For the record, note the following recent exchange of comments in Françoise Grenier's profile:
On 11 May 2018 at 17:05 GMT Claude Lambert wrote:
The quintessential link between Canadiens, habitants and cultivateurs: Histoire de mots, Go Habs Go ! Les Habitants : plus qu'un surnom, une légende ! par Élisabeth Laflamme, Printemps 2002, Québec français, pp. 103-105. See especially p. 105.
On 11 May 2018 at 10:48 GMT Gaston Tardif wrote:
To use the language of the time (17th century) as we should, we ought take concern for the following:
"Nous rencontrons ici, pour la première fois avec certitude, une spécification du sens premier d'habitant en Nouvelle-France: le terme désigne les gens établis au pays. Il ne s'agit plus seulement de Français qui habitent le pays, et qui sont susceptibles de repartir, mais de Français qui s'y fixent, et d'une façon plus définitive, qui s'y "habituent". Cet élément de fixité, de permanence, qu'acquiert le mot habitant dans la charte de 1627, nous le retrouvons dans des documents subséquents." And even read further: Essai sur l'évolution du mot Habitant. page 383
On 10 May 2018 at 18:47 GMT Claude Lambert wrote:
I'm sticking to Jean Talon's interpretation in 1666 census.
In the 1666 census' enumeration for Beauport:
- Robert Giffart [sic] is seigneur de Beauport but not an habitant.
- Denis Simon is escuyer, sieur de la Trinité but not an habitant.
- Nicolas Juchereau is sieur de Saint-Denis, habitant.
- Claude de Berman [sic] is sieur de la Martinière & juge prévôt du dit Beauport but not an habitant.
- Paul Vachon is notaire but not an habitant.
On 10 May 2018 at 18:31 GMT Danielle Liard wrote:
see page 385 and 386 of that document, the term gets used for the seigneurs as well, and the residents of Québec also. Since our man Noël Langlois was an early colonist, those are the most applicable sections. The word did mainly signify just inhabitant.
On 10 May 2018 at 17:50 GMT Claude Lambert wrote:
There is a most interesting treatment of the habitant issue in Konrad Fillion's 1970 article Essai sur l’évolution du mot habitant (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles).
There can be no question of the nearly synomymous relationship that exists in the XVIIth et XVIIIth between the terms habitants, Canadiens and cultivateurs.
On 10 May 2018 at 16:21 GMT Claude Lambert wrote:
Noël Langlois' family is listed as follows in the enumeration for Beauport of the 1666 census:
- 1666 - Noël Langlois, 60, veuf, habitant ; Jean, 16 ; Noël, 14 ; Jacques Masson. 20, et Abraham, 15, domestiques engagé
Each tête de famille is termed an habitant if he is a tenant farmer and/or if he has a non-habitant métier.
The census' ÉTAT GÉNÉRAL DES HABITANTS DU CANADA EN 1666 title suggests that in a more general way all people enumerated were collectively termed 'habitants' ;
17 têtes de familles of homes enumerated in the Hausse & Basse Ville de Québec are termed habitant.
19 têtes de familles of homes enumerated for Beauport, incl. Noël Langlois,, are termed habitant only. 9 other têtes de familles are not termed habitant but some other métier.
Some of the people in homes were enumerated as domestique engagé.
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P. S. Saying 'So I think too much has been made of this word.' is a rather subjective opinion