Untitled - Monoskop

PENALTIES AND LAWSUITS
faict au contraire: et de cent marcs d'argent a nous a applicquer' 1
(CH 1518,
2.Cf.CH 1519,3; 1520,4; 1520,6; 1523, i; I525,2and 1526, 2), as well as one
naming a fine of twenty-five silver marks (CH 1524, 2). In two cases where we
know the terms of the enterinement by royal officers, it included a fixed fine: the
Lieutenant General of the Senechal of Lyon named 500 livres tournois in these
instances (CH 1509, 2 and CH 1512, 3).
The Parlement of Paris standardised on 'amende arbitraire', as indeed it
did in all mattersf where statutary offences were not involved. Henri Estienne
asked for a fine of 500 livres parisis (PA 1512, 7), Randin for 100 livres
(PA 1512, 10), Jean Petit for 500 livres parisis (PA 1512, 4) and on another
occasion for 100 silver marks (PA 1517, 8). The Parlement ignored this
particular item in their requests. It ignored, too, a request from Berthold
Rembolt and Pierre Gromors that the penalties for infringing the privilege
should include prison (PA 1517, i).
The Prevot of Paris, or his Lieutenant Civil, appears to have named a fixed
fine in only one case. This was the Paris University compendium., a sort of year
book, to be printed by Toussaint Denys. The Lieutenant Civil, Ruze, threatened
a fine of 10 livres for infringement of the privilege for it (PR 1517, i). A
privilege granted in 1525, on the other hand, names as the penalties the loss of
the books which should have been printed for sale in defiance of the privilege,
'amende arbitraire', and 'dommaiges et interestz dudit suppliant' (PR 1525,
2), that is, with costs. Otherwise all privileges issued on his authority of which
the terms are known mention confiscation and 'amende arbitraire'.
The only provincial Parlement which names specific fines in this period is
the Parlement of Toulouse. This threatened a fine of 100 gold marks in the
case of Nicolas Bertrand's Les gestes
des Tholosains (PA 1517, 3) and the
Consuetudines Tholose (PA 1523, 2), and fifty silver marks in the case of the
Articles et confirmations des privileges du pays de Languedoc (PA 1522, 7). Just after
the end of the period it named 100 silver marks as the fine for infringing the
privilege for Johannes Maurus' Expositio of the Adages of Erasmus (PA 1527,
i).
Pirating a privileged edition while the privilege was valid, within the
kingdom of France, might thus lead to severe punishment: confiscation of the
illegally printed copies, a fine which might be heavy if the fixed fines named
are anything to go by, and perhaps the costs of the case.
What action would a privilege-holder expect to take if he discovered copies
of the book being printed or sold other than his own? One of the royal
privileges goes into some detail about this, though
whether the procedure there specified is typical. The privilege-holder or his
it is difficult to know
legal representative was entitled to ask the huissier to seize the copies of the
book printed in defiance of the patent, and to summon the people in whose
1 The
marc was a specific weight of silver or gold, not money, in France.
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