Chapter 16
Sales1.

The masters of the Golden Compasses did not print for the pleasure of it. The money they invested had to be got back through the sale of their products, preferably with a reasonable profit.

Sometimes they printed to the order of official bodies, or other publishers, or private individuals. In such cases, where they were merely acting as printers, all they had to do was to deliver the printed copies to the client and give him the bill. Usually, however, to get their money back, they had to market their products themselves.2.

To increase their market and their profits they also sold books of other publishers, both Netherlands and foreign.

Selling prices

The first task in selling has to be the fixing of a price. The selling price of Plantinian publications was not decided on arbitrarily, but was a function of the cost price. For a number of works issued between 1563 and 1567, the relationship of the cost price (as calculated by Plantin) to the selling price can be determined. Normally the latter was twice the former. In some instances the selling price went up to three and even four and five times as much as the cost price, but general conclusions should not be drawn from such cases, as Max Rooses did.1. They were confined in fact to books, the sales of which would obviously be extremely slow and in which very large sums of money had generally been invested. Some figures are given on p. 389.2.

Rooses and other experts who have dealt with the subject have found the profit margins excessive and have implied that Plantin was too grasping. But in fact the great printer, as has already been shown,3. habitually omitted a number of expenses when calculating his selling prices which sometimes added considerably to the actual cost of production. Moreover, profits of 100, 200, or 300 % did not necessarily mean that Plantin got his money back plus these percentages. A number of copies of any printing usually remained unsold; many clients ‘forgot’ to settle their accounts; booksellers had to be allowed a discount, and so on. All these factors could erode Plantin's profits; he actually made a loss on some editions. The whole question of profitability needs to be studied with reference to the general expenditure and sales figures over a given period.

Analysis of a financial year

In the years when Plantin was working simply for himself he did not always keep his accounts very carefully. Sales and other receipts of money were fairly accurately noted in the journals and ledgers. Particular outgoings - the compositors' and pressmen's wages, purchases of paper, type, bindings, etc. - were also entered up with some care, albeit sometimes in a number of different registers which does not make for easy analysis. But other expenses were not booked (including, for example, travel expenses and the shop assistants' wages) or were recorded only irregularly and incompletely (postage, freight charges, and packing). The many loans that Plantin had to obtain to keep his head above water and the burdensome interests he had to pay on them must remain a matter for guesswork. However, in the period 1563-67 Plantin took care to note all his expenditure and incomes so as to be able to justify his management to his partners and calculate the distribution of the profits and losses among them. It is therefore possible to draw up the Plantinian balance sheet for these years with reasonable accuracy. A reconstruction has been attempted for the year 15661. and the result appears in Appendix 1.2.

When working out the cost price of a particular book, Plantin, as has been suggested, only took account of expenditure that could definitely be ascribed to that work (compositor's and pressmen's wages, paper, illustrations, and - although with considerable lapses - authors' fees, and payments for translations and privileges, etc.). In 1566 these items accounted for 9,028 fl. 12½ st. out of a total of 13,041 fl.,3. or about 70 per cent. Certain classes of the expenditures

were charged separately to customers' accounts (bindings, transport),1. but others, as has been seen, affected production costs without ever appearing in Plantin's costing. In 1566 this category amounted to 2,921 fl. 19¾ st., about approximately 22 per cent of the total.2. The percentage naturally varied from year to year, but probably within narrow limits. This means that for any given book an average of 20 to 25 per cent for general expenditure should be added to the production cost as normally calculated by Plantin.

A second important conclusion is that in 1566 Plantin's expenditure considerably exceeded his income and purely in book-keeping terms the result was a heavy deficit. This was only partly due to the religious and political upheavals (the Iconoclasm and the Calvinist rebellion) of what in the history of the Netherlands is often called the ‘year of wonders’. The deficit was due rather to the great leap forward that the Officina Plantiniana had taken. It was a time of full expansion and Plantin was investing a great deal of money that would only later yield a return. He was having to borrow money left, right, and centre, literally banking on his future - and this money had to be paid back with interest. Almost 50 per cent of the income recorded for 1566 consisted of such capital loans, while 10 per cent of expenditure went into paying off earlier loans. As soon as there was a recession Plantin found it difficult in the extreme to keep the business going.

The third conclusion is connected with the foregoing one. In 1566 Plantin sold 16,340 fl. worth of books, a considerable sum then, yet his cash receipts were only 5,523 fl. 13¼ st. and part of this was for deliveries made in the previous year. There was profit to be made in the book trade, but the entrepreneur had to be able to wait while

the invested money came trickling back bringing its earnings with it - and in the meantime he had to pay the workers' wages and meet his bills.

A fourth fact that emerges is that Plantin sold not only his own editions, but bought quantities of his colleagues' publications for retailing. In the sixteenth century (and in the seventeenth too) the retail activities of the firm were largely based on a brisk trade in the products of other publishing houses.

These are the principal general conclusions to be drawn from an examination of Plantin's accounts for 1566. They also point to the general business trends for the Plantin House - the various facets of which must now be looked at more closely.

The markets

The masters of the Golden Compasses had a number of outlets for their own books or those they bought from other publishers for resale: the retail trade in their ‘bouticle’ at Antwerp,1. naturally restricted to a local, or at least locally resident, clientele; retail sales through delivery direct2. to institutions or private individuals, mostly in the Netherlands;3. sales to other publishers at home and abroad. In terms of percentage of the trade the three outlets varied considerably through the years, but one fact remained constant: direct deliveries to individuals and sales in the Antwerp shop were always subordinate to sales to booksellers, who took the bulk of the Plantinian merchandise. It should be pointed out, however, that the line of demarcation between booksellers and some private customers was not always very distinct. Antwerp merchants sold Plantinian Bibles in Morocco in 1566-67,4.

and others later helped to sell the Polyglot;1. an Italian dealer bought all the copies of Plantin's 1588 edition of Guicciardini's Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi;2. in 1609 and again in 1650 purchases by Antwerp general merchants exceeded those of the Antwerp booksellers - and the large sums involved and the composition of the orders make it obvious that the books were not intended for the private libraries of the merchants. Many merchants dealt in books in the same way as they did in sugar, copper, salt, pepper, or other commodities, but in the Plantinian accounts careful distinction was always made between these occasional purveyors of books and the professional booksellers. The former will therefore be treated as private customers, except for one client - the Hieronymite monastery in the Escurial - that belonged to neither category.

Although the retail shop did not have the greatest share of the retail trade, it had an importance that far surpassed its intrinsic value as an outlet. Sales across the counter were for cash. No credit or deferred payments here, but a ready supply, albeit in modest amounts, of the cash the masters needed so badly. Still more important was the shop's role as the office for the whole of the retail side of the business: the shop assistants made up the consignments for dispatch, unpacked incoming boxes and checked their contents, and kept a record of what was received and what was sent out. It was in the shop and the adjoining rooms that the foreign merchants were received and entertained with the wine and beer kept for this purpose.3.

