Chapter I: Introductory: the Index and Censorship (1)

In any investigation of the development of literary production and of the relations of the producers of books with the reading public, it is necessary to give consideration to the influence exerted upon literary activities, and upon the actual effectiveness of literature, by the censorship and the restrictive measures instituted by the Church.

Church censorship may be said to have begun as early as 150, with an edict issued by the Council of Ephesus, in which the _Acta Pauli_ (an unauthenticated history of the life of St. Paul) was condemned and prohibited. During the centuries following, a number of similar edicts or mandates were published by councils, by individual ecclesiastics, and by civil officials acting at the instance of the authorities of the Church, under which edicts the faithful were cautioned against the pernicious influence of various works classed as heretical, and the heretics who had been concerned in the production and circulation of such writings were threatened with penalties ranging from confiscation of property to imprisonment, excommunication, and death. A schedule of these decrees and edicts will be found in a later chapter.

The revolution in the methods of the production and distribution of literature brought about by the invention of printing in the middle of the 15th century, had, as an immediate result, an enormous increase in the influence upon the shaping of popular opinion of the written, or rather of the printed word, that is, of thought in the form of literature. The work of the printers was at first welcomed by the rulers of the Church. They convinced themselves that the Lord had placed at their disposal a valuable instrument for the spread of sound doctrine and for the enlightenment of believers, and with this conviction, they found funds for the support of a number of the early printers and kept their presses employed in the production of works of approved theological instruction.

It was in fact not until nearly three fourths of a century after Gutenberg, when the leaders of the Reformation were utilising the printing-presses of Wittenberg for the spread of the Protestant heresies, that the ecclesiastics became aroused to the perils that the new art was bringing upon the true faith and upon the authority of the Church. If the people were to be protected against the insidious influence of the new heresies, it was absolutely essential that some system should be instituted under which the productions of the printing-press could be supervised and controlled. The more active and far-reaching the operations of the printers, the greater the necessity for the watchful supervision of their work, and the greater at the same time the difficulty in making such supervision complete and effective. The requirement was met by the institution of a system planned to permit no books to reach the public that had not been passed upon and approved by ecclesiastical examiners appointed for the purpose. To this end, the production and the circulation of any literature not so approved were stamped as constituting a misdemeanour of the most serious character, one that might, under certain circumstances, become the final sin against the light, the offence against the Holy Ghost.

The German historian Pütter says[1]:

“As a result of the great facility brought about in the
production of books by the invention of printing, there came
to be anxiety on the part of the authorities lest teachings
destructive of religion or morality, or inimical to the
interests of the State, should be given to the public. On this
ground, the conclusion was in all countries promptly arrived
at that no production should be permitted to come into print
that had not been passed upon and approved by an officially
instituted censorship, and that no printing-offices should
be established excepting under proper license and effective
supervision.”

In 1559, the responsibility for the censorship of literature was first assumed directly by the papal authority through the publication of the _Index Auctorum et Librorum Prohibitorum_, of Paul IV, the first of a long series of papal Indexes, aggregating, up to 1899, forty-two in all. It does not appear to have been the intention either of Pope Paul IV or of his successors that the responsibility for the system of censorship should be retained under the exclusive direction of the papal authorities, and I find no record of objections having been raised to the publication of the Indexes prepared by such representatives of the Church as the theological faculties of the Universities of Louvain and of Paris, or by the Inquisition of Spain. There were, however, very material differences between the lists as shaped in Rome of works condemned as heretical and the similar lists issued within the same period in Louvain, Paris, or Valladolid; books of undoubted heresy included in one Index would fail to find place in another, and it is difficult to arrive at any consistently followed principle or policy by which the selections of the different compilers were determined.

In the absence of any definite instruction to the contrary, it might at first be assumed from the wording of the prohibitions that any and all of the Indexes, published under the direction of such ecclesiastical authorities as those specified, must have been intended to be equally binding on all the faithful, irrespective of political or ecclesiastical boundaries. We know, however, as a matter of history, that, in the majority of cases, no attempt was made to enforce the prohibitions of the Index outside of the territory of the State in which it had been promulgated.

It is difficult to secure any trustworthy information as to the precise range of the effectiveness of these prohibitions, but it seems probable that the Roman Indexes were held to be in force outside of the immediate territory of the Church only after they had been formally accepted and promulgated by the authorities, ecclesiastical and political, of the individual States, such as Spain, France, the Empire, etc.

The Index of 1559 was, as stated, the first of the series of papal Indexes; but as early as 1542, the Inquisition of Rome had promulgated a special edict prescribing penalties for the reading of heretical or of doubtful books, and in 1545 was published the first Italian list of prohibited books and authors. In 1571, under Pope Pius V, the task of compiling the papal Indexes was confided to a body organised under the name of the Congregation of the Index, which is still (1906) carrying on its work.

