Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGES NOT OBTAINED
Lefevre, with missionary zeal, positively welcomed the re-printing of his
works in other countries. 1
They were produced there for the pupils of
Lefevre's former pupils, and doubtless in places and in quantities which posed
no threat to Estienne's sales. Financially Estienne was probably fairly secure,
the wealthy Guillaume Bric.onnet, bishop of Meaux, being a protector of
Lefevre. He may have been unconvinced of the usefulness of privileges for the
very specialised kind of book he was publishing, and thought them an
unnecessary expense.
A publisher who, unlike Estienne, soon began to seek privileges regularly
for his new undertaking, Josse Badius, left some gaps in his privilege-coverage
which are at first sight puzzling. There is no privilege for the first edition of
Geoffrey of Monmouth. This admittedly was in July 1508:
early to think ofobtaining a privilege. The 1517 reprint shows that there was a
of more
it would have been
certain demand for the book, but in 1508 it may have appeared
specialised interest, limited to Brittany and possibly to Great Britain: the
arms of Brittany appear in both editions and the promoter of the edition, Ivo
or Yves Cevallat, writing from the college of Quimper, was evidently Breton.
Such considerations also perhaps made it seem unnecessary to seek a privilege,
in the case of Badius'
though the book would probably have qualified for one,
Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum regum heroumque Historiae (1514), which was also
the first edition. Edited and perhaps partly subsidised by Christiern Pedersen,
there are 1 1 1 extant copies listed in the Inventaire chronologique; 2 of these only
eleven are in French libraries, and if that bears any relation to Badius's sales,
he may have been correct in thinking that a privilege which could only
protect him in France was not worth the outlay. In fact in France at least the
work of Saxo Grammaticus was not reprinted. In the case of Badius' edition
of St Hilary, Opera complura (1510), he included some works of which his
was the first edition: either the authorities did not think there was enough
inedit material in the book to warrant the issue of a privilege, or he himself
did not think so.
Gilles de Gourmont published the Praise of Folly of Erasmus on 9 June
1511. The second edition came out at Basle in August. Badius brought out
another edition of it, based on Gourmont's, 'revised and enlarged by the
author', on 27 July 1512. It was also printed by Schiirer at Strasburg in 151 1
and 1512. Subsequently it had numerous reprints. A privilege would have
enabled Gourmont to prevent a French reprint for two or three years, and to
prevent the import of copies printed abroad for the same time. It may be that
the Gourmont brothers were not yet 'privilege-conscious': neither Jean nor
1
E.g. Michael Hummelberg sent a copy of a book edited by Lefevre, first published by Estienne
on 20 November 1508, to Beatus Rhenanus in April 1509, 'ut tua diligentia Germanicae
iuuentuti typicis formis quam faberrime cures excudi'. On 30 July 1509 Beatus wrote back to
say that the book had duly been reprinted, at Strasbourg, and sent greetings to Lefevre. Rice,
The prefatory epistles, 201-3.
2 Moreau, Inventaire chronologique, 11, no. 365.
203