While the university assumed the strictest kind of control and supervision over the work of the book-dealers, it conceded, as an offset, to the association of these dealers a very substantial monopoly of the trade of making and selling books. It was prohibited, under severe penalties, for a person not a _libraire juré_ to do business in a book-shop or at any fixed stand; that is to say, he could not sell as a _stationnaire_, but had to carry on his trade as a pedlar or chap-man, from a pack or a cart. The value of the manuscript that such pedlar was permitted to offer for sale was restricted to ten _sous_, the equivalent of half a franc. At the price at which manuscripts were held during the fourteenth century, this limitation restricted the trade of the peripatetic vendors to single sheets, or broadsides, containing usually a _Pater_, an _Ave_, or a _Credo_, or a brief calendar or astrological table. Successive edicts were issued from reign to reign, renewing the prohibition upon the selling of books, whether in French or Latin (excepting only of such maximum value), by any drapers, grocers, pedlars, or dealers of any kind.[297] In all the official references of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the book-dealers, the ground is taken that they formed a class apart from mechanics or from traders in ordinary merchandise. They were considered to be engaged in an intellectual pursuit, and were treated as members of a profession upon whose service the work of the university and that of the Church were largely dependent. Thus in 1649 the _Recueil_ makes use of these words: _Les Marchands-Libraires, Imprimeurs et Relieurs seront toujours censés du corps de nostre bien aymée fille aisnée l’Université; du tout séparés des arts méchaniques, et autres Corps de Mestiers ou marchandises; et come tels, conservés en la jouissance de tous les droicts; priviléges, franchises, libertez, préséances et prérogatives attribuées à ladite université et à eux par les Royes nos prédécesseux et par nous._[298] It was, therefore, not permitted to the _libraire_ to bring discredit upon his profession by also engaging in any “sordid pursuits” (_viles occupations_), and in so doing he rendered himself liable to being deposed from his high post (_declaré déchu de son noble office_). He could, however, unite with his work as _libraire_ that of a notary, or that of a royal counsellor or practitioner in the higher court (_avocat du roi au Parlement_).