The work of the framers of these Roman Indexes exercised an important influence even in the States in which the papal prohibitions had not been officially published, as the titles collected for them were largely utilised by the makers of the Indexes of Spain, France, and Belgium; and in like manner, the material put into print in Louvain, Paris, and Valladolid formed the basis of certain of the Roman lists.

A more authoritative position in regard to the work of censorship was taken by the Papacy through the publication, in 1564, of the Tridentine Index. This Index, as well through its formulation of the rules for censorship, as because of the greater comprehensiveness of its lists, constituted the most authoritative guide that had yet been issued. The Tridentine Index was promulgated, under the authority of pope and of council, throughout all the Catholic States and also in countries in which the Catholic Church, while no longer the ruling power, still possessed followers. It was printed in a long series of editions issued from all the more important publishing centres of Europe; its lists formed the basis of all subsequent Indexes, while its rules were accepted as the guide for future censors and compilers. After the Council of Trent, a wider and more assured recognition was given by churchmen throughout the Catholic world (from which must, curiously enough, be excepted Catholic Spain) to the authority of the Papacy, acting through the Congregation of the Index, to retain the general direction and control of the business of censorship.

In 1758, two centuries after the publication of the Tridentine Index, was issued the Index of Benedict XIV, the lists in which represented better bibliographical work than had previously been attempted, and which was particularly important as representing what may be called the last attempt of the Papacy to maintain any general censorship of the world’s literature. The series of papal Indexes from time to time has been continued, the latest bearing date 1899; but the compilers of these later Indexes content themselves with repeating the general rules or principles by which the reading of the faithful should be guided, while the lists of current publications are limited almost exclusively to works by Catholic writers, and chiefly to works of a doctrinal character, the teachings of which are found to be in one respect or another open to condemnation. The proportion of books absolutely prohibited becomes smaller, the greater number of the works cited being placed in the lists of _libros expurgandos_, the reading of which is forbidden only until certain corrections or eliminations have been made, _donec corrigatur_. The Index of 1884 and that of 1899 bring forward from the more important of the preceding papal Indexes the titles of the most noteworthy of the works condemned in these. No attempt, however, is made to condemn (except under general rules and principles) the increasing lists of modern Protestant doctrinal books, or to characterise or differentiate the great mass of the world’s literature. The printing-press had outgrown the machinery of ecclesiastical censorship.

During the centuries in which the censorship of the Church was active and comprehensive, it must have exerted a very material influence over the relations of authors with their public; the effectiveness of literature as an intellectual force in directing or shaping public opinion was assuredly not a little hampered and restricted, while the value of literary productions as property was seriously lessened and, in certain territories, entirely destroyed. It is evident that if the production, the sale, and the possession of copies of a book are prohibited, the work can possess no property value within the territory throughout which such prohibition can be enforced. Its possibilities as property are either cancelled altogether, in case the prohibition can be made effective throughout the entire possible market, or are lessened in the proportion in which such market has been curtailed. In fact, in the cases in which, under the more extreme penalties of a censorship system, the purchase or the possession of a copy of a condemned work involved fine, imprisonment, or excommunication, the work might be said to possess a negative in place of a positive commercial value. The author, and others interested with the author, in securing a circulation for the book, might even be imagined as offering, if not a bonus, something in the nature of a guaranty against risks, to those who would co-operate with them in the dangerous task of distributing copies.

The other obstacles that have been noted as standing in the way of the development of literary property had been negative in their character. The lack of realisation on the part of the literary worker himself that he was producing anything entitled to be classed as property; the difficulty on the part of the reading public in arriving at the conception that there could be property in anything not material, in such an abstract entity as a right; the physical impossibility, in advance of the invention of printing, of the multiplication of copies of a literary production by any method that should preserve for the author any control over the text of each copy, or any share in the selling price of the same; the limitations of the territory within which, after the era of printed books had begun, and after the development of public opinion had brought a community to the point of recognising the property rights of one of its own literary workers, such recognition could be made effective; the fragmentary character and necessary inadequacy of the system of local privileges; and finally the lack, during a long series of years after the invention of printing, of any adequate publishing machinery for making known to possible buyers the existence of books, for distributing the copies, and for collecting the amounts paid by the purchasers;--all these obstacles operated against the possibility of securing for producers of literature such protection under the law and such recognition for the results of their labours as had, in all organised communities, been for centuries assured for other classes of producers.

Against such obstacles and difficulties, the recognition of literary productions as property and the actual commercial value of the labour of literary workers had, through the first century of printing been making an assured, though fitful and interrupted, progress. Early in the 16th century, however, the rulers of the State and the authorities of the Church began to find occasion for alarm at the increasing range of influence of the printed word, and came to the conclusion that if the community was not to be undermined by heretical, dangerous, and demoralising opinions, measures must be taken to maintain supervision and control over the production of books.

