Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900)

www.copyrighthistory.org

Identifier: d_1513

Commentary on the Imperial Privilege for Rösslin's Rose Garden

Friedemann Kawohl

Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management, Bournemouth University, UK

Please cite as:
Kawohl, F. (2008) ‘Commentary on an Imperial privilege for Eucharius Rösslin (1513)', in Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org

1. Full title

2. Abstract

3. Rösslin and the content of the privilege

4. Competition or Completion? Local and Imperial privileges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

5. Censorship and Privileges

6. References

1. Full title
Imperial Privilege for Eucharius Rösslin's The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwifes (Der Schwangeren Frauen und Hebammen Rosengarten)

2. Abstract
This is the first Imperial privilege granting protection against translations and it is the first Imperial privilege specifying a stipulated fine to be paid on a fifty-fifty basis to the aggrieved author and the Imperial Chamber Court respectively. The official document of the privilege has not been preserved, but the full text is printed at the beginning of the book. Rösslin's Rose Garden was a standard text- book on midwifery in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first edition of 1513 was followed in 1532 by a Latin version, which was soon again translated into the main European languages. The 1513 privilege grants protection for six years. Not only reprints produced within the realm of the Emperor's jurisdiction are banned, but also the importing and distribution of reprint editions from foreign territories (both in German and in translated versions). This commentary focuses on how translations were protected by privilege; on the relationship between local and Imperial privileges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and on the relationship between censorship and privileges within the Empire.

3. The book, the dedicatee and the privilege
The Rösslin privilege is the first example of privilege protection against translations and it is the first Imperial privilege specifying the stipulated fine to be paid on a fifty-fifty basis to the injured party (i.e. the author) and the Imperial Chamber Court respectively. The explicit ban of translated versions and imported copies may have been requested specifically in the application for the privilege. Eucharius Rösslin studied in Freiburg and was registered there as a doctor and apothecary between 1493 and 1506. He then worked as a doctor in Frankfurt and spent some time in Worms, where, according to the dedication, he finished his book in 1513. His son, also called Eucharius Rösslin (d.1554), was a doctor in Frankfurt and the author of a herbal (Kreutterbuch von allem Erdtgewächs) which gave rise to legal disputes (see Schott v. Egenolph, d_1533). Rösslin ‘the elder' died in 1526.

In 1508, he had spent some months with the dedicatee of the book, Catherine, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg (b. Meissen 24 July 1468, d. Göttingen 10 February 1524)[1]. According to the Frankfurt records,[2] Rösslin was asked for medical care by Catherine, and he duly set off to see her, probably either to Calenberg or Neustadt/Rübenberg, which were both then seats of the court of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Catherine, the daughter of Albrecht of Saxony and his wife Sidonie of Bohemia was married off, at the age of just sixteen, to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria (1427-1496) on 24 February 1484.[3] After Sigismund's death, she married Erich I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1470-1540), also referred to as the Duke of Calenberg-Göttingen. Both husbands had close ties to the Emperor Maximilian. Sigismund was a nephew of Maximilian, and by helping to arrange the latter's marriage to Mary of Burgundy, he paved the way for the subsequent rise of the House of Habsburg. Erich I served in Maximilian's army as Commander-in-Chief in campaigns against the French and the Turks, and he is said to have saved the Emperor's life during the battle of Regensburg in 1504.[4] Thus, the dedication, if not also the services which Rösslin had performed for Catherine, may well have been a crucial factor in the privilege being granted to him. For as a relatively unknown doctor from Frankfurt, with no personal ties to the aristocracy, Rösslin would otherwise probably not have received a privilege so readily. The privilege text, however, does not actually refer to the dedicatee.

The original German version of the Rosengarten was first published in Strasbourg by Martin Flach. From the monogram MC in the corner of the scene illustrated in the dedication (p. 4), the pictures have been ascribed to the Frankfurt-based artist Martin Caldenbach (Kaldenbach, after 1470-1518).

