Untitled - Monoskop

OWNERSHIP, ENFORCEMENT, EFFICACY
Bouvet asked for a privilege for seven years in the Antiphoner of the
archdiocese of Rouen, which had never been printed before and had been
costly to print, their application was opposed by Pierre Lignant, another
Rouen bookseller. Lignant represented that he was Tung des plus antiens
libraires de ceste ville', and that he had prepared 'ung exemple entier et
parfaict desdits antiphoniers pour icelluy mectre en impression'. He requested
permission to print and sell his edition, and urged that the monopoly
should not be granted to Petit and Bouvet. But after hearing all the reports on
the case, and in agreement with the 'gens du roy', the Parlement awarded the
privilege to Petit and Bouvet, for six years, on condition that they should not
sell copies printed on parchment for more than twenty-two livres tournois and
on paper for more than four livres tournois (PA 1527, 3).
Conflicting or overlapping grants of privileges occur surprisingly seldom,
considering the number given and the diversity of authorities competent to
give them. There is apparently no instance up to 1526. There is, however, a
case in 1527-8 which merits attention. The Parlement of Bordeaux was
induced on 4 September 1527 to give a privilege to the local printer Jean
Guyart for the Coutumes of the city of Bordeaux and of the Bordelais, together
with those of the Landes, as revised by a royal commission going back to 1521,
and as finally approved and registered in the Parlement (PA 1527, 2). Secure
in possession of this privilege, which was to run for three years from the date
when he should complete the printing, Guyart had still not brought out his
edition in February 1528. Meanwhile no less a person than the greffier of the
Parlement, Maitre Jean de Pontac, applied to the royal chancery for a
privilege for the Coutumes in his own name, and duly obtained Letters Patent
dated Paris, the last day of February 1528, giving him for four years the sole
rights in the Coutumes, which he proposed to have printed at his own expense
(CH 1528, 2). While in Paris, Jean de Pontac duly placed an order for the
printing with Durand Gerlier, a highly respectable libraire jure of the univer-
sity, and a neat twenty-eight folio volume was soon ready, displaying
eulogistic dedications to the president of the Parlement of Bordeaux Francois
de Belcier and to other Bordeaux dignitaries, and the text of the royal
privilege on the verso of the title and following page. Guyart, finding that this
edition was being put on sale, brought an action before the Parlement of
Bordeaux against Jean de Pontac.
The situation must have been embarrassing for the Parlement. Not only
was Pontac in possession of a royal privilege, but he was the senior official of
the Parlement itself. However, the grant made by the Parlement to Guyart
was undeniably made first, and judgement was given in his favour, to the
extent that Pontac was forbidden to sell his edition during the three years that
Guyart's privilege was valid, on pain of a fine of a thousand livres. Guyart was
not awarded costs, and there was no mention of Pontac's edition being
confiscated. Having won his case, on 6 June 1528 Guyart brought out his own
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