The interference on the part of the political rulers was fitful and intermittent, and appears at no time to have arrived at the dignity of a continued policy or system. In a number of States, while the rulers continued to claim for themselves the exclusive control of the printing-press (as was, for instance, the case with Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire), they were willing to confide to the ecclesiastics the selection of the books to be condemned and prohibited. The actual work of censorship, at least in the countries which remained Catholic, fell, therefore, more and more into the hands of the Church, and was, as a result, carried on with reference to the clerical standard of orthodoxy and morality, and to the clerical theories of what was required for the welfare of the community.

In the series of the Indexes, the proportion of works of a purely political character was small as compared with the long lists of books which had been condemned on doctrinal grounds. It is in order, however, to bear in mind, as a limitation of this statement, that during the two centuries in which censorship was the most active and exerted the largest influence upon intellectual development, say from 1550 to 1750, the minds of men were directed more largely to doctrinal questions than to political matters. It was not the State but the Church whose authority and existence had been assailed and the contest was fought out over creeds and not political platforms.

When, with the outbreak of the Reformation movement, it became apparent how great a range of influence was possessed by the printed sheet, the problem which confronted the authorities of the Church was certainly serious in more ways than one. For the space of fifteen centuries, the education of the people had remained almost exclusively under the direction of the Church. The faithful believers (and the unbelievers were but few) had accepted their entire intellectual sustenance at the hands of the priests. The instruction given in the parish schools instituted by the Church was almost entirely oral, although some use was made of written alphabet tables and of written psalters with the musical notations.

The instruction for those who took up higher branches of study, students who were for the greater part destined for the Church, was naturally, during the manuscript period, carried on by the priests, not only because but few others possessed anything that could be called scholarship, but also because it was only in the collections of the monasteries (the _armaria_) that the requisite manuscripts could be found. It is true that with the beginning of the 13th century, the educational work of the earlier universities, such as Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, begins to assume importance; but even in the universities, outside of the faculties of law and of medicine, the direction of the instruction was retained very largely in the hands of the Church, the lecturers in the department of philosophy, for instance, being almost exclusively ecclesiastics.

During the 13th century, there does come into existence a body of scholarship which is outside of the Church, but it remains the case that, up to the time of Luther, the great mass of the people had looked to Rome, and to teachers acting under the authority of Rome, for its light and leading, intellectual as well as religious. The association of education and intellectual training with the Church is in fact fairly indicated by the use of the term “cleric.”

In 1516, the leaders of the Reformation, in beginning their long contest against the abuses of the Church of Rome, a contest which soon developed into a fight for the complete overthrow of the papal supremacy, promptly availed themselves of the power of the printing-press. While the words spoken in the pulpit or in the market-place could reach at best but a few hundred of hearers the tracts poured forth from the Wittenberg presses, the “flying-leaves” (_Flüg-schriften_), carried the teachings of Luther and Melanchthon to many thousands, and it was through the influence of these “winged words” (_epea pteroenta_) that the revolt developed into a revolution.

To the devout adherents of the Church of Rome, and particularly to those to whom had been given the responsibility for its government and for the spiritual guidance of its members, the situation, not only during these earlier years of fierce strife against Protestant heresies, but throughout the succeeding centuries, presented the gravest difficulties. There is something almost pathetic in the long series of attempts made by popes, councils, bishops, congregations, and inquisitors to protect the souls of the faithful against the baneful influence of the ever-increasing tide of literature that was pouring forth from the various publishing centres, and so much of which was calculated to lead men astray from the true doctrines and to bring them into risk of everlasting perdition. To ecclesiastical rulers, honestly holding such a conviction, there was, of course, but one duty. They must use every means in their power to suppress the heresies, and to warn and protect their flocks. What were the fortunes or even the lives of a few evil-minded or devil-inspired printers and writers as compared with the eternal hopes of the great masses of men? Nay! It was better that the misguided reader himself should, by prompt and, if necessary, extreme penalties, lose all that he had in this world, rather than that he should be permitted, in continuing to absorb heresy and in spreading its leprosy abroad, not only to sacrifice his own soul, but also to undermine the faith of his fellow-men.

The action of the Church was, therefore, not only logical and reasonable; it was the only course that was possible for an organisation to which, as its rulers undoubtedly believed, the Almighty had confided the care of the spiritual welfare of mankind. The safety of the soul depended upon the nature of the intellectual sustenance taken in, whether through the ears or through the eyes. All literature or instruction in any form, spoken, written, or printed, must, therefore, before reaching the understanding, be sifted under the authority of an all-wise and infallible Church. The believer must be protected against harm, the doubter must be recalled to the true path, and the heresies and the heretics must alike be exterminated. While it was only after the active propaganda work of the Reformers of Wittenberg had made clear the perils of the printing-press that any general system of censorship was attempted, there had been, as pointed out, instances of prohibited books centuries before the time of Gutenberg. An heretical utterance in manuscript form was a restricted or manageable evil, in that its influence was limited to the small circle of clerics and could not, at least directly, reach the masses. It was, however, none the less an evil which it was the duty of the Church to condemn and to repress.

