In 1648, the year in which the Thirty Years’ War came to an end, the magistrates of Frankfort gave up formally the attempts to supervise the book-production of the city. In 1662, the magistrates found occasion for protests against the imperial regulations for the control of the book-trade. The emperor, in his edict of March 18, 1662, was acting under the counsel of his Jesuit advisers. The magistrates were speaking as the representatives of the publishers, and, as they contended, for the interests of the community as a whole. In 1665, under some counsel which proved to be very ill-advised, the imperial commissioners undertook to fix the prices of the books presented for sale at the Frankfort Fair. It was contended that the commissioners who had been charged with the work of censorship had no authority to take upon themselves the determination of a business detail. It was very certain that they did not have the expert knowledge required for the task, but it was, of course, the case that no commissioners could have carried out successfully any such system. This price regulation proved to be one of the most effective of the various factors which caused the replacing of Frankfort by Leipsic as the centre of the publishing and bookselling interests of Germany.

In 1488, the city of Strasburg established under the directions of the emperor a local censorship supervised by the magistracy. The first book prohibited under this regulation was the Germania Nova of Murner, issued in 1502.

In 1501, Alexander VI publishes a bull prohibiting the printing, within the territories in question, of any books that have not secured an approval, in the form of a privilege, from the Archbishops of Cologne, Mayence, Treves, and Magdeburg, or from their vicars-general.[144]

By the year 1495, the book-trade of Leipsic had assumed very considerable proportions and was already beginning to rival that of Frankfort. The Booksellers’ Association, organised (in Frankfort) in 1525, is at the present time, four centuries later, the most effective and intelligently managed trade organisation that the world has known. Leipsic publishers gave from an early period special attention to the printing of the controversial literature of the Reformation, and, as was natural from their close relations with Wittenberg, the sympathies of the larger proportion of the printers were in accord with the Lutherans. In 1524, Duke George, who was a Catholic, came to the throne and during his reign, which continued until 1533, the writings of the reformers were repressed by a rigorous censorship. The Duke utilised the machinery of the trade organisation for putting into effect the ducal regulations for supervision and censorship, and two ecclesiastical censors, appointed under the ducal authority, secured the aid of the city officials in making examination of all the books printed and in confiscating or cancelling all heretical works found in the shops of either Leipsic or Dresden. The immediate result of these anti-reform operations of the Church and of the Duke was the practical destruction for the time being of the book-trade of Leipsic. Many of the printers transferred their presses to Wittenberg or Magdeburg.

In 1526, occurred in Leipsic an extreme instance of the application of Catholic censorship. Under the instructions of Duke George, Johann Herrgott, a printer and colporteur, was burned, with certain of his books, for the crime of distributing Protestant literature. In the next year, Hübmayer, the leader of the Baptists in Southern Germany, was burned in Vienna for a similar offence. In 1571, the Duke of Saxony ordered that the work of the printers should be restricted to three towns, Leipsic, Dresden, and Wittenberg. The purpose of this regulation was the facilitating of censorship control.

In advance of the aggressive Protestant measures of Luther, Wittenberg had already become an important place for book-production, having secured, among other favourable influences, the advantage of the transfer of certain of the printers and their presses from Leipsic. After 1515, Wittenberg was the most important of the centres from which were distributed throughout Germany the books and pamphlets (Flugschriften) of the reformers. It was in Wittenberg also that was brought into print the great Bible of Luther.

At an early date in the period of the Reformation, Magdeburg, in which the printing business had already secured an assured foothold, had taken an important place among the centres of distribution of Protestant literature. The work of the printers was interrupted for a time in 1518 by the repressive measures of the Catholic Albert of Brandenburg, but after 1528, the presses were again left practically free from civil authority, while the ecclesiastical influence in the city was never important. The book-trade was crushed out for the time by the destruction of the city by Tilly in 1631.

The city of Münster was another centre for Protestant publications. The excesses of the Anabaptists, who, under John of Leyden and his associates, had possession of the town for a number of months in 1535–36, were, however, well-nigh destructive to its Protestantism and proved fatal to its publishing business. In 1562, an edict issued by the bishop ordered the destruction of all Protestant books in Westphalia and made it a misdemeanour to print, sell, or possess any such books.

