Women

Seeing the invisible: Women printers and booksellers in sixteenth-century France.

Women printers and booksellers are the un-sung heroines of the sixteenth-century French book trade. Women played a vital role in ensuring the survival of firms, often marrying a number of times in order to ensure the longevity of the family press. The role of Guyone Viart, Perrette Badius, and Florence Estienne in keeping the Estienne printing dynasty alive has been explored elsewhere and they were certainly not alone in doing so. Many of the presses discussed in this online exhibition were woven together by the marriages of widows, daughters, sisters and nieces, all of whom played important roles in the family firm.

Edmée Tousan (d. 1541?)

Alexander Aphrodisaeus Alexandri Aphrodisiei Problemata, omnibus studiosis non minus vtilia quàm incunda, Graecè & Latinè Ioannis Dauioni studio illustrata. Cum priuilegio in biennium (Paris, 1540-41), 2v. in 1, title page device of Conrad Néobar.

One of the earliest identifiable women printers whose works may be found in the Worth Library was the mysterious Edmée Tousan (d. 1541?). Even the spelling of her name, the very basis of her identity, has divided historians from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day: Philippe Renouard oscillated between ‘Émonde Toussain or Tusan’ or ‘Edmée, Emée or Anne Thousat, Tousart or Toussart’ in Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle. Tome cinquième, Bocard-Bonamy, and ‘Edmée Tousan’ in his Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens.^[1] A more recent author, Rémi Jimenes, relying on contemporary sixteenth-century sources, suggests that the surname ‘Thouzat’ is closer to the original, while offering ‘Émée’ as her first name without giving any explanation.[2] In this webpage I follow the Library of Congress form: ‘Edmée Tousan’.

This constant fog concerning her name is accompanied by confusion about her family relations but she is known to have been the daughter of a master embroiderer (the world of sixteenth-century textiles was not as far removed from that of printing as it might seem), and she was a niece of the scholar Jacques Toussain (1499?-1547). This latter connection gave her an entré into the world of print for, from 1513, her uncle had been in charge of the texts to be edited and translated at the firm of a leading Parisian printer, Josse Badius (1462-1535). Toussain had studied Greek with Guillaume Budé (1468-1540), who became not only his teacher but also his friend. He then chose the path of the scholar and had a career rather reminiscent of Adrien Turnèbe (1512-65). In 1530, King François I (1494-1547) appointed him royal lecturer in Greek during the foundation of what was to become the Collège Royal.[3] He became the teacher of Guillaume Morel (1505-64), Guillaume Chrestien (d. c. 1560), Jacques Goupyl (c. 1525-64), Conrad Néobar (d. 1540), and Henri II Estienne (1528-98).[4] Among his students were two men who would play an important role in the life of his niece Edmée: her first husband Conrad Néobar, and her second husband, Jacques Bogard (d. c. 1552).

On 17 May 1536, she married the printer Conrad Néobar, who died barely four years later, on 2 May 1540, leaving her a widow with no children. Néobar had been born in Kempis-Vost, in the diocese of Cologne, the son of Geoffroy Néobar.[5] He was naturalised, along with his brother Gilles, on 17 January 1539, the same day he was appointed King’s Printer for Greek, a title that was later given to Robert I Estienne (1503?-59). Before that, however, he had been proof-reader to Chrestien Wechel (1495-1554), probably between 1536 and 1538. He was close to Jean Loys (d. 1547), as his printing address suggests: ‘Per Conradum Neobarium, apud Joan. Lodoicum Tiletanum’. In fact, Loys left the print shop to him when he moved to Rue des Sept-Voyes.[6] Néobar had a short but brilliant career.

After Néobar’s death, Edmée took charge of the press and continued, as Image 1 demonstrates, to use his printer’s device of a bronze snake hung from a T-shaped gallows.^[7] It is likely that her publications during the period 1540-41 were influenced by her uncle, Jacques Toussain, for many were in Greek.^[8] In all five of the eleven new editions attributed to Edmée during the period between June and July 1541 are in Greek. Her editions are identifiable because they used the same typeface, devices and Greek colophon as her husband, and at times she either signs her name in Greek or alludes to herself as ‘the widow of the royal printer Conrad Néobar’.[9] In the main, her publications were simple affairs, with little ornamentation.

At the end of 1541, Edmée married another pupil of her uncle’s, Jacques Bogard.[10] He was already well established in the world of printed books, and was a brilliant Hellenist and a popular proof-reader in the Latin Quarter of Paris. From 1538 he had worked at the ‘Soleil d’Or’, the printing firm of his aunt, Charlotte Guillard (d. 1557), who had taken over the firm in 1518/19 on the death of her first husband, Berthold Rembolt. Charlotte was one of the first female printers in Paris and she worked with many of the male Parisian printers, booksellers and publishers mentioned in this online exhibition.[11] Luckily for Jacques Bogard he was close to his aunt and they collaborated in the publication of various Greek books.[12] His arrival at the firm of the Brazen Serpent is not so surprising because there were already close connections between the families: Charlotte, a well-known and respected printer in the Parisian book world, had worked extensively with Jacques Toussain. She had an excellent relationship with Edmée, and, when Edmée and Jacques Bogard had a daughter, Jacqueline, she became one of the child’s godmothers, along with Perette Badius, the wife of Robert I Estienne.[13]

**Denyse Girault (fl. 1576-1600)**

Pierre Belon, Les obseruations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouuees en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, & autres pays estranges, redigées en trois liures par Pierre Belon du Mans. Reueuz de nouueau & augmentez de figures. Le catalogue contenant les plus notables choses, est en la page suyuante (Paris, 1588), title page device of the Girault printing firm.

