Notoriously, the French monarchy began to exchange judicial posts in its courts of law for cash to raise emergency funds in the early sixteenth century. The fact that all sorts of royal posts subsequently became venal or hereditary is a familiar aspect of ancien régime France, yet very little work exists on the genesis of this institution. This thesis traces the meanings, practices, and effects of 'venality' between 1490 and 1547. It does so by studying the relationship between the crown and the second most important law court of the kingdom, the Parlement of Toulouse. Traditional interpretations of office sale have tended to explain the phenomenon as a tale of royal hypocrisy, and have prioritised research on the Parlement of Paris. In contrast, this study argues that the study of a provincial court forces us to reconsider the chronology, techniques, and outcomes of early venality. A considerable amount of unexploited archival and printed material exists on office sale. By approaching it through the lens of legal culture, this thesis proposes an investigative model not only capable of explaining why venality emerged, but also why it was so vilified. Existing studies of office sale have tended to ignore legal talk and legislation as misleading or dissimulative. By paying particular attention to law and language, however, this study argues that the sale of judicial offices was a deeply ambiguous theme in the first half of the sixteenth-century that was open to constant interpretation. It was this very slipperiness that allowed a variety of actors to engage with it. Early office sale prolonged late medieval practices, but also heralded unprecedented changes, influencing the formation of the early-modern state. By studying the phenomenon, this thesis offers a rich and multifaceted picture of the relations and functioning of the crown and its tribunals.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-06-01T19:35:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 rafaeljosedepaulabraga.pdf: 841916 bytes, checksum: a3cc9fcc2f75c69eea94345e18ab6c73 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-06-02T15:59:47Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 rafaeljosedepaulabraga.pdf: 841916 bytes, checksum: a3cc9fcc2f75c69eea94345e18ab6c73 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-02T15:59:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 rafaeljosedepaulabraga.pdf: 841916 bytes, checksum: a3cc9fcc2f75c69eea94345e18ab6c73 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-26 / A venalidade de ofícios foi uma prática facilmente localizada e bastante difundida na monarquia espanhola, sendo utilizada pela Coroa como uma saída nos momentos de dificuldade financeira. No caso português, por sua vez, essa prática carece de pesquisa mais aprofundada, que busque perceber sua frequência e extensão. O presente trabalho procura exatamente determinar a existência da venalidade na administração lusitana e definir as maneiras pelas quais ela acontecia, focando sua análise nas Minas Gerais da primeira metade do século XVIII, período de institucionalização política da administração metropolitana na região e aumento da densidade populacional. Além disso, esse estudo quer também enxergar a venalidade na sociedade em que está inserida, baseando-se na virada historiográfica de autores como João Fragoso, Maria de Fátima Gouvêa e Fernanda Bicalho e no conceito de Antigo Regime nos Trópicos. Ideias como economia do dom, mercês, autoridades negociadas, monarquia pluricontinental e poderes municipais estão todas presentes na visão do meio social em que a venalidade cresceu e se desenvolveu, encaixando-se nesse meio o qual, a primeira vista, poderia parecer oposto a essa prática. Assim, busca-se perceber os aspectos e características principais que a venda de ofícios assumiu em território luso não de maneira isolada, mas sem nunca perder de vista a sociedade em que ela se faz presente. Uma sociedade em que possibilidades de ascensão social existiam e eram perseguidas, com a venalidade podendo ser utilizada com esse propósito de mobilidade. / The venality of occupations was an easily located and well spreaded practice in the Spanish monarchy, being used by the Crown as a way out at the moments of financial distress. In the Portuguese case, on other hand, that practice lacks of a deeper investigation, which seeks to notice its frequency and extension. This current paper looks exactly to determinate the existence of the venality in the Lusitanian administration and to define the ways in which it used to happen, focusing its analysis at the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in the eighteen century first half, period of political institutionalization of the metropolitan administration in the region and a several increase of the populational density. Besides that, this study wants also see the venality at the society in which its inserted, based on the historiographic turn of authors like João Fragoso, Maria de Fátima Gouvêa and Fernanda Bicalho and in the concept of Ancient Regime at the Tropics. Ideas like gift economy, graces, negotiated authorities, pluricontinental monarchy and municipal rulings are all present at the vision of the social environment in which the venality grown and developed itself, fitting in that environment which, at first sight, could look straight opposite to that practice. It seeks, therefore, to notice the aspects and main qualities that the sale of occupations took in Lusitanian territory not in an isolated manner, but without losing sight of the society in which it makes itself present. A society in which possibilities of social rise existed and it were pursuit, with the venality being able to be used at that mobility purpose.