The city of Basel secured at an early date an important position among the centres of publishing. The university, founded in 1460, brought to the city men devoted to scholarly pursuits many of whom took an early interest in the work of the printing press and were ready to give coöperation to the publishers. In 1501, Basel broke away from the imperial control. At that time, there were in the city no less than twenty-six important publishing and printing concerns.

During the most active period of its publishing interests, Basel had the advantage over the majority of the German towns in its comparative freedom from censorship either ecclesiastical or civil. The authority of Rome was permitted to exert practically no restrictions upon the productions of the printing-presses; while as a free imperial city, it had the right to claim exemption from any authority other than that of the emperor, whose examiners were too far distant to be able to bring their influence to bear, to any extent, upon the operations of the Basel publishers. It was this freedom that constituted the most important cause of the great development of the book-trade of the city during the 15th and 16th centuries. The leader among the great publishers of Basel, who ranked at the time with Aldus as one of the great publishers of the world, was Johann Froben, the publisher, friend, and close associate of Erasmus. It is the imprint of Froben that is associated with the most important of the volumes of Erasmus, including not only those that secured the approval of Leo X and of other of the Church authorities, but the group which brought the author into sharp criticism with the ecclesiastical censors. During the years between 1460 and 1500, the popes themselves sent to Basel for printing certain books which required more trustworthy work than could be secured in Rome.[145]

In 1523, the first application for censorship in the city of Basel was made by Erasmus in connection with the reprinting of certain French writings which he claimed to be libels of himself. The censorship of the city was under the direction of the magistrates. The magistrates forbade the printing of books in any other languages than Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and German. In 1598 the censors of the city required that there be placed in their hands catalogues of books that were forthcoming in order that they might designate those calling for special attention.

Between the years 1520 and 1580, the presses of Zürich were busied with the production of the works of the Calvinist reformers. Froschauer, who was one of the first of the Zürich printers, was a close friend of Zwingli, whose special tenets he had adopted, and he placed at the disposal of the Zwinglians the machinery of his printing concern for the production and distribution of the Zwinglian treatises and tracts. Zürich presents also an example of early and strenuous Protestant censorship. Zwingli brought about a prohibition on the part of the civil authorities of Zürich for the sale within the city of the Lutheran publications.

The city of Augsburg occupied a similar place among the centres of Catholic book-production to that held by Basel and Zürich for the works of the Protestants. The presses of the great publisher Koberger and his associates were devoted during the last third of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century to the production of editions of the works of the more scholarly of the Catholic theologians. The books were addressed to scholars and were comparatively high in price. The work of the German reformers had as one result the checking of the activities of the Augsburg publishers. In 1520, the civil authorities of Augsburg, at the instance of the local ecclesiastics, issued prohibitions for the sale in the city of the works of Luther and of Zwingli. It was the multiplicity of prohibitory authorities in the book centres of Germany that actually worked against the influence of the prohibitory system. There was also in these German cities a lack of any effective censorship machinery such as existed in Spain either for the examination of texts in advance of printing, or for the seizure of books and the punishment of printers after publication. There were, during the century after the Reformation, instances (aggregating a considerable number) of writers who on the ground of their heretical utterances had been punished in one way or another and some of whom had even suffered death, but there was no general or effective repression of literary production and distribution throughout Germany, either on the part of the Catholic censors working against Protestant writings or under the influence of the Protestant divines utilising for the prohibition of Catholic books the civil authority.

In Nuremberg, under a regulation of 1513, the printers were to be sworn each year as holding the orthodox Catholic faith and as agreeing to print no books contrary to that faith.[146] The magistrates issued in 1518 a special prohibition against the printing of the writings of the Hussites, and in 1521, a similar prohibition against the writings of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. This edict was withdrawn in 1535 when the magistracy of the city had become Lutheran. In 1527, the poet-cobbler, Hans Sachs, came under censorship for certain rhymes attached to an illustrated record of the Tower of Babel. In this case, the trouble appears, however, to have been not religious, but a matter of guild prejudice. Sachs, being licensed only as a cobbler, had no authority to do work as a poet. After 1535, when the control of Nuremberg had passed into the hands of the Protestants, there is a rapid development of the activity of its printing-presses and book-trade.