The content is largely based on classical texts by Moschio (c. 6th century AD) and Soranus of Ephesus (c. AD 100) There were more than a hundred editions of the Rosengarten in the first two centuries after its original publication. [5] Peter Dunn has identified early English translations and adaptations:

"His son, also named Eucharius Rösslin, succeeded him as town physician. In 1532 he published a Latin translation of his father's book as D partu Hominis and in 1540 a "studious and diligent clerk," Richard Jonas, retranslated this edition into English with the title "The Byrth of Mankynde" or "The Woman's Book". He re-dedicated the book to "the most gracious Lady Quene Katheryne" (the 5th wife of Henry VIII) with the comment: "... it is nowe so plainly set forth that the simplest Mydwyfe which can reade maye both understand for her better instruction and also other women that have need of her helpe." In 1545 a new and amended edition was published by a physician, Dr Thomas Raynalde. By now the Rosengarten had been translated into all the main European languages and it went through many editions. Other midwifery books such as De conceptu et generatione hominis (1554) by Jacob Ruelf of Zurich (to be published in English as "The Expert Midwife" in 1637) were also to a great extent based on Rösslin's earlier text."[6]

A most interesting feature of the privilege is the provision concerning imports of German and translated copies. This provision is exceptional for sixteenth-century privileges, but, as a matter of fact, it was actually a translation (in this case from Latin to German) which caused the first copyright dispute brought before the Imperial Chamber Court (d_1533). The first general statutory provision regarding translations was the Saxon Statute of 1773 (d_1773) at a time when German translations from modern European languages had become popular and the Leipzig publishers tried to secure the market for their editions of translations of French and English novels and specialised books.

4. Competition or Completion? Local and Imperial privileges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Protection against reprints in the Holy Roman Empire during the sixteenth century could be granted on four levels: (i) privileges granted by the Emperor and valid in all Imperial territories; (ii) privileges issued by the Pope which theoretically were supposed to be valid across the whole Roman Catholic world; (iii) privileges granted by local sovereigns and restricted to their respective territories; and (iv) guild regulations for printers within the main printing centres, most of which were Free Imperial Towns. These forms of protection could overlap. There were books for which both imperial and papal privileges were obtained,[7] e.g. for the Basel-based printer Johannes Frobenius regarding the Collected Works of St Jerome (Omnium Operum Divi Eusebii Hieronymi), annotated by Erasmus of Rotterdam.[8] Printers and publishers from towns where printers' statutes offered protection against reprints from within the town could in addition to that obtain an imperial privilege.

Local sovereigns' privileges were rare in the sixteenth century and tended to be granted to universities and university professors rather than to printers or authors as such. The first Bavarian ducal privilege (d_1516b) was granted in 1516 for a grammar book (Grammatica) by Johann Turmair (Aventinus in Latin). Turmair was appointed a tutor to the Bavarian princes in 1509, and in 1517 he was made Historiographer of the Bavarian courts.[9] The first edition of his Grammar was published in Munich in 1512. The title page[10] displays the Bavarian coat of arms (held by two lions) and a reference to Turmair's work as the princes' tutor, but the privilege does not explicitly ban reprints. At least five reprints of this first edition were subsequently published in Nuremberg and Leipzig.[11] The privilege issued on 16 December 1516 gives the bookseller Erhard Sempach the exclusive right for six years to sell Turmair's Grammar in Bavaria. This privilege was first published in the edition of 1517. Sempach was based in the Bavarian university town of Ingolstadt. For the printing of the Grammar he commissioned the printer Miller from Augsburg, a Free Imperial Town not subject to Bavarian jurisdiction. The Bavarian privilege may have prevented Bavarian booksellers from selling copies of the Nuremberg and Leipzig reprints, but it was powerless to prevent a reprint of the enlarged 1517 edition being published by Lotter in Leipzig, in 1520.[12]

Also based in Ingolstadt was Johann Eck, who successfully applied for Bavarian and Imperial privileges. Eck, the disputant of Luther at the famous debate of doctrine held in Leipzig in 1519, was appointed Chancellor of the University of Ingolstadt in 1512. His commentary on Petrus Hispanus was printed in 1516 - also by Miller in Augsburg - and was distributed by the Ingolstadt-based bookseller Erhard Sempach. The price of the book was fixed at 20 kreuzer by the University, although the financial risk involved and any ensuing profits were apparently left entirely to the author. Eck expresses in a letter his hopes that he will recoup his investment eight times over.[13] His Elementarius dialectice,[14] which was again printed by Miller in Augsburg, was protected by a privilege from Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria. As part of the reforms he carried out in Ingolstadt University, Eck started in 1510 to edit the writings of Aristotle. His edition of Aristotle's Dialectica was once again printed by Miller in Augsburg.[15] There is no Bavarian privilege, but an Imperial one is included in it. The privilege[16] (d_1516a) was issued on 22 January 1516 in Augsburg by "Serentener",[17] the same councillor of Emperor Maximilian who signed the 1511 privilege for Arnolt Schlick (d_1511), and it also covers an edition of Aristotle's Logic and Physics, as well as the edition of Petrus Hispanus's works.

