Edict du Roy sur la creation des officiers establiz sur le recouvrement de ses droitz d'imposition foraine, resue, ou domaine forain, & hault passaige: et sur le reiglement du nombre desdicts officiers, & de taxe de leurs salaires, avecq la forme de lever & payer lesdicts droitz pour chacune marcha(n)dise, appreciees nà la mesure & au poids de Paris.

Bookseller Notes

Scarce royal proclamation in two parts. The first relating to French departmental Bureaux, and the second demonstrating how to calculate various duties on foreign goods (as well as general notes on imports/exports) in mid sixteenth-century France. Sixty-nine bureaux are listed, under regional headings beginning with Normandy and ending with Lyon/Beaujolais. Issued by Henry II three years into his short but tumultuous reign (1547-59) and in the year before he declared war on the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V with the intent of recapturing Italy. Doubtless intended to herald a more organised and more profitable system of levies and charges on foreign imports as well as domestic exports, the goods listed include barley, grain and wine, with calculations by barrel weight.