Beyond the Market: Books as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France (The Prothero Lecture)

‘Since he isn't able to sell his books,’ Erasmus said of a fellow scholar in 1518, ‘he goes about offering them as gifts to important people; he makes more that way than if he had sold them.’ Erasmus's shrewd observation to his friend Tunstall has considerable currency among historians today, anxious as we are about the book market. But writing his Colloquies a few years later, the great humanist also envisaged other purposes for giving books. At the end of a banquet, during which the gifts of God and human charity have been discussed, the host presents books to his guests, suiting each one to their learning, piety or vocation. His friends thank him not only for the gifts, but for the advice and compliments that went with them. ‘It is I who thank you,’ the host insists, ‘for being so good about my simple style of living and for refreshing my mind with your conversation.’