Through the years the shop was just as vital a nerve centre of the business as the printing office itself.

This makes it all the more regrettable that information about the shop and its personnel is so sparse: their status and conditions of work are referred to only in one seventeenth-century regulation.1. There are several large gaps in the records of sales in the shop.2. In the years 1563-67 Plantin appears to have had two shop assistants, namely his two future sons-in-law, Jan Moretus and Egidius Beys,

with probably four other employees to help with the manual work.1. For subsequent years the composition of the shop staff can only be guessed at,2. largely because unlike most of the workpeople of the Officina Plantiniana, they received not piece-rates but a fixed wage,3. probably paid out of the till; there was no need for a meticulous record of the work they did or the money they earned.

One of the great difficulties of business life in so tumultuous a period as the sixteenth century was contact with customers. This could be made and sustained by correspondence or through couriers:4. repeatedly in the firm's journals the words ‘suivant sa lectre’ or ‘par le messagier’ appear in the firm's journals beside the record of an order dispatched. Other booksellers often undertook delivery of a parcel, and Plantin performed similar services for his colleagues. But whenever orders were large and valuable, personal negotiation was desirable. Plantin's shop was the obvious place for such conversations, and many are the notes of consignments in the journals where next to the name

of the bookseller is the statement ‘estant présent à Anvers’. These are mainly names of Netherlands booksellers, but Englishmen, Italians, and Frenchmen from the Lyons region also appear.

Parisian and German booksellers were far less frequently mentioned: Plantin was wont to meet these at other places. In the sixteenth century the Frankfurt Fairs grew into Christendom's foremost book mart.1. Bookmen from the Netherlands had been making their way to that city for some time before Plantin's establishment in Antwerp, so that he was following a trail already blazed.2. He was to make Frankfurt one of the cornerstones of his enterprise, sending a great many books each year to both fairs.3. And, almost as regularly, either he himself or Jan Moretus or a trusted employee4. accompanied the parcels and boxes to Frankfurt to negotiate in person with the printers, publishers, and booksellers from all Germany and Switzerland, and even from Italy and eastern France, who gathered there.

The road to Frankfurt led through what was then the principal German metropolis - Cologne, as important a book market as Antwerp.1. Plantin and Jan Moretus seem regularly to have broken their journeys to talk business with Cologne booksellers over a drink.2.

Paris also drew Plantin, but it is doubtful if the same could be sais of the other Antwerp men in the book trade: the associations formed there in his younger years seem to have given Plantin much more of a southerly orientation than most of his colleagues. In all probability French capital helped the young bookbinder to set up as a printer and his first books were intended entirely for the French market. Later, too, when his production had taken on a more international character, he maintained the closest commercial contacts with the land of his birth, and especially with Paris. Right from the start Paris was an important outlet for Plantinian production - all the more important to the printer as he had less competition to fear there from his Antwerp rivals than along the Antwerp-Cologne-Frankfurt axis.3. Unlike Frankfurt, however, there was no organized fair at Paris to enable regular personal contact with people in the trade from the whole French hinterland, no few hectic weeks in which contracts for the whole year could be finalized. The Paris market required a continual travelling back and forth throughout the year, and negotiations with numerous contacts and customers without the benefits of a fixed venue

and warehousing for books. Plantin soon found a remedy. From the end of 1566 he began to use the house of his old friend Pierre Porret as a storage place and distribution centre. At the beginning of 1567 he sent his assistant Egidius Beys to Paris to help Porret and to put the sales there on a more intensive and businesslike footing. The house in the rue Saint-Jacques became a branch of the parent firm in Antwerp in the full sense of the word.1.

These then were the features of the firm's sales organization in the early years of Plantin's printing career: the shop at the officina which acted as an office for the Netherlands, and for foreign clients (from England, Italy, and eastern France) who could not normally be reached through one of the other centres; the Frankfurt warehouse-bookshop,2. where contact was made with German sellers during the Spring and September fairs; and the Paris book market, where contacts were systematized by the setting up of a Plantinian bookshop in 1566-67. Antwerp was a ‘passive’ centre, where Plantin or his representatives functioned as hosts. Frankfurt and Paris required an active role on the part of the firm, with much travelling. Plantin and his representatives made use of the opportunities afforded by these journeys to call on colleagues or clients, sometimes going out of their way to do so. It has already been noted that Cologne was an important stopping place on the long journey to Frankfurt. In 1568, on his way back from Frankfurt, Plantin made a detour so as to discuss business matters with Mercator at Duisburg.3. Two years before, on the return journey from Paris, Jan Moretus had gone round a number of booksellers in Louvain collecting money owed to Plantin.4.

The relative importance in 1566 of these three centres and the

markets they served was as follows.1. In that year Plantin sold books worth 7,485 fl. 14½ st. in the Netherlands and 8,854 fl. 12¼ st. abroad.2. The latter total comprised: to Germany, 4,042 fl. 12¾ st.; to France, 3,480 fl. 11¼ st.; to England, 1,067 fl. 12¼ st.; to Italy, 263 fl. 16 st. Of sales in France the lion's share went to Paris: 2,855 fl. 7¼ st.; 1,367 fl. worth of these being simply marked ‘Paris’ - intended for sale in the bookshop newly set up in Porret's house. The only other French towns represented were Lyons, with 607 fl., and Metz, with a paltry 18 fl. Sales in Germany were mainly handled at Frankfurt, to a total value of 3,565 fl., but, as has been intimated, some of the consignments were dropped off at Cologne (worth 303 fl.). A few booksellers from other German and Swiss towns contacted Plantin directly, outside of the fairs, during 1566, but only 150 fl. was involved in these dealings. Transactions with sellers from England, Italy, Germany, and France, conducted in the Antwerp shop, amounted to 2,106 fl. 8¼ st., which means that in 1566 a total of 9,592 fl. 2¾ st. worth of books was sold there.3.

These figures and the percentages they represent varied from year to year. Political events in a particular area could affect sales considerably.4. Dealings with foreign booksellers, mainly the English, the Italians, and the Lyonnais, these being outside the three main centres where the Officina Plantiniana was permanently represented, were of a very personal character, in the sense that whether or not a particular seller put in an appearance could totally alter the percentages for a given year.5. Nevertheless the author is of the opinion that in general

outline at least the situation as seen in 1566 appertained for the whole period 1555 to 1567/68.

