Untitled - Monoskop

GRANT OF PRIVILEGE AND PERMISSION TO PRINT
to print it, and that it was not in the public interest to prevent any other
edition appearing for a week.
The Prevot of Paris, and senior officers of the Crown in the provinces, had
another occasion to inspect new books proposed for publication under
privilege if the successful applicant to the chancery brought his Letters Patent
to the local court for enterinement or registration. This meant that the
authenticity of the document was checked. It seems also that in some cases an
independent report on the book itself was called for. The elaborate lettres
d'attache obtained by Lemaire de Beiges for his royal privilege (CH 1509, 2),
from the Lieutenant General of the senechaussee of Lyon were given without any
such formality. But the privilege granted by the chancery to Guillaume
Eustace for two books (CH 1521, i) was recorded, signed and sealed by the
Prevot of Paris only after he had sought the opinion of certain conseillers in his
court and also of the procureur du roi. ('Et ouy sur ce 1'oppinion d'aucuns
conseillers du Roy nostre sire ou chastellet de Paris estans en la chambre du
conseil dudit chastellet. Ouy aussi sur icelles le procureur du Roy.') Why such
precautions were taken before authorising the registration
of the Letters
Patent of Eustace is not clear. One of the books was a devotional work by
Guillaume Alexis, a much-respected writer of the late fifteenth century, the
other selected letters of St Jerome in translation. Both were on religious
subjects, and both were in the vernacular, and the time was very close when
such works could no longer be published without the imprimatur of the Faculty
of Theology.
At first sight, there appears to be an omission in all these arrangements for
what was there
checking the contents of books before the grant of a privilege:
to prevent the privilege-holder from adding or altering things between
obtaining the grant and putting the book on sale? That the case of Geoffrey
Boussard before the Parlement (already noted) '
is the only one of its kind
suggests that most authors and publishers were too afraid of the consequences
of being found out, to do so. Not only would they instantly have forfeited the
privilege itself, but they could be proceeded against for contempt of court and
severely fined.
The only formal requirement that I have found, that the book, when
completed or in proof, should be brought to the court to be checked before
the Parlement of Toulouse for the
being sold is in the privilege given by
Consuetudines Tholose with which the city authorities as well as the Parlement
were concerned: 'pourveu que avant que ledict suppliant puisse vendre ledict
livre ou faire vendre, qu'il sera tenu nous monstrer la premiere impression
d'icelluy pour icelle communiquer ausdits cappitols affin que Ton le puisse
corriger et emender si besoing est et veoir s'il est bien' (PA 1523, 2). This is
clearly aimed at ensuring complete accuracy. There was, however,
1 See above, pp. 109-10.
116
to be a