Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 8.

Het kompt altemael aen op het distribuweeren

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Samenvatting/Summaries

Adriaan van der Weel, The communications circuit revisited
[Het communicatiecircuit van Darnton opnieuw bezien]

De communicatiecirkel van Darnton is een nuttig instrument om verschijnselen in de boekhandel op verschillende plaatsen en tijden te analyseren, vanuit diverse perspectieven. Ook voor een beschouwing van de economische betekenis van de jongste digitale ontwikkelingen blijkt het model bruikbaar. Door hetzelfde model op verschillende historische perioden toe te passen, kunnen soms onvermoede parallellen zichtbaar worden gemaakt. Een dergelijke comparatieve benadering is nuttig, niet alleen door het perspectief dat analyse van het verleden ons biedt op het heden (of de toekomst), maar ook door het perspectief dat het heden ons biedt op het verleden. Het artikel bepleit een ruime opvatting van de boekwetenschap, die zich uitstrekt tot de tekstoverdracht in de brede historische zin, van handschrift tot en met internet.

Chris Coppens, Fondscatalogi als marketingstrategie. Een onderzoek naar lijsten van drukkers en boekhandelaren tot 1600
[The use of printers' and booksellers' lists for marketing purposes before 1600]

The invention of printing and the financial risk of the production process required new working methods in book production. There was a shift in the decision process for the multiplication of texts. It was not longer the client, the reader, who decided about printing a certain text, but the printer, the publisher. A well orchestrated marketing of the product was necessary. The producer had to go to the prospective customer or at least had to seduce him to come to his shop. The awareness of this problem and the method to solve it is shown by Peter Schoeffer. He worked with travelling booksellers to look after distribution and he was one of the first to go to the Frankfurt fair. In 1469/1470 he printed a list of his books as an advertisement to his prospective customers, an example to be followed by many others in the booktrade, already in the fifteenth century, but a practice in common use during the sixteenth century.

Formally there are three kinds of catalogues used for publicity: Broadsides, Pamphlets, in octavo or in quarto, exceptionally in folio, and Lists printed at the end (or sometimes at the beginning) of a regular book of a certain press as it is still in use today. It is striking that the importance of these lists was recognised already in the sixteenth century by Conrad Gesner, who was with his Bibliotheca universalis the father of modern bibliography.

A Census of printers' and booksellers' catalogues, with all the editions and the surviving copies noted, will give a different view on the scale and use of this material than was possible until now. These catalogues are in the first place bibliographical tools. They are basic for the reconstruction of the production of a town, of a period, of a printer or of an author.

The analysis of the content provides basic information from different points of view, for example on the spread of the humanist book, philological research (for instance the distribution of grammars), the history of science, economic history, both within the book trade itself and as a comparison for a much broader approach. To this end catalogues with printed prices

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(and those with prices added in manuscript) are primordial. We may say that these catalogues provide data for the history of ideas and for book-historical research, on production as well as distribution.

Koen Goudriaan, Boekdistributie langs kerkelijke kanalen in de late Middeleeuwen [Book distribution through ecclesiastical channels in the late Middle Ages]

In 1997 Michel Oosterbosch edited a contract concluded between two abbots of benedictine monasteries and the printer Dirk Martens (1507) for the production of a thousand breviaries and as many diurnals. In this contribution the 1507 contract is taken as the point of departure for an investigation of the commercial role the Church (ecclesiastical institutions, clerics) might have played in the distribution of printed Latin books in the incunabula and post-incunabula period. The attention focuses on books with a liturgical or at least ecclesiastical function, such as breviaries, missals and collections of statutes. The number of contracts which have been handed down is very limited. A more important type of source material is found in the data given on the title pages and in the colophons of the books under consideration.

Study of this material indicates that the procedure which can be gathered from the contract made with Dirk Martens is rather exceptional. It was a not uncommon practice for an ecclesiastical institution such as a diocese to supervise the production of a printed book with an official status, e.g. by stipulating in the contract the involvement of its deputies. But not even this practice was generalized. What is more important, ecclesiastical supervision did not entail that the Church invested in the production of the book in question, nor that for its distribution the channels of the Church hierarchy were used. Even for official books production and distribution were treated as purely commercial affairs. Sales went through bookshops. Centres of distribution sometimes were located in the capital of a diocese, but more often in a city better situated from a commercial point of view and often outside the diocese for which the book was meant.

In the remaining part of the article the question of the commercial procedures in distributing books for ecclesiastical use is put into a wider context. A clear connection exists between ecclesiastical movements of reform and religious observance on the one hand and the production of standardized texts for liturgical use on the other. Recently, starting from the supposition that the Church itself played a major role in the distribution of Latin books, the hypothesis has been launched that the Church, resp. the clergy, may also have participated commercially in the distribution of devotional, catechetic and educational literature in the vernacular. The results of the present investigation indicate that this is highly unlikely.