The works of Melanchthon were first printed in Tübingen in 1511. Later, Melanchthon used for his theological treatises and also for his long series of text-books the presses of Wittenberg. The statutes of the University of Tübingen in regard to the Libelli famosi were, in 1500, made binding throughout the electorate of Würtemberg. In 1557, an edict of the Duke called for an annual visitation of the bookshops for the search for heretical publications. In 1593, a ducal permission was given to one bookseller in Tübingen, Gruppenbach, to buy for the use of the professors two copies of any heretical books called for. In 1601, an ordinance was published in Tübingen prohibiting the sale of all sectarian or controversial books, Catholic as well as Protestant. In the three ecclesiastical principalities of Mayence, Cologne, and Trier, the ecclesiastical censorship became, after 1525, particularly rigorous with the result of a material checking in the business of the printers and booksellers. In Silesia, Breslau became the centre of Catholic influence and the Protestant printers were, after 1577, largely driven out of business.

In Heidelberg, under an edict of the Elector of Baden, the censorship control was, in 1651, placed in the hands of the university and came under the direction of the theological faculty.

The printing business in Vienna had during the first years of the 16th century made a good start, but with the beginning of imperial censorship under the edict of Ferdinand, in 1523, the work of the printers received a check. In this edict the printing, sale, and possession of the books of Luther is prohibited under heavy penalties. Ferdinand permitted the ecclesiastics to exercise directly (that is to say without reference of individual cases to the civil authorities) the supervision of the work of the printers. These censors made effective opposition against scientific education and their repressive measures for literature other than theological was so far effective that, after the year 1560, the printing in Vienna of editions of the classics was brought to a close. In the year 1572, the printing-office and bookshop of Creutzer, who had for some years acted as the publisher of the university, was closed. In the year 1587, the book stock of Necker, who was at that time the leading bookseller in the city, was confiscated and in large part burned. By 1600, the control of the book business was placed almost exclusively in the hands of the Jesuits and as a result of their “supervision,” the business practically came to a close.

Kapp points out that the prohibitory lists issued in Germany contained, in addition to the titles of the Protestant controversial writings and religious writings other than controversial, the titles of a number of books which were really in character contra bonos mores. The advantage of the advertisement given to the books deserving of existence was unfortunately shared by not a few volumes which were really scandalous in character.

The Thirty Years’ War in Germany (1618–1648) may be considered as an extreme application of the principle of censorship. The power of the emperor and that of the Catholic princes who associated themselves with the emperor, was directed to the suppression of Protestantism in Germany and with this to the control under the direction of the Roman Church of German thought and of German intellectual development. This was, of course, an attempt to do something much wider than to control and restrict the printing-press, but the control and restriction of the operations of the printers constituted an essential part of the purpose of the pope, the emperor, and their allies the Jesuits and Dominicans. In so far as the Catholics held their own, succeeding in maintaining their control in the States of South Germany, the printers had to accept the continued authority of the ecclesiastics backed by the power of the State. The States of North Germany, on the other hand, with the all-powerful aid of Gustavus Adolphus and his sturdy Swedes, were able to maintain by force of arms their independence as citizens, and secured also the right to think and to speak, to print and to read for themselves, free from decisions to be arrived at by the Dominican Congregation of Italy or the Jesuit censors of Vienna. The waste of life and of treasure brought upon Germany through the thirty years’ strife was enormous, but even as a matter of material advantage, the contest was for North Germany worth all that it had cost.

