1 Ladurie, E. Le Roy, ‘Family structures and inheritance customs in sixteenth-century France’, in Goody, J., Thirsk, J. and Thompson, E. P. eds., Family and inheritance: rural society in western Europe 1200–1800 (Cambridge, 1976), 68.Google Scholar

2 Goody, J., The development of the family and marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar; Goody, et al. , Family and inheritance, (1976).Google Scholar

3 Goldschmidt, W. and Kunkel, E. J., ‘The structure of the peasant family’, American Anthropologist, 73 (1971), 1058–1076CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Augustins, G., ‘Esquisse d'une comparaison des systemes de perpétuation des groupes domestiques dans les societés paysannes européenes’, Archives Europeenes de Sociologie, 23 (1982), 39–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Thompson, E. P., ‘The grid of inheritance: a comment, in Goody, et al. , Family and inheritance, 218–361.Google Scholar

5 Smith, R., ‘Some issues concerning families and their property in rural England 1250–1800’, in Smith, R. M., ed. Land kinship and life cycle (Cambridge, 1984), 1–86.Google Scholar

6 Plakans, A., Kinship in the past: an anthropology of European family life 1500–1900 (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar

7 Wall, R., Robin, J. and Laslett, P., eds., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Goody, et al. , Family and inheritance, 28.Google Scholar

9 Chayanov, A. V., The theory of the peasant economy (Illinois, 1968)Google Scholar; Smith, ,‘Some issues concerning families’, 1–86.Google Scholar

10 Wheaton, R., ‘Family and kinship in western Europe: the problem of joint family households’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4, (1975) 604–28.Google Scholar

11 Smith, , ‘Some issues concerning families’, 86Google Scholar

12 Menken, L., ‘The nutrition fertility link: an evaluation of the evidence’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11, 3 (1981), 425–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Smith, ‘Some issues concerning families’.

14 Giddens, A., A contemporary critique of historical materialism (London, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Jones, A. M. and Siddle, D. J., ‘Sources for the reconstruction of peasant systems in an upland area of Europe 1561–1975’, Liverpool Papers in Human Geography, no. 3 (1982).Google Scholar

16 Perouse, G., ‘Etude sur les usages et le droit prive en Savoie au milieu de XVI^e siecle d'après les minutes de notaires de Chambery’, Memoirs de l'academic de Savoie 2, (1914), 308–618.Google Scholar

17 Chevallier, L., Recherches sur la reception du droit romain en savoie des origines a 1789 (Annecy, 1953)Google Scholar; Du, Pare, ‘La pénétration du droit romain en Savoie premier moitie du XIII^e’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger (1965)Google Scholar; Bautier, R. H. and Saunier, J., Les sources de l'histoire économique et sociale du Moyen Age, 2 (Paris, 1971), 1141–50.Google Scholar

18 Perouse, , ‘Etude sur les usages’, 317, 318, 329, 333, 334.Google Scholar

19 Yver, J., Essai de geographie coutumiére (Paris, 1966).Google Scholar

20 Assier-Andrieu, L., ‘Custom and law in the social order: some reflections upon French Catalan peasant communities’, Law and History Review, 1, 1 (1983) 88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 ‘Etude sur les usages‘, 309.

22 A full documentation of these sources is presented in Jones and Siddle, ‘Sources for the reconstruction of peasant systems’. From the vast array of notarial records all the entries for the communes of the Annecy upper lake basin were abstracted for sample years during the eighteenth century. References in the endnotes below merely give examples of entries which are sufficiently common to form the basis for generalisations. These generalisations generally accord with those made by Perouse, ‘Etudes sur les usages’ from the notarial records of Chambery from the late sixteenth century. A similar procedure was used to identify sample sources in the Journalier, Archive Communale de Montmin (hereinafter JACM).