Kees Gnirrep, De intekenaren op de Reizen door Klein Asia van Cornelis de Bruijn (1698)
[The subscribers to the Reizen door Klein Asia by Cornelis de Bruijn (1698)]

The first edition of traveller-artist Cornelis de Bruijn's itinerary in the Near East was published by himself in 1698. The book contains a list of 624 subscribers, who between them bought no fewer than 1330 copies - probably the greater part of the edition.The subscription

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list just contains the names of the subscribers and the number of copies taken; occupations and places of residence are not mentioned. Nevertheless it proved possible to identify two thirds of the subscribers by research into the relevant printed sources and secundary literature.

Cornelis de Bruijn was a member of Pictura, the Hague guild of ‘fine painters’, membership of which was also open to art patrons. The members of Pictura maintained notable connections in the court circles of William III of Orange. Besides members of the De Bruijn family, they appear to have played a key role in the subscription campaign.

No more than thirteen subscribers are engaged in the book trade: in all they buy 155 copies. The great number of private individuals subscribing to seven or more copies, is remarkable: 66 persons, with occupations outside the book trade, subscribe to 583 copies. No less than 44% of the copies taken by subscription finds its way in this alternative circuit outside the book trade. The modus operandi of such a circuit and the frequency of its occurrence towards the end of the seventeenth century are in need of further investigation.

Jeroen Salman, ‘Vreemde loopers en kramers’. De ambulante boekhandel in de achttiende eeuw
[‘Vreemde loopers en kramers’. The itinerant book trade in the eighteenth century]

Itinerant bookselling was an important source of business for the eighteenth-century book trade. Established booksellers and local authorities regarded it as a nuisance, but they also saw advantages. Hawkers were unwanted competitors of the city bookshops, for they were responsible for the distribution of illegal reprints, they formed a very important link in the chain of subversive political information, and occasionally they caused public disorders. At the same time, they formed a streamlined distribution network in the cities, and provided cheap goods. The fact that itinerant book salesmen in the Utrecht countryside of the latter half of the eighteenth century became subject to regulation by the authorities in the form of a permit system is contrary to the current picture. Future research will have to show if such regulation also existed in other areas.

At this early stage of research, trade practices and the nature of the goods traded would appear to provide the most suitable ingredients for a categorisation of the heterogeneous group of itinerant traders. In ascending order of specialisation, the occasional trader, the peddler of printed matter and other goods, the peddler selling printed matter exclusively, and the peddler selling specialist printed matter, may be distinguished as ideal types. This classification, however, does not imply a social or economic hierarchy. At best, we can say that holders of city bookstalls were close in position to the more affluent, established booksellers, and that certain specialists, for instance those selling songs and newspapers, had been forced into this trade by poverty.

Rudolf Rasch, Aux adresses ordinaires. Waar muziek te koop was in de Nederlandse Republiek
[Aux adresses ordinaires. Where music was to be had in the Dutch Republic]

The trade in printed music in the Dutch Republic was carried out both by specialist music

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shops and by shops where printed music and books could be bought. A typical example of the former category is the business of Johann Julius Hummel in Amsterdam (from the mid-1750s until the early nineteenth century). Hummel produced a large number of editions, all printed from copper plates and covering all contemporary genres except full scores of operas and oratorios. Sales of these editions obviously accounted for the major part of his business. If we include other specialist music shops in our overview, it appears that they were typically run by enterpreneurs with a background in music (often still active as musicians), that they used engraving as the means of production, that they sold editions by others to a limited extent, that they often sold music paper, musical instruments and concert tickets as well, and that they did not belong to the Amsterdam Guild of Book-Printers and Sellers. They are typical for the eighteenth century.

The shops that sold both printed music and books have a much older history, going back to the decades around 1600. They sold their own editions, but, since these were of a relatively modest number, also editions printed by others, acquired in various ways. The most important music-seller of this type was Estienne Roger, active from 1696 onwards, whose business was continued by his son-in-law Michel-Charles le Cène until 1743. Music was not only sold by the original publisher: many catalogues and newspaper announcements mention agents based in cities within the Republic and abroad. There were also less predictable routes by which printed music could reach its owner: take-over of stocks by others after the death of the original publisher, private acquisitions abroad, gifts, auction sales, etc. All these means of distribution together account for the diversity of content in Dutch musical collections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Jan Spoelder, ‘De praemia gelevert ten dienste der Latynsche schoolen’. Over het Leidse uitgevers- en boekhandelaarshuis Luchtmans als distributeur van prijsboeken in de achttiende eeuw
[‘De praemia gelevert ten dienste der Latynsche schoolen’. The Leiden publishers and booksellers house of Luchtmans as a distributor of prize books in the eighteenth century]

In the towns of the Republic of the United Netherlands and the later Kingdom of the Netherlands the Latin School provided preliminary training for University from c. 1585-1876. Because of the educational theory of competition the awards of prize books played a central role in these schools. Twice a year a ceremony took place, which was the goal of all the studies pursued: the public graduation with prize distribution.