7. The Netherlands.—The work of the printers in Holland was begun in Utrecht in 1473. The Dutch printers had from the outset the enormous advantage in their business of a practical freedom from interference by censorship, whether ecclesiastical or political. This was also true for a quarter of a century or more with the printing centres of Flanders, where, under the initiative of Mansion, Caxton, and their successors, the work of printing was begun, in 1474, in Bruges and in Louvain. In 1476, Caxton migrated from Bruges to London, setting up his first press in the courtyard of Westminster Abbey. The Dukes of Burgundy had, for several generations prior to the introduction of printing, been noted for their liberal interest in literature, and for their great collections of manuscripts, and this sympathetic relation of the Burgundian rulers to literature continued through the first half-century of printing.

During the first three fourths of the 16th century, the Netherlands, with Antwerp as a centre, present the type of a most enlightened community. At the time of the great siege of 1585, Antwerp was at the height of its prosperity, and in the extent and the varied character of its commercial relations it was possibly the leading city of Europe. Antwerp possessed exceptional advantages as a centre of book-production and by the close of the 16th century, out of the sixty-five printers who were at work in the Netherlands, no less than thirteen were in Antwerp. The neighbouring University of Louvain supplied scholarly coöperation which was essential for all the publishing undertakings of the age, while not a few scholars, who, some years later, found themselves with the exiles in Leyden or in Amsterdam, were at this time resident in Antwerp, and were already largely associated with the work of the printing-press. In 1556, at the time of the beginning of the work of the great publisher Plantin, an entire quarter of the city was devoted to the making of books, a circumstance without a parallel among the cities of Europe. The result of the censorship of the Spanish Government was practically to crush out the book business of Antwerp. The presses were largely destroyed and the scholars and printers alike were scattered among the towns of Holland. Plantin placed his imprint upon a number of books of theology, for all of which it was necessary to secure the approval, with the “royal privilege,” of the Duke of Alva and of the successors of the Duke who represented the Spanish Throne.

The ordinances issued by Philip II concerning books were for the most part merely a confirmation, with some increase in severity, of the edicts of Charles V. The modifications in these ordinances brought about by the States-General in 1566 provided that those books only should be prohibited that contained heretical or pernicious opinions; and that the responsibility for the examination and decision should be shared with the theologians by the scholars of the other university faculties; that instructors should be at liberty to utilise all books not on the prohibited lists; and that the visitation to the bookshops should be made only under the direct authority of the magistrates. Under Alva, the routine for such a visitation was to instruct the magistrates on a specific day (not announced in advance) to place seals on the doors of all printing-offices and bookshops; the examination of the books was then carried out by the suffragan bishop and the local head of the Franciscans. In the years 1566 and 1567, four printers were sentenced to banishment for from four to six years, one was sent to the galleys, and one was hanged.[147]

In 1570, Philip II instituted the office of “proto-typographer” or supervisor of printing for the Netherlands, and appointed as the first occupant of the office the printer Plantin. Master-printers applying to the supervisor for authorisation for a work to be printed must show the certificate of approval of the diocesan bishop or of his vicar, and also of the local magistrate. Printers were required to take an oath of conformity to the doctrines of the Church as set forth by the Council of Trent. No remuneration was attached to the office of proto-typographer, but the incumbent was freed from the duty of lodging soldiers. The important service of the post for Plantin was, of course, the increased facility it secured for him in obtaining approvals and privileges for his own publications. The theologians of Louvain (through whom the ecclesiastical censorship for Antwerp was, in the main, carried on) were not likely to raise question concerning the undertakings of the literary representative of the King. It was suggested that one ground for his selection was the wish of the King to make good to Plantin the loss that had been caused to his business by his arrest in 1562 on a charge of heretical publishing, a charge which proved to be unfounded. It may also be recalled that Philip had promised, in 1568, to pay to Plantin the sum of 21,000 florins as a subvention for the polyglot Bible, edited by Montanus. This payment was, however, never made, and the failure to receive it was one of the causes that had, in 1570, brought Plantin into financial difficulties.[148]

Under the ordinance of 1570, the censorship is lodged with the council, the bishop, and the inquisitor. Each book that may secure their approval is to be referred to the stadtholder, by whom its selling price shall be fixed. Inspection of the printing-offices must be made from time to time by the bishop, the inquisitor, and the proto-typographer, and not less than twice a year by the magistrates. The booksellers must take oath that without permit from the censors they will bring in no book from abroad; that they will sell, except to a buyer with a written permit, no copies, printed in the vernacular, of the Scriptures or of controversial writings; and that they will faithfully obey all the regulations of these ordinances and of the Roman Index (that of Trent, printed as an appendix to the ordinances); all packages of imported books are to be opened only in the presence of the bishop or of the inquisitor.

