Untitled - Monoskop

RELIGION
Eustace brought out an imposing volume of the letters of St Jerome in French
(CH 1521, i (2)). A small selection of the letters, translated for Anne of
Brittany, had appeared in the name of Jean de La Garde, under privilege
(PR 1519, i): the two-year priuilege for the earlier edition had by then
expired, and that of Eustace was of a nature to supersede it. Otherwise,
translations into French of such works are rarely to be found among books
was the first book to
qualifying for privileges. Les epistres Sainct Pol glosees
appear under the personal privilege of Antoine Verard (CH 1507, i (i)) and
St Augustine's Exposition sur le Psautier appeared 'cum priuilegio' (CP 1520, i).
On the other hand a simple broadsheet of devotions in verse, arranged within
and around the outline of a shield, under the title of Le blason des armes dupouvre
pescheur, devised by a journeyman bookseller named Pierre Aubry, was
granted a privilege by the Parlement (PA 1524, 4).
For the lives of saints, popular as these were with the general public, few
book-privileges were obtained. It may often have been hard for the applicant
to establish that a particular life, or translation of it into French, had never
been printed before. Antoine Verard and Guillaume Eustace each brought
out one saint's life under their respective personal royal privileges. Verard
published La vie monseigneur Sainct Germain (CH 1507, i (11)). St Germanus
(c. 378-448), bishop of Auxerre, played a commanding part in the history of
Gaul in his time; his cult was closely associated with the French monarchy
and is commemorated in innumerable dedications of churches in France.
Verard's may well have been the first printed translation into French of the
Vita. Eustace published a volume incorporating a life of St Clare of Assisi, La
perfection desfilles religieuses avec la vie et miracles de ma dame saincte Clare (CH 1 508,
2 (14)). Clement Longis^produced under privilege La vie et les miracles de Saint
Eusice (PR 1516, i), a saint venerated in only a few places in France but who
had supported king Childebert against the Arians. Nicolas de La Barre
obtained a privilege for the Papal Bull canonising St Francis of Paola,
(PA 1520, i) who had prophesied that Francis of Angouleme would one day
become king of France, and so did Galliot Du Pre for a French translation of
Petrus de Natalibus' Catalogue of Saints (PA 1524, 5).
By contrast, privileges were frequently sought and frequently given for
what might appear a somewhat forbidding category, namely sermons. There
was keen interest at this period, both among the clergy and among devout
laymen, in the courses of sermons delivered by eminent preachers of the time
or of the past. This does not only reflect interest in
religion: the pulpit was one
of the principal places from which uninhibited comment on public affairs and
social problems could be heard, not excluding denunciation of abuses in
church and state. In their published form, printed, as they were, in Latin, or
Latin with some explanations in French, they reached only
an educated
public, but it was evidently a large one. From the beginning of the privilege
system onwards, the first publisher to secure the text of such a collection of
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