Royal Privilege

THE KING

Whereas on your behalf, Miguel de Cervantes, report was made to us that you had composed a book entitled The Ingenious Hidalgo of La Mancha, which had cost you much labor and was very useful and profitable, and you asked and petitioned us to order that you be given license and authority to print it, and a privilege for such time as we should be pleased to grant, or as it might please our grace; which having been seen by the members of our Council, and since in the said book the procedures were carried out that are laid down by the decree lately issued by us on the printing of books, it was agreed that we ought to order this our warrant to be issued to you in the said matter; and we have thought it good. By this warrant, to do you good and favor, we give you license and authority so that you, or the person holding your power of attorney, and no other, may print the said book, entitled The Ingenious Hidalgo of La Mancha, mentioned above, in all these our kingdoms of Castile, for the term and space of ten years, to run and be counted from the said date of this our warrant; under penalty that the person or persons who, without holding your power, print or sell it, or have it printed or sold, shall by that very act lose the printing they have made, with the type and equipment for it; and shall further incur a fine of fifty thousand maravedís each time they act to the contrary. Of the said fine one third shall go to the person who brings the charge, another third to our Chamber, and the other third to the judge who passes sentence. Provided that every time you have the said book printed, during the term of the said ten years, you bring it to our Council, together with the original that was examined there, which bears on every page the flourish of Juan Gallo de Andrada, our Clerk of the Chamber, one of those who sit there, and his signature at the end, so that it may be known whether the said printing conforms to the original; or else that you bring attestation in public form of how a corrector appointed by our order saw the said printing and corrected it against the original, and that it was printed in conformity with it, and that the errata he noted are printed, for each one of the books thus printed, so that the price you are to charge for each volume may be assessed. And we order the printer who prints the said book not to print the beginning or the first sheet of it, nor deliver more than a single book with the original to the author, or to the person at whose expense it is printed, or to anyone else, for the purpose of the said correction and assessment, until first and before all else the said book has been corrected and assessed by the members of our Council; and, this being done, and not otherwise, he may print the said beginning and first sheet, and next set in this our warrant and the approval, assessment, and errata, under penalty of falling into and incurring the penalties contained in the laws and decrees of these our kingdoms. And we order the members of our Council, and any other justices of those kingdoms, to keep and fulfill this our warrant and what it contains. Given in Valladolid, on the twenty-sixth day of the month of September, in the year one thousand six hundred and four.

I, THE KING.

By command of the King our lord:

Juan de Amezqueta.