This article highlights the patterns that can be observed in the matrimonial alliances of solicitors in sixteenth-century Aix-en-Provence and family strategies understood as a corpus of rational decisions bearing on the long term. Defined this way, family strategies applied to sixteenth-century solicitors are an anachronism. The new and unstable context in which the sixteenth-century solicitor found himself prevented families from having a clear view of the objectives to achieve and from devising a rational strategy. The article presents the model that most of the solicitors' alliances followed and suggests the obstacles that appeared before the main actor in family planning, the one who wielded paternal authority, in the creation of these alliances. The example of the Maria family shows women who decided, against the will of their family, whom they would marry. This article highlights the historian's reconstruction of typical family behavior and the limited possibilities that families had to plan over the long term.
Notably, the debate has been carried on in the pages of the International Review of Social History, which printed the proceedings of a session organized by the Family/Demography Network at the 26th annual meeting of the American Social Science History Association, held at Chicago in November 2001. The session provided a forum for discussing the concept of family strategies, and the most interesting papers were those given by Pier Paolo Viazzo and Katherine A. Lynch, "Anthropology, Family History, and the Concept of Strategy," IRSH47 (2002): 423-52; and by Theo Engelen, "Labour Strategies of Families: A Critical Assessment of an Appealing Concept," IRSH47 ( 2002): 453-64.
2.
Hervé Le Bras, "Liberté, destin, stratégies," in Habitat et villes: l'avenir en jeu, chap. 5, "Stratégies familiales: transmissions et permanences," http://www.urbanisme.equipement.gouv.fr/edu/datas/ouvr8/chap5.htm (accessed December 20, 2005 ).
3.
Numerous examples exist, including Judith J. Hurwich, "Marriage Strategy among the German Nobility, 1400-1699," Journal of Interdisciplinary History29, no. 2 (1998): 169-95; and Barry Stapleton, "Family Strategies: Patterns of Inheritance in Odiham, Hampshire, 1525-1850," Continuity and Change14, no. 3 (1999): 385-402.
4.
Andrew Blaikie , "Problems with `Strategy' in Micro-Social History: Families and Narratives, Sources and Methods," Family & Community History4, no. 2 (2001): 85-98.
5.
However, it is important to maintain a nuanced view of the family father as he appears in notarial documents. The authority theoretically attributed to him by the law must be compared to how this authority was actually exercised on a day-to-day basis. See Claire Dolan, Le notaire, la famille et la ville (Aix-en-Provence à la fin du XVIe siècle) (Toulouse , France: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 1998), 71-98.
6.
Pierre Bourdieu, Choses dites (Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1987), 80, 127. "L'habitus comme sens du jeu est le jeu social incorporé, devenu nature."
7.
This date corresponds to the Édit de Joinville, which local notables considered to be a "death blow to the autonomy of Provence." The royal edict moved responsibility for the administration of justice in the province into the hands of central authorities. Paul Masson, Les Bouches-du-Rhone. Encyclopédie départementale, vol. 3 ( Marseille, France: Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône , 1921), 290.
8.
On the various changes surrounding the royal office of solicitor, see Charles Bataillard, Histoire des procureurs et des avoués 1483-1816, t. 1 ( Paris, Hachette, 1882), 15.
9.
This was also a recurring complaint made by communities of solicitors across the Ancien Régime. When the number of solicitors was too large, the value of the appointment was reduced. This is why the communities, to protect their members' investment, chose to purchase from the king any new offices which were created. The market for appointments is analyzed in great detail by Robert Descimon, "Les auxiliaires de justice du Châtelet de Paris: aperçus sur l'économie du monde des offices ministériels (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)," in Entre justice et justiciables: les auxiliaires de la justice du Moyen Âge au XXe siècle, ed. Claire Dolan (Québec, Canada: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2005), 301-25.
10.
M. Gresset, Gens de justice à Besançon. De la conquête par Louis IV à la Révolution Française (1674-1789), t. 1 (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1978), 67.
11.
Barristers and councilors serving at the courts were not taken into account; nor were those who were above them in the judicial hierarchy. The research was patiently conducted by Geneviève Barry, Josée Bilodeau, and Éric Jolicoeur.They were assisted with data entry and computer support by Isabelle Coulombe and Steve Tremblay. I thank them all. This research was made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada .
12.