23 Bruchet, M., Notice sur l'ancien cadastre de Savoie (Annecy, 1896)Google Scholar; Guichonnet, P., ‘Le cadastre Savoyard de 1738 et son utilisation pour les recherches d'histoire et de geographie sociale’, Revue de geographie alpine T, 43, (1955), 255–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vayssierre, B. et al. , Le cadastre sarde de 1730 en Savoie (Musée Savoisien, Annecy, 1981).Google Scholar

24 Perouse, ‘Etude sur les usages’.

25 Nicholas, J., La Savoie au 18^e siecle: noblesse et bourgeoisie, (Paris, 1978).Google Scholar

26 By far the largest number of the 4,500 transactions in the JACM (95%) were land sales and exchanges.

27 Cholley, A., Les pré-alpes de Savoie el leur avant pays (Paris, 1925).Google Scholar

28 Tabellion de Faverges (1697–1792), Archives départementales de Haute Savoie, Series E (hereinafter TF)

29 Testament of Maurice Arestan of La Cote son of Damien Arestan. (TF, 74, 1711, 2E fo. 548) guarantees enough to sustain his wife and money and a house for his daughter so that she can go to Lyon and work ‘to the profit of the house’ and (from a hundred years later) the testament of Maurice Peron of Forclaz (TF, 3, 1817, fo. 1405) settles livres de Piedmont 302.0.0. (£15.0.0. sterling) on each of three daughters and a pension for his wife of a carefully specified annual supply of oats, barley wine, butter, salt, cheese and a room in his house. (See also JACM, 1738, 196; TF, 1742, fo. 49; TF, 1778, fo. 22).

30 See figure 3 and other examples in the Journalier (JACM; fos 136, 264, 320).

31 Cession of rights by Jeanne Françoise Maniglier, widow of Claude Suscillion in favour of Joseph and Claude, her two sons, (livres de Piedmont 300. 0. 0. to pay augmentation in marriage contracts) a pension in kind which in addition to specified quantities of wheat, barley and oats, butter, cheese and salt also allocated to herself a pair of shoes and two dresses. She left herself the preference of staying with either son or with the daughters (TF. 3, 1817, fo. 1409). Other examples of female inheritance are to be found in the Journalier (JACM, 1, 17381792, fos 53, 131,202,216,260,289,296). Two Brachet sisters, La Maurise and Gasparde, were active in the land market between 1740 and 1748. (JACM, fos 187,260,261,273,303,304). 17 February 1740, Perrine and Franfoise Coutin became inheritors of the lands of their sister Maurise (JACM, fo. 90).

32 Tabellion d'Annecy (1697–1792), 74 (2E), f. 548, Archive départementales de Haute Savoie E (hereinafter ADHS).

33 For example, the Neyret family partition in which priest Bartholome ceded his rights as a co-partitioner to his eldest brother (JACM 1754, fo. 441).

34 On 4 May 1739, Jean and George Rulland, Uncle and nephew, registered lands which were previously noted under the column of the uncle alone in the Cadastre de Montmin of 1732 (JACM, 1, fo. 11).

35 Many such arrangements must have been made. They tend to come to light when partition agreements eventually become necessary. This happened between the Brachets, Gardiers and Rullands in 1762 and between the Rullands and Gardiers in 1773 (JACM, 1, fos 521–526 and 760765, see also JACM, fos 41, 146).

36 Testament of Eustache Coutin wills goods and lands to his sons and then to a principal grandson when he reaches the age of 20. (TF. 1747, fo. 143). A codicil to a testament of Claude Gardier alters a similar arrangement (TF, 1746, fo. 114. See also TF, 1741, fo. 49; TF, 1741, fo. 225; TF, 1742, fo. 124).

37 The examples of this are numerous in the journaliers and tabellions of the period. Between 1740 and 1750 there were approximately 80 heads of household in Montmin. Of these, ten percent were widow-guardians. These women seemed to wield considerable influence during their guardianship. JACM 1741, fos 201,211,212,264,265,309, JACM 1742, fos 219, 220; 1743, 224, 279.

38 For example La George Gardier, widow of Jean Valet who was guardian to her four sons between 1740 and 1750 made fourteen different land transactions on behalf of her children (JACM fos 48, 50, 234, 238, 240, 241, 242, 257, 273, 274, 295). Between 1744 and 1748 Gaspard Suscillion acted on behalf of his nephew, Claude (JACM, fos 245, 250, 251, 261, 278, fo. 245). In 1748 La Claudine Brachet, Claude's mother took over the responsibility for administering the estate (JACM, fos 278, 280, 287, 298), and arranged a portage with her brother-in-law on behalf of her son (JACM fo. 286).

39 This is at least the implications of the agreement reached between Maurice Brachet and Maurice Poncet (JACM, fos 244, 245).

