Untitled - Monoskop

2 PRIVILEGE-GRANTING
AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, was
a favourable territory in which to try out the privilege-system. By then it was,
like Italy, a country in which the book-trade was highly developed, both in the
production of printed books and in the marketing of them. Unlike it Italy, was
a single state, with a formidable centralised administration which effectively
controlled the whole land. England was indeed as centralised as France, but
still had only a small native printing industry mainly serving local needs; a
high proportion of the printed books required in the country was imported
from abroad. ' The
French government did not need, as did that for instance of
Scotland or of Poland, to offer privileges to induce printers to come and work
in its cities. The natural play of economic forces had by 1500 brought printers
in abundance to Paris, Lyon, Rouen and other centres in France.
By the early sixteenth century a very large number of firms in France, great
and small, were making their living out of the manufacture or sale of printed
books, and a highly competitive situation was building up, especially in the
hunt for copy. Here as elsewhere there was probably a body ofopinion among
respectable printers and publishers which recognised the prior right of the
first publisher, and it regarded as unethical to reprint until he had had a
reasonable chance to sell his edition. But if reprinting was unethical it was not
illegal. It was clearly a temptation to unscrupulous rivals to make cheap
copies at once of a publication brought out with trouble and expense by the
original publisher. Authors or editors who had their works printed at their
own expense, or at least had some financial stake in their publication, were
equally threatened in their interests.
Printing in France began in 1470 and expanded over the ensuing thirty-five
years without any publisher or author feeling the need to obtain a privilege,
except for an isolated instance in 1498 (CH 1498, i). But in 1505 an
enterprising popular poet and impresario who was his own publisher, Pierre
Gringore, sought a privilege for his newest work (PR 1505, i). By 1507 a
leading Paris publisher, Antoine Verard, had secured from Louis XII a
grant, of which the full text is not extant, but which evidently covered for three
years any book which he should be the first person to publish (CH 1507, i).
1 Elizabeth Armstrong, 'English purchases of printed books from the Continent 1465-1526',
English Historical Review, xciv (1979), 268-90.
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