Book Market and Surveillance: The Distribution of Plantin’s Tridentine Liturgical Books in Sixteenth-Century Castile

Abstract

This article studies the distribution of Christopher Plantin’s Tridentine liturgical Books between 1568 and 1572 through a Philip II’s royal ordinance of 1572 and the reports of a systematic visit to the bookshops of Castile that same year. This article analyses some of the formidable complexities, successes and failures of the clash between Crown, market and Church. It highlights Philip II’s lack of control over the Spanish book market and the fraudulent import of liturgical books from Antwerp to Castile and the unofficial distribution of them.