Item #186 Traité sommaire de l’usage et pratique de la Cour de Rome. Perard Castel, Guillaume Noyer.
Traité sommaire de l’usage et pratique de la Cour de Rome
Traité sommaire de l’usage et pratique de la Cour de Rome
Traité sommaire de l’usage et pratique de la Cour de Rome
Traité sommaire de l’usage et pratique de la Cour de Rome

Traité sommaire de l’usage et pratique de la Cour de Rome

Publisher: Paris: Charles de Sercy, 1688.

Edition: Early edition

Binding: Contemporary full mottled calf, raised bands, gilt compartments, red sprinkled edges

Description: This 1688 Paris handbook offers a concise yet authoritative guide to the procedures of the Roman Curia as applied to French ecclesiastical benefices—a core administrative concern in the late seventeenth century, when relations between Rome and the Gallican Church were marked by tension, negotiation, and competing claims of jurisdiction. Printed by Charles de Sercy, one of Paris’s leading law printers, the volume distills the practical steps, signatures, and formalities required for securing provisions, resignations, and dispensations from Rome, offering a vivid window into how French ecclesiastics navigated the bureaucracy of the Holy See.

The work’s significance lies in its dual authorship: Perard Castel, avocat au Parlement and Grand Conseil, and Guillaume Noyer, a royal conseiller and experienced Curial banker-expeditionnaire. Their combined expertise yields a text that blends legal precision with practical instruction, making it an essential artifact for understanding the administrative and financial machinery of benefice distribution in Ancien Régime France.

Surviving in a handsome contemporary mottled calf binding with richly gilt spine compartments, this example retains the decorative printed signatures typical of Curial forms, a charming feature that underscores its administrative origins. Complete and clean internally, it stands out among surviving copies, which often appear heavily worn due to professional use.

Scarce in commerce and held by relatively few institutions worldwide, this volume is particularly relevant for collections in French legal history, canon law, Gallicanism, administrative history, and the history of European ecclesiastical bureaucracy. A well-preserved and attractive example, and a valuable primary source for scholars studying Church-State relations before the Revolution.

Condition: Very Good– (worn headcap, boards rubbed, but text clean and complete).

Annotation: Scarce 1688 Paris handbook detailing French procedures before the Roman Curia, printed for lawyers and ecclesiastical officers managing benefices and provisions. Attractive contemporary binding; uncommon in commerce.

Item #186

Price: $400.00

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