Le régime d'autorisation est traditionnellement présenté comme un instrument depolice institué dans le but d'éviter que l'exercice de certaines libertés ne trouble l'ordre public. De cette fonction du régime d'autorisation se déduisent les principaux caractères de l'acte d'autorisation, acte unilatéral de police, précaire et incessible. Chacun de ces caractères se trouve cependant partiellement démenti par certaines évolutions du droit positif, en particulier par le phénomène de patrimonialisation qui touche un nombre croissant d'autorisations. Jusqu'à présent, ces évolutions n'ont été appréhendées que comme des exceptions à des principes dont la prétention à la généralité valait encore. L'ampleur de ces évolutions invite cependant à douter de la pérennité d'une telle présentation. L'objet de cette recherche est de montrer que ces évolutions sont la conséquence de ladiversité fonctionnelle du régime d'autorisation. En effet, le régime d'autorisation n'est pas nécessairement un instrument de police. Il est également utilisé comme un moyen soit de répartir l'accès à une ressource rare, soit d'organiser l'exercice d'une activité d'intérêt général. Cette diversité fonctionnelle du régime d'autorisation donne naissance à des catégories d'autorisations, catégories qui, une fois ordonnées, forment une typologie. Cette approche plurielle permet de comprendre pourquoi les autorisations répondent à des régimes juridiquesdifférents. / The authorisation scheme is traditionally presented as a policing system. From thisfunction of the authorisation scheme one can deduce the principal characteristics of the authorisation, unilateral police decision, precarious and untransferable. However, each of these characteristics is refuted by certain developments of substantive law, particularly by the phenomenon of patrimonialisation which affects an increasing number of authorisations. Until now, these developments have only been understood as exceptions to well-established principles. However, the scope of these developments casts doubt on the durability of such a way of seeing.The objective of this research is to show that these developments are the consequence of the functional diversity of the authorisation scheme. The authorisation scheme is not necessarily a policing system. It is also used as a means to allocate resources or to organise an activity of general interest. The functional diversity of the authorisation scheme gives rise to several categories of authorisations, categories that once organised form a typology. This pluralapproach makes it possible to understand why the authorisations operate under different legal frameworks.

In this thesis I discuss the nature of ‘measurement’ in quantum theory. ‘Measurement’ is associated with several different processes: the gradual imprinting of information about one system onto another, which is well understood; the collapse of the wavefunction, which is ill-defined and troublesome; and finally, the means by which inferences about unknown experimental parameters are made. I present a theoretical extension to an experimental proposal from Leggett and Garg, who suggested that the quantum-or-classical reality of a macroscopic system may be probed with successive measurements arrayed in time. The extension allows for a finite level of imperfection in the protocol, and makes use of Leggett’s ‘null result’ measurement scheme. I present the results of an experiment conducted in Oxford that, up to certain loopholes, defies a non-quantum interpretation of the dynamics of phosphorous nuclei embedded in silicon. I also present the theory of statistical parameter estimation, and discover that a recent trend to employ time symmetric ‘postselected’ measurements offers no true advantage over standard methods. The technique, known as weak-value amplification, combines a weak transfer of quantum information from system to meter with conditional data rejection, to surprising effect. The Fisher information is a powerful tool for evaluating the performance of any parameter estimation model, and it reveals the technique to be worse than ordinary, preselected only measurements. That this is true despite the presence of noise (including magnetic field fluctuations causing deco- herence, poor resolution detection, and random displacements), casts serious doubt on the utility of the method.

This thesis will contend that a permanent body of military force under royal command, a ‘standing army’, arose during the first three decades of the seventeenth century in France. Such a development constituted a transformation in the nature of the monarchy’s armed forces. It was achieved by encouraging elements of the French nobility to become long-term office-holders within royal military institutions. Those members of the nobility who joined the standing army were not coerced into doing so by the crown, but joined the new body of force because it provided them with a means of achieving one of the fundamental ambitions of the French nobility: social advancement for their family. The first four chapters of this thesis thus look at how the standing army emerged via the entrenchment of a system of permanent infantry regiments within France. They look at how certain families, particularly from the lower and middling nobility, attempted to monopolise offices within the regiments due to the social benefits they conferred. Some of the consequences that arose from the army becoming an institution in which ‘careers’ could be pursued, such as promotion and venality, will be examined, as will how elements of the the nobility were vital to the expansion of the standing army beyond its initial core of units. Chapters Five and Six will investigate how the emergence of this new type of force affected the most powerful noblemen of the realm, the grands. In particular, it will focus on those grands who held the prestigious supra-regimental military offices of Constable and Colonel General of the Infantry. The thesis concludes that the emergence of the standing army helped to alter considerably the relationship between the monarchy and the nobility by the end of the period in question. A more monarchy-centred army and state had begun to emerge in France by the late 1620s; a polity which might be dubbed the early ‘absolute monarchy’. However, such a state of affairs had only arisen due to the considerable concessions that the monarchy had made to the ambitions of certain elements of the nobility.

Diploma work "Problems of house price reduction due to defects manifested with damp" deals with the issue of property valuation and subsequent sale of the defect. The first chapter describes valuation and other important factors relating to the Act valuation. The second chapter deals with the necessary documentation for property valuation and basic terminology. The third section deals with defects that could occur in the residential building as well as their possible correction. Another part of this work is focused on the actual valuation of the object to a defect with property damage and the last chapter deals with the actual real estate market and the subsequent sale of such property with the defect. The attachments of the case study is then focused on the valuation of the house and without defects and possible solutions and proposed procedures for sale.