Paper and State - Burdens of Proof - page 122

essential requirement of reliable written evidence: “From today on, all
contracts and obligations, receipts and private acts, be, in addition to the
notaries' signatures, signed by the consenting parties when they know how
to sign, or if they do not know how, at their request, by an honest party
know to them.” 7 Citing the need to reduce litigation and unburden courts,
Louis the XIV's 1667 civil ordinance further declares that henceforth, no
witness testimony would be allowed to oppose such notarized documents
with respect to their contents or anything that might have been said
before, during, or since the signing.
The evidential value of registers developed through the practical needs
for reliable identiication — in much narrower form than what the concept
conveys today. When, in the early sixteenth century, the Bishop of Nantes
requires his priests to establish parish registers documenting baptisms, it
is solely to prevent marriages forbidden by “spiritual relationships” (e.g.,
godsons and godmothers). Royal authorities soon discover the usefulness
of such registers for combating fraud in the administration of ecclesiastical
benefits. With the aim of establishing an individual's date of majority, the
1539 Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts requires priests to hold “registers as
proof of baptisms, including the day and hour of birth” and declares the
power of such documents to testify to that effect. In spite of the material
and organizational difficulties met in implementing such requirements,
the 1579 Ordonnance de Blois further demands that priests uphold registers
of baptisms, marriages, and death. In order to “avoid proof by testimony
often required in court regarding birth, marriage, death, and burials,” the
Ordonnance requires that priests deposit their register yearly at the regional
greffe des jurisdictions .
Louis XIV's Ordonnance civile de 1667 significantly extends the role of
the registers by requiring they serve to testify to the status of persons: that
is, in addition to their date of birth, registers must record their filiation
and matrimonial status. The Ordonnance further specifies a number of form
requirements: inscriptions must be written down within days of the event,
without any blank space between them; registers must be held in double
originals, with the second copy (the grosse) to be deposited at the greffe des
jurisdictions within the first six weeks of the new year, where it will be
initialed at the beginning and end by the judge. These new requirements
are supported by an enhanced evidential status: parish registers will con-
stitute the default mode of proof of civil status in court, while testimony