This document, along with the La Fayette-Langec Contredict, the La Fayette-Langeac Contredict 2 and the Contrat d’échange de propriétés entre Gilbert de La Fayette et Delphine de Bonnabaud, forms part of the dossier of a legal dispute between Jacques de Langeac, seigneur of Bonnabaud, and his neighbor Louis de La Fayette, seigneur of Pontgibaud, regarding fishing rights on the river Sioule, which ran through the estates of both parties. The legal procedures lasted several months in 1564.

The document presented here is a copy of the ruling of the maître des requêtes of the Parlement de Paris in favor of Langeac. It condemns the defending party La Fayette to pay damages and interests to the plaintiff. Copies of rulings in Ancien Régime France were called grosses (big letters), and were usually drawn by the notary clerk of the ruling jurisdiction. Another grosse is found here: Grosse d’un jugement du bailli d’Orléans.

The court dossier for the 1564 fishing rights dispute is part of a larger collection of documents related to the seigneurie of Bonnabaud, sold by Anne-Joseph-Gilbert-Allyre de Langeac to Amable-Jacques Soubrany de Bénistant in 1787. A large quantity of documents were assembled at the time, including copies of the sale deed, as well as descriptions of the property, lists of tenants, yearly earnings, previous legal disputes, and so forth.

For more documents related to the Langeac family, see the Vente au profit de Gabriel de Langeac and the Bail à cens de la seigneurie de Bonnabaud.

See the Lauzanne Family Papers for an overview of this significant family archive of thousands of documents held at the Newberry Library.

- Caroline Prud’Homme