Under an edict of 1602, commissioners of the Inquisition were stationed at all the ports with instructions to seize all books by new authors and all new and enlarged editions of new books as they arrived and to allow no one to handle these until they had been inspected by representatives of the supreme council. Prohibited books were detained and burned. The regulations of the Inquisition had at this time rendered very difficult the carrying on of the printing and publishing business in Spain, with the result of very much decreasing the annual production of books. The requirements of scholars and readers could therefore be met only through the importation of books produced in France, Italy, or the Netherlands. The necessity, however, of securing for imported books, in addition to the inspection (onerous enough in itself) on the part of customs officials, an examination, volume by volume, by the representatives of the Inquisition, brought such serious burdens, expenses, and risks upon the business of the importers as to render this unprofitable. It is certainly the case that the circulation of books in Spain during the 17th century became very inconsiderable. An order issued in 1597 gives evidence of some consideration for the property of foreigners. When heretics came to trade, bringing books for their own use, the commissioner was instructed to examine these and to mark conspicuously and indelibly such as belonged to the prohibited list, so that they could be recognised by the faithful. The owners were warned, under heavy penalties, not to bring such books to the shore. In 1631, it was directed that “ships of England should be treated with gentleness so as not to cause offence.”[119] The instructions for the examination of vessels, whether Spanish or foreign, to guard against the introduction not only of prohibited books but of heretics, and to punish any infractions of the faith that might during the voyage have been committed either by the crew or passengers, were very precise and exacting.

Under the fourth article of these instructions, a report is to be given as to what Christian doctrine and prayers of the Church have been recited at sea and what saints have been advocated and invoked in their necessities and perils. Under article six, it is ordered that all boxes and chests of the sailors and passengers were to be opened for evidence of heresy.

Henry C. Lea, in a letter to the writer (under date of October 31, 1898) in regard to the effect of censorship on the literary interests of Spain, says:

The books that were published during the 16th century, and indeed for a century later, bore everywhere marks of the subjection to which the press and those who wrote for the press were alike reduced. From the abject title-pages and dedications of the authors themselves through the series of certificates collected from their friends to establish the orthodoxy of works that were often as little connected with religion as fairy tales, down to the colophon supplicating pardon for any unconscious neglect of the authority of the Church or for any too free use of classical mythology, we are continually impressed with painful proofs, not only how completely the human mind was enslaved in Spain, but how grievously it had become cramped and crippled by what it had so long borne.[120] Of the few dramatic pieces written in the earlier part of the reign of Charles V, nearly all except those on strictly religious subjects were laid under the ban of the Church; several in fact being now known to have existed only because their names appear in the Index expurgatorius; and others, like the Amadis de Gaula of Gil Vicente, though printed and published, being subsequently forbidden to be represented.[121]

Ticknor writes (with reference to the trial of Luis de Leon, in December, 1576):

In 1676, was born Benito Feyjoo, who later became a Benedictine monk. While his life was spent in strict retirement (for forty-seven years he remained in the convent at Oviedo), the activity of his thought made him a fire in the community. He wrote a series of papers published, in 1726, under the title of the Critical Theatre. In these, he openly attacked the dialectics and metaphysics then taught everywhere in Spain. Few persons at the beginning of the 18th century were so well informed as not to believe in astrology, and fewer still doubted the disastrous influence of comets and of eclipses. The study of Copernicus was forbidden to be taught on the ground that it was contrary to Scripture. The philosophy of Bacon, with all the consequences that followed it, were unknown. In spite of the opposition of the Inquisition, before which Feyjoo was more than once summoned, it proved to be impracticable to suppress his investigations or his publications. In 1742, he began a series of discussions published under the title Learned and Enquiring Souls. The series was finished in 1760. It was impossible for the Inquisition to assail the soundness of his faith. Fifteen editions of his principal works were printed in half a century. It is the conclusion of Ticknor that the quiet monk had done more for the intellectual life of his country than had been done in a century.[123]

