ABSTRACT
The question of the distribution, availability and choice of books poses considerable problems for the historian of sixteenth-century France. While the output of the French presses arguably had few rivals in early modern Europe, the relentless lists of authors, titles and editions supplied by modern bibliographies and library catalogues can all too easily misrepresent what was available to contemporary readers. The kind of universal knowledge and access to the printed word enjoyed by historians was entirely unknown to the men and women who actually read such works. Print runs were small, and popular works sold quickly. Both personal and institutional book collections remained modest through the century: fifty or sixty titles was above average for members of the professions, while the libraries of even the most avid collectors and well-funded institutions rarely exceeded one thousand volumes. Generalizations about shifts in the religious mentality of the age based upon aggregate print output alone, at a time when print itself was a far from stable, univocal medium,1 are clearly insufficient. Analysis of the social and cultural uses of print needs to be construed through the prism of the distribution, circulation and consumption of printed materials as well as their production.2 Despite limited evidence, an exploration of the contemporary distribution and consumption of religious books in France is possible, and provides some useful lessons.