The record of the Index is also to be considered as an important contribution to the history of literature. Thomas James, whose treatise on the _Index Generalis Librorum Prohibitorum_ was printed at Oxford in 1627, says in his preface that his book is addressed particularly to the curators of the Bodleian Library to whom it should serve as a guide concerning the works which it was particularly desirable to collect and to preserve; only the curators must be sure to secure the earlier and, therefore, unexpurgated editions. Bishop Barlow writes that he has found the

“_Indices Expurgatorii_ invaluable as records of the literature
of the doctrines and opinions obnoxious to Rome.... Their
_Indices Expurgatorii_ are very good common-place books and
repertories (for that use we make of them) by help of which we
may presently find what any author by them censured has uttered
against the vulnerable parts of the Catholic system. In these
_Indices_ we are directed to the book, chapter, and line where
anything is spoken against any superstition or error of Rome; so
that he who has the _Indices_ cannot want testimonies against
Rome.”[2]

Reusch points out that the Indexes have preserved the record and the purport of not a few works of interest and importance, the very existence of which would otherwise have been lost sight of. It is also the case that the Index lists have preserved the titles of a number of works of comparatively trivial importance, which, if they had not been fortunate enough to secure the condemnation of the Church, would have fallen still-born from the press.

It was the practice, in making condemnation of books either through a general Index or under a separate decree, to order destroyed such copies of the condemned books as could be collected, and this destruction was, as a rule, done by fire. In the record of censorship, there are, however, a number of instances of books which had received the honour of a special condemnation for burning, the titles of which had not appeared in any Index issued by the Church or in any separate papal or diocesan decree. The books so recorded were, with hardly an exception, condemned under civil authority. The writers who have brought together records of books condemned to be burned (of whom Peignot is perhaps the most important) give, under the same general heading, titles of books selected from the Index, books condemned under special decrees of the Church, and works which had fallen under the censorship of the civil authorities. As will be noticed in the later chapters, the special emphasis given to the importance of a book through the burning of copies in a public place, constituted a valuable advertisement and usually extended its influence.

The history of the Index may be divided into two main periods. The first begins, as far as the papal censorship is concerned, in 1559, with the publication of the _Index Auctorum et Librorum_, prepared under the instructions of Paul IV, and closes with the end of the 16th century, with the issue of the final appendices to the Index of the Council of Trent. During this period, the chief and almost the only subject-matters considered are the great questions raised by the Reformation. In the second period, which closes with the Index of Benedict XIV, issued in 1758, the controversies turn, as indicated by the character of the works placed on the lists, on issues of doctrine, opinion, and conduct arising within the Church itself. The writers whose works are condemned during this period are for the most part ecclesiastics of the Church.

The work done during the 19th century by the Congregation of the Index may be said to belong to a third or modern period, in which, as will be noted later, the censorship over literature and the literary instruction for the faithful has for the most part taken the form of statements of general principles in place of detailed lists of pernicious books. The attempt to characterise the mass of the world’s literature has been abandoned and the comparatively few titles named are (with a few curious exceptions) those of doctrinal works emanating from within the Church itself and the errors in which are, therefore, likely to mislead believers.

It is to be borne in mind further in connection with the general division of periods suggested by Reusch, that while the greater portion of the work of the Index was carried on under the direct supervision of the popes, a long series of Indexes were issued by authorities acting independently of the Papacy, such as the Inquisition of Spain, the theological faculty of the University of Paris, the theological faculty of the University of Louvain, and other bodies.

The first Index, in point of date, of the long series, was in fact issued not in Rome but in Paris, the second and third in Louvain, the fourth in Valladolid, etc. The several dates will be given in the schedules presented later. It is also noteworthy that, while the papal Indexes were of course in form binding on the entire Church and throughout all the States classed as Catholic, they were not actually put into force in the several States unless or until they had been accepted and confirmed by the respective rulers; and, as a fact, a number of the papal Indexes were never so accepted either in France or in Spain. The Church of Spain, acting through the Inquisition, undertook to carry on an independent system of literary censorship and of literary repression. The inquisitors condemned a number of works which do not appear in the Roman lists, and declined to condemn not a few books which had in Rome been classed as pernicious. A similar course was taken by the Gallican Church, whose censorship was carried on by commissions of ecclesiastics acting under the direct authority of the Crown.