Ticknor calculates that the number of auto-da-fés during the reign of Philip V exceeded seven hundred and eighty. It is believed that more than twelve thousand persons were, in different ways, subjected, under the authority of the Inquisition, to be punished and disgraced and that more than one thousand were burned alive. Charles III, with the assistance of his liberal ministers, was able so far to abridge the papal power that no rescript or edict from Rome could have force in Spain without the express consent of the throne. He restrained the Inquisition from exercising any authority whatever except in cases of obstinate heresy or apostacy. He forbade the condemnation of any book until its author or those interested in it had had an opportunity to be heard in its defence. Finally, deeming the Jesuits the most active opponents of the reforms he was intending to enforce, he expelled their whole body from his dominions all over the world, breaking up their schools and confiscating their great revenues. Certain abuses were, however, beyond his reach. When he appealed to the universities, urging them to change their ancient habits and to teach the truths of the physical and exact sciences, Salamanca answered in 1771: “Newton teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as does Aristotle.”[124] The other universities showed little more of the spirit of advancement. Under Charles IV, in 1805, the Inquisition, grown forcible in the hands of the Government as a political machine but still renouncing none of its religious pretensions, came forth with its last Index expurgatorius to meet the invasion of French philosophy and insubordination. Acting under express instructions from the powers of the State, it instituted against men of letters, and especially against those connected with the universities, an immense number of denunciations which, though rarely prosecuted to conviction and to punishment, were still formidable enough to prevent the public expression of opinions on any subject that could endanger the social condition of the individual who ventured to entertain them.

5. France.—Duke Philip Augustus in an edict issued in 1200, confirmed by St. Louis in 1229 and by Philip the Fair in 1302, directed that the cases of university members be brought before the Bishop of Paris. The university found disadvantages in being under the jurisdiction of the bishop (whose censorship later proved particularly troublesome for the publishers) and applications were made to replace the authority of the ecclesiastical courts with that of the royal courts. In 1334, letters patent of Philip of Valois directed the Provost of Paris, who was at that time considered as the conservateur of the royal privileges, to take the university under his special protection, and in 1341, the members of the university were forbidden to enter proceedings before any other authority. This action brought the control of literary production in the university directly under the authority of the Crown and constituted a precedent for the contention, maintained through the 15th and 16th centuries, for the direct control by the Crown of the printing-presses. The claim on the part of the university, however, to control as a portion of the work of higher education the business of the makers and the sellers of books, while sharply attacked and materially undermined during the 17th century, was not formally abandoned until the beginning of the 18th. At this time, the Crown took to itself all authority to regulate the press, an authority which terminated only with the Revolution of 1789.

The first printing-office in France was established in 1469 by Gering, Krantz, and Friburger from Constance. At the request of two of the divines of the Sorbonne, space was given for the printing-office in one of the halls of the college. An edict of Louis XII, issued April 9, 1513, confirms and extends the privileges previously acquired by booksellers as officials of the university. In this edict, Louis speaks with appreciation and admiration of the printing art, “the discovery of which appears to be rather divine than human.” He congratulates his kingdom that in the development of this art “France takes precedence of all other realms.”[125] A year later, the King places on record his opinion that dramatic productions and representations should be left free from any restrictions. In 1512, the King writes to the university requesting the theological faculty to examine a book that had been condemned as heretical by the Council of Pisa. In place, however, of demanding that measures of severity should be taken against the writer, the King proposed that the professors should go over the book chapter by chapter and should present a refutation of any of its conclusions that seemed to them to be contrary to the truth. It was hardly possible that so fair a spirit of toleration should long continue. The spirit of the time was stronger than the power of any one king and it was impossible in the 16th century that the Church and the State could permit the free development and the unrestricted expression of thought.

