Places
Julius Caesar, C. Iulii Cæsaris Rerum ab se gestarum commentarii … Omnia … accuratè emendata … Veterum Galliæ locorum, populorum, urbium, montium, ac fluuiorum breuis descriptio. Eutropii epitome belli Gallici ex Suetonii Tranquilli monumentis quæ desiderantur (Paris, 1543), Sig. aiiir.
Four French printing centres are represented in the Worth Library. During the sixteenth century they each developed differently but all were affected by the political instability and religious wars of the second half of the sixteenth century. Image 1 above shows a map of France, or rather Gaul, at the time of Julius Caesar’s conquests. Printed by Michel de Vascosan (d. c. 1577) in 1543, this map, which reflects the historical and geographical knowledge of the mid-sixteenth century, shows the cities discussed in this section of the exhibition: Parisi (Paris), Lugdunum (Lyon), Pictones (Poitiers), and Burdega (Bordeaux).
Paris
The first presses in Paris were installed in 1470 at the request of the University of Paris, which brought three printers from Germany to teach the university how to use the new technology for the benefit of the institution. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, knowledge of printing had been democratised in the largest city in the Kingdom of France.[1] The map below shows the north bank of Paris and is taken from a plan of the city during the reign of Henri II (1519-59).[2]
Location of the Parisian printers’ and booksellers’ shops.
The grey rectangle marks the ‘quarter of printers, booksellers and engravers’, where most of the book industry was concentrated in the sixteenth century. The green areas represent religious institutions (cathedrals, churches, monasteries, convents and abbeys), while the red areas represent intellectual institutions (schools, colleges and the university). Finally, numbers 1 to 6 represent the main arteries of the book world, where bookshops and booksellers are concentrated:
1 – Rue Saint Jacques (Jean I Petit (fl. 1492-1530), Thielmann I Kerver (d. 1522), Michel de Vascosan (d. c. 1577), Ambroise Drouart (1548-1608), Pierre L’Huillier (d. 1610)).
2 – Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais (Simon de Colines (1480?-1546), Fédéric I Morel (1523-83)).
3 – Rue Mont Saint Hilaire (Thomas Brumen (1532-88), Jean Crespin (fl. 1524-43)).
4 – Rue des Carmes (Jean Mettayer (d. 1605), Denys I Duval (1536-1619)).
5 – Le Palais (Abel L’Angelier (fl. 1572-1609), Galliot Du Pré (d. 1561), Abraham Saugrain (1567-1622)).
6 – Rue Saint-Jean-de-Latran (Guillaume Cavellat (d. 1576/77), Jacques Du Puys (d. 1589?), Jérôme de Gourmont (fl. 1524-59), Chrestien Wechel (1495-1554)).
In the sixteenth century, Paris was the second largest printing centre in Europe after Venice. As Malcolm Walsby notes, the city’s output showed a tendency towards religious printing.[3] It would be too simplistic to explain this by simply pointing to the fact that the ‘quarter of printers and booksellers’ was surrounded by more than fifteen religious institutions, but this undoubtedly played a role in influencing production, the aim of which was to sell both locally and internationally. What’s more, if there was one intellectual movement that gave impetus to the Parisian presses, it was humanism. This project went beyond the walls of the city and quickly enthralled the great intellectuals in the cities of the kingdom; taking advantage of a royal curiosity driven by François I (1494-1547), Hellenism was at the centre of intellectual and commercial interests.[4] While the geographical location of the ‘printing and bookselling district’ (Image 2) does not explain the whole of its success, its proximity to no fewer than thirty colleges and the University of Paris cannot be overlooked. As noted in this exhibition, many presses adapted their production to the curricula of teachers, the needs of students and the ever-changing demands of researchers.
This environment was also conducive to the development of scholar-printers. Not all of them were Parisians, such as Josse Badius (1462-1535), Michel de Vascosan or Fédéric I Morel. However, most of them were trained in Parisian institutions and stayed in Paris, using their skills. In a virtuous economic and intellectual circle, Parisian printing attracted the attention of scholars and early printers, who succeeded in popularising this risky and complex craft among the next generation. Certain printers and booksellers could count on another advantage: they were heirs to a family heritage already established in the world of books, requiring only their intellectual and business skills.
