Introduction

The space of the word was truly a space in all senses. First, various powers could, in a variety of ways and to varying degrees, intervene in order to change what was on the page and between the covers. The book itself was a space which needed to be controlled. Second, the print shop where the book was produced was gradually subjected to increasing regulation in the course of the century along with all those who worked in it. Third, the wider but immediate space of the book trade, that is to say the concentration of booksellers and printers, as far as Paris was concerned mainly in the University quarter, needed to be policed. Fourth, the circulation of books in the kingdom came under close scrutiny, and fifth, attempts were made to control the entry of books from abroad. Within the overall attempts at control, Protestants were a particular target for special regulations, some of which had already been enshrined in the Edict of Nantes.

The book trade in France attracted the attention of the civil and religious authorities because royal power needed to protect itself from adverse comment both from within the kingdom and from without, and because the Church needed to protect itself from the propagation of error and heresy. These were not however separate and independent interests: many of the problems faced by both types of authority in the seventeenth century coincided with major religious polemics.