In 1500, the publisher Badius, who had been selected by the theological faculty for printing certain of its censorial works, issued an edition of the Regula S. Benedicti, the famous Rule which had exercised so important and so abiding an influence on the literature and the intellectual development of Europe. The leading publisher in Paris between the years 1496 and 1520 was Henry Estienne. The so-called heretical opinions of Estienne rendered him obnoxious to the doctors of the Sorbonne and if it had not been for the special interference of Francis I, by whom his learning and his merits were held in high esteem, his life would more than once have been in jeopardy. His opponents succeeded, however, in procuring his expulsion from the university, and, driven from Paris, he was compelled to seek the protection of the Queen of Navarre. The case is one of a long series of instances in which the liberal views and scholarly interests of King Francis brought him into conflict with the doctors of the Sorbonne. In the end, however, the theological faculty, backed by the majority of the ecclesiastics of France and by the influence of the Papacy, proved too strong for the liberal tendencies of the Crown. With the triumph of Catholic orthodoxy in France, the leading publishers and their scholarly editors found so many difficulties placed in the way of their undertakings that these could no longer be carried on to advantage in Paris. The chief trouble was due to the ignorance and suspiciousness of the doctors of the Sorbonne. These doctors possessed at this period little or no knowledge of Greek and were inclined to imagine that any Greek sentence must contain or might contain some dangerous heresy.[126] Any critical analysis of Latin texts which, in some earlier, and usually imperfect or defective, form, had received the approval of the Church, also seemed to the divines likely to prove dangerous, and in any case, constituted a reflection upon the orthodox scholarship of the previously accepted versions. Their apprehensions became most keen and their indignation most active when the “new criticism” (as they probably called it) was applied to the text of the Scriptures, whether for the purpose of correcting the early clumsy Latinised versions of the New Testament or of securing more accurate rendering of the texts of the Hebrew books. During the first half-century of printing, however, the production of editions of the Scriptures constituted the most important division of publishing undertakings. It is not surprising, therefore, that the printers who were giving their time and their capital to the preparation of these editions, and who found themselves hampered and harassed by ignorant and bigoted censorship, came to the conclusion that the advantages of Paris as a literary and commercial centre were not sufficient to offset the continued difficulties and annoyances of such antagonism.

By 1540, the ecclesiastical control of the printing-press (exercised through the authority of the university) had become an established and an obstructive fact. A necessary result of the antagonism of the Church to critical scholarship was to drive into the ranks of sympathisers with the reformers, if not into Protestantism itself, very many of the scholars who at the outset were not reformers and who were not keenly interested in the theological issues of the period, but who felt a natural indignation at the reiterated interference with scholarly undertakings on the part of very ignorant men. The scholars engaged in preparing for the public critical editions of the world’s literature asked to be let alone, but they asked in vain.

In 1546, the doctors of the Sorbonne secured the insertion in the prohibitory Index of Louvain of the edition of the Bible that had just been printed by Robert Estienne; but later in the same year, the King prohibited the printing or the circulation in France of the Index of Louvain. The King also issued a brief ordering the divines to withdraw their strictures upon the Estienne Bible. With the death of the King in 1547, the prohibition of the Bible was, however, renewed. In 1552, Estienne, deprived of the protection of King Francis, is finally compelled to close his printing office and to remove to Geneva. Estienne did not, however, find Protestant Geneva a place of liberal toleration. The year after his arrival, he witnessed the burning, under the authority of Calvin, of the heretical scholar Servetus, and more than once during the later years of his work in Geneva, the Estienne publications came under the condemnation of the Calvinistic censorship. Henry Estienne (the second) completed, in 1562, the publication of certain theological works which had been left unfinished in Geneva at the time of his father’s death. Among these, were an Exposition of the New Testament and an Exposition of the Psalms. The editor, a certain Marloratus, a Huguenot minister at Rouen, was unfortunately, before the printing was completed, hanged as a heretic, under the direction of the Duke of Guise, but the books themselves were not suppressed nor was the publisher interfered with. The faculty of the Sorbonne appears for the time to have suspended its censorious watchfulness over heretical publications, perhaps because it found its hands sufficiently full with the active work of suppressing, by fire, gibbet, and sword, the heretics themselves. Henry found it later, however, good policy to divide his publishing undertakings, executing at Paris reprints of the classics and works in general literature, and reserving for his press at Geneva theological works which were likely to give offence in a period of “religious irritation.” This term is, I may mention, Maittaire’s, and it is perhaps not too strong a description of a period in which a divine who had taken no part in politics could be hanged simply for editing a Protestant commentary.

