Untitled - Monoskop

ACADEMIC AND ECCLESIASTICAL
priuillegio supreme curie et prepositi parisiensis in triennium' (PA 1518, 2).
The privilege of this was summarised in words beginning, 'II est permis par
messeigneurs de parlement et de par monseigneur le prevost de Paris'. This
could be, on the face of it, a privilege given jointly by the Parlement and the
Prevot. It seems more probable that Gallois, for reasons best known to
himself, obtained two separate privileges. It was probably, however, the
atmosphere of crisis and uncertainty in Paris at the time which drove Galliot
Du Pre to obtain a privilege from the Parlement on 7 September 1524 for his
important work on the Councils of the Church (PA 1524, 13). He already held
a valid privilege for it, issued by the chancery on 25 August 1520 to run for
three years from the date of completion, and had taken it for enterinement by the
Prevot (CH 1520, 3). The Parlement was then to Parisians the highest
authority visibly functioning.
PART TWO: ACADEMIC AND ECCLESIASTICAL
We have seen instances of privileges granted on the sole authority of bishops
and universities. ' Were any such grants made in France? There was no bishop
in France who exercised temporal sovereignty over the whole or part of his
diocese. And in the period here being considered there are no certain
examples of privileges issued entirely on French episcopal authority.
not unknown in France for prelates to devote themselves to editing a correct
It was
text of the breviary or missal of their diocese for their clergy and to have it
printed at their expense. An early example is the Vienne breviary printed by
Johann Neumeister at Lyons in 1490 for Angelo Cato, then archbishop of
Vienne. 2
the existence ofan authorised edition would be a deterrent
Evidently
to other publishers, but no penalties against reprinting were threatened. In
fact only a handful of the huge number of liturgical books produced in France
at this time claim a privilege at all. Antoine Verard claimed a privilege for his
3 Book of Hours published 14 July I5o8, on the strength of his newly acquired
personal privilege, but not for any later ones. A breviary of the diocese of
Saint- Pol-de-Leon, in Brittany, came out in 1516 'cum priuilegio' (CP 1516,
6), and a Poitiers Missal was published 'cum priuilegio' in 1525 (CP 1525, 3).
These could possibly have been privileges granted by a bishop. There are
however certainly cases where a privilege for a service-book was granted by
the king, and these begin in 1522, when Jacques Mareschal dit Roland took
advantage of the presence of the royal court and the chancery in Lyon that
summer to secure a privilege (CH 1522, 3) for an edition of the missal of
Clermont and of Saint-Flour as well as for Ordonnances rqyaulx.* A bishop's
1 See above, pp. 3, 8-10. 2 GKW no. 5507.
3 CH 1507, i (no. 5), and Macfarlane, Antoine Verard, no. 240.
4 Baudrier, Bibliographic lyonnaise, xi, pp. 421-3, questioned the genuineness of the privilege,
mainly because he doubted whether Mareschal could have waited until 1525 to use a privilege
granted in 1522, but there are many instances ofsuch delays. See also Antoine Verniere,Notesur
le premier livre connu imprime a Clermont en 1523 (Brioude, 1882).
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