Was a Seigneurie an Adequate Source of Income?

A few seigneurs enjoyed a better standard of living than the ordinary habitants, but as Jean-Pierre Wallot says, "... most of the seigneurs were not rich. Many lived no better than the more prosperous of the habitants, or were even reduced to working their lands themselves. Neither their army pay nor their civilian emoluments were enough ... an untilled seigneurie in the heart of the forest was not worth the half of a commoner's landholding that had already been cleared." Only a few of them could afford to live entirely off their rentes (annual dues.) According to Richard Colebrook Harris, a seigneur could not cover the maintenance costs of his seigneurie until at least twenty to fifty families had settled on it. Ony if some fifty or more concessions were under cultivation could he expect a profit.

The truth is that by the end of the French regime less than half the seigneurs were seeing that kind of return. In the late eighteenth century, although the population had increased and most of the holdings were operational, only a few seigneurs could afford to live entirely off the revenue from their seigneurial dues.