In 1589, the city of Geneva was being besieged by the Duke of Savoy. The city contained at the time a population of about 12,000 and was able to muster for its defence 2186 men capable of bearing arms. Against this little force, the Duke brought up an army of 18,000 regular troops with the determination of destroying once for all this “nest of heretics.” The destruction of the city was earnestly urged by St. Francis de Sales. The schools and the printing-presses were particularly pointed out by St. Francis as instruments of mischief. The powers that determine events were this time not in accord with the saint. The city survived a siege lasting for nine years, although at its close it had lost out of its little levy nearly three fourths. Casaubon tells us that in his time (he is writing in 1595) the ministers of Geneva exercised a strict surveillance over both the work of teaching and that of publishing. A professor in the academy was not permitted to publish until his book had passed through the censorship of the divines. It seems probable that the Calvinistic scrutiny in Geneva, during the last ten years of the 16th century, may easily have proved in its narrowness and persistency a more serious obstacle in the way of publishing undertakings and of scholarship than the censorship of the Catholic theologians of Paris.

Casaubon secured, in 1600, at the instance of his friend De Vic, appointment as Keeper of the Royal Library. This library contained at the time about nine hundred works, a large proportion of which were in manuscript. The collection of Greek manuscripts was said to be second only to that of the Vatican.[127] The new librarian found favour with the King although Henry IV was by no means a scholar. Scaliger says of him that he could not keep his countenance and could not read a book. The great minister Sully was, however, critical of any expenditure for literature. “You cost the King too much, sir,” said Sully to Casaubon; “your pay exceeds that of two good captains, and you are of no use to the country.”[128]

A letter from the papal nuncio at Paris, written in 1562 to Pius IV, makes reference to a statement made to the nuncio by Monsieur de Bourbon, to the effect that a few days earlier he had confiscated from a vessel a quantity of heretical books “of the most distressing character that can be conceived.” These books were packed in wine casks and had been sent from Geneva. He had consigned them to the flames. No reference is made to the importer.[129]

Sacchino, historian of the Jesuits, writing in 1526, refers to the heretical city of Geneva as responsible for the introduction into Lyons of vim infinitam librorum pestiferorum (“a great mass of pestiferous literature,”) prepared for circulation not only in France but in Constantinople. He states further, however, that owing to the efforts of the zealous Possevinus, the books were seized and burned (Ut pestilentium illa farrago voluminum flammis aboliretur).[130]

The interest of Francis in scholarship and the influence of Budaeus and other scholars led him to approve the scheme for a Royal College to be devoted more particularly to instruction in the ancient languages. The authorities of the university were, with hardly an exception, bitterly opposed to the plan of the new college. The argument on the part of the university was presented before the Parliament of Paris by Galliard. He urged that “to propagate the knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages would operate to the absolute destruction of all religion.” “Were these professors theologians,” he asked, “that they should pretend to explain the Bible? Were not, indeed, the very Bibles of which they made use, in large part printed in Germany, the region of heresy? Or at least were they not indebted for them to the Jews?” The rejoinder on the part of the new professors was made through Marillac. “We make no pretensions,” said the professors, “to the name or the function of theologians. It is as philologists or grammarians only that we undertake to explain the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. If you, who are criticising our teachings, possess any knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, you are at liberty to attend our lectures and, if you find any heresy in our instruction, to denounce us. If, however, you are yet ignorant of Greek and Hebrew, on what grounds can you base your fitness as censors or your claims to forbid us to teach in these tongues?” The victory rested with the scholars and the Collège Royal maintained its ground and increased in influence and importance.[131] Maittaire quotes in this connection the testimony of Heresbach, who says that, in 1540, he heard in a sermon delivered in Paris the following statement: “A new language has been discovered which they call Greek. Against this you must be carefully on your guard for it is the infant tongue of all heresies. There is a book written in that language called the New Testament. It is un livre plein de ronces et de vipères. As to the Hebrew tongue, it is well known that all who learn it presently become Jews.”