One region is conspicuously absent from the list of countries mentioned in 1566, namely the Iberian peninsula. In the following year Plantin made contact with Spanish and Portuguese booksellers. He sent them a number of works,1. and even printed an edition for Juan de Molina of Lisbon.2. But in his letter of 5th June 1567 to Molina, Plantin's reluctance to increase his business with the Peninsula, except where a cash-and-carry arrangement was possible, or where meaningful guarantees could be offered, emerges quite plainly.3. And probably there were few among the none-too-affluent booksellers beyond the Pyrenees who could fulfil such conditions. In 1570 Alonso de Vera Cruz held out prospects of great profits for Plantin from trade with the Indies; Plantin's reply was that such ventures were hazardous and the profit slow in coming in. He preferred to entrust his books to financially powerful individuals who would be able to make big profits thereby but who would also bear the risk.4. No doubt there were such speculators, both then and later.5. There were also foreign dealers with regular contacts with Spain who exported

books they had bought from Plantin to the Peninsula.1. But from 1555 to 1567/68, direct contacts between the firm and Spain were few and in some years practically non-existent. This changed when Plantin managed to interest Philip ii in his Polyglot Bible, thereby bringing his firm to the attention of that monarch. The printer succeeded in obtaining the monopoly in the supply of certain service books to the Spanish market. These he sold directly to Philip who controlled the retail sales in his domains. Between 1571 and 1576 Plantin dispatched books worth about 100,000 fl. to Spain.2. By 1573 trade with Philip ii already exceeded the total turnover for 1566. At the same time Plantin was able through the intermediary of Arias Montanus to supply the royal library in Madrid, and various eminent Spaniards, with books, maps, globes, and even astronomers' and geographers' apparatus, orders which also brought in a considerable amount.3. Almost overnight Spain had become the chief customer of the Plantinian press, and it was this trade that brought about the firm's spectacular expansion in these years.

The Spanish Fury of 4th November 1576 drove Antwerp into the rebel camp. Trade with Spain ceased. Plantin was thrown back on his former customers, served via the same centres as before 1566: his own shop at Antwerp, the Frankfurt Fairs, and Paris. There was, however, one important change: to obtain ready cash, Plantin had had to sell his Paris bookshop in 1577. He sold the stocks to the Parisian bookseller Michel Sonnius, who asked for and obtained the monopoly of sales of Plantinian editions in his city.4. At least until

Plantin's death the larger part, if not all, of the officina's business with Paris was conducted through Sonnius.1.

Antwerp surrendered in 1585 and rejoined the Spanish side in the Eighty Years War, but this did not mean a return for the Plantinian press to its prosperity of 1570-75. Philip ii had other things on his mind than retailing breviaries and missals. Plantin himself was not anxious to renew with the Spanish king the relations which, while they may have brought him much profit, had also occasioned him a great deal of tribulation.2. In fact, even if the king and his printer had reached a new agreement, it would have been difficult to put it into effect on the same scale as in 1570-76. Although Spain had reconquered the Southern Netherlands, the North had gained its freedom and set up the United Provinces, the Dutch Republic. At sea the new republic reigned unchallenged, the men of Holland and Zealand blockading the sea-lanes with Spain. The blockade was not completely effective, however, and could sometimes be evaded via French harbours. Plantin in fact managed to get a consignment to Spain from time to time,3. but communications were too uncertain and hazardous to make extensive or regular trade possible. Nevertheless it was in these years that there occurred the episode of the Salamanca ‘branch’.4. This was really a means of cancelling a debt, allowing the debtor - Jan Poelman, son of Plantin's old friend and collaborator Theodoor Poelman and a former shop assistant of Plantin himself - to go into business again. On 1st August 1586 Jan Moretus (and not Plantin) entered into partnership with Jan Poelman for a period of

five years.1. Under this agreement Poelman put up 1,000 fl., Moretus 4,313 fl. 2 st. ‘arising from the books, debts, and household effects which he left in the hands of Jan Poelman and which arose out of the winding up of another partnership between Jan Poelman and Martin Peres de Varron’.2. Poelman undertook to settle in Salamanca and run the business there. Profits were to be shared on the basis of two-thirds to Moretus, one third to Poelman. The contract also stipulated that the latter should maintain ‘bonne correspondance’ with his partner. This he did conscientiously,3. but it did not help the business very much: Poelman's sales of books at Salamanca, including what the Plantin press sent him, remained limited.4. Poelman's account with Moretus was closed in 1602, leaving an outstanding debt of 2,737 fl. 5 st.5.

Plantin's son-in-law inherited a heavy burden in 1589. Trade with the Peninsula had fallen off. The civil war in France had ruined the market there in the closing years of Plantin's life. The political storm beyond the southern frontier soon passed, but Jan Moretus seems to have neglected to rebuild a trade that had formerly been quite brisk - largely, as has already been seen, because of Plantin's personal efforts to maintain the business contacts he had established in

Paris in his earlier years. In fact the trade with Paris, if it was to be profitable, required that the head of the firm should participate very actively, going there whenever the need arose rather than according to a fixed schedule. Jan Moretus appears not to have had the time for this. When Egidius Beys, his difficult brother-in-law who had returned to Antwerp and begun to make life miserable for him, began to pine for the French capital, Moretus encouraged him in that direction by granting him the effective monopoly of sales of Plantinian books there. It is not certain whether this was simply a neat way of getting rid of Beys or whether Moretus actually hoped to increase his exports to France. The unexpected death of Beys in 1595 ended this collaboration between the brothers-in-law.1. The other relatives who were active in the trade in Paris - members of the Beys and Périer families - tried to get hold of Egidius's monopoly for themselves,2. but Moretus remained neutral in the matter, simply supplying his various kinsmen with the books they wanted. For a few years the two families continued to rank among the chief customers in Paris of the Plantin House, although their orders were generally small.3. The business conducted with Paris via the Frankfurt Fairs was also relatively unimportant.4. Paris was never again a vital link in the Plantinian distribution network.

There was one direction in which Jan Moretus could keep to familiar paths. Every year, as regularly as in the past, the packages and crates marked with the Plantinian signs were unloaded in the warehouse at Frankfurt. Plantin had made his successor's task easier here, for after his return from Leiden he had engaged an agent, a certain Jan Dresseler, to look after his affairs at Frankfurt for

commission.1. Dresseler also worked for Jan Moretus for a time. How the Frankfurt business was conducted after Dresseler's death is not known for certain. Jan ii Moretus seems to have gone there occasionally to attend to the firm's affairs.2.

