Legal Authorship in the Age of the Printing Press: Manual de Confessores by Martín de Azpilcueta (1492–1586)

What role did authors have in the production of normative knowledge in the early modern period? The case of Martín de Azpilcueta’s Manual de Confessores contributes some interesting elements to help answer this question. In particular, it allows us to analyse some of the specific features of early modern authorship which, this chapter argues, was strictly connected to authorial agency and control in the process of production and circulation of the printed book. The extraordinary source of a lawsuit between Azpilcueta and the Spanish printers and booksellers of a pirate edition of the Manual sheds new light on this process, and on the crucial role of printing privileges within it. Firstly, through the expert use of the legal tool of printing privileges, Azpilcueta succeeded in defining his authorship and constructing it, thus contributing to the emergence of a creation-based idea of authorship. Secondly, printing privileges allowed him active control over the production, circulation, and consumption of his book.