The first book privilege granted by the Elector of Saxony also concerned a textbook. In 1517, Petrus Mosellanus (1493-1524), a professor of Greek at Leipzig University, published his Paedologia, a school-book consisting of 37 Latin dialogues. But despite the Leipzig privilege, the book was reprinted immediately: 79 editions have been identified,[18] some of them as early as 1517 in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder; others dating from 1520 and 1521 in Strasbourg; 1522 in Haguenau; 1531 and 1536 in Paris; and 1532 in Augsburg.[19] Duke George of Saxony privileged a German translation of the Bible as a papal alternative to Luther's version: the former was edited by Luther's adversary Hieronymus Emser (1478-1527) and published in 1527 by Wolfgang Stöckel in Dresden.[20] Duke George's cousin, the Elector Frederick of Saxony privileged Luther's translations in 1534 and 1545 (see d_1545) and thus paved the way for territorial princes' superintendence in the issuing of both censorship and reprinting privileges.

In the early sixteenth century, privileges issued by local sovereigns were granted in order to protect university professors and local scholars, whereas Imperial privileges were granted to authors with personal connections to the Imperial court. The book privileges issued by both the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria were inheritable.[21] Imperial privileges were limited in time, but Bavarian privileges were not, at least not explicitly. Imperial privileges were of great importance throughout the sixteenth century, but lost their relevance to regional privileges in the course of the seventeenth century, whereas regional privileges had been quite rare in the sixteenth century,[22] but became the rule in seventeenth-century Saxony and Bavaria.

Seventeenth-century printers were not free to choose whether or not to apply for a privilege. A Bavarian decree of 22 March 1645 instructs that printers must obtain both the Imperial and the Bavarian ducal privilege.[23] In 1675, a new Bavarian decree repeated the provisions of 1645, but implicitly stated that in the absence of a Bavarian privilege, reprinting was allowed in Bavaria, and that in Bavaria reprinting as such could only actually be prevented by a Bavarian privilege.[24] On the other hand, Imperial privileges gradually lost their validity after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.[25] After 1740 they were not respected any more even in the Habsburg territories.[26]

General privileges, i.e. privileges for their whole output of books, were granted to the Jesuits by both the Empire and the Duchy of Bavaria. The Jesuits had their own censorship regime, and as part of their general privilege all writings authored or edited by members of the Society were protected against reprinting.[27]

Sometimes Imperial and local authorities pursued quite different policies in exercising their authority on book privileges and censorship. When in 1572 Saxony enacted a criminal code, only part of it was published in Dresden.[28] The so-called "constitutiones seperatae", including the opinions by the Universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig on specific problems, were distributed only in manuscript copies among the Saxon law-courts. In 1599, the Frankfurt publisher Johann Theobald Schönwetter obtained an Imperial privilege for his complete edition of these opinions.[29] However, the Saxon authorities successfully filed a claim with the Frankfurt Council to stop and confiscate the publication.[30] To avoid the Frankfurt ban, Schönwetter published a second volume in the nearby city of Mainz.[31]

Local and Imperial privilege systems were based on different rationales. Local authorities pursued at least three different objectives: privileges for publishers and booksellers were a means to secure the supply of text books and publication possibilities for local universities, many of which were founded in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (e.g. the sixteenth-century Bavarian and Leipzig privileges). Local privileges for booksellers aimed at securing the supply of products of the printing press for the culturally aspiring courts in the princely seats of the smaller territories.[32] The Leipzig privilege system as established in the late eighteenth century (d_1773) was a means of carrying out trade policy. It was designed to attract publishers to visit the Leipzig Book Fair in order to obtain protection by a Saxon privilege.

Imperial privileges in the sixteenth century were mainly a means of giving remuneration to special beneficiaries of the court. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they provided a way of supervising the book trade at the Frankfurt fairs. Furthermore, Imperial privileges were a means of religious policy and a core part of the eighteenth-century Austrian censorship regime.

