Untitled - Monoskop

GROUNDS FOR SEEKING AND GRANTING PRIVILEGES
dedication shows that the plan had powerful backing. It was addressed to the
queen, who is said to have taken a keen interest in the work of the commission
which drew up the Coulume, by one of the two commissioners appointed to
preside over it, Jean Prevost, himself a native of Blois. As a conseiller of the
Parlement, Prevost was in a position to facilitate the grant of a privilege. It
was issued on the usual grounds of enabling the sponsors of the publication to
recover their expenses. But the dedication emphasises the theme of public
usefulness, and this may have featured among the arguments put forward by
the applicants.
It might be expected that not only the greffier but some other official ofone of
the courts competent to grant privileges would, on occasion, himself obtain a
privilege for some new item for publication which had come into his hands.
The only such case seems to be that ofJean Baudouyn, huissier of the Council
and chancery of the duchy of Brittany. Letters Patent were issued to him on
the authority of the Council in the chancery of Brittany in the name of the
king, who was then in captivity in Spain, and who is described as the
usufructuary and administrator of the duchy for his eldest son, his wife Queen
Claude the heiress of Brittany having died the previous year. The privilege
(CH 1525, 3) was for the statute, ordonnances et edit drawn up to regulate the
style or procedure of the Breton courts, which had been approved by Louise
of Savoy as Regent at Condrieu in September, and the Letters Patent were
given at Rennes on 25 October 1525. Baudouyn did not have the sort of
claim to an interest in this copy that the local greffiers could plead for the
Coutumes of their area; he would not have been directly concerned in drawing
up the official text. But he was an important official whose duties would
include enforcement of the regulations, such as summoning persons required
to appear before the Council. And he had an additional qualification: he was
himself a printer. This is not only mentioned in the Letters Patent ('ses
experiences oudict art de imprimerie') but attested by an edition printed by
him dated Rennes, 21 May 1524, the Liber Marbodi, 1
produced in association
with a well-known bookseller and publisher of Rennes, Jean Mace,
for the
bishop of Rennes. As the only printer in Rennes at that time, Baudouyn was
indeed an obvious choice, though he is not known for certain to have printed
anything afterwards, no doubt finding his work as huissier hard to combine
with even part-time operation of a press and a good deal more lucrative.
THE CRITERION OF NEWNESS
All French authorities concerned with granting book-privileges normally
restricted them to texts which were being published for the first time. If the
1
I.e. Works of Marbode, bishop of Rennes 1096-1 123. 1524, 8". BN Res.pvc 1533. Cf. Lepreux,
Gallic Typographica^ iv, pp. 19-24.
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