Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
similar grant to Guillaume Eustace, bookseller to the king, for two years
(CH 1508, 2), also known only from summaries, which seems likewise to have
applied to new books, but perhaps only within certain categories. Eustace
mentioned it in sixteen of his books, and had a special printer's mark made for
use in some of these (see Plate i). On other occasions he applied for an
ordinary privilege as other publishers did (CH 1514, 3; 1517, 2; 1521, i) and
not only to the royal chancery but to the Parlement of Paris (PA 1510, 4; 1512,
5; 1512, 9). To beneficiaries other than Verard and Eustace no such personal
privileges were given, but a considerable number of Letters Patent were
issued which included two or more books in a single privilege, a few even for a
veritable 'package' of anything up to eight books (e.g. CH 1512, i). Thus over
150 books may have appeared during this period under grants from the royal
chancery.
All these privileges were granted in response to a petition. The initiative
came from the authors and the publishers. But the king and his chancery were
not unprepared for the demand when it came. The chancery was constantly
dealing with applications for royal favours, such as petitions for naturali-
sation, and could readily adapt its forms to a new kind of concession. And for
book-privileges there were already precedents. Not only was there the one
fifteenth-century French grant which had already been made (CH 1498, i).
There was the example of the chancery of the duchy of Milan, which was
taken over by Louis XII as soon as Ludovico Sforza had fled from the city (2
September 1499). The ducal chancery continued to function, separately from
the chancery of France, though under French rule duties there were shared
of the latter, the secretary who
between French and Milanese officials. 1 One
signed as B. Calcus, had served under the Sforza dukes and actually put his
name to at least three of the book-privileges granted by Ludovico. 2 Not
surprisingly the king-duke was soon being petitioned by his Italian subjects
for privileges on the same lines as those granted by his Sforza predecessor.
And on i July 1501 Janus Parrhasius obtained a four-year privilege for his
edition of Sedulius and Prudentius, signed 'Per Rcgem ducem Mcdiolani, Ad
relationem Consilii, lulius', 3 an edition which was duly printed by Guillelmus
Le Signerre and published that year. This was apparently the first of such
privileges, but it was followed by others. And if such business was mainly
dealt with by the Italian secretaries in the Milan chancery, their French
colleagues working daily alongside them had plenty of opportunity to hear of
privileges being granted to authors and publishers and to see them being
embodied in official documents. Among these French secretaries there were
1 L. G. Pelissier, Les sources milanaises de I'histoire de Louis XII: Trois registres de lettres ducales de
Louis XII aux Archives de Milan (1892), pp. 4-5.
2 For the Convivio of Filelfo, 10 November 1483, for the works of Campanus, 26 March 1495, and
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for Fulgentius and other books, 9 November 1497.
Milan, 1501, 8". The Letters Patent are printed on f. p 6 V . BN
24
Res.pvc 1739.