This article contributes to the revision of thinking on the
origin of author’s copyright by examining the first grant of a
printing privilege to an author in the sixteenth century, not
with a focus on its value to the author, the humanist scholar
Thomas Linacre, but rather on its value to Henry VIII’s regime.
The privilege, which applied to a Latin grammar, served Henry
VIII’s initiative to foster humanist scholarship in England. The
privilege represents early recognition of the power of
monopolies in printing rights to incentivize the creation of
particular texts. The printing privilege arose when a
convergence of factors began to change the economics of book
printing, as both supply and demand for printed books increased.
Humanist luminaries, like Erasmus and Linacre, created demand
for new content from living authors. Yet, the patronage system
that largely compensated these authors drove down the prices
they were able to get for the sale of their manuscripts to
printers and burdened them with obligations t