Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
possible case of this 'petite chancellerie' issuing privileges for books (PA 1512,
9)- 1
Francis I was indeed in Paris when the first book-privileges of his reign were
granted. It was there that the chancery issued a privilege to Galliot Du Pre on
20 January 1515 for L'hystoire du sainct greaal (CH 1515, i) and to Dr Jean
sur le Guidon
Falcon of Lyon on 19 February for Les notables declaratifs
(CH 1515, i A) published in due course by Constantin Fradin at Lyon.
Another Paris publisher followed suit, Antoine Bonnemere (CH 1515, 2), and
Galliot Du Pre soon afterwards obtained confirmation of a Louis XII privilege
(CH 1515, 3, cf. CH 1514, 1(2)). And on 26 April Geofroy de Marnef, with
Simon Vincent of Lyon, were granted a privilege by the chancery for the
treatise De seditiosis, by Nicole Bohier, a royal conseiller (CH 1515, 4). But the
king himself left Paris on 24 April. He was already planning an invasion of
Italy to recover the duchy of Milan. By 12 July he was in Lyon, where he was
to spend three weeks completing his preparations. It was accordingly to Lyon
that Jean Petit of Paris had to go, or send his representative, to seek out the
royal chancery when he needed a privilege to protect an important 'package'
of new publications (CH 1515, 5). Thenceforth Paris applicants evidently
resigned themselves to doing without privileges from the royal chancery until
the king's return from Italy.
For a provincial privilege-seeker, on the other hand, the direction taken by
the king's itinerary might prove a windfall. At the end of July, Francis left
Lyon to join his army which had been assembling at Grenoble, the capital of
the Dauphine. Hearing of this, an enterprising bookseller at Valence, who had
a new book ready for publication by a renowned local jurist and historian,
Aymar du Rivail, rode or sent to Grenoble in time to secure a privilege for it
from the king-dauphin on 8 August 1515, just before Francis left for Italy with
the chancellor (CH 1515, 6). Back in Lyon, members of the king's Council
and some of the staff of the chancery were still there in sufficient strength to
deal with an application by Nicole Bohier on behalf of the Lyon publisher
Simon Vincent, for a three-year privilege (CH 1515, 7), granted on 16 August
'Par le roy, a la relation du conseil'. This was a grant to which the agreement
of the chancellor might have already been given or could be assumed. The
beneficiary was the same Nicole Bohier whose treatise De seditiosis had
received a privilege earlier that year (CH 1515, 4). He was a learned lawyer, a
trusted servant of the Crown and a member of the king's Council. The books
in question were all sponsored by Bohier: an edition by Jean Thierry of the
Quaestiones on civil law by Pierre de Belleperche, a former chancellor of France
(d. 1308); the Commentaria on the coutumes of the duchy of Burgundy by
Barthelemy de Chasseneuz, doctor of law, King's Advocate in the bailliage of
Autun, afterwards President of the Parlement of Toulouse; and another legal
1
Cf. below, p. 70.
30