Untitled - Monoskop

THE PREVOT OF PARIS AND OFFICERS IN THE PROVINCES
to accompany the royal privilege, adding certain details which were within his
competence to determine, notably a fine of 500 livres tournois for infringement
of the privilege, dated 20 August 1509 (CH 1509, 2).
I have found no certain instance of a book-privilege being granted on the
authority of the Senechal of Lyon until twenty-three years after the period
here under review. On 25 January 1549 a privilege was granted for the
handsomely illustrated souvenir programme of Henry II's state entry into
Lyon in September 1548,' to be printed by Guillaume Roville or Rouille,
which the city had subsidised to the tune of twelve ecus d'or soldi. The
Lieutenant, Du Peyrat, 'ouy sur ce les Conseilliers et Eschevins de la ville de
Lyon', not only conferred the exclusive right for two years in this official
account of the festivities, both the edition in French and the edition in Italian,
but forebade the sale of any other accounts (several of which had already
appeared in Paris) on the grounds that they were inaccurate. However,
twenty books printed and published at Lyon from 1507 to 1525 bear the
simple formula 'Cum priuilegio', without any further details, and it is at least
possible that some of these refer to privileges granted by the Senechal.
Although there are cases of Lyon publishers going to the Parlement of Paris
for privileges, the journey was long enough to deter many would-be applicants
from doing so.
It was possible also for a provincial Bailli or Senechal to give his permission
and authority for the publication of a book, as we have seen the Prevot of Paris
do. De Marnef printed Le stille des auditories de messieurs le bailly de Berry et le
prevost de Bourges (completed 16 January 1512) at Paris 'par 1'auctorite, congie
2
et licence de monseigneur le bailly de Berry ou son lieutenant' (PR 1512, i).
This was not a privilege,
in the sense of forbidding the printing or sale of any
edition except De MarnePs. It was, however, the official guide to the
procedure in the court of the Bailli of the royal duchy of Berry and in that of
his subordinate the Prevot of the city of Bourges, so that lawyers and
property-owners had good reason to wish to possess the edition approved by
the Bailli himself in preference to any other. The Lieutenant General of the
Senechal of Anjou, with the 'gens tenans le siege presidial' of Angers, were on
the other hand to give a real privilege, an exclusive right for three years for the
printing of the Stille et Reiglement of his own court, to Angers publisher-printer
Pierre Jounot, on 24 December I563. 3
Only in the case of the Prevot of Paris did a system of privilege-granting
develop which really rivalled or complemented the activity of the Parlement.
This development can be traced from 1516, when for the first time the Prevot's
1 La magnificence de la superbe entree de la cite de Lyonfaicte au rqy Henry deuxiesme (Lyon, G. Rouille,
1549), 4. BL 81 i.g-33- A summary of the privilege is printed on the verso of the title-page. See
also V. L. Saulnier, Maurice Sceve, i (1948), p. 340.
2 The Bailli at this date was Pierre du Puy, chevalier, seigneur de Vatan, by 1514 conseiller et
chambellan du rot: his Lieutenant General was Maitre Jehan Fradet. Gallia regia, i, pp. 379, 382.
3 L'abbe Pasquier and V. Dauphin, Imprimeurs et libraires de I'Anjou (Angers, 1932), p. 162.
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