Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
of Toulouse actually directed that the words 'Cum priuilegio' should be
printed on a book for which it gave a privilege (PA 1517, 3).
The right of the Parlement to grant privileges was removed by Charles IX
in 1566, when it became a legal requirement that all new books should have
both licence and privilege from the chancery. However, when Paris was under
the control of the Ligue from 1585 to 1594, and no access to the royal chancery
was possible, the Parlement was applied to by Paris publishers for privileges
and duly dispensed seme. 1 The function which it had exercised for some sixty
years in helping to keep order within the book-trade had not been wholly
forgotten.
Provincial Parlements
That a privilege granted by the Parlement of Paris applied throughout France
was understood, though rarely stated. On one occasion at least, none the less,
in response to a petition by Constantin Fradin of Lyon, who had perhaps
decided or been advised by his lawyer to ask for an explicit declaration to this
effect, the Parlement made a grant 'defendant a tous aultres imprimeurs et
librayres du royaume de France et des terres appartenantes a ycelluy ne imprimer ne
faire imprimer, vendre ne faire vendre ledit livre jusques au terme de deux
ans . . .' (italics mine) (PA 1520, 6).
The jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris indeed extended over the whole of
France. Certain territories, however, over which the Crown had obtained
control only when the historic kingdom of France was already in existence,
possessed their own Parlements. The most senior of these was the Parlement
of Toulouse (Languedoc), created by Philip IV in 1303, followed by the
Parlement of Grenoble (Dauphine), the Parlement of Bordeaux (Guyenne),
the Parlement of Dijon (Burgundy), the Parlement of Rouen (Normandy),
and the Parlement of Aix (Provence). Some of these provincial Parlements
issued book-privileges. The number is small, but significant.
Toulouse was not only a provincial capital. It was the seat of a university,
with busy faculties of law and medicine, an important ecclesiastical centre
with many religious houses, and a focal point on the trade route between Lyon
and Spain. There was accordingly a considerable local book-trade, both
before and after the introduction of printing. Sooner or later an author or
publisher in Languedoc was likely to think of applying for a privilege to his
own Parlement: the Parlements had regular communication with each other,
but for a private individual in Toulouse the 709 kilometres between him and
Paris was a serious inducement to seeking protection from piracy nearer
home. It seems highly probable that a public oration delivered in Cahors
University, published at Toulouse in 1509 by Jean Faure (PA 1509, 5),
1 Denis Pallier, Recherches sur I'imprimerie a Paris pendant la Ligue 1585-1594 (Geneva, 1976), passim.
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