Except for the period of intensive trading with Philip ii, the emphasis under Plantin had been on sales in the Netherlands. Under Jan i Moretus there was even more concentration on the Low Countries, especially the southern part, now under Spanish control once more. There was considerably less contact with Paris and Lyons, England, Italy, and Spain. The Northern Netherlands, not among the leading customers even in Plantin's time, did not increase their buying from his firm. Only in Germany, mainly via Cologne and Frankfurt, did the firm continue to reach an important foreign market. On the other hand there were a number of Antwerp-based merchants who bought books on a fairly large scale and distributed them abroad at their own risk and via their own channels. The analysis of the firm's turnover in 1609 allows the relative size of the various markets on the eve of the death of Plantin's son-in-law to be expressed in figures and percentages:3.

When the conflict between Spain and the United Provinces had died down, and a truce had been agreed on in 1609 that was to last for twelve years, it became possible to renew trade with the Peninsula. Before Jan i Moretus died the Hieronymites of the Escurial were in touch with him about the supply of breviaries and missals.2. Private dealers were also putting out feelers.3. But it was left to Balthasar i and Jan ii to make Spain the firm's biggest foreign customer again.4. Their role too was rather passive, the Hieronymite monks making the approach. From 1615 the two brothers were able to send huge quantities of liturgical books each year to the Escurial or to the monastery's subsidiary house at Seville, to a total value, for the years 1615-25, of 163,607 fl. 8 st.5. The Hieronymites did not, however, possess an absolute monopoly of the Plantinian imports into Spain.6.

Spanish booksellers were active, and merchants handling occasional consignments of books notably so. There were even other Spanish monastic orders and clergy involved. These other importers sometimes took quite large quantities,1. but their orders were less specialized, less preponderantly liturgical. (Ordinary Plantinian editions, on the contrary, were practically absent from the consignments dispatched to the Escurial.) Netherlands-based dealers too attempted to market Plantinian books in Spain, at their own risk and through their own channels. It is more difficult to give accurate figures for this part of the trade.2. Virtually within a year or two the Iberian peninsula had once again become one of the principal markets for the Plantin press. It had surpassed all other foreign areas by 1615, and at that time and in the succeeding years it must have approached the basic market, the Southern Netherlands.3.

This growth of the Spanish market came just in time to compensate for the shrinking of that traditional market of the officina, Germany.

This decline was in fact the decline of the Frankfurt Fairs. To a greater extent than Plantin had done, Jan i Moretus and his sons maintained direct contacts with German booksellers, outside the fairs, but the Messen remained the cornerstone of trade with the Empire.1. But then the Thirty Years War (1618-48) disrupted even this venerable institution. The Frankfurt Fairs survived the war, but were mere shadows of what they had formerly been. The Moretuses continued to send books to Frankfurt, but the volume and the relative importance of the consignments were much reduced. As the war drew to its close, Balthasar ii Moretus had tried to pick up the threads again. In 1644 he went to Frankfurt in person, but his memories of the perilous journey were far from pleasant and its result not too promising.2. He tried again in 1656,3. but seemingly with as little success as before. The fairs had to be written off as a venue for meeting German booksellers,4. and this meant that many customers who had been accustomed to buy their books there were thenceforth lost to the firm.5. Only with Cologne did trade remain fairly brisk,6. while financially powerful German dealers began - or continued -

to get their supplies directly from Antwerp. Germany remained a fairly important market, but the traditional structure of trade with that country was destroyed and its relative importance compared with the firm's total turnover declined.

These changes in the Plantinian markets are clearly shown by the sales figures for 1650:1.

By 1650 Spain had replaced the Southern Netherlands as the principal market, the Hieronymites being the main customers. Almost a third of the firm's sales were to their monastery at the Escurial and their Seville house. As the cultural life of the Southern Netherlands declined and the Officina Plantiniana increasingly specialized in the production of service books, the pre-eminence of the Spanish market, and particularly of the Hieronymites, became more and more emphasized.3. That the firm was able to go on and build up quite a good trade in the eighteenth century was due to these monks. When in about 1765 the firm's privileges in the Peninsula were withdrawn and the market there closed to it, its trading collapsed and thereafter the old Plantin house merely stagnated.4.

The markets reached by Plantin and his successors embraced the whole of Western and Central Europe. For France, England, Italy, and Spain the system was fairly simple: with the exception of the period of the Paris bookshop, 1566-77, the books were mainly distributed via a relatively small number of large booksellers, merchants of considerable resources, or - in the case of Spain - a monastic order of still greater financial power. In the Netherlands and Germany the channels through which the books were distributed and sold were more complex.

In the Netherlands this arose from the fact that the masters of the Golden Compasses were able there to sell to both retailers and private individuals, relatively small quantities being sold to a large number of customers. The retail trade here exceeded the wholesale. However, a certain evolution is apparent in these operations.

Sales figures for the Netherlands, 15661.

distributed over 26 towns, took most.1. Antwerp naturally took first place, but more because of the large number of colleagues Plantin could do business with in person there than because of the size of their individual orders. Only the firm of Birckman (the Poule Grasse) placed quite big orders, but this Antwerp branch of a Cologne house was as internationally orientated as the Officina Plantiniana itself and a considerable proportion of the books supplied to them must have been intended for ultimate sale abroad. Among the other Netherlands towns, only Louvain and Brussels were in any way above average. The Northern Netherlands were a rather poor customer: Louvain took more books than the whole of the North put together. The comparative importance of Breda, however, is rather extra-ordinary and is perhaps to be explained by the fact that the principal customer there, Gerard Janssen van Kampen, was also one of Plantin's chief woodcut artists and as such may have been given more favourable trading terms.

Sales figures for the Netherlands, 16092.

The figures show that the trade picture had changed considerably in 1609. The firm's own bookshop still accounted for about 20 % of sales, but the Antwerp booksellers had greatly decreased in importance as customers. There was, however, greater concentration: a few only of the bookshops then operating in Antwerp were listed as customers. Of those that were, Jan van Keerbergen (2,093 fl.) and Martin Nutius (603 fl.) together accounted for three-quarters of total purchases. What is even more striking is the large number of merchants who did not regularly deal in books but who made what were often impressive purchases for sale on their own account, especially abroad. This category of ‘Antwerp’ sales could be regarded as an indirect Plantinian export. Bookshops in other Netherlands towns had become rather more numerous and their purchases more considerable, but because other categories of customers had increased at a greater rate, the percentage they represented of the total sales had actually diminished. The Louvain booksellers still had first place, but the new university town of Douai had displaced Brussels from second and was even catching up on Louvain. In fact, several other small provincial towns had also surpassed the capital. Comparison with 1566, however, shows that the greatest leap forward had been made by private customers. It has already been pointed out that 1566 was not a good year as far as such sales were concerned, and this slightly distorts the comparison with 1609. Nevertheless the impression remains that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the delight in collecting and reading books had increased among the better-off classes in the Southern Netherlands - sufficiently for such customers to have their often large purchases of books delivered to them, instead of going in person to the Plantinian bookshop as in the past, or, if they lived outside Antwerp, to their local booksellers. The Catholic clergy were now well represented among these customers and practically every one of the monasteries then liberally scattered through the Southern Netherlands figures at least once in connexion with a sale or a payment in the firm's 1609 journal.