In 1685, a royal edict was issued by Louis XIV, ordering the destruction of all heretical books and the punishment of those who should retain copies of the same. As a result of the edict, the Parliament of Paris issued a decree appointing the Archbishop of Paris to prepare an Index prohibitorius of books which in his judgment ought to be suppressed, an instruction which was carried out with all promptness. The list of the archbishop comprised the names of about five hundred authors. The books condemned were those of the Lutherans, Socinians, Arminians, and Greeks. Included with these were all versions of the Scriptures. The Parliament published at once a decree enforcing the prohibition and commanding a strict search to be made for such books in the bookshops and printeries and also in private houses. Many books were burned, including a large number of copies of the Scriptures. The protection, or toleration, heretofore, in form at least, extended to Protestants was during the same year, 1685, withdrawn by the Edict of Fontainebleau, repealing the Edict of Nantes.

The printers of Lyons succeeded in building up, within a very few years after the introduction of printing into France, a profitable business. They had the advantage of being well out of the way of both ecclesiastical and political censorship. They were quite prepared to take up promptly editions of books which had been prohibited in Paris and in Rome, or later in Geneva. They were also among the earliest to develop the art of what may be called piratical printing. The great expense of the production of earlier editions, more particularly of the classics, was the outlay for scholarly editing. The printers of Lyons promptly discovered that they could make money by utilising the expenditures of Aldus in Venice, or of the scholarly printers in Paris, through the appropriation of editorial material. They brought out editions printed with the text that had been shaped in Venice and in some cases in direct imitation of the typography of these first and so to speak authorised editions. By the year 1495, there were no less than forty printers doing active work in Lyons, a number considerably in excess of those who were then carrying on business in Paris.

In 1526, the university of Paris had authorised the printing of certain dissertations written by the rector Noël Béda against Fabri and Erasmus. King Francis wrote to the Parliament directing it to cause the sale of these books to be prohibited. He added the general instruction that no books, even such as might have been written by members of the university, were to be printed or sold which had not first been examined and approved by the members of the court deliberating together. It would appear from the King’s letter that he had sufficient sympathy with the reformers to be unwilling to have Erasmus attacked, and also that even in matters of theological doctrine, the final decision was entrusted, not to the faculty of theology, but to the court of Parliament. By 1531, however, the King had decided that, for theological questions at least, the responsibility for the control of literary production had better be left with the Sorbonne. In this year he gave a direct royal authorisation to the publisher Badius for the printing of the big treatise of Alberto Pio against Erasmus, which treatise had been duly approved by the divines. The fury of civil war and the bitterness of religious dissension gave a special character to the laws affecting printing and publishing and to the enforcement of these. In 1545, Etienne Polliot was sentenced for importing and selling heretical books. He was compelled to carry a bundle of his publications to the market-place, where he and his books were burned together. In 1546, the publisher Etienne Dolet, himself the author of a number of books, was burned in the Place Maubert, for his obstinate persistence in heresy. The ordinances of 1557 and 1560 punished with death, as guilty of treason, the printers, authors, sellers, and distributors of books which had been condemned as pernicious or libellous. The letters patent of 1563 fixed the penalty of hanging or strangling for the offence of printing a book without a royal authorisation. The ordinance of Moulins, of 1566, renews the same prohibition. Vitet[132] points out that the wars of the League had influence in securing a certain freedom for publishing. The government of the League did not undertake to free from restrictions the printing-presses of Paris. It prohibited them, however, only from such undertakings as seemed likely to prove of service to the enemies of the League. On the other hand, there was at Tours a government which was hostile only to such writings as were not royalist, and at Geneva another government the censures of which affected only that literature which was not Protestant. Through these three limited censures came into existence three fragments of publishing freedom. The power of the printing-press in influencing public opinion may, as far as France is concerned, be said to date from this period. Under the provisions of the Edict of Nantes, which bears date 1598, the production and sale of Protestant books were restricted to certain specified States and districts in which the public exercise of said religion was authorised. These Protestant books, while permitted to exist, are, however, classified as “libels and as inflammatory writings.” It does not appear that any provision was made for the circulation of such publications between the cities in which they were permitted to be printed, as such circulation must, of course, have taken them across the “good Catholic” territory, within the boundaries of which the Protestant books were incendiary libels. The difficulties in the way of authors and publishers of such books must, therefore, at this time have been very considerable. In 1624, four royal censors were instituted by letters patent. The first four were all doctors of the theological faculty, but notwithstanding this selection of the board from the members of the Sorbonne, the university was dissatisfied with losing its ancient privileges of controlling directly the examination of religious literature. In 1629, it was ordered that works submitted for publication were to be passed upon by censors particularly designated for each work by the Chancellor or Privy Seal. It is probable that the volumes had to be put into type before the examiners were willing to give the time for examination. In 1702, an issue arose between the chancellor and the higher clergy on the question of certain general privileges in regard to printing which the bishops claimed to be still in force. It was the contention of the bishops that, being themselves the final judges of the doctrines of the Church, utterances made by them or utterances accepted by them could not with propriety be passed upon by others who were not authorities on points of doctrine. Madame de Maintenon gave the weight of her influence in favour of the bishops. The King dreaded exciting the ire of the Jesuits and dreaded also, says the chronicle, the risk of putting Madame de Maintenon into a bad temper. He avoided making a decision and an adjustment was finally arrived at in which the bishops withdrew their main pretensions. Bossuet made an indignant protest against what he called the attempt of the chancellor to control the utterances of the Church. It is not to be thought of, says Bossuet, that the Holy Church of Christ shall be compelled to submit, for the examination of magistrates, its decrees, catechisms, and spiritual teachings upon matters which should be confined strictly to the instructors of their flock. The King, influenced by the pleading of Bossuet, finally brought himself to decide that for the works which were at the moment in question, the authority should be left with the bishops.