In 1573, it was ordered that of all the books printed in the Netherlands, one copy should be delivered to the royal library at Antwerp, and a second (to be paid for) to the Escurial.

Henricus Hovius printed in Liège, in 1569, an edition of the Index of Trent in which (without any reference or specification) certain additional names and titles have been inserted in the alphabetical lists. The title-page states that the Index has been prepared under the authority of King Philip, and in accordance with a decree of the Duke of Alva. The new titles, probably added at the instance of the divines of Louvain, are for the most part repeated in the Antwerp Index of 1570. Reusch points out that this Liège Index is very carelessly printed and is full of errors.

The prohibitions of the Trent Index were confirmed under the authority of the diocesan synods of the Spanish Netherlands. One of the diocesan edicts required the printers and booksellers each year to take an oath of fidelity to the faith of the Church, in default of which the license to print was to be forfeited. In 1589, the Synod of Tournai prohibited the booksellers from possessing a copy of the Index librorum haereticorum, a catalogue printed yearly for the use of the Frankfort Book-Fair, which was based upon the lists of the Index of Trent, but the titles in which were from year to year brought down to date. The book-dealers were already beginning to realise the value for their business of the labour expended by the Church in the preparation of bibliographies of the books which were most likely to prove of interest to the active minded people of the world. This Frankfort catalogue of heretical books was the beginning of a series of such catalogues in which the work of the Congregation of the Index and of the Inquisition was taken advantage of (with material improvements in the accuracy of the bibliography) to emphasise the value and to further the circulation of the books which had been condemned by the Church. The edict of the bishops who met at Tournai in 1589 appears to have been the first expression of doubt on the part of ecclesiastical authorities as to the effectiveness of the condemnations of the Index in lessening the circulation and the influence of heretical literature.

In 1585, through the recognition of the independence of the Dutch Republic, the long contests in the Netherlands were brought to a close. The authority of the Spanish King was restored in Antwerp but the city was impoverished as to both men and resources. Irrespective of the loss of life in the great city, Antwerp had suffered the loss of some of the best and most enterprising of its citizens who had preferred to make their home in the Protestant communities of Holland. The departing Protestants took with them much of the intellectual life and literary activity in the city, while Amsterdam and Leyden, free from the hampering restrictions of Catholic censorship, presented many advantages for publishing undertakings. In 1585, there was but one book printing-press in activity in the city in which a few years earlier there had been no less than forty. Plantin’s first publication for the new year was an official list of the books at that time under prohibition, the list comprising some six hundred titles.

It is not surprising, in view of the hampering regulations and restrictions above specified, that the book-trade of the Spanish Netherlands should have become demoralised and that the centres of publishing activities should have been transferred from Antwerp and Louvain to Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Leyden.

Among the Protestants who during this war period migrated from Flanders was Louis Elzevir, who removed from Louvain to Leyden and began there the business which developed later into one of the greatest publishing houses of the world. The coöperation of the scholars of the university, together with an absolute freedom from any censorship restrictions, gave to the new publishing concern advantages which were at that time possessed by no printer-publishers outside of Holland. The development of the book-trade of Holland was furthered thirty years later through the influence of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany. During this period, 1618–1648, the territory of the Seven United Provinces was free alike from invaders and from civil strife. Much of the work of the scholars of Europe that had heretofore been brought into print through the presses of Frankfort or of Leipsic was now transferred to Amsterdam and Leyden. The theological discussions which became active in Holland, more particularly after the time of the Synod of Dort in 1618, furthered the work of the printing-presses. The Hollanders were also shrewd enough to realise the opportunity given to them for bringing into print the books which had been prohibited or cancelled in Spain, in France, or in Italy. With a few exceptions, these books had been written in Latin and the editions printed in Leyden or in Amsterdam were, therefore, available for the use of scholarly readers throughout Europe.

