188 - [MANUSCRIPT - BRITTANY]. Handwritten dictionary of Breton case law and customary law.

[MANUSCRIPT - BRITTANY]. Handwritten dictionary of Breton case law and customary law. A rare, autograph dictionary of case law in two large volumes bound in full vellum. No place of publication. [Rennes], n.d. [circa 1740–1750]. 2 in-4 volumes, full vellum, ribbed spines; the first volume adorned with a handwritten title label on cream-colored leather (“Notes Alphabeti” and partially erased number). XLVII (index) and 563 consecutively numbered folios; at the end of the second volume, about forty blank folios and an alphabetical table of contents. Some soiling on the bindings, primarily on the first volume (lower corners worn and small areas of leather missing from the spine); edges browned. An impressive autograph encyclopedic collection compiled by Louis Desnos, Lord of Les Fossés (1692–1781), a counselor and later President of the Parliament of Brittany. Conceived as a personal working tool, this dictionary compiles and summarizes local case law, royal edicts, and regulatory rulings specific to the province of Brittany in the mid-18th century. The manuscript offers a historical overview of economic life (legislation on sardine fishing, the trade in “rogue” along the southern Breton coast), regulations concerning public order and life in Rennes (strict bans on carrying swords and weapons imposed on law students and clerks in Rennes, a ban on popular games of chance), as well as inheritance and feudal practices (legal defects in wills, inheritance usurpation, and obligations to perform seigneurial labor). Of note on page 562 is a lengthy entry on “Cartes de Terrier,” detailing surveying methods and the creation of parcel maps. It contains a pen-and-ink map and a table dating back to 1508 documenting seigneurial rights. On the inside front cover, Desnos des Fossés has included a valuable bibliography. He drew upon the leading authorities of his time, beginning with regional law as represented by the works of Pierre Hévin (a leading specialist in Breton law) and the judicial decisions of Gerbier de Chaspel (a magistrate at the Parliament of Brittany). To address matters of family and property, he relied on the treatises by Dunod de Charnage, Louis Boullenois, and Anne Robert, recognized experts in wills and civil law. The management of seigneurial lands and complex estates, meanwhile, was grounded in the reference works of Pierre-Jean-Guyot on fiefs and Jean Mesle on the protection of minors. Finally, the text mentions the author’s own notebooks (“Mes mémoires”), proving that this dictionary was the nerve center of all his work as a magistrate. On the upper inside front cover of both volumes is the bookplate of Yvon Le Blohic, a Breton lecturer and bibliophile. A fine regional collection on the Breton judiciary in the 18th century.