A second noteworthy female printer whose books are represented in the Worth Library is Denyse Girault (fl. 1576-1600). Denyse had been called after her mother, Denyse de Marnef (fl. 1550-52), and she is often confused with her mother, not only because they shared the same first name, but also because they shared a similar history. Denyse de Marnef was a member of the powerful Marnef printing dynasty. She was the daughter of Geoffroy I de Marnef (fl. 1489-1518) and Jeanne d’Yerres and therefore the sister of Hiérosme de Marnef (1515-95).[14] Denyse de Marnef had married the bookseller Pierre Viart (d. 1523) in 1518, and in 1524 she married the bookseller Ambroise Girault (d. 1546), whose shop sign was that of a pelican.^[15] When Girault died, she had decided to continue working under her maiden name, co-operating with her brother Hiérosme de Marnef. In 1553, when the lease on the house of the Pelican (Girault’s firm) was about to expire, they moved to the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais, at the corner of the Rue du Mont-Saint-Hilaire, to the house of the Colombier St-Jacques, to which they assigned the sign of the Pelican: ‘Sub Pelicano monte D. Hilarii’ or ‘Au Mont Saint Hilaire’; and ‘A’o signo del Pelicano’ or ‘At the sign of the Pelican’.[16] From 1556 to 1564, Hiérosme worked alone.[17]

The Marnef siblings were not above a bit of sharp practice: their decision to expand their catalogue to include the works of St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (d. 397) certainly incurred the wrath of other Parisian printers and booksellers who for some years had enjoyed a virtual monopoly in publishing the saint’s works. Jimenes reports that Charlotte Guillard was one of these irate printers for she had had a virtual monopoly on the publication of Saint Ambrose in France. Despite this Michel Fezandat (fl. 1538-66), Hiérosme and Denyse de Marnef undertook to produce a new corrected and enlarged edition of St Ambrose’s works. Jimines suggests that the brother and the sister sought to exclude the ‘Soleil d’Or‘ by protecting their publication with a privilege. Charlotte Guillard therefore had good reason to feel offended by the intentions of the Marnefs.^[18]

Denyse Girault certainly followed in her mother’s footsteps, not least in collaborating with her uncle Hiérosme. Worth’s copy of Pierre Belon’s Les obseruations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouuees en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, & autres pays estranges, redigées en trois liures par Pierre Belon du Mans (Paris, 1588) is a good example of the niece and uncle working together on an important publication. Given the links between the Giraults and the Marnefs the Pelican device took precedence on the title pages. The device (in Image 2) is more elaborate than those that usually adorned Hiérosme’s works and also includes their Latin motto: ‘In me mors, in me vita’ or ‘In me is death, in me is life’. The Pelican was considered as a symbol of self-sacrifice and in Christian tradition was considered to be a representation of Christ’s sacrifice by dying on the cross to save humanity. Religious preoccupations may also be found in an earlier motto used by Denyse and Hiérosme: ‘Principium fides, finis in charitate’ or ‘The beginning is faith, the end is charity’. This phrase expresses the idea that faith is the foundation of a person’s beliefs and actions, but that love is the objective and ultimate goal.

Denyse is referred to on the title page as ‘la veufue Guillaume Cauellat’ because after her mother’s death, she had married Guillaume Cavellat (d. 1576/77), a talented Parisian printer, in 1559.^[19] He decided to continue the partnership with Hiérosme de Marnef, but added an interesting condition to the contract: if Cavellat died, his wife would continue the partnership with Hiérosme.^[20] It is difficult to determine who initiated this rider and who benefited most from it, but it is clear that after Cavellat’s death, the Marnefs had more and more control and influence over the ‘Poule Grasse‘, or ‘Fat Hen‘, business. Most importantly, it underlines the confidence they had in Denyse’s ability to run the house of the ‘Fat Hen‘ and maintain the print shop’s relationships. As the granddaughter, daughter and wife of printers and booksellers, she was brought up with the intellectual and professional skills to support and, in this case, direct the legacy of her mother and father.

