DCHP-1 Online

seigneury seigniory [< F]

• 1a n. Hist. in French Canada: a tract of land granted under conditions of feudal tenure by the French Crown, the seigneurial rights obtaining until 1854.

  See also: barony (def. 2)  fief  

  • 1703  (1905)  [There is] a seignory or manour.
  • 1711  (1920)  Two Leagues further [is] a Seigniory called S^t Ann where there is about forty men.
  • 1764  The entire Seigneurie is offered to be sold for 38,000 livres.
  • 1846  . . . a large grant of land on the Western bounds of this Province, called the Seigniory, [is] situate for an extent of two leagues round the Tamasquatta Lake. . . .
  • 1964  Frank Jarvis . . . now lives on the site of the Dower House of the Hurtubise seignory in Westmount. . . .

• 1b n. Hist. in French Canada: a large land grant in the hinterland, exploited for furs, fish, etc.

  • 1789  For Sale . . . the fief or seigniory of Point au Pere situate in the Parish of Rimousky, containing three quarters of a league in front, the best adapted in the Province for the Indian trade.
  • 1808  After sailing thirty one leagues along high, steep, rugged rocks on the one hand and nothing but the open sea the most of the way on the other, we arrived at the Head Post of the seignory the next day.
  • 1840  (1860)  The French, when forming stations for the fur-trade at its western extremity, were tempted by the fertile banks of the Detroit, between Lakes Erie and St. Clair, and established a number of seigniories similar to those on the St. Lawrence in Lower Canada.
  • 1956  We steamed out of a sparkling white fog one day into another of the Montagnais centres--Mingan, which means "wolf," and which was once part of an ancient French seigniory.
  • 1966  Grant . . . survived a murder trial in Quebec and, by 1824, had become the holder of the West's only seigniory.

• 1c n. Hist. in French Canada: the manor or house of a seigneur (def. 1).

  See also: seigneur (def. 1)  seigneury house  

  • 1896  Behind the Manor Casimbault and the Seigneury, thus flanking the Church at reverential distance, another large house completed the acute triangle, forming the apex of the solid wedge of settlement drawn about the Church.
  • 1938  (1939)  In the country districts and in Montreal and Quebec there are old Manors and houses with shelving roofs and gables to remind us of the Seigneuries.

• 2 n. Hist. one of the townships of early Lower Canada, especially as represented in the legislature, so called because coterminous with a seigneury (def. 1a).

  See also: seigneury (def. 1a)  

  • 1828  It has been stated by one of the witnesses, that under the proposed division, a disproportionable increase would have been given to the Representatives from the Seigneuries.
  • 1835  In some of the seigniories there are separate schools for girls.
  • 1903  They were not to be referred to as townships, but as royal seigneuries.
  • 1929  Farther east they founded "free" townships instead of feudal seigneuries to the south of the St. Lawrence and on the lower Ottawa.

• 3 n. Que. See quote.

  • 1966  He [Premier Lesage] said unexploited free-hold forests in private hands--known as "seigniories"--will also be expropriated.