The article focusses on the process of the distribution of prize books. Questions arise as to which books were suitable as prize books; who determined their choice, and how the schools acquired the books in question. The numbers are quite considerable. In the eighteenth century alone c. 45.000 prize books must have been distributed. Special attention will be paid to the role that the Leiden publishing and bookseller's firm of Luchtmans played in this field. This is possible because of the private and booksellers' accounts that were preserved. According to these account books it appears that headmasters from various towns bought the prize books directly from Luchtmans throughout the eighteenth century. The booksellers also did business with Luchtmans to satisfy the need for variorum editions of classical authors. A more detailed analy-

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sis of the Luchtmans accounts will shed light on these transactions, an aspect of the trade in prize books that has hardly been researched so far.

José de Kruif, Het nut van de kennis der prijzen van oude boeken. De boekenprijs in de negentiende eeuw
[Het nut van de kennis der prijzen van oude boeken. Book prices in the nineteenth century]

This article describes the results of an exploratory study of the development of book prices and publishers' price policy in the nineteenth century. An inventory of the price level of books in the years 1828 and 1888 resulted in the hypothesis that book prices followed the general price level and even dropped less in price than other consumer goods. Also, the pattern of expensive and inexpensive books had hardly changed by 1888. The joint publishers aimed at uniform prices and the maintenance of the existing price level. The price development as it appears from this very limited inventory of two years makes it likely that this policy was successful, notwithstanding the efforts of some publishers at circumventing the prices by means of alternative distribution channels. The latter part of the article is devoted to the price strategies of the individual publishers. Publishers who were willing to adapt themselves to the rules of the book trade association still had the opportunity to influence the price perception of their customers, for instance by varying the material design of one single publication. This possibility was used for a limited number of genres and solely for the more expensive segment.

Harry van der Laan, Nederlandse schoolboeken in de vroege negentiende eeuw. De productie en verspreiding van schoolboeken tijdens de onderwijshervormingen
[Dutch school textbooks in the early nineteenth century. The production and distribution of school textbooks during the education reforms]

After 1801 the production of school textbooks in the Netherlands rose to a much higher level. This rise in the production of school textbooks was caused by the Dutch school reforms. In the Batavian Republic the pedagogic revolution of the second half of the eighteenth century was to be applied to education in elementary schools. This meant a classical education in the national spelling and the abolition of the Heidelberger catechismus and other protestant texts. The first Dutch education act of 1801 announced an official list of titles that were to replace the old textbooks.

As a result, hundreds of new school titles were developed and published. They were reviewed in a national magasin and delivered at bookstores in the Nothern parts of the Netherlands. From there they were bought by schoolteachers and distributed to pupils.

The shift in the school textbook market at the beginning of the nineteenth century changed the way textbooks were produced and distributed in the town of Groningen, situated in the North. In the eighteenth century the most common textbooks were produced for the local market. After 1800 publishers started to develop, produce and distribute textbooks for the national market. From 1802 they delivered their products to a bookstore in the town of Middelburg, situated in the South.

In 1803 a national law on copyrights incorporated the difference between the old and the

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new school textbook market: from then on the old books could be produced locally and the new schoolbooks were protected by law. Therefore the national laws at the beginning of the nineteenth cenury not only created an dynamic market for schoolbooks, but also a market for books for elementary schools that had a more national character than prior to 1800.

J. Vree, Den Ouden en Van Benthem. Een casus betreffende de verspreiding van gereformeerde lectuur in Zeeland (1823-1836)
[Den Ouden and Van Benthem. A case study of the distribution of orthodox reformed literature in the Province of Zeeland (1823-1836)]

The accounting records of S. van Benthem, bookseller at Middelburg, provide useful information about the distribution of all kinds of literature, particularly in the Province of Zeeland, in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The present case study focuses on the distribution of publications from the orthodox reformed stock of the Amsterdam publisher J.H. den Ouden, via Van Benthem's bookshop. Two important findings emerge from this study. Firstly, when examining the distribution of religious literature it may prove relevant to investigate the ecclesiastical background of the bookseller concerned. Secondly, it has been established that the titles on Den Ouden's stock list were not only bought on account; cheaper copies in particular were often paid for in cash. This implies that Van Benthem's customer records, which are widely consulted by book historians, do not give a complete picture of the book distribution via his shop.