A necessary result of the condemnation of books by a number of authorities was a large measure of confusion in regard to the status of a number of books and of not a few authors. A faithful believer, who was fully prepared to accept in regard to literature the guidance of the authorities, may well have had cause for perplexity in finding condemned and prohibited by one pope the works of an author whose writings had received the special commendation of another, or in being prohibited in Madrid from reading books which were permitted or even recommended in Rome. In not a few instances, Indexes which had been issued in regular course with the papal sanction were themselves prohibited from being printed or promulgated in Spain, in France, in Germany, or even in places as near to the papal seat as Venice.

During the period before the Council of Trent, the work of the compilers of the Roman Indexes was chiefly based upon the Indexes which had originated in Spain or in the Netherlands, while there is, as said, occasionally ground for perplexity at the absence from the Roman lists of works of undoubted heresy which had been duly condemned by the censors of Valladolid or Louvain. It is not easy to understand why the Papacy, having recognised the necessity for the exercise of control over literary production, and over the operations of the printing-press, should have permitted the system of Indexes to be initiated anywhere but in Rome, and should have further permitted, apparently without reprimand or protest, so large a proportion of the long series of Indexes to be compiled and published by ecclesiastics who, while claiming to be defending the true faith and to be carrying out the policy of the Church, were not acting under the direct supervision or authority of Rome. Independent action in such an all-important matter as the direction of public opinion as expressed through printed literature might have been considered a dangerous precedent and undoubtedly did constitute an important factor in strengthening the separate authority of the State churches of Spain and of France.

Joseph Mendham finds in the Indexes the literary policy and the doctrinal policy of the Church of Rome. He writes:

“The Indexes issued by the Church of Rome may be regarded
as a grand Index of the sentiment, spirit, and policy of an
ecclesiastical empire, claiming with the most critical exactness
the terrific appellation of the Mystery of Iniquity.

“To no power but modern Rome is equally applicable the encomium
of the poet on the ancient:

_Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hae tibi erunt artes; passisque imponere morem:
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos._

Aen. VI, 852.

“The other class of Indexes, the expurgatory, contains a
particular examination of the works specified and indicates
the passages condemned to be expunged or altered. For these
Expurgatory Indexes, publicity was so little desired that it
was the chief thing guarded against.... The copies were intended
for the possession and inspection only of those to whom they
were necessary for the execution of their provisions.... It was
not thought desirable that the dishonest dealings of the writers
of these censures should be known either to the authors who were
injured and who would thus have an opportunity of justifying
themselves, or to readers whose judgment must in many instances
be at variance with that of the censors.”[3]

The framers of the several expurgatory Indexes found themselves occasionally under the necessity of censuring and correcting the works of writers accepted as the Fathers of the Church. Mendham gives an example, from the Roman Index of Brasichelli, of a condemnation of certain propositions printed by Robert Estienne, which propositions are, he says, direct citations from the Fathers. Mornay, in his edition of the Spanish Index of 1601, presents a list of similar condemnations or expurgations of the texts of the writings of the Fathers themselves. The propositions which, naturally enough, came under this condemnation are those which appear to present grounds for the doctrine of justification by faith and those which enforce the importance of the injunction against the worship of images. The Jesuit Gretser, in apologising for the action of the Church in the case of Bertram’s book, makes the following interesting argument:

“Although Bertram be prohibited, I deny that a Father is
prohibited, for that one can properly be called a Father of
the Church who feeds and nourishes to the faithful salutary
doctrine, who being placed over the family of the Lord, gives it
in due season its portion of the corn. If, therefore, instead
of the food of salutary doctrine and the portion of corn, he
offered and distributed cockles and tares and the burrs and
briars of perverse doctrines, so far from being a Father he is
but a stepfather, not a doctor but a seductor.”[4]

In another page, Gretser writes: “Who, therefore, is so stupid as not to recognise that the Church or the sovereign pontiff, while he reviews the lucubrations of his sons, and wherein he corrects these, performs a service grateful to the authors and a work useful to posterity.”[5]

It is a natural inference from the assumption by the Church of the responsibility of indicating in the Index lists the books which are on one ground or another pernicious and which require important corrections, that the further responsibility is assumed of approving by implication the books not thus condemned or not corrected through expurgation. While it is the case that the Church has never admitted this responsibility, the contention is one which has often been raised and which does not appear to have been answered. If the books that are not condemned by the Index are considered as having been approved or even sanctioned by the Church, it would follow that the authority in the Church from which the Indexes emanate could be understood to approve and to sanction those doctrines or assertions from the writers within the fold of the Church which these condemning decrees have failed to proscribe or to expurgate. Such a contention does not appear, however, to be really well founded when we bear in mind the necessary limitations, even in the earlier years of the work of the Index, of the facilities possessed by the examiners in passing upon publications originating in various countries and not always even printed in the common ecclesiastical language. The criticism presents, however, one of the most serious difficulties attending the assumption by the Church of this responsibility for the control of literary productions, even though this control be limited to the writings of members of the Church itself.