The reports concerning the extent of the influence of censorship, from one authority or another, on the literary activities of France are, as we have seen, conflicting. The authority of the Sacred Office was, as stated, not accepted in France, and the work of the French writers of the 16th century was not seriously affected by the condemnations and expurgations, sometimes severe and sometimes indulgent, with which was supervised and restricted the literature of Italy. It is contended nevertheless (at least by French historians) that the productions of the French writers of the century, freer from the trammels of censorship as these writers were, represented a higher standard of morality and of refinement than characterised the contemporary literature of Italy.

During the 17th century, persistent attempts were made in France as in other Catholic States to enforce throughout the realm a policy of censorship. By one set of authorities, investigations are carried on in the bookshops and in public and private libraries, and copies of obnoxious or suspicious books are burned at the hands of the hangman; by another, St. Cyran is placed in prison and Arnauld and others of his group are driven into exile. The Lettres Provinciales of Pascal are indeed brought into print, but only by cleverly eluding the vigilance of the inspectors. It is nevertheless the case that at no time during the century did it prove to be practicable to keep in force, through the entire territory of the State, any consistent or effective policy. The authority to order proceedings against authors or to make condemnations of books is not, as was the case in Spain, in the hands of a special tribunal, all-powerful and irresponsible. In the place of an Index which preserves the record of a condemnation that has once been pronounced, we have individual edicts or orders which easily fall into oblivion; and in place of a Congregation or of an Inquisition, we find distinct authorities, and sometimes simple local authorities, the actions of which are more or less conflicting and lack permanency of influence. There is also throughout the century, as later, among the ecclesiastics themselves, a strong national feeling of protest against the exercise within the territory of France of censorship authority directed by Italians or Spaniards.[133]

While in Italy, the Church labours single-handed at the task of reforming the people, in France it is the entire nation, without distinction of ecclesiastics and laymen, that undertakes the reformation of itself. Frenchmen of the 17th century, equally assured of their devotion to the true faith and of their intention to maintain the virtues of Christianity, refuse to admit the necessity for submitting to a theocracy, a religious dictatorship, and for putting literature, so to speak, into a state of siege.