5. Censorship and Privileges
Throughout all early-modern Europe censorship evolved as a common and legitimate practise of controlling communication in order to prevent the circulation of undesirable opinions. This did not change until the Enlightenment ideals of ‘freedom of speech' and ‘freedom of the press' were established and incorporated, say, in the U.S. Constitution of 1776 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789. The proliferation of European censorship regimes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was prompted by the technical opportunities which the printing press opened up for easily and cheaply disseminating new ideas, as well as by the confessional disputes which ended the sole authority of the Roman Church in religious matters.

All the main authorities within the Holy Roman Empire (the Emperor, the Pope, the local sovereigns and Free Imperial Towns) exercised censorship, granted book and printers' privileges, or supervised municipal guild regulations respectively. Both forms of communication control have often been exercised independently: sixteenth-century Imperial and Bavarian printing privileges were granted without demanding the censor's approval,[33] and it was not before 1760 that the latter became mandatory for obtaining an Imperial privilege - that is, at a time when general acceptance of censorship was in decline and Imperial privileges had become irrelevant outside of Habsburg-ruled Austria.

The remark in a book of 1475: "Licensed and examined by the University of Cologne" ("Admissum ac probatum ab alma mater Coloniensi") has been regarded as the first reference to a "not purely ecclesiastical form of censorship".[34] This phrase has been found in twelve[35] fifteenth-century editions from Cologne. It was also in Cologne that the first censorship court case in the Holy Roman Empire arose in 1478.[36] On 1 January 1501, Pope Alexander I issued a bull enjoining the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, and Magdeburg to supervise new editions and to strictly ban any uncensored books.[37]

Sixteenth-century censorship was mainly a means used by the Catholic authorities to suppress deviating theologies. Thus, the 1520s wave of Lutheran writings triggered the establishment of a multitude of censorship regimes all over Europe: in England, in 1523, Henry VIII enacted a ban of 18 works, five of which were by works by Luther; three years later, the catalogue had grown to 85 titles. In France, Francis I established a censorship regime within the Sorbonne University in 1521.

The Pope established the notorious "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition" ("Congregatio Romanae et universalis Inquisitionis") in 1542, after the proscription of Lutheran works by the 1520 papal bull Exsurge Domine had failed to achieve the desired results. Unlike medieval activities such as the public burning of undesired books, the new Roman censorship body was a modern bureaucratic authority. From now on "Lists of Prohibited Books" ("Indices Librorum Prohibitorum") were published - at the Universities of Paris (1545, 1547, 1549, 1551, 1556) and Leuwen (1546, 1550, 1558), in Venice (1549, 1554), Milan and Florence (1554), in Portugal (1547) and in Rome from 1559 to 1966. The first Roman index of 1559 was divided into three categories: authors, whose works were completely banned; specific works to be prohibited; and anonymous works listed alphabetically by title. There were annexes containing lists of prohibited bibles and of printers who had published prohibited books. Since the complete production of these printers - no matter whether it was of a theological nature or not - was banned, it is clear that the main purpose was to combat the booming Protestant book industry. Most of the 61 banned printers were from Protestant Free Imperial Towns in the Upper Rhine region (Basel, Frankfurt, Schwäbisch Hall, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Tübingen, Zürich), from Geneva, and from the Protestant territories Hesse-Kassel (Marburg) and Saxony (Wittenberg).[38] Lutheran and other Protestant books continued to be at the focus of censorship: out of 3,841 German writings, censored by different bodies in the second half of the sixteenth century, 41% of these have been identified as works related to the Reformation. 75% of these 3,841 works were published in sixteen Protestant towns which were the main printing places in the Empire.[39]

The limits of the pope's privilege and of the European censorship regime are nicely illustrated in the "tenor of the privilege" printed at the end of a 1560 Rome edition of the Colloquia obscurorum theologorum (d_1560). The fictive imprint on the title page refers to both a papal censorship license and a privilege ("Romae stampato con priuilegio del Papa"), whereas on the last page the privilege is satirically laid out as follows:

"Tenor of the privilege:

The most holy Pope has prohibited, upon punishment of excommunication

short and long, high and deep, this book from being

[re-]printed in the whole of Italy, France and

Spain, but we can not prohibit it in

Germany where the very wicked

Lutherans are."[40]