Sales figure for the Netherlands, 16501.

In 1650, private customers had decreased sharply, both in figures and as a percentage. The cultural flames fanned by the Counter-Reformation were dying down. The chief customers were again the booksellers and occasional dealers. In 1650 purchases by the latter group had even exceeded those of the regular booksellers. Among the booksellers, the Antwerp colleagues of Balthasar ii Moretus had regained the leading position; in fact it was just one retailer, Jan van Meurs, who had tipped the balance with his vast purchases. Of the other Southern Netherlands towns, Louvain and Douai had dropped back and Brussels now held the lead. This was probably due not so much to cultural decline in the two university towns as to the specialization of the Plantin House in the production of service books.

In 1609, as in 1566, the Northern Netherlands had been a relatively minor market. This can partly be attributed to the circumstances of the war, partly to the fact that Antwerp-based merchants - possibly because of the uncertainty of the times - effected a considerable proportion of the officina's sales in the North. In 1650 the United Provinces were better represented in the firm's accounts; partly by booksellers in the commercial city of Amsterdam, followed at a

distance by the university town of Leiden; partly by merchants who, although smaller in number, accounted for more than one third of the book imports from the Southern Netherlands.

Sales in Germany also show a rather complicated picture. Unlike the Netherlands, there were practically no private customers. Whereas in France, England, Spain, and Italy business was chiefly conducted with wholesalers, in Germany many more retailers were supplied - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that sales were made to more booksellers on a retail basis. This trade was concentrated at a particular place and in a limited period: the Frankfurt Lent and September Fairs. In the spring of 1579, for example, Jan i Moretus recorded the sale of 3,343 fl. worth of books and the purchase of 1,270 fl. worth, involving 80 dealers from 27 places.1. The biggest transaction amounted to 275 fl.; most involved less than 50 fl. Reference has already been made to the fact that at the Frankfurt Fairs contact was also made with dealers from outside the territories of the German Empire, notably eastern France and Italy. It is interesting to see that in 1609 the number of non-German and non-Swiss merchants who did business with the Officina Plantiniana by this means, and the extent of their orders, was appreciably greater than in 1579.2. This was especially true of Lyons, but several Paris booksellers seem to have preferred the long detour via Frankfurt to the direct route to Antwerp.3.

Sales can also be looked at from the point of view of how a particular book was marketed. Books of general interest and printed in a universal language such as Latin the Plantin Press distributed over the whole of Christendom.4. A few selected samples show that sales of such works corresponded closely to the general tendencies that may

be observed for the sales of Plantinian publications in the relevant period.1.

Works on the narrower kind of political or religious topic were practically restricted in sale to the region where the text or illustrations would be likely to be of interest in certain specialized circles. Such texts would include eulogies or obituaries of princes and statesmen, accounts of military successes, royal visits, and so on. Books of topical content had to be on the market very quickly or else run the risk of gathering dust on shelves when public interest had waned. Pierre Porret once drew Plantin's attention to this fact most succinctly.2. However, the printer was only too familiar with the problem, as is shown by his letter of fifteen years before to Egidius Beys, his representative in Paris.3. The piles of copies of such works that were sometimes kept in stock for decades in anticipation of a possible, but increasingly unlikely clientele4. is further evidence that for the masters of the

Golden Compasses topical literature could be a difficult commodity to handle.

Language also played a part in determining sales. Works in French had a certain sale in the Dutch-speaking part of the Low Countries, but it might be supposed that the sale of a book in Dutch would be limited mainly to the region where that language was spoken. This is shown, for example, by the distribution of the popular book Reynard the Fox (Reynaert de Vos) in Dutch and French, Plantin's edition of which appeared in 1566.1. Sales were indeed virtually restricted to the Dutch-speaking part of the Netherlands. Surprisingly enough, however, some copies were actually ordered by booksellers in the French-speaking area of the Southern Netherlands,2. and seventeen copies found their way to Germany, eleven going to a Cologne schoolmaster and the other six to a Heidelberg bookseller. For the same reasons publications in Italian, Spanish, and Hebrew had a sharply defined market in the linguistic if not the geographical sense.3.

Special factors sometimes helped or hindered the distribution of a particular book. For example, the breviaries that Plantin printed under license from Paul Manutius could only be distributed in the Netherlands.4. Books printed in Spanish outside the Peninsula could not be imported into Spain, at least in Plantin's later years.5. He

seems also to have experienced trouble with some of his colleagues who wanted to keep him out of their spheres of influence.1.

Trade in other publishers' books2.

The masters of the Golden Compasses not only sold their own publications but also bought books from other houses for retail.3. In 1566 Plantin disposed of 16,340 fl. worth of books; purchases recorded in his accounts came to 6,109 fl., but this probably falls short of the real amount by some sum no longer exactly calculable.4. This purchase and re-sale of other publishers' work was therefore important to Plantin's trading activities in his earlier years, representing more than a third of total sales. Later, under Jan i Moretus, and possibly even towards the end of Plantin's life, the officina was able, or obliged, to concentrate more on the sale of its own books. In the early seventeenth century the percentage of other firms' books sold dropped to barely 12 %. By 1650 it had decreased still further.

Plantin made his purchases more or less everywhere, with the exception of England and Spain - one point that was noticeable both in his day and in subsequent periods was that trade with these two countries was always one-way.5. It should be noted that in 1566 some

places were more important than others within that comprehensive ‘everywhere’: in the Netherlands it was Antwerp, Plantin's place of residence, followed by Louvain. Hendrik Goltzius at Bruges and a few cartographical publishers at Malines also warrant mention. Typographers in other Netherlands towns can be virtually discounted. Abroad, Paris, Lyons, and Venice were important sources of supply. Paris booksellers and publishers dispatched almost as many books to the Golden Compasses as Plantin's Antwerp colleagues, and two firms in Lyons practically equalled the combined Antwerp and Paris contribution. Only one German dealer is known by name: Gerard Mercator, the renowned Duisburg cartographer, who supplied 319 fl. worth of maps and globes that year. Who the men were who sold Plantin the 681 fl. worth of books entered under the heading ‘Frankfurt Fairs’ cannot be discovered. More details are available for the Lent Fair of 1579: many small batches from German and Swiss printers; less numerous but more valuable consignments from printers in Lyons and Venice.

