The records of the community of the Beauvais curates allow us to study the way in which these priests define, at the time of Catholic Reformation, the parish framework, the pastoral links and their own ministry. In competition with numerous and active regular establishments, the urban parish is considered, not as a territory, but as a flock, a group of faithful closely controlled by their curate.
... [Show full abstract] This latter dreams of an exclusive domination on a parish space that would be freed from both the initiatives of the churchwardens and the intervention of the regular clergy. Such pretensions lead to unavoidable conflicts and arouse exchanges and debates. All of them opportunities, for the Beauvais curates, to develop a renewed conception of the cura animarum: being the only one in charge of his parishioners' salvation, the curate defines himself as their director of conscience but also as the one who must preside over their instruction.