The Indexes were certainly utilised, and were intended to be utilised, as instruments for the suppression of heresy and for the maintenance of true doctrine as interpreted by the rulers of the Church. The chaplain of Philip II of Spain (Alphonso de Castro) has declared that in his opinion the purification of Spain from heretics was due to the fact that in Spain and in Spain alone the prohibition of heretical literature was effectively enforced. The continued prevalence of heresies in other countries, even in such Catholic States as France, Italy, and South Germany, was, in the opinion of Castro, due to the lack of effectiveness in enforcing the purification of literature.[6] It is the inference of Mendham that the effect referred to by Castro was due not to the simple prohibitions of the Index but to the enforcing of these prohibitions under the thorough-going methods of the Inquisition. Cardinal Pallavicino has assigned the preservation of Italy from the infection of presumed heresy to the activity of the Inquisition and particularly to the work done both by the Inquisition and the Index of the Congregation in suppressing heretical literature. He speaks as if there had been serious risk, in the absence of persistent efforts of this kind, that Italy itself might embrace the Reformation.[7]

Mendham, who writes always as a bitter controversialist, is of opinion that the expurgatory Indexes, and the expurgatory work done quietly without the use of Indexes, were utilised so as to modify in the later editions the text of the writings of the Fathers and of the earlier authorities of the Church, in the respects in which this text did not appear to give consistent support to the accepted doctrine of the later Church, or in which words were used by the authors which could be interpreted and which had been interpreted in support of heresies. It is not practicable, without a careful textual comparison of the “orthodox” and approved editions of the Fathers with the editions of earlier date and with those which the Church censors found occasion to condemn, to say how far there may be any foundation for this severe arraignment. Mendham goes on to suggest that it had been the hope of the Church gradually to replace the former and original editions of books of this class with the editions approved by the Church.

“In this way, the mouth of antiquity should be thoroughly shut
up and prevented from uttering any syllable or sound against
the doctrines of the later Church.... By the addition of words
where opportunity and pretence might serve, and by drawing the
marginal notes and glosses of their friars into the texts of
the Fathers (as has already been handsomely begun with certain
texts) the mouth of antiquity should also be opened for them
(the present leaders of the Church). There remained then only
the rectifying of St. Paul and of the other scriptural writers
whose authority being already set beneath that of the Church,
it were not such great matter to submit it also to her gentle
and moderate censures; especially for so good an intent as the
weeding out of heresies and the preserving of the faith Catholic
in her purity and glory.”[8]

Panzer makes reference[9] to an Index printed in Louvain as early as 1510. The title is recorded as follows:

_Die Cathlogen of inventargen van den Quaden verboden bouken: na advis der Universiteyt van Louen. Met een edict of Mandement der Keyserlicken Majesteyt. Te Louen geprint bej Sewaes van Sassen. MCCCCCX. 4^o._

No copy of an Index of this date was known (1897) in the British Museum, and it is not referred to by Reusch. Knapp, in his scheme for a History of the Index, is in accord with Reusch in making that of Paris of 1544 the earliest. It seems probable that Panzer has been misled as to the date of the Flemish Index.

The series of Indexes is understood, therefore, to begin with the middle of the 16th century (that is, a century after the invention of printing), but from the earliest years of the organised Church, attempts had been made from time to time to protect the faithful against the pernicious influence of heretical writings, by the destruction of the copies and by the punishment of the writers when these were within reach of the strong arm of the Church and when they refused to be convinced of their errors.

A number of the editions of the Roman Indexes, as for instance that of 1819, bear as their motto: “Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men” (Acts xix, 19); while on others was printed a head-piece engraved on copper, representing the believers burning their books of magic. The example, however, of these early converts, under the influence of the eloquence of Paul, bringing of their own free will, to be destroyed, books the teachings of which were believed to be incompatible with the doctrines of Christianity, does not constitute a fairly logical precedent for the later practice of the Church in punishing by excommunication and in other ways those who continued to read books condemned as heretical.

Throughout the Middle Ages, there are a number of examples of prohibitions, emanating from various authorities, and applying sometimes to single books or individual authors, and sometimes to groups. It is not likely that during the manuscript period, the duplication or reading of the books denounced was seriously affected, except in the immediate locality in which the prohibition was issued. These earlier attempts at censorship possess interest chiefly as indications of the ecclesiastical policy and of the varying standards of different periods and of different places, and also because the titles of the works selected for condemnation were in part utilised by the compilers of the Indexes.

A “Directory” of heresy was prepared early in the 16th century by Nicholas Eymeric of Cologne, under the title of _Directorium Inquisitorium_. This was reprinted in Venice in 1607, _cum commentariis Francisci Pegnae_. This Directory was, says Reusch, utilised by Bernard Lutzenburg as the basis for his _Catalogus Haereticorum_,--Catalogue of Heretics,--first issued in 1522. In these two lists have been preserved the names of a number of persons classed as heretics, of whose books there is no record, and who may possibly even never have written anything, or at least never have brought anything into print. The Lutzenburg Catalogue was utilised in the compilation of the Index of Paul IV.

