Untitled - Monoskop

THE ROYAL CHANCERY
work, the Tractatus and Singularia of Guido Papa, edited by Jean Thierry. The
chancery evidently issued a privilege a few days later, at Lyon, on 2 1 August
(CH 1515, 8) to Pierre Balet of Lyon for an edition of Jacobus de Belviso,
Practica iudiciaria in criminalibus .
The king had appointed his mother, Louise of Savoy, as Regent of France in
his absence on 15 July 1515. She and the queen, who was expecting her first
child, took up residence at Amboise, and the government was carried on from
there. She was provided with the petit sceau, entrusted to the safe keeping of
Mondot de La Marthonnye, which sufficed to authenticate Letters Patent
while the chancellor with the Great Seal was away. Members of the staffof the
chancery who did not accompany the king and the chancellor to Italy
re-grouped round her. Some members of the Council and some of the royal
secretaries were with her. If Amboise was a fair distance to go, for applicants
from Paris or Lyon, specially to seek a privilege, it was relatively convenient
for Guillaume Bouchet of Poitiers in quest of a privilege for Malleret, De
electionibus, which he obtained at Amboise on 19 September (CH 1515, 9): the
journey to Paris would have been nearly three times as far.
There were on the other hand successful applications at places along the
route followed by the king on his return journey.
In addition to the
opportunities offered by the court's stay at Lyon in March-May 1516 to Lyon
applicants (e.g. CH 1516, 5), the king's brief visit to Cremieu (Isere) was
marked by the grant of a privilege to Hugues Descousu, 'docteur en tous
droitz' on 19 May (CH 1516, i). As the king, after leaving Lyon, journeyed
home by easy stages, he reached the little town of Issoire (Puy-de-D6me).
There, on 20 July 1516, advantage was taken of the presence, however brief, of
the royal chancery by Vincent Cigauld, 'juge ordinaire de la ville et conte de
Brivadoys', who had to come only the relatively short ride from Brive
(Correze) to obtain a privilege for his legal works, which he too was planning
to have printed at Lyon (CH 1516, 2).
By that autumn, the court and the chancery were back in Paris, and the
went on
grant of privileges there resumed. But in the summer of 1 5 1 7 the king
a progress through Picardy and Normandy, culminating in a state entry into
Rouen on 2 August 1517. And it was while the court was still at Rouen that
Michel Le Noir of Paris obtained his important 'package' privilege for four
books (CH 1517, 6). More often it was the Rouen applicants who had to
journey to Paris. Such was the case of Simon Gruel when he sought a privilege
for a pioneer work on French rhetoric by the Rouen author Pierre Le Fevre (or
Fabri) three years later (CH 1520, 6).
The provincial author or publisher who came in quest for a privilege to the
chancery when it was in Paris might at least be able to combine this operation
with other business. And indeed a Paris applicant might be able to combine a
visit to the chancery at Rouen or Lyon, for instance, with other business. On
occasion, he might be prepared to make a special journey still further afield in