The dealer was himself prohibited from making purchase of a manuscript left in his hands until this had been offered for sale during the term of not less than one month. Record was to be kept of the name of the purchaser and of the price received.
The requirement that the price obtained for a manuscript should be recorded, has secured the preservation, on a number of manuscripts of the time, of a convenient record of their market value.
In a collection of sermons dating from the latter part of the fifteenth century, for instance, is the record, “This book was sold for 20 Parisian sols.” In a text of Ovid of about the same time is noted simply the price,—6 sols, Parisian.[360]
Newly prepared transcripts could not be licensed for renting until they had been examined and passed as correct by the officials, and until their renting prices had been placed on record. No new work could be included in the lists of the stationarii until license for the same had been secured. At this date, the usual term of rental of a manuscript was one week, and an additional charge could be made if the manuscript was held in excess of that time. In case a member of the university had transcribed an incorrect or incomplete manuscript, the stationarius was liable to him for damages to cover his wasted labour. According to the general practice, the hirer of a manuscript was obliged to deposit a pledge for the same, which pledge could be disposed of by the stationarius after the term of one year.
In the schedule presented by Chevillier of manuscripts licensed in the early part of the thirteenth century, the prices specified cover only the rates for renting. Chevillier points out that there is in this schedule no indication of the division of the manuscripts into pecias, the practice which was, as we have seen, the usual routine in the Italian universities.[361]
An appraisal of the books contained in the library of the Sorbonne in the year 1292 gives a value of 3812 livres, 10 sous, 8 deniers.[362]
The regulations concerning the sale of works on commission were renewed in 1300, with provisions which must have rendered this class of business not only unremunerative but peculiarly troublesome. Such a sale could be made only in the presence of two witnesses. No other bookseller was at liberty to purchase the book, excepting with the permission and in the presence of the original owner. Before a sale was made to a bookseller, the manuscript must be allowed to remain exposed for sale not less than four days in the library of the Dominican monastery.
Exceptions to the above regulations were permitted under the express authority of the Rector of the university in case the original possessor of the manuscript might be in immediate need of money, a condition which probably obtained in a large number of cases.
The general purpose of these regulations appears to have been the prevention of any undue increase in the market price or selling value of manuscripts, or the “cornering of the market” on the part of the manuscript-dealers in connection with texts which might be in demand. Existing regulations of this kind tended, however, naturally to fall into desuetude.
In 1411, an ordinance of Charles VI. made fresh reference to the necessity of such supervision, mainly on the ground of the convenience of tracing stolen manuscripts or unlicensed manuscripts.