Andrea Schurius writes[149] that he has been told that the Amsterdam publisher of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum took special pains to secure the formal prohibition of his work, considering this to be the most effective means of bringing it into active sale.

During the 17th century, the press of the Dutch Republic continued this work free from restrictions which hampered publishing in all other States of Europe. The censorship measures in Holland were restricted to certain edicts and regulations issued by the States-General prohibiting the printing of libellous material or of works directed against princes or governments which were allied with the Republic. There is also an occasional edict against the circulation of publications classed as “irreligious” or “obscene.” The machinery for the enforcement of these regulations appears, however, to have been very inconsiderable; and there is no record of any general inspection for the purpose of censorship of the productions of the printing-press. Among the earlier noteworthy publications of the Elzevirs were certain books that could not at that time easily have come into print elsewhere, such as The System of the Universe by Galileo and the Defensio Populi Anglicani of Milton. Galileo, writing in 1638, gave testimony to the excellence of the work done for him by his Dutch publishers. The list of scholars under censorship either ecclesiastical or political in their persons or in their books who had been exiled from their own countries and whose names are brought together on the catalogues of the Elzevir house is a long one. We may mention, in addition to Galileo, Scaliger, Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, More, etc.

The Roman, Spanish, and French Indexes served as guides to the Dutch printers for the selection of books likely to prove of interest and to secure circulation. In not a few instances, the scholarly writers themselves who had been banished from Spain or from France in connection with their so-called heretical teachings, or who, irrespective of banishment, had decided that they could carry on their work to better advantage in a territory which was outside of the control of the Catholic Church, had taken up their residence in Holland. The influx of these scholars made Holland for a century or more the centre of scholarly activity in Europe and gave to the Dutch publishers, in the use of these scholarly pens for original work and for editorial work, an enormous advantage. The ethics of publishing were at this time not recognised or certainly at least not recognised outside of national boundaries. The Dutch publishers were quite ready, therefore, in the case even of books which had not been prohibited in the country of origin, to utilise texts that had been edited or shaped by competitors in Venice, in Paris, or in Frankfort, for the production of competing editions. The printers of Holland secured for themselves a final advantage in developing after 1525 a better standard of typography, both for accuracy and for beauty, than had as yet been known in Europe excepting with certain of the issues of Aldus and of Froben. The preëminence obtained under these several influences by the printers of Holland continued until the middle of the 18th century.

8. England.—The work of printing in England began with Caxton, in 1476. His catalogue speaks of his books as being “printed in the Abbey of Westminster.” His presses were as a fact placed in the almonry, a space within the Abbey precincts. Sir Thomas More has shown why Caxton could not venture to print a Bible in the vernacular, although the people would have greedily bought the Wyclif translation. Wyclif’s translation was interdicted and More says: “On account of the penalties ordered by Archbishop Arundel’s constitution, though the old translations that were before Wyclif’s days remained lawful and were in some folks’ hands, yet he thought no printer would likely be so hot to put any Bible in print at his own charge, and then hang upon a doubtful trial whether the first copy of his translation was made before Wyclif’s days or since. For if it were made since Wyclif, it must be approved before the printing.” This was a dilemma that Caxton was too prudent to encounter.[150]

In England, during the first half of the century, the printers, while having various other difficulties to contend with, such as lack of communication with a public, the small extent of the public that was ready to be interested in the printed book, and the serious interference that was caused to all trade by the events of the Civil War, were practically free from any burdens of censorship. Even if the ecclesiastics in England had been in a position to make their censorship troublesome, they would have had small occasion for interference with the first literary undertakings of the English printers. The lists included hardly any works having to do with theology, religion, or controversial subjects of any kind. Caxton and his immediate successors realised that at this period the interest of English readers could be depended upon much more safely for books of romance and for chronicles. It was nearly a century after the introduction of printing into England before any attempt was made to produce English editions of the Scriptures. It was in Germany that during this period the attention of the printers was given largely to the production of Bibles, theological treatises, and controversial tracts. The lists of the printers of France were devoted mainly to classics, with some titles under the headings of romance and poetry, while in Italy the earlier lists were made up chiefly of classics and science.