In 1609 the proportions were not very different: the Officina Plantiniana continued to obtain the books it wanted to sell from Antwerp itself, Paris, Lyons, Cologne, and at Frankfurt, from a host of German and Swiss publishers. But whereas cratefuls of books were sent from Antwerp to Venice and Rome, no books were imported directly from Italy. However, the cahiers de Francfort reveal that appreciable purchases were made from Italian dealers that year via the fairs; and publishers from Lyons and even Paris also made worthwhile sales to the Plantin House through the same channel.

In 1650 it was still the Antwerp printers and publishers who, together with several in Lyons and Cologne, supplied the larger part of the books Balthasar ii Moretus sold. The loss of the Frankfurt accounts makes it impossible to determine whether advantage was still being

taken of the fairs to contact Italians or Germans other than those named in the journal. What the journal does reveal is the identity of a new group of suppliers. During the preceding half century, the Northern Netherlands had taken over the position the South formerly held in the world of printing and publishing. The North had become an international book market and the Moretuses now placed quite valuable orders with the leading Amsterdam and Leiden firms that had emerged. In 1642 the ‘foreign assortment’ (‘vreemde sorteringe’ or ‘buiten sorteringe’, i.e., books not printed in the Officina Plantiniana) in stock was worth 12,527 fl. 10 st., out of a total stock valued at 133,643 fl. 17 st. In 1651 the figures were 12,155 fl. and 185,157 fl. 19 st. respectively.1.

The masters of the Golden Compasses found themselves obliged on a number of occasions to accept books that they did not especially want as payment. Smaller printers in particular would sometimes settle up in this way.2. In other instances barter was resorted to, the exchange being fairly carefully balanced. The firm would supply books to a certain value against promise of receipt of books to the same value from the other party.3. Very occasionally the transaction might be expressed not in terms of money but in the number of printed sheets the two parties agreed to barter.4. Equally exceptional was the sale-or-return arrangement whereby a publisher's works were held in stock for possible retail, but were returnable if unsold.5.

It seems likely, however, that the masters of the Officina Plantiniana purchased the books they wanted or needed, without paying too much attention to how their balance of trade with the other party stood at a given moment. The purchases Christophe Plantin and his successors made were determined in the long run by what they were able to sell.

Through the centuries the Officina Plantiniana produced serious works, and it was largely scholarly and scientific works that were purchased from other publishers for sale in its retail shop. Nevertheless, the picture of a more popularly orientated bookshop can also be reconstructed from the Plantinian accounts. During 1576 Plantin established his son-in-law Frans Raphelengius as an independent bookseller ‘near the north door of Antwerp Cathedral’. To stock the new shop, Plantin bought a vast number of cheap editions from his Antwerp colleagues, all carefully noted in the journal for 1576.1. Besides a certain number of humanist works and dictionaries, there were almanacs, prayer-books, popular romances, schoolbooks, songbooks, and books of riddles, in Dutch and French - all cheap and popular editions such as were nowhere else mentioned in the firm's accounts. The Spanish Fury (4th November 1576) temporarily interrupted these purchases, but within a few days they had been resumed - now with a high percentage of cheap Spanish romances and similar works ‘in the Castilian tongue’, no doubt meant for the mercenaries who for several weeks more were to lord it over the city they had just visited with fire and sword.

Plantin's bookshop in Antwerp had an important share in the trade in books from other publishing houses. Nearly two thirds of the books sold there in the first half of 1566 were in this category.2. But

not all sales were effected through the shop. All other things being equal it would be reasonable to assume that books from other Antwerp houses were more likely to be meant for customers outside the city, or even outside the country, rather than for sale in the shop. Conversely the books obtained from Frankfurt or from dealers in Paris, Lyons, or Venice were meant for the local Netherlands market and were only re-exported to countries, England and Spain for example, with which these dealers did not have regular contact. A few random tests support these premises. From 1566 to 1576 Plantin bought a large number of wall-maps and globes from Gerard Mercator for retailing. He sent some of them to Frankfurt, but for the larger part only after their market value had been increased by being coloured by experts in Antwerp or Malines. This explains the apparent and exceptional anomaly of re-exporting Mercator's maps to his principal area of direct distribution. For the rest Plantin sold Mercator maps in the Netherlands, where his principal customers were the specialist bookshops. Almost as many were sent to Paris and small quantities found their way to England, Spain, and Italy.1. Sales of another of Mercator's works, the Chronologia, published in 1568 by the Cologne firm of Birckman, were totally different. Between 1568 and 1576 Plantin ordered 61 copies from the Antwerp branch, the Poule Grasse. Only 15 copies were sold to booksellers and private persons in the Netherlands; the rest went to bookshops and private customers in France, Spain, and even Poland.2. Not a single copy was sold to Antwerp

booksellers (who could, like Plantin, get their supplies directly from the Poule Grasse), nor of course were any re-exported to Germany, where the parent house controlled sales.

Publicity

Plantin used certain forms of publicity to promote sales. Judged by today's standards these may seem almost laughable, but at the time they must have appeared modern and progressive. However, the great printer was not an innovator in this matter.

There is just one source of information about one of these advertising methods. On 28th February 1570, Egidius Beys, Plantin's representative in Paris, wrote, ‘When you send me new books, always send me posters and preliminaries, for display, because this makes the books sell well.’1. His idea was to use the posters, or title-pages serving as such, to advertise new publications. Whether this method represented Parisian practice,2. or whether Plantin also employed it at Frankfurt and Antwerp, must remain debatable, further details being lacking.3.

Posterity is much better informed about another publicity medium, the catalogues. In 1541 Aldus Manutius the Younger issued a catalogue of the publications of his printing office at Venice. His example was followed by Simon de Colines (Paris, 1546), Christoph Froschouer (Zürich, 1548), Sébastien Gryphius (Lyons, 1549), Johann Froben (Basle, 1549), and Robert Estienne (Geneva, 1552 and 1559).4. These

were the years in which the Frankfurt Fairs grew into one of the principal book marts of Christendom. Many new publications were first offered for sale there and booksellers, bibliophiles, and all those interested in the trade wanted to have notice of what was going to be put on display.1. An Augsburg bookseller, Georg Willer, met their demands and started to publish lists of new books in 1564. Probably Willer's initiative was simply a more systematic and regular continuation of similar efforts by his forerunners.2.

So it was that, when Plantin set himself up as a printer and bookseller, publishers' lists and book fair catalogues were already known. He began quite early working with these Frankfurt catalogues: one had been enclosed with his letter of October 1561 to the humanist F. Fabricius.3. Through the years he continued sending them to his patrons and associates.4. One such catalogue, which may or may not have been sent out by Plantin, held up the work on one of his Latin Bible editions. Theologians at Louvain engaged in collating the texts learnt from the catalogue that an edition of the Scriptures had been issued at Venice, examined and approved by Rome. They refused to continue their work until they had consulted this edition. Plantin found himself obliged to order a copy from Venice post-haste.5.