The association between Hiérosme de Marnef and Guillaume Cavellat and that between Marnef and Denyse Girault, Cavellat’s widow, did not lead to a significant increase in their output. Image 3 is taken from Belon’s Les obseruations … (Paris, 1588), a work of natural science, which is a reprint of Guillaume Cavellat’s 1555 edition. But here the edition is ‘revu de nouveau et augmenté de figures’, in an attempt to sell the new edition. It is interesting to note that though the title page of the edition is signed ‘chez Hierosme de Marnef, & la veufue Guillaume Cauellat’ or ’by Hiérosme de Marnef and Guillaume Cavellat’s widow’, the colophon is signed by Léon Cavellat (d. 1610), son of Marie d’Aleaume, Guillaume Cavellat’s first wife, who succeeded Nicolas Du Chemin (d. 1576). Léon Cavellat married Du Chemin’s widow in 1578 and took over his printing business. The colophon shows that he printed the work in February 1588 ‘pour Hierosme de Marnef & la veufue Guillaume Cauellat’, while the verso of the colophon bears only Hiérosme’s device depicting a griffin, accompanied by his motto: ’Virtutis et gloriae comes invidia’.

The publishing policy pursued by the Pelican printing firm was dominated by the Marnefs and this led to Cavellat abandoning much of what had made his company original: works on mathematics, florilegia, religion and history. From 1596 to 1600, Denyse published under the sole name of ‘Veuve de Guillaume Cavellat’.[21] The example of Denyse Cavellat née Girault, was replicated by a later female printer who likewise is presented in Worth’s collections: Marie L’Angelier who was the only child of Abel L’Angelier (fl. 1572-1609) and Françoise de Louvain (c. 1540-1620). Like her mother and father, she too spent her whole life trying to preserve the legacy of the family firm.

Beatrice Hibbard Beech explains in detail the situation of such women printers in the sixteenth century: ‘Between 1500 and 1600 there were fifty-four women who published books and managed book establishments in Paris. While some of these women were substantial publishers, approximately half published for one or two years and then disappeared from view. Of those who had a longer career, fifteen were active from three to seven years, and the rest (about fifteen) exercised their profession from eight to as long as thirty-five years.’[22]

Sources

Beech, Beatrice Hibbard, ‘Women printers in Paris in the sixteenth century’, Medieval Prosopography, 10, no. 1 (1989), 75-93.

Jimenes, Rémi, Charlotte Guillard: une femme imprimeur à la Renaissance (Tours, 2017).

La Caille, Jean de, Histoire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, où l’on voit son origine & son progrès, jusqu’en 1689: divisée en deux livres (Paris, 1689).

Renouard, Philippe, Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer & Birgitte Moreau (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens: libraires, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs d’imprimerie: depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie à Paris (1470) jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle … (Paris, 1965).

Renouard, Philippe, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle. Tome cinquième, Bocard-Bonamy (Paris, 1991).

Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques ou Recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rébus et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’Imprimerie en 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des Libraires et Imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française, 2v. (Paris, 1853-67).

_____

^[1] Renouard, Philippe, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle. Tome cinquième, Bocard-Bonamy (Paris, 1991), p. 116; Renouard, Philippe, Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer & Birgitte Moreau (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens: libraires, fondeurs de caractères et correcteurs d’imprimerie: depuis l’introduction de l’imprimerie à Paris (1470) jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle … (Paris, 1965), p. 322.

[2] Jimenes, Rémi, Charlotte Guillard: une femme imprimeur à la Renaissance (Tours, 2017), pp 17, 53.

[3] Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, pp 75-76.

[4] The date of Henri II Estienne’s birth is unclear: the Library of Congress suggests 1531 and Renouard gives 1528: Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, p. 143.

[5] Bibliothèque nationale de France, ‘Notice de personne ‘’Néobar, Conrad (14.. ?-1540)’’‘, BnF Catalogue général.

[6] Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, p. 322.

^[7] Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques typographiques ou Recueil des monogrammes, chiffres, enseignes, emblèmes, devises, rébus et fleurons des libraires et imprimeurs qui ont exercé en France, depuis l’introduction de l’Imprimerie en 1470, jusqu’à la fin du seizième siècle: à ces marques sont jointes celles des Libraires et Imprimeurs qui pendant la même période ont publié, hors de France, des livres en langue française, 2v. (Paris, 1853-67), printer’s devices n^o: 99, 739.

^[8] Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, pp 116-17.

[9] Ibid.

[10] On Jacques Bogard see Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, pp 133-40.

[11] Unfortunately Worth did not possess any of her publications.

[12] On the life and work of Charlotte Guillard, see Jimenes, Charlotte Guillard.

[13] Ibid., p. 257.

[14] It is difficult to determine whether her first name is spelt ‘Denyse’, ‘Denise’ or, as Jean de la Caille writes, ‘Denis’: La Caille, Jean de, Histoire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, où l’on voit son origine & son progrès, jusqu’en 1689: divisée en deux livres (Paris, 1689), p. 127; Philippe Renouard chooses ‘Denise’: Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, pp 172-3. Hiérosme’s name is also spelt as Jérôme.

^[15] Ibid.

[16] Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, p. 298.

[17] Ibid.

^[18] Jimenes, Charlotte Guillard, p. 192.

^[19] Renouard et al. (eds), Répertoire des imprimeurs parisiens, p. 70.

^[20] Beech, Beatrice Hibbard, ‘Women printers in Paris in the sixteenth century’, Medieval Prosopography, 10, no. 1 (1989), 82-83.

[21] Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, pp 116-7.

[22] Beech, ‘Women printers in Paris in the sixteenth century’, 77-78.