The Stationers’ Company received its charter by royal decree in 1566, two years after the marriage of Queen Mary (to Philip of Spain). It constituted an organisation of the publishing and printing trade of London which assumed to represent the publishing interests of the country. The basis of the authority of the Stationers’ Company was the theory that all printing was the prerogative of the king. The Stationers’ Company had, under its charter, summary rights of search, seizure, and imprisonment, and these powers were confirmed or renewed by the licensing acts. It seems probable that the purpose of the institution of the Company was not so much the furthering of the business of book-production, as the organisation of this business in such shape that it could be reached effectively and promptly by the censorship authorities of the Crown. No question appears to have arisen in England in regard to any conflicting authority on the part of the Church to control such censorship. The Crown utilised the services of bishops and of other ecclesiastics for the examination of works in the division of theology which came under the suspicion of heresy. The selection of the examiners and the decision concerning the disposition of the books so examined was reserved, however, for the direct action of the Crown or of the representatives of the Crown. Such censorship as came into action in England proved to be more important in connection with political literature than with works on religion or theology. In 1644, the Long Parliament enacted certain regulations for the control of printing which provided that “No book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed unless the same be first approved and licensed by censors that shall be thereto appointed.” Milton had been a persistent opponent of the policy of censorship and of licensing, and one result of the enactment was the publication of the famous Areopagitica, an oration in the form of a pamphlet, which presented with fierce eloquence a protest against the whole theory of the exercise by Government licensers of a supervision and control of literature, or of the delegation of such control to a commercial company (the Stationers’ Company) which was the creation of Government.

9. Oxford. Index Generalis. James. 1627.—In 1627, Thomas James, the librarian of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, brought into print, under the title of an Index Generalis, a summary or catalogue which had been made up from the Church Indexes that had thus far come into print and of which James had been able to secure copies. It was his purpose to present in this general catalogue the titles of the more important of the books condemned under the censorship of the Church, copies of which books it was, as he pointed out, important to secure for the Bodleian collection. The so-called James Index came to be a working guide for book-buyers and its publication had a direct effect upon the circulation in England of the books specified. It has, therefore, seemed in order to make reference to it in this chapter on the influence of censorship on the book-trade of England.

This catalogue of James was utilised during the succeeding years by English scholars generally, as a convenient guide to the literature condemned by the Church and which on the very ground of its condemnation might be assumed to possess interest and value for scholars who were not troubled by the dread of ecclesiastical penalties. The recommendation of James that copies of these works should be secured for the Bodleian has been carried out quite effectively. The copy of the James Index which has been preserved for the reference library of the Bodleian has been checked by successive librarians as copies of the books recommended have been secured and the list is now very nearly complete. The copies secured for the Bodleian represent in large part editions printed in Holland; as before pointed out, the publishers of Amsterdam, Leyden, and Utrecht had, from the date of publication in 1546 of the Index of Louvain, interested themselves in bringing promptly into print works condemned by Roman authorities and in furthering the distribution of these books throughout Europe.

The full title of James’s Index reads as follows: Index Generalis Librorum Prohibitorum a Pontificiis; una cum editionibus expurgatis vel expurgandis juxta serium literarum et triplicem classem. In usum Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ et Curatoribus ejusdem specialiter designatus. Per Tho. James, S. Theol. D. Coll. B. Mariæ. Winton. In Oxon. Vulgo. Novi dicti quondam Socium Oxonæ Excudebat Gulielmus Turner. An. D. 1627.

