In 1651, the Duc de Bouillon exchanged the principality of Sedan against the duchies of Albret and Château-Thierry. After the Fronde, magistrates chosen from within the Parliament of Bordeaux and the Chambre des comptes de Navarre were commissioned to tag a price to Albret peerage. Their methods as well as their figures suggest how much this value depended on the lord’s rank. Following choices by the Dukes’€™ council yield additional insights into this economy of dignity. Land contracts concluded with respect to leases and transfers of land rights reveal the originality and paradoxes of rural society in Bourbonnais. At the same time, these contracts enable us to better understand why joint possessions and associative forms of work organization, as well as life and coexisting communities, predominated in this region. The central position held by sharecropping and the very particular meaning of this type of contract are emphasized and analyzed. But beyond this specific type of agreement, the wide range of contractual practices display a noteworthy coherence: the relationship between the sharecropper and his master, the relationships within family communities (not only sharecroppers, but also land owning peasants), and even characteristic forms of land tenure reveal significant similarities with respect to access to land and the organization of work.