When he brought out the first printed catalogue of his own works

in 1566, Plantin was probably influenced more by the Frankfurt catalogues than by the publisher's lists of Aldus Manutius and the rest. A second edition was out by 1567. Others followed in 1568, 1575, 1579, and 1584. His successors continued the tradition with their catalogues of 1596, 1615, 1642, and 1656.1.

The masters of the Golden Compasses never specified what criteria they followed when compiling their lists. They did not list all their publications and probably the deciding factor was which books were actually in stock in their storerooms at Antwerp (and possibly at Frankfurt). Only the 1615 catalogue does not conform to this rule, for it listed older works that could no longer be supplied, marking them with an asterisk. This catalogue therefore was more than a purely utilitarian book-list, and on the way to being a bibliography. It discloses the hand of that scholarly master of the firm, Balthasar i Moretus.

The publishers' lists were essentially for publicity purposes, but the application could vary somewhat. In one instance - the 1579 catalogue - the list was printed on a large single sheet, as a poster to advertise Plantin's latest books, either in the bookshop at Antwerp or at the Frankfurt Fair, where it would be plainly visible to the passer-by. In all other cases the lists were published in the form of a small book. The usefulness of these catalogues in this form is repeatedly mentioned in Plantin's correspondence. Like the Frankfurt catalogues, they were sent to booksellers2. and eminent customers3. so that they could make their choice from afar. Prices were some-

times given in the margins,1. and often customers replied by returning the catalogue with a mark against the titles they wanted.2.

Storage, packing, and transport

Books quickly pile up into unmanageable heaps. Through the years the masters of the Golden Compasses wrestled with the problem of where to store the stocks of their own and other publishers' books. Before he moved to the Vrijdagmarkt in 1576 Plantin had to make use of every spare square inch of space. In addition to his printing press and shop in the Kammenstraat he had to rent several houses in the district and a loft in the Carmelite monastery as storage space.3. The move brought relief and the stocks could be divided up between the old premises in the Kammenstraat and the new patrician residence in the Vrijdagmarkt. After Balthasar i Moretus had carried out his rebuilding schemes and the former Golden Compasses in the Kammenstraat had been relinquished, the whole stock was stored on the first floor and attics of the big house. Large stocks of books were also kept in the warehouse Plantin rented at Frankfurt.

Through the centuries these stocks of books formed an impressive capital asset and the most important part of the estates bequeathed by Plantin4. and his successors.5. But it was of course an asset that could not be left lying about for rats and mice to gnaw - it had to be sold. This meant that there had to be some sort of record of comings and

goings and inventories were regularly compiled to record what was in stock on a particular date.1.

The books the firm sold had to be delivered to the customer, and books purchased had to be got from the supplier. This posed no special problem in Antwerp itself, where books could be sold over the counter and business with other booksellers and publishers consisted of sending a man out when need arose to fetch copies of books from colleagues who obtained their copies of Plantinian works in the same way.2. It was comparatively rare for transactions in Antwerp itself to involve large quantities,3. but even in these instances it is not likely that the books required special packing or transport: there is not a single item in the Plantinian accounts to suggest this.

It was when business was done with people outside Antwerp that questions of packaging and transport arose. The principle of payment was simple: the recipient bore the cost of these items. They are not consistently recorded, especially where small deliveries over short distances were concerned. Possibly they were not booked separately in such cases, or were included in the retail price of the books.4. In

other and quite numerous instances the words ‘estant présent à Anvers’ appear alongside the name of a non-Antwerp buyer. Netherlands booksellers and foreign dealers would make use of a stay in Antwerp - or would travel there specially - to see to large orders in person. Even if this did not save them packaging and transport costs, they could at least decide themselves on the best means of getting their purchases home intact. Sometimes Plantin and his successors had to bear these costs for books that they were selling, particularly in the case of consignments to Frankfurt, and of those to Plantin's Parisian bookshop in the period 1566-77.1.

These exceptions do not alter the general rule that the buyer paid for packaging and transport. There were various types of packaging. Letters and account-books mention barrels, boxes, chests, caskets (cassettes), baskets, and bales. The first three were mainly for large deliveries dispatched on long or difficult journeys where great demands were placed on the packing (notably transport overland in waggons). The cassettes were smaller and used for carrying less bulky but valuable consignments, such as copies of the Polyglot Bible.2. Baskets were often used for transport by water. Bales were simply packing material wrapped round the freight which might be either boxed3. or loose.

This last method was the cheapest and quickest - baskets, boxes and other containers had to be specially made. Costs of barrels and chests were roughly the same,4. while baskets were considerably

cheaper.1. Dearest of all were the boxes.2. Sometimes they were works of art that customers were apt to sell in order to cover the cost of transport and possibly make a small profit.3.

The chests and barrels were filled and the bales wrapped with mats, straw, ‘serpellière’ (a kind of woollen cloth), and similar material.4. Cowhide was sometimes used5. and this, like the boxes, could be sold at the place of delivery for a profit.6. Packing was done possibly in the officina itself, but by outside specialists.7. Packaging methods and

the prices charged cannot always have been to the customers' satisfaction. The Lyons merchant Roville (Rouillé) expressed himself trenchantly on the subject to Plantin in 1565,1. although this is the only explicit complaint in this connexion that has been discovered in all of Plantin's extensive correspondence.

Once packed, bales, barrels, baskets etc. were provided with an identifying mark (usually Plantin's monogram, sometimes accompanied by the word ‘libri’ or ‘libros’),2. and if the consignment comprised more than one container, these were numbered.3.

Small packages, like letters, could be entrusted to the post4. or the town messengers (messagiers).5. Larger loads were given to carriers

who specialized in transport by land (voituriers, conducteurs, chartiers), by waterway (marinierssor sea. Obviously the means of transport might have to change en route according to destination.

Charges were of course directly related to weight and volume, distance travelled, and means of transport.1. Overland transport was normally the most expensive. Comparisons are hard to make as weights and distances were not usually accurately recorded.2. Tariffs varied considerably even within a single year.3. They went up immediately when it looked as if changes in the political situation were going to make the roads less safe.4. If the carrier suffered harm, the party who had engaged him was normally considered responsible for his compensation, wholly or in part.5. On the other hand, compensation was stipulated if the goods arrived damaged, although only if the carrier could be held responsible in law:6. attacks

by bandits or marauding soldiers, shipwreck etc. were risks that had to be borne by the sender. The actual freight charges, especially for transport overseas to foreign countries, could be pushed up by a whole series of additional dues that were individually minor, but collectively considerable: road tolls, shipment and transhipment charges, customs, and permits. The list was long in Plantin's time;1. the seventeenth century brought no simplification.2.

