Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
a scientist of repute was attached to them, and could be a considerable source
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of profit. A Paris bookseller, Jean Boissier, had contrived to secure a copy of
Guillaume Cop's almanac and to have it printed and sold. Apparently he
continued to deal in it even when Cop had obtained an arret from the
Parlement forbidding him to sell any copies which Cop himself had not
signed, and so authenticated. A further petition to the Parlement from Cop
resulted in Boissier being summoned before the court and forbidden on pain of
imprisonment and fine to sell any of Cop's 'armenatz' which had not been
signed by the author (5 March I5O4). 2 This meant that Cop could withhold
his signature and therefore stop the sale of unauthorised copies. We are here,
it seems, close to the familiar formula 'None genuine without this signature'.
Cop may indeed have thought of his signature on an almanac upon which the
public relied for correct information on phases of the moon, hours of day-light
etc., as being like a signature on a medical prescription, that is, a guarantee of
professional authority. The Parlement itself was familiar with the idea of
authenticating by signature every copy of an official printed publication, as
we have seen, and it was to require such a signature when it first gave
privileges to greffiers for printed editions of the Coutumes. But Cop's method of
protecting his literary property was not, to my knowledge, copied by any other
author, during this period, and, however effective, it did not constitute a
privilege.
By May 1504 the Parlement was dealing with a lawsuit between the author
and royal publicist Andre de La Vigne and the university printer and
bookseller Michel Le Noir, who was printing a work which La Vigne
petitioned the Parlement to stop, on 30 April 1504. At the first hearing, on 1 1
May 1504, the court gave La Vigne two weeks to prepare his case, and
allowed Le Noir, according to his petition, to complete the printing, with the
proviso that no copies of his edition should yet be put on sale. The court's
judgement went against Le Noir. On 3 June 1504 it decided that neither he
nor any other bookseller or printer of Paris were to print or sell the two works
in question, Le vergier de honneur and Les regnars traversans, until i April of the
following year, on pain of confiscation of the edition and of a fine. Le Noir was
in addition condemned to paying the costs of the case. 3 There are details
about this case which are perplexing. Le vergier de honneur was certainly by
Andre de La Vigne, but Les regnars traversans was neither by him nor, as Michel
Le Noir (following Antoine Verard) claimed when his edition finally
appeared, by Sebastian Brant, 4 but by Jean Bouchet of Poitiers.
1
Cf. above, p. 16.
2 'La court a fait defenses audit Boissier a peine de prison et d'amende arbitraire de ne vendre
aucuns armenatz faits par ledit LeCop sinon qu'il les ait prealablement signez.' AN x i A 1509,
f. 94 r .
3 AN x i A 1509, f. i7i r
, 3 June 1504. For the earlier hearing, see f. 154'.
4 Les regnars traversans was first published, under the name of Sebastien Brand, by Verard, among
books undated but published 1500-3. J. Macfarlane, Antoine Verard (1900), p. 74, no. 149. Le
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