I add a rendering of his preface (the original of which, according to the custom of the time, is in Latin) which is interesting as indicating the attitude of the Protestant scholar of the day towards the censorship of Rome. James includes in the volume of his Index an announcement (addressed to students of theology) of another work that he had in preparation which he entitles A Universal Index of the Sacred Fathers of the Church. He speaks of having published a sample of this and goes on to say,

The preface to the Index itself reads as follows:

TO BE NOTED IN THIS CATALOGUE

“But it must be understood that the inquisitors (if one may say so) made a rather imperfect classification under these heads. For the authors Aventinus, Erasmus, Palingenius, Bruciolus, etc., were placed in the first class, whereas they belong rightly in the second; and on the other hand, Adolphus Metkerchus, Lavinus Lemnius, and others, who ought to be in the first class, are placed in the second. And the third class, which should consist of doubtful works, contains a good many known authors whose names and surnames are clear as day to any one looking at the title-pages with one eye. This appears plainly, for example, in the case of two books, Bello Papali, and another of which the title is, Beliae, sive consolatio peccatorum.

“Secondly, it ought to be clear to everybody that books prohibited by the pontificii (i. e. the Congregation of the Index, acting as the representatives of the Pope) ought to be sought with the more zeal and read with the greater avidity. For what the papists prohibit, God grants for our use and benefit, and the memory of those condemned by our adversaries is and should be blessed, since their names are doubtless inscribed in the Book of Life.

“Thirdly, a star(*) indicates editions or authors hitherto contained in the Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, which is to be set down as our gain since we need take no further trouble to make them known.

“Fourthly, the Greek letter denotes authors of the second class (almost all pontificii) who (unless they are emended and expurgated as the Indexes direct) set forth more clearly than the noonday sun the very doctrine of the Protestants, so that the pontificii do not venture even to mutter against it. This is doubtless the work of God’s finger and of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who armed Midianite against Midianite, to their mutual slaughter.

“Fifthly, we have arranged all authors of whatever class in strict alphabetical order. Their names cannot be found so easily in the Sandovillian or Roman Index, in comparison with which other Indexes are rubbish.

“Sixthly, in this alphabetical revision are included books, written whether in Latin or in French, Italian or Spanish, chiefly on religious subjects, by men who were in their own day not subject to condemnation at the hands of either God or men, but who, if they were now alive, could hardly, or not at all, escape the Inquisition and damnation to the shades of deeper hell. Moreover (to speak more plainly and to make the thing clear by examples taken from this book) the pontificii are so far from being consistent that books hitherto praised and approved by worthy men are now transformed into prohibited books of the second or third class. In this way was treated even the Evangelium Romanum prout a Clementis octavi manu Jacobs Davis Episcopo traditum est; for after the book had (if the stories may be believed) worked miracles on the return of Perron to France, it was not only left neglected, but the possession of a copy was prohibited under penalty of excommunication.[151] Capucinus, inquisitor in the diocese of Naples, has his doubts about the Index of Quirogus (Madrid, 4VO, 1584), and for this reason he incurs censure in the Sandovillian Index, p. 365 (consult our catalogue) and the Enchiridion Ecclesiasticum, Ven., 1588 (see our catalogue) is by no means to be read unless corrigatur. In the same way, Gabriel Pentherbeus’ book on The Destruction of Evil Books is not always free from the censure of others. What need of more examples? The Defence against the Reformers, according to the principles of S. Francis, S.D.N., by Manfred (and, good God, what a man) is altogether prohibited, unless I have overlooked something. If so many and such men do not escape the hands, or rather the claws of their own party, who can guarantee safety to a book composed by any author whatever? Not Aesculapius himself, their God, their lord Pope, ventured to promise this, since Clement VIII changed the books of his predecessor, Sixtus V, with no consideration for the industry involved, on the ground of typographical errors, a most glorious lie. There are many more cases of this sort worthy of notice, but it has seemed best to mention but these few facts at present. Let the rest be left in the hands of the intelligent reader, or postponed to another time.

“Finally, it must be carefully noted that the censures sometimes recoil upon the censors themselves, for no law is juster than that the very inquisitors should be revised, corrected, and altered, under the rod. The complete works of Beatus Arias Montanus for one were most severely castigated by the first inquisitors and expurgators. This is done (strange but true) on page 55 of the Index Sandovilliano and on page 39 of the Roman Index, to say nothing of the Indexes named above. Are more instances wanted?”