Untitled - Monoskop

THE PREVOT OF PARIS AND OFFICERS IN THE PROVINCES
was in his hands. He had both a Lieutenant Civil and a Lieutenant Criminel. In
addition he had special responsibilities for the University of Paris.
Authors, publishers and printers who feared unfair competition, particularly
from unscrupulous rivals in their own neighbourhood, might well
think of resorting to one of these officers. Here they could expect if not instant
justice at least relatively expeditious and effective justice in their own locality.
The most powerful officer of them all, the Prevot of Paris, directly controlled
the city which was the largest centre of book-production and bookselling in
the kingdom.
Seventy privileges are known to have been granted on such authority, one
of these certainly by the lieutenant of the Bailli of Rouen (PR 1514, 5), but
most of them by the Prevot of Paris. Under Louis XII, these royal officers also
gave at least four conges, which conferred official approval without apparently
one early occa-
expressly forbidding other editions (e.g. PR 1509, 4*). 1 On
sion, a request for a privilege, which had been submitted in the first instance
to the Parlement of Paris, was referred by the Parlement to the Prevot ('De par
le prevost de Paris en ensuyvant la requeste presentee en la court de
Parlement de par Maistre Jehan Divry', PR 1508, i). This procedure, not
unusual in itself, is exceptional in the case of book-privileges. It is in fact the
earliest case on which the Prevot is named as the source of a privilege.
Privileges given on the authority of the Prevot are however referred to from
1 505 onwards in formulae such as 'par 1'ordonnance de justice'. The earliest of
these was advertised by the poet and publicist Pierre Gringore in his Lesfolles
entreprises (PR 1505, i) as follows:
1'acteur de ce diet livre nomme Pierre
1f II est dit par 1'ordonnance de justice que
Gringoire a privilege de le vendre et distribuer dujourdhuy jusques a ung an / sans que
autre le puisse faire imprimer ne vendre fors ceulx a il qui en ballera et distribuera / et
ce sur peine de confiscation des livres et d'amende arbitraire. Imprime a Paris par
Maistre Pierre Le Dru imprimeur pour icelluy Gringoire le .xxiii. jour de decembre.
L'an mil cinq cens et cinq.
Certainly in 1514 short-term privileges were being granted on the authority
of the Prevot of Paris for printed accounts of current events. On 15 August
that year Louis XII concluded the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with
Henry VIII of England. The following day the official announcement of the
treaty by Normandy Herald took place in the Prevot's court at the Chatelet.
There were present the Prevot himself and his lieutenants, several of the
examinateurs of the court, and the greffier or clerk of the court, Almaury, who
signed the record. The next day, 17 August, a privilege and licence was
granted to Guillaume Sanxon, 'libraire', to have the text of the treaty printed,
forbidding all other booksellers and printers of the city to it print for the
1 See
below, pp. 1 12-13. These conges are included in the Register (PR) under the date to which
they belong, for the sake of completeness, but are marked with an asterisk to distinguish them
from the grants which are expressly privileges.
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