Though Rouen was without a printer till 1487, it became within a very few years one of the most important towns in the history of French printing. Its fortunate position on the Seine, equally advantageous for sending books to Paris or exporting them to England, was doubtless the chief cause of its great prosperity, and its influence over the book trade was felt, not only over all France, but over England as well. The first printer was Guillaume le Talleur, and his first book, Les Chroniques de Normandie, was published in May 1487. He printed several law books for Richard Pynson about 1490, and was very probably his teacher. The most important export from Rouen was certainly service-books, and of these endless numbers were issued for various uses. Martin Morin, who began to print in 1490, was especially connected with this kind of work, and some of the most beautiful of the Salisbury Missals are from his press. The printers were, however, not nearly so numerous as the booksellers, though it is not always very easy to distinguish between them. Morin, Le Talleur, Noel de Harsy, Jean le Bourgeois, and Jacques le Forestier, may safely be given as printers; others, like Richard and Regnault, were probably only booksellers or stationers. Besançon also had a printing press in 1487, but who the first printer was is not very certainly known. Several writers consider him to have been Jean du Pré; but M. Thierry-Poux, judging from the types, considers that Peter Metlinger, who printed later at Dôle, is more likely to have been the printer. In 1488 (26th March 1487), Jean Crès printed the first book at Lantenac, an edition in French of Mandeville’s Travels. Its colophon mentions no name of place, but the type and the printer’s name are identical with those of the Doctrinal des nouvelles mariées of 1491, which has the name of the place, Lantenac, in the colophon.
Between 1490 and the end of 1500 printing was introduced into twenty towns. In 1490, to Embrun, Grenoble, and Dôle; but the first and second of these places only produced a single book each. In 1491, to Orleans, Goupillières, Angoulême, Dijon, and Narbonne.
M. Jarry[26] mentions a certain Jehan le Roy, who was spoken of at Orleans in 1481 as a printer and stationer, but nothing printed by him is known. The first book known is a Manipulus Curatorum in French, printed by Matthew Vivian. Our knowledge of the existence of a press at Goupillières in the fifteenth century is the result of a fortunate discovery made by M. Delisle. He found, used as boards for an old binding, thirty-six leaves of a book of Hours ‘à l’usage du diocèse d’Evreux,’ with a colophon stating that it was printed at Goupillières on the 8th May 1491, by Michel Andrieu, a priest. At Narbonne also but one book was printed before 1500, a Breviarium ad usum ecclesiæ Narbonensis.
[26] Les débuts de l’Imprimerie à Orléans. Orléans, 1884.
In 1492, printing was introduced into Cluni; and in 1493, to Nantes, Châlons, Tours, and Mâcon. Châlons and Mâcon are each represented by one book, which in each case is a Diurnale for the use of its own church.
In 1495, Jean Berton began to print at Limoges, issuing service-books for the use of the church. The last six towns to be mentioned are Provins (1496), Valence (1496), Avignon (1497), Périgueux (1498), Perpignan (1500), and Valenciennes (1500).
Nothing seems to have resulted from the early attempts at printing at Avignon, which have been spoken of before, and the first dated book issued there is an edition of part of Lucian, printed for Nicholas Tepe, by Jean du Pré of Lyons, on the 15th October 1497.
It will be noticed that printing was introduced into many of the provincial towns of France merely to serve a temporary purpose, and not for the object of permanent work. In many cases the printer was brought to the town, probably at the request and expense of the ecclesiastical authorities, to print such service-books as were required for the use of the church. For this reason we find printers and types moving from place to place, so that it is not always easy to assign a book to a particular town, when the type in which it is printed was used in several places. The splendid series of facsimiles edited by M. Thierry-Poux, and published by order of the Government, gives great assistance to the study of French typography; while from time to time small monographs have appeared giving the history of printing in all the more important towns of France.