Given the ambiguity surrounding certain positions at the Chancellerie and the Finances, appointments at these institutions have been excluded from the analysis.
13.
Neither the praticiens nor the clercs enjoyed an officially recognized status, and rarely did individuals remain in this position for their entire career. These were temporary states that involved both learning to "practice" the law and practice themselves, without having gained an appointment.
14.
An edict of 1572 created "en titre d'office formel [les] procureurs tant anciens que nouveaux es cours de parlement, chambres des comptes et autres jurisdictions royales." Archives départementales des Bouches du Rhône, dépôt d'Aix, Aix-en-Provence, France (hereafter, Arch. dép. Aix), IV B 5, fo 278. This edict was revoked in 1579, but "les ordonnances des Rois nos prédécesseurs touchant la suppression desdites charges et états et les règlements par cy devant faits pour la réduction du nombre desdits procureurs" remained. Registered in the Parlement de Provence, April 14, 1580, and the sénéchaussée court, July 23, 1580. Arch. dép. Aix, IV B 6, fo 501.
15.
In Franche-Comté the vénalité des offices was not introduced until the end of the seventeenth century, a change that corresponded to the end of the proliferation of official appointments. M. Gresset, Gens de justice, 43. On the vénalité des offices in the sixteenth century, see Robert Descimon, "Modernité et archaïsme de l'État monarchique: le Parlement de Paris saisi par la vénalité (XVIe siècle)," in Genèse de l'État moderne. Bilans et perspectives. Paris, 19-20 September 1988 (Paris, Éditions du CNRS, 1990), 147-61.
16.
The registres d'insinuations are held by the Arch. dép. Aix, série IV B, and their consultation is facilitated by an onosmatic index available for the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Even if it contains many errors, the file accelerated the process of identifying those notarial documents relevant to my study.
17.
Details on the genealogies are available in Claire Dolan, Le notaire, la famille et la ville, 368-80.
18.
Arch. dép. Aix, IV B 18 fo 169 vo, February 5, 1554.
19.
Arch. dép. Aix, IV B 22 fo 412 vo, September 3, 1569.
20.
Arch. dép. Aix, IV B 30, fo 164, November 4, 1576.
21.
It is this type of partnership, among other behaviours, which helps explain why, a few years later, the number of solicitors greatly exceeded the number of available appointments.
22.
Archives communales d'Aix, Aix-en-Provence, France (hereafter, Arch. comm. Aix), CC 1178, fo 29 ss. Compte tutélaire prepared by Polixène Berger, second wife of Guillaume Maria and guardian of his children.
23.
Arch. dép. Aix, IV B 42, fo 411 vo, May 7, 1599, contrat de mariage. Arch. comm. Aix, CC 1178, compte tutélaire.
24.
Arch. dép. Aix, IV B 42, fo 179, April 30, 1605. The grandfather in question was also one of Guillaume's main debtors.
25.
Arch. comm. Aix, CC 1195, fo 52-56 vo.
26.
The information on the Maria children and their mother is provided in the compte tutélaire of Honorat Garcin who took over guardianship in 1604. Arch. comm. Aix, CC 1195.
27.
Arch. comm. Aix, CC 1178, compte tutélaire and inventaire des biens.
28.
The case launched by the family against Sybille and her abductor was settled with a agreement whereby the abductor accepted to pay the family's legal costs related to the case. Arch. comm. Aix, CC 1178, fo 158 et ss.
29.
In his diary, Guillaume Palarin, a solicitor serving at the Parlement of Toulouse, tells of how he entered into legal practice almost by accident. He had been given two letters of reference to be used when he arrived in Toulouse, one addressed to a solicitor and the other to a merchant, so that he might seek out the best possible opportunity. Archives Départementales de la Haute-Garonne, 12 J 30, fo 4. Abel Hugoleni, a notary from Aix, gave a similar choice to his son Jacques in a will dated April 27, 1595. Jacques could choose to pursue a career as a solicitor, a merchant, or a notary. Arch. dép. Aix, 303 E 248, fo 295 vo. The diary of notary Antoine Raimbert de Grasse describes how, after he had lost several members of his family to the plague in 1580, he and a friend both decided to become notaries. By no means does the decision appear to have been the result of long-term planning or deliberation. Bibl. de Carpentras, Carpentras, France, Ms 564 (L. 540), fo 126.
