Untitled - Monoskop

PERSONAL APPROACHES
four s.p. for a guide book to Italy with a map (PA 1515, 4), eight s.p. for a
chronicle of Savoy (PA 1516, 4), fourteen s.p. for Aristotle's Phisica with a new
translation (PA 1518, 7), the latter price being explicitly for copies 'en blanc',
that is, in sheets, books only being on sale ready bound which like the Coutumes
were in constant demand. The highest price fixed during this period in limes
parisis is twenty s.p. for Guillaume Fillastre on the Golden Fleece (PA 1516, 5)
and the lowest is twelve d.p. for the synodal statutes of Orleans (PA 1525, 6).
The Prevot of Paris never at this period set a maximum price. He did however
occasionally make it a condition that the publisher should sell it at a
reasonable price: 'pourveu que icelluy Du Pre mette ledict livre a juste prix'
raisonnable et
(PR 1520, 5); 'pourveu que ledit Aubry vende ledit livre a pris
non excessif (PR 1521, 4; PR 1523, 5).
Just after the end of the period here studied, the provincial Parlements
show some signs of wishing to regulate the price of the books for which they
gave privileges. The Parlement of Toulouse used the expression 'le vendre et
adenerer a prix competent et raisonnable' (PA 1527, i). The Echiquier of
Rouen, and adjudicating in a case of conflicting requetes for a privilege in the
antiphoner of the diocese of Rouen, which must have been a costly book to
produce, with music, for use in the choir, was to fix a maximum price of four
l.t. for a copy on paper and twenty-two l.t. for a copy on parchment: 'Pourveu
qu'ilz ne les pourroient vendre c'est assavoir ceulx imprimez en parchemin au
dessus de vingt deux livres tournois et ceulx imprimez en papier au dessus de
quatre livres tournois piece' (PA 1527, 3).
The stipulation that the privileged book should be sold at a reasonable price
was not accompanied by the threat of any specific penalty for disregarding it,
as was the condition that a named maximum price should not be exceeded.
But it may have enabled members of the trade and of the public to lodge a
complaint if they thought the beneficiary or his agents were charging an
exorbitant amount for it.
PERSONAL APPROACHES
An expedient which occurred very naturally to certain authors seeking a
privilege from the royal chancery, especially lawyers and royal officials, was to
offer the dedication of the book in question to the chancellor. If the chancellor
accepted the dedication, he might be expected to look favourably on the
request for privilege. Thus Louis XII's chancellor Jean de Ganay received
the dedication of the Coutume of Bourges edited and provided with a
commentary by Nicole Bohier (CH 1509, i (2)), which was included in a
privilege issued to Bohier by the chancery at Lyon on i June 1509,
and of the
Tractatuson the powers of the king's council by Jean Montaigne (CH 1512, 3),
granted a privilege at Blois on 3 June 1512. Jean de Ganay had been first
president of the Parlement of Paris before his elevation to the chancellorship
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