Laurent Bermen
Canadian notary
Laurent Bermen (fl. 1647–1649) was a notary at Quebec.
Historically, the first clerk of the court, Nicolas, to sign an act in New France did so in 1621. Bermen, in drafting acts during his tenure, referred to himself as the royal notary. This was not within his rights to do so since that type of appointment could only be made by the king or his representative. Nevertheless, he created 39 notarial acts in his time in the New World. Four more notaries who followed Bermen in the post acted on his precedent and used the title. They were: Claude Lecoustre (1647–1648), Guillaume Audouart (1649–1663), Jean Durand (1653–1654) and Louis Rouer de Villeray (1653–1657). None legally held the title.
Bermen would have fallen under the authority of the Company of One Hundred Associates (Compagnie des Cent-Associés) in regards to his work as a notary.
“Laurent Bermen” enters the record as canadian notary. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Laurent, Bermen and Canadian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6501042. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1647, 1649, 1621 and 1648.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laurent Bermen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.