Description
Guillaume COQUILLART. Sensuyuent les droitz Nouveaulx avec le Debat des dames et des armes Lēqueste entre la simple et la rusee avec son playdoye Et le monologue coqllart avec plusieurs autres choses fort ioyeuses. Small in-4, red morocco, triple fillet, beautifully decorated smooth spine, interior roulette, gilt edges ( 18th century binding). Bechtel, 181/C-637 // Brunet, II-263 // Le Petit, 12 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, II-505// USTC, 57796. (88f.) / aa-bb4, A-U4 / 32 lines, goth. car. / 114 x 173 mm. First or second edition, depending on the bibliography. It is believed to be the only known copy, along with the one in the BnF. Guillaume Coquillart, born in Reims around 1450, died in 1510. He studied in Paris and became a lawyer renowned for his knowledge and experience, but, disillusioned by this city where he knew the perfidies of love and the injustice and partiality of the great, he returned to his native city where he held the office of official, i.e. ecclesiastical judge. His poems are either broad strokes of the loose mores of his century, or short poems of innocent mischief and bitter mockery. Les Droits nouveaux is a series of short plays of varying degrees of licentiousness on the subjects of love and the rights of women and men vis-à-vis their spouses or lovers. They include Complainte de Eco qui ne peut iouyr de ses amours, le droit de savoir si on doit laisser ieunes filles & femmes en friche par faulte destre labourées, le droit if the husband beats his wife she must revenge herself, namely si ieune fēme peult cõtraidre sõ mary a avoir nourrices de peur de ses tetins... The volume also contains a playdoye and enqueste entre la simple et la rusée, a legal dispute concerning a man they each claim to have as a lover. This very rare first edition was given by Brunet as dating from 1493, but as Trepperel died in 1511 and the edition was published by his widow, it is certain that it dates from at least 1512. Bechtel cites another edition, in-4 of 36 leaves, which would have preceded this one, but Le Petit, in his work on the original French editions, demonstrates perfectly that this 36-leaf edition was published after ours. Title in red and black with two coats of arms, one of which reproduces the arms of J. Godart, who was canon and grand cantor of Notre-Dame de Reims. On verso of title, coat of arms with French lilies. Book bb is printed on stronger, slightly yellow paper, a feature not mentioned in the Cigongne and Firmin-Didot catalogs. We have compared it with the copy preserved at Chantilly, and it shows differences in the fineness of the characters and in the lettering; we believe it was rebound, probably in the 18th century, when it was bound. This in no way detracts from the rarity of this copy. Provenance: Armand Bernard Cigongne (bookplate, library catalog, no. 582) and Ambroise Firmin-Didot (bookplate, June 6-15, 1878, no. 165).
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Guillaume COQUILLART. Sensuyuent les droitz Nouveaulx avec le Debat des dames et des armes Lēqueste entre la simple et la rusee avec son playdoye Et le monologue coqllart avec plusieurs autres choses fort ioyeuses. Small in-4, red morocco, triple fillet, beautifully decorated smooth spine, interior roulette, gilt edges ( 18th century binding). Bechtel, 181/C-637 // Brunet, II-263 // Le Petit, 12 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, II-505// USTC, 57796. (88f.) / aa-bb4, A-U4 / 32 lines, goth. car. / 114 x 173 mm. First or second edition, depending on the bibliography. It is believed to be the only known copy, along with the one in the BnF. Guillaume Coquillart, born in Reims around 1450, died in 1510. He studied in Paris and became a lawyer renowned for his knowledge and experience, but, disillusioned by this city where he knew the perfidies of love and the injustice and partiality of the great, he returned to his native city where he held the office of official, i.e. ecclesiastical judge. His poems are either broad strokes of the loose mores of his century, or short poems of innocent mischief and bitter mockery. Les Droits nouveaux is a series of short plays of varying degrees of licentiousness on the subjects of love and the rights of women and men vis-à-vis their spouses or lovers. They include Complainte de Eco qui ne peut iouyr de ses amours, le droit de savoir si on doit laisser ieunes filles & femmes en friche par faulte destre labourées, le droit if the husband beats his wife she must revenge herself, namely si ieune fēme peult cõtraidre sõ mary a avoir nourrices de peur de ses tetins... The volume also contains a playdoye and enqueste entre la simple et la rusée, a legal dispute concerning a man they each claim to have as a lover. This very rare first edition was given by Brunet as dating from 1493, but as Trepperel died in 1511 and the edition was published by his widow, it is certain that it dates from at least 1512. Bechtel cites another edition, in-4 of 36 leaves, which would have preceded this one, but Le Petit, in his work on the original French editions, demonstrates perfectly that this 36-leaf edition was published after ours. Title in red and black with two coats of arms, one of which reproduces the arms of J. Godart, who was canon and grand cantor of Notre-Dame de Reims. On verso of title, coat of arms with French lilies. Book bb is printed on stronger, slightly yellow paper, a feature not mentioned in the Cigongne and Firmin-Didot catalogs. We have compared it with the copy preserved at Chantilly, and it shows differences in the fineness of the characters and in the lettering; we believe it was rebound, probably in the 18th century, when it was bound. This in no way detracts from the rarity of this copy. Provenance: Armand Bernard Cigongne (bookplate, library catalog, no. 582) and Ambroise Firmin-Didot (bookplate, June 6-15, 1878, no. 165).
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