Resident seigneurs and notability in the Saint Lawrence valley (17th to 19th century)

For more than two centuries, Saint-Lawrence valley (Quebec) lived under seigneurial system, established at the beginning of French regime, maintained by the British and abolished in 1854. By studying the seigneuries inhabited by seigneurial families, this paper seeks to illustrate the specificities of rural notability in pre-industrial Quebec, in a period of settlement. Relations between local notables and seigneurial families provide an opportunity to examine the social mobility which insert many commoners among Canadian seigneurs, especially in the group of the seigneurs who reside. The analysis of some seigneurial families tend to question their notable status.