Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
proceeding to Antwerp to have them printed: he also paid 1 2s - a gratuity of
about 2 1 per cent of the official fee - to the clerk. ' No one concerned, therefore,
had any reason to refuse a book-privilege from the chancery to an applicant
who was prepared to pay for it, as long as the applicant could make out a
even more often
reasonable case for it. Why then did applicants in France go,
than to the chancery, to the lawcourts, and quite frequently to the Prevot of
Paris?
Sometimes it is possible to discern reasons why a petitioner elected to apply
to an authority other than the royal chancery. An applicant wishing to publish
in print the style of a particular lawcourt would naturally apply to the court
concerned, for its consent and for a privilege. The prospective publisher of a
newly codified or newly revised Coutume would in most cases go to the
Parlement. If on the contrary he was venturing on copy which would be
obviously unwelcome to the Parlement, such as the text of the Concordat of
Francis I and the papacy, or a royal Ordonnance which the Parlement had
objected to registering, he would have a motive for preferring to go to the
chancery.
Otherwise, all the royal authorities were evidently equally willing to
entertain requests for privileges for any kind of publication and from any kind
of applicant. Considerations of opportunity, convenience and cost seem
usually to have dictated the choice of authority to approach. More authors are
to be found among successful applicants for privileges from the chancery,
perhaps simply because they were in a better position to attend the royal court
or have useful connections with it. If publishers seem to show a preference for
the Parlement or another of the lawcourts, the explanation is probably to be
sought here too in most cases in purely practical circumstances.
Movements of the royal chancery: a problem for applicants
An applicant for a privilege from the chancery would, if the royal court was in
residence at Paris, have no further to go than would be necessary if he were
applying
to the Parlement or to the Prevot. Considerations of state or
pleasure, war or diplomacy, however, often took the king of France at this
period for weeks or even months at a time to other places. And with the king,
or closely following him, moved not only his household but the entire centre of
government, the diplomatic corps, the secretaries of state, and the chancery.
The problems created by this itinerant habit were serious but not insuper-
able for the applicant while Louis XII was king. He never resided for long in
1
Catalogue de la Bibliotheque de la ville de Lille: Jurisprudence (Lille, 1870), p. 262, quoting the Compte
xx v xx v
de la ville pour un anfini lejt octobre ff. 1534, vij xij and :
vij Coustumes & iij'~
usaiges de la ville . . .
de Lille, Martin Lempereur (Antwerp) for Michel Willem (Lille), 1534, 4". BN F.Res.io62. The
privilege signed 'Par Lempereur en son conseil & signe M. Stric', is printed on fT. A ii r " v . The
practice of the French royal chancery was very similar.
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