However, the general context of the kingdom, punctuated by external wars, religious wars and epidemics, put a strain on the book market in the second half of the sixteenth century, and Paris was not spared, despite its dominant position. Colin Clair emphasises that the scholar-publishers at the end of the century were simply not as gifted as their predecessors, and could not match the excellence of earlier editions.[5] Their decline should perhaps be seen in the context of the market dominance of large printing dynasties and the meteoric rise of the bookseller and bookseller-wholesaler. There were more and more intermediaries between readers and printers; printing in the vernacular both democratized the market and ensured that readership in turn grew, providing an opportunity to produce more books, but in smaller formats to keep costs down. Thus many factors contributed to what is commonly referred to as the decline of the Parisian scholar-printers.
Lyon
Lyon was the second French city to master the printing press (c. 1473), three years after Paris. Even if ‘favourable’ circumstances can explain the development of the printed book in France from the end of the fifteenth century, the spread of the development was startling. As Malcolm Walsby notes:
‘The enthusiasm for the printed book [in France] led to an almost anarchic expansion. With no discernible economic imperative, printing presses were invited into the heart of the most unlikely places’.[6]
This initial ‘anarchic expansion’ gave way to a greater uniformity in the development of the industry, especially at one city whose geographical position gave it distinct advantages in terms of development. Lyon was strategically located between the North and the South, crossed by the rivers Rhône and Saône, the latter a slower and more dangerous river than the Rhine, but just as conducive to trade. Its position explains the demographic and economic growth of Lyon between 1470 and 1520, which was enhanced by the arrival of Italian merchant-bankers with capital to invest in trade.[7]
However, competition between printing centres led to specialization and Lyon, the town on the banks of the Rhône, specialised in the production of legal books.[8] Following a gradual development, Lyon became the second largest production centre for French printed matter. However, unrest disrupted the industry from within: the Lyon strike of April 1539, also known as the ‘Grand Tric’, was the result of the exasperation of apprentices and journeymen printers against their masters.[9]
In Lyon, the rise of Protestantism was also a key factor in the development of printing. In the 1560s, at the beginning of the Wars of Religion, Lyon fell to the Calvinists who took over the city, which was shaken by troubles until March 1563, when the Edict of Amboise imposed peace and coexistence between the two faiths. It was, however, a short-lived peace and one which did not have the support of the Lyonnais Calvinists.[10]
Moreover, the book trade in Lyon was again shaken by troubles from within when the booksellers went on strike in 1570. The king had to legislate to restore order, but from the 1570s onwards, the economic situation was not conducive to investment.[11] Printers and booksellers did not invest in major projects, limiting their risks and concentrating on works that were easy to distribute.[12]
The recovery of Lyon’s printing presses after the troubles did not reach the figures recorded at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The printing industry had to reckon with the loss of printers, booksellers, publishers, authors and investors who had been Protestant or suspected of being Protestant, fleeing to Geneva and the Holy Roman Empire in the period 1550-75; but it also had to contend with a crisis of confidence in Lyon’s production, which, once it had fallen into the Calvinist fold, was viewed with suspicion by Catholics.[13]
Map of the locations of printing centres in France (represented in the Worth Library), and neighbouring countries in the sixteenth century.
This map of Europe in the sixteenth century is a key element in understanding the importance of certain production centres in relation to others. Here we find the four French production centres represented in the Worth Library collection: Paris, Lyon, Poitiers and Bordeaux.
Poitiers
The history of printing in Poitiers in the sixteenth century was a slow progression. The first printing workshop in the city was founded by Jean Bouyer (d. 1515), who was associated with Pierre Bellescullée (fl. 1484-95?) and Guillaume I Bouchet (1491-1517?).[14] Guillaume was one of the leading figures in the printing industry in Poitiers. After the death of his partner, Guillaume took over the printing business, which was in turn taken over by his own children.[15]
It seems that the de Marnef family, Jean III (fl. 1511-68) and Enguilbert II (fl. 1530-68), and the Bouchet family, with Jacques II (fl. 1520-51), helped the printing industry in Poitiers to flourish in the sixteenth century.[16] This generation, which succeeded their fathers, who were already well established members of the book trade, had the privilege and duty of continuing this legacy within the walls of Poitiers. According to Vingtrinier, poetry was an important part of Poitevin book production, and Guillaume II Bouchet, sieur de Brocourt (1513-93), played a vital role in popularizing the works of other Poitevin poets: Jean de la Péruse (1529-54), Jean Boiceau, sieur de la Borderie (1513-91), Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532-89), Jacques Tahureau (1527-55), Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1536-1607) and Scévole de Sainte-Marthe (1536-1623).[17]
Poitiers enjoys a privileged geographical location: it is at the centre of the axis linking the capital of the Kingdom of France to the seaport of Bordeaux, which made it the regional capital of Poitou in the sixteenth century, surrounded by the regions of Anjou, Angoulême, La Marche and Blois. The city was characterised by its municipal, judicial and religious institutions, which made it an important administrative centre, a factor that led to the demographic growth of the city in the sixteenth century. What’s more, the city’s good communications facilitated trade and, in particular, the development of the book trade in the sixteenth century. Generally, towns played an important role in the local distribution of books to booksellers whose businesses were not large enough to have direct links with Paris. The number of wholesale booksellers therefore depended on their distance from the main centres of book production (towns). Poitiers was an exception, however, as its production was distinct from that of Paris, despite the presence of subsidiaries established in the city, such as the de Marnef family, heirs to a large Parisian bookselling family.
Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Ausonii Burdigalensis, viri consularis, omnia, quæ adhuc in veteribus bibliothecis inueniri potuerunt, opera adhaec, Symmachi, & Pontij Paulini litteræ ad Ausonium scriptæ: tum Ciceronis, Sulpicia, aliorúmque quorundam veterum carmina nonnullæ, cuncta ad varia, vetera, nováque exemplaria, emendata, commentariisque illustrata per Eliam Vinetum Santonem (Bordeaux, 1580), Sig. Z1r.
Bordeaux
When it comes to printing in Bordeaux, Simon Millanges (1540/41-1623) is a name that cannot be overlooked. He was at the forefront of the industry, which grew slowly in the sixteenth century. From 1572, Millanges was praised for the beauty and scholarly nature of his work.[18] In particular, in 1580 he printed the Ausonii Burdigalensis, viri consularis omnia, … by Decimus Magnus Ausonius, from which Image 4 is taken. This plan of Bordeaux, dated by the author to 1565, shows the crescent-shaped harbour and the location of the city’s ancient ruins and institutions.
Anatole Claudin dates the birth of printing in Bordeaux to a contract signed on 21 June 1486 between the provosts of the city and Michel Svierler, a bookseller who was responsible for bringing a master printer and his journeymen to the city for a period of ten years. The plan was that they would in turn be responsible for training apprentices and journeymen in the city. This contract was, however, never fulfilled.[19] Bordeaux might not have been lucky in this regard but it could boast of its local cultural institutions which (as in Paris and Lyon), facilitated the growth of the book trade in Bordeaux by providing a ready market of readers and authors. They certainly had an impact on the market for printed books, directing the production of booksellers and encouraging the printing of scholarly works by teachers. In 1533, the Bordeaux Jurade, or city council, launched a major project to build a college to teach the humanism popularised by the Parisian academics of the early sixteenth century.[20] By the 1540s trouble was brewing: in 1548, popular uprisings against the ‘Gabelle’ tax on salt were followed by violent armed repression, followed by two plague epidemics in 1548 and 1555. Religious unrest then divided the city and the Collège de Guyenne (founded in 1533), became a Protestant stronghold.[21] The Collège Jésuite de la Madeleine opened in the same year as the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Protestants (1572), and it provided a counterpoint to the Protestant controlled Collège de Guyenne. However, from the point of view of the Bordeaux book trade, it offered a new market.
Sources
Barbier, Frédéric, ‘La foi, le souverain et l’imprimé’, in Frédéric Barbier, Histoire du livre en Occident (Paris, 2020), pp 139-158.
Bouchon, Georges, Histoire d’une imprimerie bordelaise, 1600-1900 (Bordeaux, 1901).
Clair, Colin, A history of European printing (New York, 1976).
Claudin, Anatole, Les origines et les débuts de l’imprimerie à Bordeaux (Paris, 1897).
Compère, Marie-Madeleine & Julia Dominique, ‘33 BORDEAUX, collège de Guyenne, collège de plein exercice‘, in Marie-Madeleine Compère & Julia Dominique, Les collèges français, 16e-18e siècles. Répertoire 1 – France du Midi (Paris, 1984), pp 141-147.
Desgraves, Louis, L’Aquitaine aux XVIe-XVIIIe siècles: institutions et culture (Bordeaux, 1992).
Gascon, Richard, ‘Immigration et croissance au XVIe siècle : l’exemple de Lyon (1529-1563)’, Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 25, no. 4 (1970), 988-1001.