 

The Emperor's superintendence on books (see d_1501), covering both censorship and privileges, was accepted from the last decade of the fifteenth century onwards.[41] At the Imperial diet of 1521, Emperor Charles V installed "censura praevia" (censorship in advance) as a rule. Details concerning the implementation of this in the Empire's towns and territories were given in the diets of 1529, 1530 and in the Imperial Statute Book of 1548 ("Reichpolizeiordnung"). In order to simplify censorship according to the Imperial diet of 1570, printing presses were only allowed in seats of princely courts, in university towns, and in some Free Imperial Towns "of repute" ("ansehnliche").[42]

Permanent censorship regimes were installed at universities in both Catholic (Ingolstadt, Bavaria 1522) and Protestant territories (Wittenberg, 1522, Leipzig 1543, Marburg 1527).[43] At the end of the sixteenth century a so called "Books' Commission"[44] was established under imperial aegis at the Frankfurt book fair. The Frankfurt Books Commissioner (see d_1511a) was at the same time a representative of the Emperor and the Catholic canon of the St Bartholomew cathedral.

Censorship and book privileges came into use in the same time and were vested within the same jurisdictional spheres of Emperor, Pope and Territories. However, those two early-modern means of controlling the dissemination of books served different ends and were thus exercised independently until the last decades of the Old Empire, when the Habsburg regime, from 1760 onwards, declared the "Imprimat" of the censorship body as a prerequisite for obtaining a privilege.

The changing practices in the granting of privileges and censorship measures in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries serve to highlight the gradual shift in power from the Emperor to the territorial authorities. Whilst early-sixteenth-century printers regularly and successfully applied for Imperial privileges, the proportion of Imperial privileges in the total output of books, and even the total number of privileges, fell drastically after the division of Catholic and Protestant territories marked by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Protestant local sovereigns, such as the Elector of Saxony, started to grant their own privileges - e.g. the Saxon privilege for Luther's German Bible (see d_1545) - for books listed on the papal "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" and could thus never have been protected by an Imperial privilege. Since censorship criteria could differ between the Catholic Emperor and Protestant local authorities, the Imperial superintendence of books was thereby weakened. Printers increasingly began to resort to market regulations at the book fairs, to municipal printers' orders, and to privileges issued by local sovereigns.

6. References

Books and articles [in alphabetical order]

Baas, Karl. "Eucharius Rösslins Lebensgang", Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 1 (1907): 429-441

Bappert, Walter. Wege zum Urheberrecht (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1962)

Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm. Article "Aventinus", in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Traugott Bautz (Nordhausen: Bautz, 1990), 1: 407-308. Full text online at: www.bautz.de

Bärninghausen, Hendrik. "Zur Geschichte der Buchdruckerei und des Verlagswesens in Saalfeld im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert", in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchdrucks und des Buchgewerbes in Thüringen, ed. by Detlef Ignasiak and Günter Schmidt (Jena: Quartus, 1997), 41-53

Dunn, Peter M. "Eucharius Rösslin (c. 1470-1526) of Germany and the rebirth of midwifery", Arch. Dis. Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 79 (July 1998), F77-F78 http://fn.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/79/1/F77 (Accessed on 9 January 2007)

Eck, Johannes. Briefwechsel. Online resource edited by Vinzenz Pfnür and available at: http://ivv7srv15.uni-muenster.de/mnkg/pfnuer/Eck-Briefe.html

Eisenhardt, Ulrich. Die kaiserliche Aufsicht über Buchdruck, Buchhandel und Presse im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation (1496-1806). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bücher- und Pressezensur. (= Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Verfassungsrechts, Band A/3). (Karlsruhe: C.F. Müller, 1970)

Eisenhardt, Ulrich. "Staatliche und kirchliche Einflußnahme aud den deutschen Buchhandel im 16. Jahrhundert", in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchwesens im konfessionellen Zeitalter, ed. by Herbert G. Göpfert, Peter Vodosek, Erdmann Weyrauch and Reinhard Wittmann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1985), 195-313

Fitos, Stephan. Zensur als Mißerfolg. Die Verbreitung indizierter deutscher Druckschriften in der zweiten Hälfte des 16 Jahrhunderts. (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2000)

