FYI December 18, 2019

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On This Day

1854 – The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada abolishes the seigneurial system.[1]
The manorial system of New France was the semi-feudal system of land tenure used in the North American French colonial empire.[1]

Both in nominal and legal terms, all French territorial claims in North America belonged to the French king. French monarchs did not impose feudal land tenure on New France and the king’s actual attachment to these lands was virtually non-existent.[2] Instead, landlords were allotted land holdings known as manors and presided over the French colonial agricultural system in North America.

Manorial land tenure was introduced to New France in 1627 by Cardinal Richelieu.[3] Richelieu granted the newly formed Company of One Hundred Associates all lands between the Arctic Circle to the north, Florida to the south, Lake Superior in the west, and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. In exchange for this vast land grant and the exclusive trading rights tied to it, the Company was expected to bring two to three hundred settlers to New France in 1628, and a subsequent four thousand during the next fifteen years. To achieve this, the Company subinfeudated almost all of the land awarded to it by Cardinal Richelieu — that is, parceled it out into smaller units that were then run on a feudal-like basis and worked by habitants.

The lands were arranged in long narrow strips called seigneuries or fiefs along the banks of the St. Lawrence River, its estuaries, and other key transit features. This physical layout of manorial property developed as a means of maximizing ease of transit, commerce, and communication by using natural waterways (most notably, the St. Lawrence river) and the relatively few roads. A desirable plot had to be directly bordering or in very close proximity to a river system, which plot-expansion was limited to one of two directions—left or right.[4]

Despite the official arrangement reached between Cardinal Richelieu and the Company of One Hundred Associates, levels of immigration to French colonies in North America remained extremely low. The resulting scarcity of labor had a profound effect on the system of land distribution and the habitant-seigneurial relationship that emerged in New France.

King Louis XIV instituted a condition on the land, stating that it could be forfeited unless it was cleared within a certain period of time.[5] This condition kept the land from being sold by the seigneur, leading instead to its being sub-granted to peasant farmers, the habitants.[5]

When a habitant was granted the title deed to a lot, he had to agree to accept a variety of annual charges and restrictions. Rent was the most important of these and could be set in money, produce or labour. Once this rent was set, it could not be altered, neither due to inflation or time.[6] An habitant was essentially free to develop his land as he wished, with only a few obligations to his seigneur. Likewise, a seigneur did not have many responsibilities towards his habitants. The seigneur was obligated to build a gristmill for his tenants, and they in turn were required to grind their grain there and provide the seigneur with one sack of flour out of every 14. The seigneur also had the right to a specific number of days of forced labour by the habitants and could claim rights over fishing, timber and common pastures.[7]

Though the demands of the seigneurs became more significant at the end of French rule, they could never obtain enough resources from the habitants to become truly wealthy, nor leave their tenants in poverty.[8] Habitants were free individuals; seigneurs simply owned a “bundle of specific and limited rights over productive activity within that territory”. The seigneur–habitant relationship was one where both parties were owners of the land, who split the attributes of ownership between them.[9]

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Born On This Day

1922 – Esther Lederberg, American microbiologist (d. 2006)
Esther Miriam Zimmer Lederberg (December 18, 1922 – November 11, 2006) was an American microbiologist and a pioneer of bacterial genetics.[1] Notable contributions include the discovery of the bacterial virus λ,[2] the transfer of genes between bacteria by specialized transduction, the development of replica plating,[2] and the discovery of the bacterial fertility factor F (F plasmid).

Lederberg also founded and directed the now-defunct Plasmid Reference Center at Stanford University, where she maintained, named, and distributed plasmids of many types, including those coding for antibiotic resistance, heavy metal resistance, virulence, conjugation, colicins, transposons, and other unknown factors.

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FYI

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Today’s email was written by Stacy Conradt, edited by Annaliese Griffin, and produced by Tori Smith. Quartz Obsession: Danish butter cookies: The cookie we love almost as much its packaging
 
 
 
 
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By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY: Kelly Clarkson on other coaches missing ‘The Voice’ champ Jake Hoot in auditions: ‘Thank you!’

https://youtu.be/665mX9uWpsU
 
 
 
 
By Rocky Parker, Beyond Bylines: Year in Review: The 10 Most-Viewed Beyond Bylines Posts of 2019
 
 
 
 
By Bill Chappell, NPR: Fiat Chrysler And Peugeot Sign 50-50 Merger Deal
 
 
 
 
By Hannah Knowles, The Washington Post: Puppies may be behind outbreak that’s sickened people in 13 states, officials say
No single supplier has been connected to cases of the illness, which often involves bloody diarrhea and can be transmitted through animal feces. But investigations so far link 12 affected people to Petland, a national chain implicated in a previous spate of puppy-related illness involving the same kind of bacteria, campylobacter. Five of those 12 people were Petland employees, the CDC said.
 
 
 
 
By Julie Cattiau Product Manager, Google AI: How Tim Shaw regained his voice
 
 
 
 
The Rural Blog: Study finds cooperatives deployed most rural fiber broadband, recommends ways to help co-ops do more; Project aims to capture the wide variety in Appalachian accents in North Carolina and instill pride in its speakers and more ->
 
 
 
 
Kathryn’s Report: Loss of Engine Power (Partial): Bell OH-58A Kiowa, N109PD; accident occurred April 16, 2019 near North Omaha Airport (3NO), Douglas County, Nebraska; de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, N1544: Accidents occurred October 07, 2019 and January 24, 2018 in Kodiak, Alaska and more ->
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Recipes

Recipe courtesy of Melissa d’Arabian: Gluten-Free Gingerbread Men
 
 
Recipe courtesy of Valerie Bertinelli: My Mom’s Lasagna