ABSTRACT
The account of family strife and legal dispute narrated above is hardly exceptional and in that regard it will serve as a useful center-point for this study. The dispute between brothers Pierre and Jean Delamare represents common discontent and
disagreement over inheritance and transfer of property, especially when a woman was involved, in the early sixteenth century in Rouen (and elsewhere). That the dispute moved in and out of a court and ended in a settlement formalized before a notary is also not extraordinary and yet is of great interest. This case represents the agency of people in resolving civil disputes as well as the importance of notaries over the courts in this process. The notaries bore witness to a resolution that the courts only played a tangential role in inuencing. Although going to court and appealing to its legal authorities may have been an option, it was not necessarily the most common or denitive option for resolving a dispute.
