Untitled - Monoskop

PRIVILEGE-GRANTING AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE
following eight days (PR 1514, 2). The privilege bears two signatures, that of
G. Maillart, the Prevot's Lieutenant criminel, and that of Almaury the grejfier.
The ensuing marriage between Louis XII and Henry VIII's sister Mary
(afterwards duchess of Suffolk) was celebrated on 9 October 1514 on the
princess's arrival in French territory at Abbeville. A description of this event
was sent to Paris by an anonymous guest at the Abbeville festivities, and an
and sold was
eight-day privilege for the exclusive right to have it printed
granted on 25 October to Guillaume Mart, 'libraire', issued under the signet
of the Prevot and signed by Almaury (PR 1514, 3).'
The first privilege issued by the Prevot of Paris of which the full text is
available (PR 1514, 2) is headed 'De par le prevost de Paris ou son lieutenant
criminel'. I know of no other case during this period in which the Lieutenant
Criminel was involved in the grant of a privilege. The Lieutenant Criminel Jean
Morin was to grant a one-year privilege (the applicant had requested three
years) on 27 February 1536 (n.s.)
for a French translation of Eucharius
Rosslin, Departu hominis (originally published in German in 1513), in response
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to a requete from Jean Foucher (BN TC 3). This was certainly an unusual
procedure.
In the provinces also important officers of the Crown occasionally issued
book-privileges on their own authority, at the request of a local author,
bookseller or printer. The first fully documented example is that of the
Lieutenant General of the Bailli of Rouen, who granted a privilege on 24
November 1 5 1 4 to Martin Morin for one year for a theological work by Pierre
Fabri, Le defensore de la concepcion de la glorieuse vierge Marie, author and printer
both being resident in Rouen (PR 1514, 5).
Other provincial officers were already familiar with the granting of
book-privileges through having been required by the beneficiaries of royal
privileges to proceed to an ente'rinement or registration of the Letters Patent
ensuring that the court of the Bailli or Senechal would be already appraised of
the privilege-holder's rights in the event of a case being brought there for
infringement of the monopoly. The Lieutenant General of the senechaussee of
Lyon 2 had been thus required by the famous author Jean Lemaire de Beiges to
register the Letters Patent granted to him by Louis XII at Lyon on 30
January 1509
for Les illustrations de Gaule. He also issued his own Lettres d'atache
1 Neither Guillaume Sanxon nor Guillaume Mart are otherwise known as booksellers. It may
have been by a misunderstanding that they are so designated. They may have been simply
people well placed, by personal connections with the Prevot or a member of his staff, to secure a
grant for these highly saleable pamphlets. Anyone, at this period, could sell or finance printed
books, and that included people in other professions. A Jehan Sanxon was lieutenant of the
BailliofTouraineatChatillon-sur-Indrein 1507 (Gallia regia, ed. G. Dupont-Ferrier (192461),
vi, p. 23) and published a commentary on the Consuetudines ofTouraine in 1523. A Jean Sanson,
docteur en droit, became a conseiller of the Parlement in 1533 (E. Maugis, Histoire du Parlement de
Paris, m (1916), p. 174). Guillaume may have been a member of this family.
2 Claude le Charron, docteur es droiz.. Gallia regia, HI, pp. 5956.
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