meat), and goes on to attack the general corruption and bribery in the region and the bureaucratic indifference which has allowed the corruption to continue (‘le lieutenant general qui a la superintendence n’en tient compte et faict l’endormy’). The arret concludes ‘il faut tout changer’ and threatens heavy fines for future malefactors. The last two attack corruption among notaries and the resale of mortgages in the town. Unlike most legal works the engaging text is of a Rabelasian humour and directness, e.g. “l’avocat et procureur du Roy au siege sont esturdis d’une teste de veau”. While a complete work in itself, this arrest may well originally have been bound up with other related works of coutumes, or legal customs of the various towns and regions of France, and indeed Fairfax Murray’s copy was in just such a sammelband. Fairfax-Murray tentatively ascribes the w

• Binding: Hardcover

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