Freyberg, Max Freiherr von. Pragmatische Geschichte der bayerischen Gesetzgebung und Staatsverwaltung seit den Zeiten Maximilians I., 4 vols (Leipzig 1836-1839)

Gieseke, Ludwig. Vom Privileg zum Urheberrecht. Die Entwicklung des Urheberrechts in Deutschland bis 1845 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995)

Hoffmann, Gottfried Daniel. Von denen ältisten Kayserlichen und Landesherrlichen Bücher-Druck- oder Verlag-Privilegien (Tübingen 1777)

Holzborn, Timo. Die Geschichte der Gesetzespublikation (Berlin: Tenea 2003). Available online at: http://www.jurawelt.com/dissertationen/8200

Kapp, Friedrich. Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels bis in das siebzehnte Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Verlag des Börsenvereins der Deutschen Buchhändler, 1886), vol. 1

Krümmel, Achim. Article "Mosellanus", in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Traugott Bautz (Nordhausen: Bautz, 1993), 6: 169-171. Full text available online at: www.bautz.de

Kunze, Wolfgang. Leben und Bauten Herzog Erichs II. (Neustadt am Rübenberg. 1993)

Lehne, Friedrich "Zur Rechtsgeschichte der kaiserlichen Druckprivilegien", Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung 39 (1939): 323-409

Neumann, Helmut. Staatliche Bücherzensur und -aufsicht in Bayern von der Reformation bis zum Ausgang des 17. siebzehnten Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg: Müller, 1977)

Pohlmann, Hansjörg. "Neue Materialien zum deutschen Urheberschutz im 16. Jahrhundert", Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 4 (1963): 90-172

Riha, Ortrun and Ulrich Tröhler. Epilogue to a facsimile edition of Eucharius Rösslin, Der Schwangeren Frauen und Hebammen Rosengarten (Wutöschingen: Antiqua-Verlag, 1993)

Roth, Friedrich Wilhelm Emil. "Eucharius Rößlin der Ältere. Bio-bibliographisch geschildert", Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 13 (1896): 289-311. Online at: http://www.digizeitschriften.de

Schichan, Michael, "Nebenresidenz und frühneuzeitlicher Industriestandort. Existenzbedingungen für den bedeutendsten Schmalkalder Drucker", in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchdrucks und des Buchgewerbes in Thüringen, ed. by Detlef Ignasiak and Günter Schmidt (Jena: Quartus, 1997)

Schletter, H. Th. Die Constitutionen Kurf. Augusts von Sachsen vom Jahre 1572 : Geschichte, Quellenkunde und dogmengeschichtliche Charakteristik derselben (Leipzig: Brockhaus 1857)

Schmid, Peter. Article "Sigismund", in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Traugott Bautz (1995), 10: 269-274. Available online at: www.bautz.de

Schottenloher, Karl. "Die Druckprivilegien des 16. Jahrhunderts", Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1933): 89-110

Thieme, André. Article "Albrecht (der Beherzte)", Sächsische Biografie, ed. by Martina Schattkowsky. Published in 2006 online at: www.isgv.de

Vogel, Martin. "Deutsche Urheber- und Verlagsrechtsgeschichte zwischen 1450 und 1850", Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 19, nr 1 (1978): 1-180

Wolf, Hubert. Index. Der Vatikan und die verbotenen Bücher (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2006)

Zaretzky, Otto. Der erste Kölner Zensurprozess (Cologne: Du Mont, 1906)

[1] Biographic details from André Thieme, "Albrecht (der Beherzte)", in Sächsische Biografie, ed. by Martina Schattkowsky. Published online in 2006 at: www.isgv.de

[2] Karl Baas, "Eucharius Rösslins Lebensgang", Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 1 (1907): 429-441 (437).

[3] Peter Schmid, "Sigismund", in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Traugott Bautz, 10 (1995): 269-274. Available online at: www.bautz.de

[4] Wolfgang Kunze, Leben und Bauten Herzog Erichs II. (Neustadt am Rübenberg, 1993)

[5] Sixteenth-century editions in German, Latin, English and French are listed in Friedrich Wilhelm Emil Roth, "Eucharius Rößlin der Ältere. Bio-bibliographisch geschildert", Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 13 (1896): 289-311. Online at: http://www.digizeitschriften.de

[6] Peter M. Dunn, "Eucharius Rösslin (c 1470-1526) of Germany and the rebirth of midwifery", Arch. Dis. Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 79 (July 1998): F77-F78. Online at: http://fn.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/79/1/F77 (accessed on 9 January 2007).

