Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
period in the publication and sale of the Coutume. This was granted, no doubt
the more readily because the Parlement thus ensured that there would be an
adequate supply of printed copies without being itself put to any expense. The
signature of the grejfier, Michel La Troyne, on each copy, was sufficient proof
to the general public that the publication was officially approved
(PA 1509, 2).
A similar grant soon afterwards in the same circumstances to the greffar of
the senechaussee of Maine, Martin Le Saige, for the Coutume of Maine (PA 1509,
4) expressly stipulates that each copy should be signed by him. And the
following year a grant for the Coutume of Anjou to Jean Dabert, greffier of the
senechaussee of Anjou, entitling him to take any profit therefrom if there was any
profit to be had ('et d'icelles prendre le proufit et emolument se aucun y peut
avoir') prohibited the sale of any copies not bearing his signature - which
indeed appears on surviving copies of the original edition (PA 1510, i). The
privilege granted only a few months later to the greffars of the bailliage of
Orleans, on the other hand (PA 1510, 2), made no condition that each copy
should be authenticated by their signature, and the condition lapsed finally
when the Parlement began to grant privileges for Coutumes to applicants like
Jean Petit (PA 1511, i, and PA 1511, 4), who had no connection with the
legal process of codifying the Coutumes.
By 1510 some of the grants of book-privileges are recorded in the registers of
the Parlement. Among these is a grant to Jean Petit and Michel Le Noir
(PA 1 5 1 o, 3) for the first edition ofLeparement des dames de honneur by Olivier de
La Marche. For this we possess the text of the privilege as written out in the
registers of the court and also the authenticated copy as printed in the book
itself. All such instances prove the accuracy of the printed version, which
normally differs from the original only in minute points of spelling.
The decision of Jean Petit to go in for privileges consolidated the system as a
regular feature of book-trade business, for he was the wealthiest and the most
prolific of all the Paris publishers of his time. And although he was to obtain
seven grants from the chancery, including some for a 'package' of several
he went twice as often to the Parlement (fourteen as against seven).
Of the more specialised sovereign courts in Paris none had any reason to
books, 1
grant book-privileges, in the ordinary course of events. However the Cour des
Aides gave a privilege for the Ordonnances rqyaulx sur lefaict des tallies, aydes et
gabelles, issued by the king at Montereul on 30 June 1517. The experienced
Galliot Du Pre lost little time in finding his way to the court to seek a privilege
for them. The Cour des Aides, to which such a proposal was new, consulted
the procureur general du Roy. It then gave Galliot the privilege, for one year as he
had requested, and he printed the Extraict des registres de la court des aydes, as
signed by the greffier, Brinon, on the verso of the title-page (exactly as he was
1 See below, pp. 131-6.
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