La Bouralière, Augustin de, L’Imprimerie & la librairie à Poitiers pendant le XVIe siècle (Poitiers, 1899).
Pettegree, Andrew, Malcolm Walsby & Alexander Wilkinson (eds), French vernacular books: books published in the French language before 1601 = Livres vernaculaires français : Livres imprimés en français avant 1601, 2v. (Leiden & Boston, 2007).
Pettegree, Andrew & Malcolm Walsby (eds), French books III & IV: books published in France before 1601 in Latin and languages other than French, 2v. (Leiden & Boston, 2012).
Truschet, Olivier & Germain Hoyau, Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France. Plan de Paris sous le règne de Henri II … reproduit en fac-simile d’après l’exemplaire unique de la Bibliothèque de Bâle (Paris, 1877).
Walsby, Malcolm, ‘Les étapes du développement du marché du livre imprimé en France du XVe au début du XVIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine, 67, no. 3 (2020), 5-29.
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[1] Walsby, Malcolm, ‘Les étapes du développement du marché du livre imprimé en France du XVe au début du XVIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine, 67, no. 3 (2020), para. 1.
[2] Truschet, Olivier & Germain Hoyau, Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France. Plan de Paris sous le règne de Henri II … reproduit en fac-simile d’après l’exemplaire unique de la Bibliothèque de Bâle (Paris, 1877).
[3] Walsby, ‘Les étapes du développement du marché du livre imprimé en France du XVe au début du XVIIe siècle’, para. 20.
[4] Barbier, Frédéric, ‘La foi, le souverain et l’imprimé’, in Frédéric Barbier, Histoire du livre en Occident (Paris, 2020), p. 166.
[5] Clair, Colin, A history of European printing (New York, 1976), p. 159.
[6] Walsby, ‘Les étapes du développement du marché du livre imprimé en France du XVe au début du XVIIe siècle’, para. 10.
[7] Gascon, Richard, ‘Immigration et croissance au XVIe siècle: l’exemple de Lyon (1529-1563)’, Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 25, no. 4 (1970), 988-9.
[8] Walsby, ‘Les étapes du développement du marché du livre imprimé en France du XVe au début du XVIIe siècle’, para. 20.
[9] Ibid., para. 30. The masters encouraged apprentices to come and work without being paid as much as journeymen. It was François I who responded to the workers’ demands by legislating the situation and introducing rules which, although favourable to the masters, made concessions to apprentices and journeymen.
[10] Ibid., para. 32.
[11] Ibid., para. 36.
[12] Ibid., para. 37.
[13] Ibid., para. 34.
[14] La Bouralière, Augustin de, L’Imprimerie & la librairie à Poitiers pendant le XVIe siècle (Poitiers, 1899), pp 1-2; Bibliothèque nationale de France, ‘Notice de personne “Bellesculée, Pierre (14..-15..? ; imprimeur-libraire)”’, BnF Catalogue général; Bibliothèque nationale de France, ’Notice de personne “Bouchet, Guillaume (14..-1518?)”’, BnF Catalogue général.
[15] La Bouralière, L’Imprimerie & la librairie à Poitiers pendant le XVIe siècle, pp 34-6.
[16] Bibliothèque nationale de France, ‘Notice de personne “Bouchet, Jacques (14..-1550)”’, BnF Catalogue général.
[17] La Bouralière, L’Imprimerie & la librairie à Poitiers pendant le XVIe siècle, pp 37-8; Bibliothèque nationale de France, ‘Notice de personne “Vauquelin de La Fresnaye, Jean (1536-1607)”’, BnF Catalogue général.
[18] Bouchon, Georges, Histoire d’une imprimerie bordelaise, 1600-1900 (Bordeaux, 1901), pp 7-8.
[19] Claudin, Anatole, Les origines et les débuts de l’imprimerie à Bordeaux (Paris, 1897), pp 5-12.
[20] Compère, Marie-Madeleine & Julia Dominique, ‘33 BORDEAUX, collège de Guyenne, collège de plein exercice’, in Marie-Madeleine Compère & Julia Dominique, Les collèges français, 16e-18e siècles. Répertoire 1 – France du Midi (Paris, 1984), p. 142.
[21] Ibid. p. 144; The importance of these colleges and their competition is explained by Louis Desgraves in L’Aquitaine aux XVIe-XVIIIe siècles: institutions et culture (Bordeaux, 1992). He explains the correlation between these institutions and the growth of typographic activity in Bordeaux, which, as we mentioned earlier, in turn specialised in school books.