[7] According to Gottfried Daniel Hoffmann, Von denen ältisten Kayserlichen und Landesherrlichen Bücher-Druck- oder Verlag-Privilegien (Tübingen 1777), Pope Julius II granted a six-year privilege to Evangelisto Tosino for Ptolemy's Geographica; Pope Leo X granted a ten-year privilege for the 1515 Tacitus edition by Beroaldo in Rome, which was nonetheless reprinted in 1517 by Minutianus in Milan and by Frobenius in Basel. For details on papal privileges see [Italian reference to be provided].

[8] Cf. Ludwig Gieseke, Vom Privileg zum Urheberrecht: Die Entwicklung des Urheberrechts in Deutschland bis 1845 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995), 47 and d_1531.

[9] Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz, "Aventinus", in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Traugott Bautz (Nordhausen: Bautz, 1990), 1: 407-308. Full text online at: www.bautz.de

[10] For example, the title-page of the copy held by the University Library in Tübingen.

[11] The first edition of the Grammar was published in Munich in 1512. Reprints, as listed in the VD16 catalogue, were published in Nuremberg by Weyssenburger in 1512 and 1513, by Stuchs in 1515, and by Gutknecht in 1515, and in Leipzig by Lotter in 1516 and by Schumann in 1516.

[12] Another edition by Gutknecht in Nuremberg was published in 1523 and thus did thus not fall within the six-year term.

[13] Johann Eck, letter to Nikolaus Ellenbog (Ingolstadt, 17 April 1516). Cf. Johannes Eck, Briefwechsel. An online resource edited by Vinzenz Pfnür and available at: http://ivv7srv15.uni-muenster.de/mnkg/pfnuer/Eck-Briefe.html

[14] Karl Schottenloher, "Die Druckprivilegien des 16. Jahrhunderts", Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1933): 89-110 ( 97), has corrected the title to Elemantarius dialecticae. Library catalogues, however, still list the original spelling Elemantarius dialectice.

[15] Aristotelis Stragyrite Dialectica. See d_1516.

[16] This privilege has not been included in the lists of early privileges by Schottenloher (1933), 97 and Giesecke (1995), 47.

[17] Cyprian (Zyprian) of Serentein Northeim, see the article "Northeim-Serentein" at: http://austroarchiv.com/joomla/content/view/489/27/

[18] Achim Krümmel, "Mosellanus", Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Traugott Bautz (Nordhausen: Bautz, 1993), 6: 169-171. Full text online at: www.bautz.de

[19] Taken from the entries in library catalogues kvk and swb http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/kvk.html

[20] Friedrich Kapp, Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels bis in das siebzehnte Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Verlag des Börsenvereins der Deutschen Buchhändler, 1886), 1: 738.

[21] Helmut Neumann, Staatliche Bücherzensur und -aufsicht in Bayern von der Reformation bis zum Ausgang des 17. siebzehnten Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg: Müller, 1977), 57, with reference, however, to seventeenth-century Bavarian privileges (28 September 1669 and 9 July 1675).

[22] For Saxon privileges see d_1545. According to Neumann (1977), 58, the first documented application for a Bavarian privilege from 25 June 1596 was filed by a printer, who claimed to have inherited an Imperial privilege granted in favour of his late father.

[23] Neumann (1977), 56, with reference to Max, Freiherr von Freyberg, Pragmatische Geschichte der bayerischen Gesetzgebung und Staatsverwaltung seit den Zeiten Maximilians I., 4 vols (Leipzig 1836-1839), 3: 128.

[24] Neumann (1977), 58.

[25] Martin Vogel, "Deutsche Urheber- und Verlagsrechtsgeschichte zwischen 1450 und 1850", Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 19, nr 1 (1978): 1-180 (41).

[26] Pütter 202 gives examples of reprint editions carried out in spite of Imperial privileges.

[27] Neumann (1977), 59.

