Untitled - Monoskop

FAIR RETURN, AND OTHER ARGUMENTS
enhorter de bien en mieulx pour les faitz contenuz en iceluy livre . . .' (PR 1521, 4, cf.
PR 1523, 5)
No application is known which fails to give prominence to the economic
argument: the enterprise and outlay of the applicant
will not obtain a
reasonable reward unless he is given a fair chance to sell his edition before it
can be reprinted in France or cheap reprints from abroad can be put on sale.
Other applicants
Not all privilege-seekers were authors or libraires. One category of privilegeholders
exists which comes under the heading neither of 'authors' nor of
'publishers', though their grounds for seeking the privilege had more affinity
with that of authors. These were the greffiers who obtained privileges for the
Coutumes of the jurisdiction within which they exercised their office. It was
their responsibility to see that the text, as finally determined by the commis-
sioners, was correctly recorded and transcribed for eventual approval by the
king and registration by the Parlement. The greffiers asked the Parlement for a
privilege 'pour les recompenser de leurs peines' as those of Orleans said
(PA 1510, 2). When applying to the royal chancery, it was sometimes thought
appropriate to elaborate on the usefulness of the project. Thus Pierre
Marchant, grejfier of Poitou, ini5i7, did not claim that his plan to finance a
printed edition of the revised coutume was new, but that more copies were
badly needed: 'And it has already been copied several times, but, because
the said copies are not enough to supply everyone who wishes to possess the
said Coustumier, and also because writing it out is laborious, the said
suppliant would like to have it printed and would bear the expense of the said
printing, if it was agreeable to us also that none but he should it print for a
time.' 1
A different kind of initiative, in which the community itself ensured that the
local Coutume should be available in is
print, exemplified by the action of the
echevins, manans et habitant of Blois in 1524. They themselves obtained a
privilege for it (PA 1524, 1 1) and employed a Paris firm to print it. They may
have come to some arrangements with their printers, who were also booksell-
ers, to assist with marketing copies of the book in Paris, but they were clearly
themselves the publishers. The colophon states that the Coutumes were
'imprimees a Paris par Anthoine et Nicolas les Couteaulx, imprimeurs oudit
Paris, pour messeigneurs les eschevins de ladicte ville de Bloys. Et furent
achevees le .xxiiii e . jour de Septembre L'an mil cine cens .xxiii.' The
Et ja a este coppie plusieurs fois, mais par ce que lesdictes copies ne sont suffisantes a fournir a
chascun qui appete avoir ledit Coustumier aussi que 1'escripture d'icelluy est onereuse ledit
suppliant le feroit voulentiers imprimer et feroit les frais de ladicte impression s'il nous plaisoit
aussi que autre que luy ne le fist imprimer pour quelque temps (CH 1517, 5).
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