Dejob cites, on the authority of the Benedictine editors, a number of the absurdities introduced into the St. Ambrose text by the Roman editors, and concludes that “editorial methods so naïve and so unscrupulous were certainly in need of the aid of the Index in order to prevent, through the collation of their text with the work of more faithful scholars, the unmasking of their pious infidelities.” “What,” he exclaims, “would have been the result for scholarship, for literature, and for the thought of the world, if the Inquisition had succeeded in establishing its domination throughout Europe, and in placing all the manuscripts of the Fathers under the keys of the Vatican?”[134]

Dom Petra, one of the learned editors of the Acta Sanctorum, writes in 1649: “If Rome condemns our books, the Jansenists will have a text for saying that this is brought about by intrigue and corruption.... The Congregation [of the Index] appears to object to the work done by the editors of our Acta in the correction of errors; but the Congregation should understand that, rather than to confirm a record of impostures, we prefer to write nothing; the Congregation is giving an opportunity to the heretics to point out the unwillingness of the Papists to make corrections or to remedy abuses.”[135]

Theophile Raynaud, in order to revenge himself for a condemnation issued against his books by certain Dominican inquisitors, undertook the defence, against the Dominicans, of the memory of Reuchlin and of Erasmus, victims, as he contends, of Dominican ignorance and calumny.[136]

Writing in 1661, in reference to certain copies of his books that had been seized in Italy, Raynaud says: “The sovereign pontiff gives authority, it appears, to his ministers to carry on robbery.”[137]

The only portion of the writings of Rabelais that came under the ban of the French censors was the fourth book of the Pantagruel, which was prohibited by the divines of the Sorbonne.

The writings of Montaigne were prohibited in 1576 by the Congregation of the Index but the prohibition was not confirmed in France. In 1595, an expurgated edition of the Essays was published at Lyons, from which was omitted, together with certain other passages, under the instructions of the censors, the fifth chapter of the third book. The twenty-ninth chapter of the first book, apparently equally reprehensible, escaped condemnation.

“I find,” says Dejob, “no book of importance, excepting the Tartuffe of Molière, that the national authorities attempted to suppress. Molière, Racine, La Bruyère, were from time to time assailed, but there were always influences working on their behalf strong enough to prevent any serious or continued interference with their work. Once, it may be remembered, Richelieu se ligua contre le Cid, but the immediate protest of the public made clear to the minister that he was on a false track.”[138]

It is certain that the authority of the Church exercised in France a much smaller influence over literature than either in Spain or in Italy. In fact, under Louis XIV, the Church found it necessary to resort to raillery rather than to discipline in the cases in which it found ground for criticism.

The learned historian of the Benedictines, Mabillon, brought himself into criticism on the part of the Papacy through proving that the bones taken from the catacombs, which were being distributed as relics for the faithful, had belonged neither to saints nor to martyrs.

Dejob is of opinion that the acknowledged superiority of the theological writers of France during the 17th century over those of Italy and Spain was chiefly due to the greater freedom possessed by the French scholars in carrying on their investigations and in bringing their books into print.[139]

The intellectual work of the orthodox clergy owes not a little to the feeling of obligation that rested upon them to offset the influence of the Huguenot controversialists and to secure for orthodox literature a prestige to balance that of Arnaud and of Pascal. It may fairly be claimed that the Church of France showed itself equal to the task. Any nation may have been proud to produce within the term of a century five writers or scholars whose names could be compared with those of Bossuet, Fénelon, Bourdaloue, Malebranche, and Mabillon. No religion has counted among its ministers during any one generation men superior to these in intellectual force. Catholicism can refer to this group as an evidence that orthodoxy does not stifle originality of talent. It can claim further that the acceptance of dogma does not of necessity involve the renunciation of scientific and philosophical investigation. The lay writers of this famous century were hardly less influenced by the spirit of religion. It is this that inspired Corneille and Racine, not only in such creations as Polyeucte and Athalie, but in the moral conception with which they handle the subject of love; it is this which retains within wholesome limits the satirical verse of Boileau and of La Bruyère and which keeps within bounds even the bitter personalities of St.-Simon; it is this which raises far beyond the level of feminine curiosity and maternal egoism the writings of Mme. de Sévigné, and which imbues with eloquence the work of Mme. de Motteville.[140]

The religious spirit may be said to have influenced also the work of Molière, who uses his trenchant pen to emphasise our obligations to morality. Save in an occasional instance where the manners of the comedian get control of the pen of the poet, these obligations are set forth with the certainty of an infallible moralist, while the dramatist succeeds in securing for his readers (or hearers) full sympathy for those of his characters which show themselves faithful to wholesome ideals.