40 Cholley, , Les pré-alpes de Savoie (1925).Google Scholar

41 The only specific example of a non-amiable partage that has come to light for Montmin was that between Maurice and Jean, two sons of Theodore Brachet. The dispute occupies four entries in the Tabellion de Fa verges of 1778. On the 11 August 1778 Maurice Brachet of the parish of Montmin ceded all his considerable lands, half to his brother Maurice, and half to his uncle Jean, to raise a capital sum of 13,000 livres. Two days later the contract with his uncle was annulled because it had been made’ sans avoir consulter les gens’. A week later, early in the morning of 20 August, the contract made between the two brothers only a week earlier was also annulled….‘Suyvant ses enonciatives et avoir parrer [pourrir?] un prejudice immense au parties tant parce qu'il ne pourrait vivre en paix avec son frere estant parceque le Maurice voulant conserver son frere au pays.…’ On the same day their mother, Philiberte Brachet, anxiously recontracted the pension rights due to her by will of her husband in 1762. (TF, 1788, fos 371 et seq.) The two alienated brothers then proceeded to a partage. (JACM, 1780, fo. 53). One is left to imagine the tensions which produced this unusual sequence of events.

42 JACM, 1754, fo. 434, identifies a cross-cousin linkage among the Rullands family which extends over five specified generations. See also JACM 1791, fo. 1149 for a similar situation for the Suscillions.Google Scholar

43 ADHS Series E. 1028 (5), 1490, 10 pieces; Curé de Montmin, the Registre de baptêmes (1537–1551) indicates five Suscillion ménages producing children in this period; (Gabelle de set 1561; ADHS, Series SA.)

44 Cadastre de Montmin ADHS, Series C.

45 Jones, A. M.,‘Population dynamics in a marginal area of Upland Europe’, (unpublished paper, Gulbenkian Institute Seminar, Lisbon, 1984).Google Scholar

46 TF, 1722, fo. 320.Google Scholar

47 JACM, 1739, fos 3 et seq.Google Scholar

48 JACM, 1750 fo. 375.Google Scholar

49 TF, 1725, fo. 157.Google Scholar The notary makes it very clear that the reason for ‘writing down’ this partage agreement, previously made in 1701 and sustained ‘verbally’, was to avoid any future confusions between inheriting children and cousins.

50 From the extremely detailed inventory of his goods (TF 1741, fo. 320) it is also clear that Maurice Suscillion (and presumably his father) had skills as a carpenter which supplemented his living as a peasant land owner; that his dwelling contained a large kitchen-dwelling room, a main kitchen-bedroom (poele) with two beds, two further rooms above the kitchen where Hugue his brother had his bed and where a ‘servant’, Maurisa Vallet, (who was the sister of Maurice's widow) also had her bed. Above the poele was to be found the family food store and the tools of Maurice Suscillion's trade. In a stable ‘several paces from the dwelling’ were a brood mare, six milk cows and a heiffer, two young oxen and five sheep. The stores of food in the house and the wine in the cellar near the jointly held vineyards in Montbogon, three kilometres away in the valley, give a clear indication of satisfactory subsistence with surplus to spend on a few luxuries, two pistols and, perhaps more surprisingly, a few books.

51 TF, 1741, fos 320–26.Google Scholar

52 JACM, 1751–68, fos 379, 395, 423, 423, 424, 482, 483.Google Scholar

53 JACM, 1768, fos 592–603.Google Scholar

54 TF, 1740, fos 360–361.Google Scholar

55 JACM, 1739–1753, fos 64, 245, 250, 251, 261, 278, 280, 283–287, 298; 304, 313, 358.Google Scholar

56 JACM, 1753, fo. 410.Google Scholar

57 JACM, 1773, fo. 741.Google Scholar

58 JACM, 1790, fo. 955.Google Scholar

59 T.F. 1740, fos 139 et seq.Google Scholar

60 Testament of Antoine Neyret and Claudine Rutland (TF, 1727, 31, fos 413–14). The average peasant dowry at this time was 233 livres de Savoie.

61 Codicil to Testament of Antoine Neyet and Claudine Rulland (TF, 1728, 32, fo. 11).

62 During the period 1738–54 Claude Neyret enacted 31 separate land transactions most of which were acquisitions. JACM, 1739, fo. 4 et seq.

63 JACM, 1754, fo. 442.Google Scholar