It was considered important, in order to insure the proper control by the university over the book-trade and the interests of the scholars who depended upon the book-dealers for their text-books, that the trade in the materials used in the manifolding of books should also be strictly supervised. The special purpose of the university authorities was to prevent any “cornering of the market” in parchment, and to insure that the supply of this should be regular and uniform in price. Under the ordinance of 1291, the dealers in parchment were forbidden to keep any secret stores of the same, but were obliged to keep on file with the managers of the book guild the record of the stock carried by them from month to month. The parchment-dealers licensed to do business in Paris were forbidden to sell parchment to dealers from outside of Paris. On the first day of the Trade Fair, when foreign dealers brought parchment to Paris for sale, the Parisian dealers were forbidden themselves to make purchases, this day being reserved for such purchases as the university officials might desire to make. In case, after the first day of the Fair, a foreign dealer in parchment had before him more applications for his stock than could be supplied, and among the applicants there should be one representing the university, the latter was to be served first. Outside of the time of the official Fair, the Paris dealers in parchment were allowed to make purchases of their material only in the monastery of S. Mathurin. In case between the times of the Fair a foreign dealer or manufacturer of parchment came to Paris, he was obliged to place his stock in this same monastery and to give information concerning this deposit to the Rector of the university. The Rector sent a representative to examine and to schedule the parchment, and the stock was priced by four of the licensed parchment-dealers associated with the university. The university authorities had then for twenty-four hours the first privilege of purchase. This regulation was applied also to the parchment-trade carried on at the Fair of St. Germain. It is evident from the many renewed edicts and ordinances referring to this trade that it was not easy to carry out such regulations effectively, and that much friction and dissatisfaction was produced by them. It seems probable also that, with the trade in parchment as in other trades, the attempt to secure uniformity of price, irrespective of the conditions of manufacture or of the market, had the effect not infrequently of lessening the supply and of causing sales to be made surreptitiously at increased prices.