Where a seigneur erected a church at his own expense it was customary to let him have the patronage, or right of naming the priest.  This was an honour which the seigneurs seem to have valued highly.  ’Every one here is puffed up with the greatest vanity,’ wrote the intendant Duchesneau in 1681; ’there is not one but pretends to be a patron and wants the privilege of naming a cure for his lands, yet they are heavily in debt and in extreme poverty.’  None of the great bishops of New France—­Laval, St Vallier, or Pontbriand—­had much sympathy with this seigneurial right of patronage or advowson, and each did what he could to break down the custom.  In the end they succeeded; the bishop named the priest of every parish, although in many cases he sought the seigneur’s counsel on such matters.

In the church of his seigneury the lord of the manor continued, however, to have various other prerogatives.  For his use a special pew was always provided, and an elaborate decree, issued in 1709, set forth precisely where this pew should be.  In religious processions the seigneur was entitled to precedence over all other laymen of the parish, taking his place directly behind the cure.  He was the first to receive the tokens of the day on occasions of religious festival, as for example the palms on Palm Sunday.  And when he died, the seigneur was entitled to interment beneath the floor of the church, a privilege accorded only to men of worldly distinction and unblemished lives.  All this recognition impressed the habitants, and they in turn gave their seigneur polite deference.  Along the line of travel his carriage or carriole had the right of way, and the habitant doffed his cap in salute as the seigneur drove by.  Catalogne mentioned that, despite all this, the Canadian seigneurs were not as ostentatiously given tokens of the habitants’ respect as were the seigneurs in France.  But this did not mean that the relations between the two classes were any less cordial.  It meant only that the clear social atmosphere of the colony had not yet become dimmed by the mists of court duplicity.  The habitants of New France respected the horny-handed man in homespun whom they called their seigneur:  the depth of this loyalty and respect could not fairly be measured by old-world standards.

As a seigneur of lands the Church had the right to hold courts and administer justice within the bounds of its great estates.  Like most lay seigneurs it received its lands with full rights of high, middle, and low jurisdiction (haute, moyenne, et basse justice).  In its seigneurial courts fines might be imposed or terms of imprisonment meted out.  Even the death penalty might be exacted.  Here was a great opportunity for abuse.  A very inquisition would have been possible under the broad terms in which the king gave his grant of jurisdiction.  Yet the Church in New France never to the slightest degree used its powers of civil jurisdiction to work oppression.