If it had been possible for the fathers who directed the work of the Council of Trent to have knowledge of this wonderful body of literature, which gave to Catholicism an incomparable intellectual éclat, they would surely have admitted that their pious expectations were surpassed.[141]

The classical literature of France retained, therefore, freedom of thought and of expression. The eulogies addressed to the rulers, even when extravagant in form, bore the stamp of sincerity. It was a saying of La Bruyère that the use of satire in really great subjects was denied to writers who were at once Frenchmen and Christians. But it is fair to remember that such an interdiction is confirmed by the opinion of the public itself, and also that to one who is himself a witness of great things, the dazzle of their brilliancy may easily prevent a clear perception of their blemishes. It is certain that the record of the work done by the great writers of France does not give any evidence of serious interference by the Church either for praise or for blame. Apart from the Lettres Provinciales (which after all secured a wide reading and a general appreciation), no work of the first importance was brought under condemnation by the authorities either civil or religious.[142]

6. Germany.—Within half a century after the invention of printing in Mayence, the business of publishing was established in a number of towns, such as Frankfort, Strasburg, Basel, Cologne, and Nuremberg; and by the close of the 16th century, the work of the printers became important also in many towns of North Germany, such as Leipsic, Magdeburg, Wittenberg, etc. The development of the production of printed books followed very largely the lines of the trade in manuscripts which it superseded. The sale of manuscripts had, for the century before printing, constituted an important item in the business of the Fair at Frankfort, and after 1480, we find entries in the annual records of the Fair of sales of printed books. The organisation of the book-trade of the empire dates from about 1525. Frankfort was established as the centre or headquarters of this trade, and the Fair brought to the city twice a year representative publishers and dealers not only from the towns of Germany but from Italy, France, and the Netherlands.

The establishment of a centre or headquarters for the book-trade of Europe was, of course, of immediate advantage in furthering the knowledge and the distribution of the literature that came into print, and particularly of the books published in Latin. Latin was generally accepted throughout the world as the language not only of scholarship, but of literature, and it was therefore selected by the publishers of the time for the larger portion of the books brought into print. It is true that the work of the early printers of Germany was, unlike that of France and the Netherlands, carried on not in university centres, but, very largely at least, in commercial towns. The lists of these German printers contain a much larger number of books addressed to the general or unscholarly public than was the case with those of their competitors in Paris, Venice, or Leyden, but in Germany also the production of works printed in Latin, for the trade of the world, became each year of increasing importance.

For the operations of the general censorship of the Church, the organisation of the book-trade presented certain advantages or at least conveniences. The compilers of the earlier Roman Indexes utilised the bulletins and catalogues of the Book-Fair in securing for their lists information concerning new and forthcoming books of heretical writers or on controversial subjects. As is mentioned in the separate record of certain Indexes, the censors were not infrequently prepared to condemn a book without any examination whatever, simply on the repute of its author, or even on that of its publisher. It occasionally happened, as a result of this method, that a work was prohibited which never came into existence, some obstacle having prevented its completion or its publication after the title had been announced.

The first instances of books issued with Imprimaturs are two printed at Cologne in 1479 and sanctioned by the university, and a third printed at Heidelberg in 1480, under the authorisation of the Patriarch of Venice.

The earliest mandate of which there is record for the appointment of a censor of books was issued in 1486 by Berthold, Archbishop of Mayence. The Archbishop forbids the translation into the vernacular of any books from Latin, Greek, or other languages, or the sale of translations brought in from without, until these have been examined and approved by censors appointed for the purpose from the university of Erfurt.[143] He instructs the Burgomaster of Frankfort to make examination of all books at the Frankfort Fair before the permit should be given for their sale. In 1524, the Archbishop of Mayence claims, on the double ground of his position as High Chancellor of the empire and as a representative of the authority of Rome, the right to supervise the book-trade of the empire, and he makes immediate application of this authority to the control of the sale of books at the Frankfort Fair.