After the middle of the 13th century, the papal condemnations of specific books frequently included the specification of names of the examiner or examiners, usually one or more of the cardinals. We have here the beginnings of the body that became later the Congregation of the Index.

In 1256, in a Bull issued by Alexander IV against a tractate of William of Saint-Amour, of Paris, the Pope says that his action is based upon the report of four cardinals, to whom had been confided the task of examining the work. All copies are ordered to be burnt within eight days, under penalty of excommunication. Saint-Amour’s essay presents a very unfavourable picture of the condition of the Church of the times, and is especially sharp in its strictures upon the newly instituted mendicant orders. After the beginning of the series of official Indexes, the list of works concerning which the judgment of the Church was reversed under the authority of the different popes, or of successive councils, becomes considerable, and may easily have proved a perplexity to faithful believers who were prepared to accept as a final guide the infallible authority of the Church.

Before the close of the 12th century, there appear to have been no attempts on the part of the Church to restrict the reading of the Scriptures, or the distribution of the manuscript copies of the Scriptural books. During the 13th century, several of the synods held in France issued prohibitions of the use or circulation of versions in the vernacular of the Scriptural books, with the exception only of the Psalms. A similar prohibition was enacted for popular versions of any doctrinal or theological writings. The Church was gradually developing the procedure, finally formulated as a general policy, under which laymen were to be forbidden reading either the Scriptures or works of doctrine except under the immediate direction of the ecclesiastical authorities.

Between the years 1239 and 1320, a series of orders were issued by successive popes, beginning with Gregory IX, for the destruction of copies of the _Talmud_.[10] In the first portion of the 16th century, a more tolerant view was taken by the papal authorities in regard to the preservation of the literature and the learning of the Hebrews; but Julius III and his immediate successors again ordered the destruction of the _Talmud_. The work is also included in the first of the official Indexes, that of Paul IV. In the Tridentine Index, the previous prohibitions are relaxed, but under Clement VIII the _Talmud_ was once more condemned.

The whole business of the supervision of literature and the control of opinion was of necessity very materially modified by the invention of printing. It was at first assumed that the control of literature by the Church would be strengthened by the new method of book production. The ecclesiastical authorities decided that no books should be printed excepting under their own supervision, and if there had been any effective means of carrying out such a decision, the printing-press would speedily have become a mere means of expression of Church doctrine and Church policy.

The multiplying of the printing-presses and the development of machinery for the distribution of the copies of the printed books, together with the rapid increase in the public demand for such books, speedily, however, rendered impracticable the effort on the part of the Church to retain the control of book production.

The Louvain Index of 1546 was, as will be noticed in the later summary of the Indexes, followed by several Spanish Indexes which were for the most part compiled and issued under the direction of the Inquisition, and during the succeeding centuries, the general control of the censorship throughout the dominions of Spain remained in the hands of the Inquisition. There was, in such an arrangement, one manifest advantage; the authority that determined the offence was the same as that which put into force the penalties that had been prescribed. As a result of this identity between the power that judged and condemned, and the power that carried the condemnation into effect, the censorship was effective throughout Spanish dominions to an extent which was never reached under any censorship machinery that was put into force in other States. A book that was condemned in Spain did actually pass out of existence, as far, at least, as Spanish territory was concerned, and a similar fate occasionally befell the author. The copies that had been printed were destroyed, and the printing or circulation of further copies was too perilous an undertaking to be ventured upon.

If the Inquisition had been in a position to carry on throughout Europe, or even throughout the Catholic States, a censorship as effective as that put into force in Spain, the extermination of books would have been so considerable that there would have been brought about a serious break between the literatures of the centuries.

In France, the censorship was exercised in a more fitful and less consistent manner. The Indexes originating in France were for the most part compiled, under the authority of the Crown, by the theologians of the Sorbonne. Books were, however, from time to time condemned under the direct supervision of the royal chancellor.

It is to be borne in mind also that a refusal on the part of the chancellor to issue a royal privilege for a book served to prevent its publication, at least in France (the edition must as a rule have been printed before the examination of copies by the royal censors could be made), and was, therefore, practically identical with a prohibition. The title of such an unprivileged and therefore unpublished work would as a rule not find its way into the lists of the French Index. The extent of the repression or restriction of literary activity can, therefore, not be fully measured by the number of titles on the lists of works prohibited.

It was unquestionably the case that the censorship had a very material influence in discouraging the production of literature, an influence that might be classed as an indirect damage to the intellectual development of the community. While the fact of such interference in a country like Spain in which the provisions of the censorship were, under the Inquisition, enforced with strictness and often with severity, is fully established, there can of course be no data for ascertaining the extent of the loss.

