Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne
Antoine Biétrix (1817-1904) wrote numerous texts in dialect, especially La lettre de Bonfol. Originally from Fregiécourt, he was interested in the spoken dialect of his region, the Ajoie, and hence the words from his dictionary are used in the district of Porrentruy. It is presented in the form of a dictionary in two columns, with the dialect on the left and the French on the right.
Online Since: 10/13/2016
This autograph by Antoine Biétrix contains anecdotes in patois which he collected and wrote down himself. The short stories give the people of Bonfol a terrible reputation. Even if the stories don’t concern the people of Bonfol directly, they are attributed to them, undoubtedly because the name of the village lends itself to such.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
An autograph (?) of François-Joseph Guélat, from Adrien Kohler. This work is a regular encyclopedia of the patois; the main part consists of two large dictionaries French-Patois and Patois-French. In compiling this manuscript, F.-J. Guélat, who was from the Ajoie, draws upon the dialect of his region.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
A two-column dictionary compiled by Ferdinand Raspieler, parish priest of Courroux (? – 1762). A note at the beginning of the dictionary indicates that it was written in order to serve justices and clergy in the Bernese Jura, who were impeded in their work because they did not know the dialect.
Online Since: 10/13/2016
This manuscript by Jean-Georges Quiquerez is a complement to Ferdinand Raspieler’s Dictionnaire patois with several changes. The dictionary contains translations in Latin and German, less frequently towards the end. In 1849 this work was used for the edition of the Paniers by Xavier Kohler and Ferdinand Feusier.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
This manuscript contains two grimoires (magic textbooks), the Dragon rouge (pp. 4-100) and the Poule noire (pp. 101-108), which were copied in 1846 from a 1521 original. The Dragon rouge “ou l’art de commander les esprits célestes, aériens, terrestres et infernaux” (p. 2) is a collection of writings in French, Italian and Latin. As for the Poule noire, this is a ritual for conjuring ghosts. Several ungainly drawings embellish the work, depicting, for instance, the devil (p. 33, 55) or cabalistic diagrams (p. 19, 54).
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This volume is the result of an organized selection of material gathered in the previous version (A3754). It consists of coats of arms, mostly carefully painted directly in the volume or glued in, supplemented by reproductions obtained through different procedures (photographs, lithographs, rubbings…), and even some originals (signatures). The armorial was originally conceived to be divided into several books: bishops (2r-29v), states (30r-35v), the feudal nobility (from f. 36r). Starting with f. 103r, however, the coherence begins to dissolve with the addition of coats of arms of bourgeois families of Delémont, then religious coats of arms connected to the abbey of Bellelay (117r-122v) and Lucelle (123r-127v). From f. 134r, the armorial concerns seals: bishops (134r-143v), clerics (144r-146v), towns and seigneuries (148r-151v and 155r), and nobility (152r-154v), to which are added coins and medals (156r-157v). The volume ends with a series of notes (162r-198v), including comments on the documents reproduced in the preceding sections.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Retired for health reasons in 1905, Abbé Daucourt (1849-1926), living in Delémont, began that same year an Armorial de Porrentruy. Completed in 1907, the volume was intended for the library of the town, of which he was a bourgeois. Painted throughout, this 118-plate volume is a compilation of coats of arms, primarily of the nobility, connected with local history. It also includes reproductions of seals, flags, and signatures. Scientifically unreliable, this armorial attests above all to the renewed interest for heraldry that marked the twentieth century, in the specific context of the affirmation of the Jura identity, in which Abbé Daucourt participated.
Online Since: 09/06/2023