[28] [Verordenungen und Constitutionen des Rechtlichen Proces] Des Durchlauchtigsten Hochgeborne[n] Fürsten und Herrn, Herrn Augusten, Hertzogen zu Sachsen, ... Verordenungen vnd Constitutionen des Rechtlichen Proces : auch waser massen etzlicher zweiffelhafftiger vnd streitiger fell halben durch die bestalte vnd geordnete Hoffgerichte, ... zu recht erkand vnd gesprochen werdel sol (Dresden: Stöckel, 1572)

[29] Jllustres, aureae solemnes diuque exoptatae quaestionum variarum apud iuris utriusque interpretes controversarum Decisiones & Discussiones: Ex iure Caesareo, Pontificio, et Saxonico ad Praxin Camerae accomodatae. et illustriss. Mem. Heroi, D. D. AUGUSTO, Electori Saxoniae &c. in ANno 1572 ad Celsitudinis eius mandatum, per DDn. SCHNEIDEWINUM, M. WESENBECIU, THOMINGIUM, & alios in Studio & Scabinatu Wittembergensi & Lipsensi, tum temporis Antecessores, IC. praestantissimos, exhibitae; Quinque partibus comprehensae I. De contractibus vel quasi & causis matrimonialibus II. De successionibus & ultimis voluntatibus III. De iudicio & processu IV. De delictis vel quasi delictis agit V. Miscellaneas quaestiones tractat. Ex Authentico Auctorum manuscripto, singulari & speciali Caesar. Maiest. Privilegio ad decennium munito, nunc primum typis descriptae (Frankfurt: Johann Spiess, 1599)

[30] Timo Holzborn, Die Geschichte der Gesetzespublikation (Berlin: Tenea 2003), 83. Available online at: http://www.jurawelt.com/dissertationen/8200. H. Th. Schletter, Die Constitutionen Kurf. Augusts von Sachsen vom Jahre 1572 : Geschichte, Quellenkunde und dogmengeschichtliche Charakteristik derselben (Leipzig: Brockhaus 1857).

[31] Catalogue entry of the antiquarian book seller VICO, Frankfurt 2007.

[32] In1594, the printer Michael Schmuck was induced to set up his printing shop in Schmalkalden (at that time a secondary seat of the court of the Counts of Henneberg and the Landgrave of Hesse) by a privilege from Count Georg Ernest of Hennneberg, which granted him a monopoly in Schmalkalden and a yearly remuneration of 3.5 guilders for producing official prints. The renewed privilege of 1567, issued by Landgrave William IV of Hesse-Kassel, also covered an exemption from all duties and taxes. See Michael Schichan, "Nebenresidenz und frühneuzeitlicher Industriestandort: Existenzbedingungen für den bedeutendsten Schmalkalder Drucker", in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchdrucks und des Buchgewerbes in Thüringen, ed. by Detlef Ignasiak and Günter Schmidt (Jena: Quartus, 1997), 9-20. A facsimile of a similar privilege for Johann Ritter in Saalfeld, granted in 1687 by Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach, is reproduced in Hendrik Bärninghausen, "Zur Geschichte der Buchdruckerei und des Verlagswesens in Saalfeld im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert", in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchdrucks und des Buchgewerbes in Thüringen (1997), 41-53.

[33] Eisenhardt (1970), 11.

[34] Ulrich Eisenhardt, "Staatliche und kirchliche Einflußnahme aud den deutschen Buchhandel im 16. Jahrhundert", in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Buchwesens im konfessionellen Zeitalter , ed. by Herbert G. Göpfert, Peter Vodosek, Erdmann Weyrauch and Reinhard Wittmann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1985), 195-313 (295).

[35] Kapp (1886), 1: 527.

[36] Eisenhardt (1985), with reference to Otto Zaretzky, Der erste Kölner Zensurprozess (Cologne: Du Mont, 1906)

[37] Kapp (1886), 1: 530.

[38] Hubert Wolf, Index. Der Vatikan und die verbotenen Bücher (München: C.H. Beck, 2006), 27.

[39] Stephan Fitos, Zensur als Mißerfolg. Die Verbreitung indizierter deutscher Druckschriften in der zweiten Hälfte des 16 Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2000), 220.

[40] In "Colloquia obscurorum theologorum, ac concionatorum, grassantium nunc per Brabantiam, ex quibus lector praeter Atticum leporem, etiam illorum mores studia cognoscet." See d_1560.

[41] Eisenhardt (1970), 15.

[42] Quoted in Gieseke (1995), 56.

[43] Wolf (2006), 16.

[44] See more details in our commentary for d_1608.