Note 11 — The Bibliographical History

According to Dasmariñas he had priced the books at four reales a piece, which followed the regular Spanish procedure, under which books were subject to price control. The Governor, it will be noted, also apologized for the high price he was forced to set, giving general high prices11 as his excuse. Yet, while the appraisal of four reales for this book was high compared to the prevailing scale in Spain, it was not high compared to prices allowed in Mexico. On June 6, 1542 the Emperor had given the Casa de Cromberger, the first printing-house in Mexico, permission12 to sell books printed there at seventeen maravedís a sheet, or exactly one half a real. If we assume that, although the Doctrina had been printed page by page, it was quarto in size and so appraised on the basis of eight pages to a sheet, we find that the price per sheet comes to about fourteen maravedís, or less than half a real. However, a contradiction occurs between the letter of Dasmariñas and this copy of the Doctrina, supported by the other 1593 document. On the verso of the title, Juan de Cuellar,13 the Governor’s secretary and the logical person to sign the official valuation, gives the price as two reales, and the 1593 account, while agreeing with the letter as far as the Chinese Doctrina is concerned, also lists the price of the Tagalog Doctrina as two reales. It is impossible to say what caused the discrepancy; perhaps it was a decision on Dasmariñas’ part to lower the cost, notwithstanding inflationary values, in order to make the book more readily available for the natives who were not economically as well off as the Chinese, or it could be that after the letter had been written it was noticed that the Chinese volume was larger than the Tagalog one, and some adjustment made. In any event, the price of this Doctrina was finally set at two reales, making it less than half the price allowed in Mexico fifty years before.