The list includes from time to time the names of women _libraires_, these women being usually widows of _libraires_ who had duly qualified themselves. The women must themselves, however, in order to secure such appointments, have been able to pass the examination in Latin, in palæography, and in the technicalities of manuscript book-making. In respect as well to the admission of foreigners as to that of women, the Paris guild of the university book-dealers practised a more liberal policy than that followed by the university authorities of Bologna or the Stationers’ Hall of London. Later, this liberal policy was restricted, and in 1686 it was ordered that no foreigners should be admitted to the lists of the master _libraires_ of the university. The purchase of a manuscript during the fourteenth century was attended with almost as many formalities and precautions as are to-day considered necessary for the transfer of a piece of real estate. The dealer making the sale was obliged to give to the purchaser guarantees to the effect, first, that he was himself the owner or the duly authorised representative of the owner of the work; and, secondly, that the text of this was complete and correct, and as security for these guarantees he pledged his goods, and sometimes even his person. As a single example of a transaction illustrating this practice, I quote a contract cited by Du Breuil. This bears date November, 1332, and sets forth that a certain Geoffrey de Saint Léger, a duly qualified _clerc libraire_, acknowledges and confesses that he has sold, ceded, and transferred to the noble gentleman Messire Gérard de Montagu, _Avocat du Roi au Parlement_ (counsellor at the royal court), all right, title, and interest in a work entitled _Speculum Historiale in consuetudines Parisienses_, contained in four volumes bound in red leather. The consideration named is forty livres Parisian, the equivalent, according to the tables of de Wailly, of 1013 francs. The vendor pledges as security for the obligation under the contract all his worldly goods, together with his own person (_tous et chacun de ses biens, et guarantie de son corps même_), and the contract is attested before two notaries.[296]