Transport costs incurred by the Officina Plantiniana added up to a considerable item of its general expenditure. In 1566, for example, Plantin had to pay 51 fl. 6 st. for having books sent to his shop in Paris, 230 fl. 15¾ st. for the bales to and from Frankfurt, 223 fl. 17½ st. for consignments received from Lyons and 41 fl. for those from Venice. If the 65 fl. 11½ st. for letters and smaller packages is included, this

makes a total of 612 fl. 10¾ st.:1. approximately 5 % of the expenditure for that year of 13,041 fl.2.

These expenses and costs were included in one way or another in the selling prices of the books.3. However, there were risks and losses involved in transport which could not simply be passed on to the customer. In the correspondence of Plantin and the Moretuses there is repeated reference to ‘spoilt’ consignments, damage which - to judge by the tone of the letters - was not chargeable to the carrier, but had to be borne by the recipient, and on occasion by the sender.4. Bales

and barrels of books often went astray.1. Other consignments arrived in reasonable condition but took an unconscionable time on the way - which was not conducive to brisk sales.2. A load sometimes took nine months to reach Rome;3. consignments to and from Spain could be a year or more in transit:4. one letter sent from Madrid was not received in Antwerp until 21 months later.5. As far as the author has been able to discover, the record for the officina was a consignment of service books that left Antwerp in January 1625 and did not reach its

Spanish destination until May 1630.1. Small mistakes made when handling the loads could lead to much time-consuming shunting back and forth.2. Over-meticulous interpretation of rules and regulations by carriers or merchants could also cause delay.3. The financial difficulties with which the city of Antwerp had to contend in the sixteenth century sometimes brought serious disruption to the trade of its citizens.4.

The political and religious disorders that afflicted the whole of Western Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century did not make transport problems any easier. The delays and losses mentioned above were mostly directly or indirectly due to the chronic anarchy that prevailed. In September 1568 Plantin had to leave the main road and make long detours on the way to and from Frankfurt because of ‘les agents des ennemis du repos public’ - presumably a reference to the rebels led by William of Orange. His goods were also delayed.1. Later, during Lent 1586, Dresseler, Plantin's agent at Frankfurt, was captured on his way to the fair, between Brussels and Namur, by marauding soldiers of the States General army and only released after payment of a ransom to which Plantin had to contribute.2.

Travel and the transport of goods became a very risky business in the Netherlands of that period. The sharp rise in charges and the increased incidence of damage, loss, and delay greatly depressed economic activity in general, and of the Plantin House in particular.3.

But by one means or another, people continued to travel and to dispatch freight in the Low Countries. It was the connexions with Spain that, from 1572 onwards, were most affected. On 1st April of that year Holland and Zealand rose against the rule of Philip ii and by 21st June Plantin was having to write to Arias Montanus to tell him that the men of Flushing were making the sea-route to Spain unsafe. Antwerp merchants were obliged to send their wares overland to Rouen and forward them to Spain from there.1. Henceforth a large part of the trade with the Iberian peninsula was syphoned off by Rouen and Nantes.2. Other consignments went by way of the harbours of Flanders and Artois, still in Spanish hands, particularly Calais and Dunkirk.3. Communications by sea between Antwerp and Spain were almost completely broken in the period 1577 to 1585. Such contact as remained continued by way of France, and occasionally via Portugal. In 1585 Antwerp was brought back into the Spanish sphere of influence, but the triumphant rebels in the North kept the Scheldt blockaded. Sea trade had to continue via Dunkirk and Calais, and more particularly by way of Rouen.4.

The command of the sea by Holland and Zealand also reduced the trade of Dunkirk and Calais. The civil war that broke out in France in 1587 disrupted the remaining route to the South.5. On 24th December 1589 Jan Moretus found himself constrained to inform Arias Montanus that all routes to Spain were closed.6. But within a few years the worst of the war in France was over and southbound

trade could be resumed. The mariners of Dunkirk and, after the recapture of the town, Ostend, went privateering on their own account, challenging the men of Holland and Zealand in their own element. Once again goods could be sent to Spain via the two ports thus reopened.1. In the meantime relations with the North had been stabilized. Although the blockade of the Scheldt continued, there were ways through. By 1590 goods were again reaching Antwerp and the Plantin house by way of Flushing, in Dutch ships;2. if Antwerp merchants were prepared to pay the dues demanded, their wares could be exported through the territorial waters of Holland and Zealand.

So it was that in the course of the seventeenth century there was a normalization of international relations, and therefore of international trade. This does not mean that political tensions did not occasionally disrupt trade as in the past, to the detriment of the Officina Plantiniana. In 1616 a ship with a load of Plantinian books destined for the Hieronymites of the Escurial was intercepted by a French privateer and escorted to the island of Saint Martin, near La Rochelle.3. In 1633-34 Balthasar i Moretus had to wait seven months for eight bales of paper from France because on the way the carriers had been pressed into military service and had had to cart gunpowder for the French royal army.4. The Thirty Years War often hampered traffic to and from Frankfurt.5. The impression remains, however, that the political situation in the seventeenth century generally had a less adverse effect on the transport of the firm's products than the crises that Plantin had had to face.

In the sixteenth century the habit of insuring against loss of goods in transit began to be established in the Antwerp business world, but with the limitation that only the risks entailed in carriage by sea were covered.1. Plantin and his successors followed this custom, insuring their books regularly against maritime hazard, but never, as far as can be discovered, against loss on land.

In the case of the Plantin house it was principally the consignments sent to Spain which were guaranteed in this way. In Plantin's time this insurance was probably urged on him by Philip ii's ambassadors and the expense borne by that monarch.2. As far as can be determined, the Moretuses only insured consignments intended for the Hieronymites. Here too the premiums were undoubtedly paid directly or indirectly by the monks. When transactions were between parties in the book trade, the two sides would generally be reluctant to take out insurance, preferring the risks to the extra expense of the premiums. Jan Moretus and Jan Poelman, for example, agreed in their contract of 1586 not to insure any goods they sent each other.3. Premiums were quite high; they also could vary a lot, probably in direct relation to the state of the political barometer. There are only a couple of

instances available for the sixteenth century,1. but for the seventeenth and eighteenth centimes there is rather more information.2.

In the beginning insurance was one of many investments or speculations into which capitalists were tempted. Usually the risks were spread over a number of contracting parties who were independent of each other. Until the eighteenth century the cargo of a single ship would be divided among a number of Antwerp merchants who each underwrote a percentage of the value - usually to a maximum of 300 Flemish pounds.3. It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that organized insurance companies appeared. In 1754 the Chambre impériale et royale d'assurances d'Anvers was set up that from its inception was to play an important part in the economic life of Antwerp, 4. and also became the principal insurance agent for the Moretuses' Spanish cargoes.5.