Areas of activity for the notaries of Lille and its surrounding castellanyin the mid-18th-century

Of course, the Lille notaires, because of the very amount of deeds they car ried out, dominated notarial activity in the castledom. Yet, beyond a "peri -urban" area in which the power of the Lille notaires forbade the existence of any sort of competition, the legal fraternity could develop its trade w ith varying success. The areas of activity of these middle-rank officers th us made out a hierarchy between the notaires of the metropolis, those of th e small cities and those of the countryside. However, if an unavoidable com petition could be identified through the weight of the notaires as well as through the geographical scope of their activity, the way individuals resor ted to the services of these professionals imposed an obvious complementari ty. The importance of the deed, as it was felt by the contracting parties, created a de facto divide between, on the one hand, the neighbourhood notai re, who was trusted with lower value contracts, and on the other hand the n otaire of the capital city who, on top of the everyday business, dealt with more unusual cases.