It is easy to understand that if an instructor in one of the Spanish universities got into trouble with the Inquisition in bringing into print a series of lectures, he would, in the majority of cases, have kept his later studies or conclusions in the safer form of manuscript. It is probable also that his associates on the faculty, or the students who had followed his work, would in great part be deterred from pressing their studies to a logical conclusion. Not only would the books not be printed or even completed, but the lectures themselves, on subjects that had once been stamped by the Church as pernicious, would be stopped. The Inquisition was in a position to put an end to any courses of study or lines of investigation that it found reason to disapprove, and the record shows that it did not neglect the exercise of its authority to such end.

In like manner, if the business of a printer-publisher had been broken up or seriously hampered through penalties imposed for the crime of circulating literature found deserving of condemnation, it is very certain that such dealer, if continuing in business at all, would have reason to avoid taking in the future any such undesirable risks, and his competitors in the book-trade would wish to be equally conservative in the selection or acceptance of books for their own presses.

Apart even from the cases of books which had been condemned as heretical, and which had involved in their condemnation the authors, the printers, and the booksellers, the whole system of censorship constituted with its delays, its interference, and its fees or charges, a very heavy burden upon the business of printing and selling books. The details of the methods employed by the censors will be referred to in a later chapter. Their operations, were, of course, not confined to the supervision of books printed in Spain or prepared for the Spanish press. An elaborate system of inspection was instituted for books ordered by booksellers or by individuals from other countries. Large numbers of these foreign publications were destroyed in the customs-houses, while in other cases, as a milder judgment, the supplies were refused admission and had to be returned to the shippers. As a result, the business of importing books could hardly be made profitable, and at times became dangerous. It is not surprising that, in the face of such difficulties and under the hampering influence of such burdens, the book-trade of Spain, during the three centuries following the date of the first Spanish Index, was attenuated and insignificant, and as compared with that of France, Germany, or the Low Countries, played but an inconsiderable part in the community. It is in fact difficult to understand how under these exceptional conditions, any printer-publishers or booksellers should have been able to maintain an existence.

In Italy, also, the publishers and booksellers worked during these centuries under similar difficulties, but there were mitigating circumstances. The Inquisition was able to retain in its hands only a partial control of the censorship, while outside of the papal States its authority was not infrequently set at naught. In fact, in Venice, for a large portion of this period (to use a phrase of a later century), the writs of the Inquisition “did not run,” an exemption which was by no means the least of the several factors combining to make Venice a centre of book-production. The division of the Peninsula into a number of states or principalities was an important influence in maintaining for the printer-publishers some measure of independence, as the undertakings that were stopped or interfered with in one State could, with no insuperable difficulties, be carried across the nearest boundary and brought to completion in another. A further influence serving to secure protection for the printing-press, and to promote its activity, was the personal interest on the part of many of the Italian princes in intellectual pursuits and in literary production, an interest that caused them to compete with each other for the possession of scholars and to offer special advantages to enterprising printer-publishers, and which made them frequently willing, for the sake of the literary prestige of their States, to brave the disfavour of the ecclesiastical authorities. In Italy, therefore, while the production and distribution of books was frequently interfered with by the operations of the Congregation or by the Inquisition, it is probable that (at least outside of the papal States) the actual detriment caused by the censorship to intellectual interests was by no means as great as, from the long list of mandates, prohibitions, and penalties, might at first be inferred.

In France, the conditions which opposed and those which favoured the freedom of the press differed in several respects from those which obtained in Spain or in Italy. We have here to deal with a central government whose authority over a fairly homogeneous territory was for the greater part of the periods under consideration not seriously questioned. The literary and publishing interests of the kingdom were centred in the capital, and in fact, with the single exception of Lyons, there were, outside of Paris, no publishing centres of importance. The literary policy of the Church, expressed through the theological faculty of the Sorbonne, could, therefore, conveniently be brought to bear very directly upon the operations of the Paris book-trade, the organised guild of which itself formed part of the university. Finally, the authority of the Crown, acting through the royal courts or directly through the chancellor, was, in form at least, available for putting into effect any measures for the supervision or restriction of literature with which the administration might find itself, in accord. Notwithstanding, however, this apparent completeness of the supervising machinery, the book-trade of Paris was able to retain a very large measure of independence, and its contributions to the literary productions of Europe were, notwithstanding the censorship, of continued importance. Several influences worked in its favour. The divines of the Sorbonne and the leaders of the Gallic Church, while often actively opposed to scholarly undertakings, were by no means prepared simply to register and to execute the censorship decrees of the authorities of Rome. No Roman Indexes were accepted as binding upon believers in France unless or until they had been formally approved by the French Church and had been put into effect by the authorities of the State. With an occasional exception, such as that of the Index of the Council of Trent, the Gallican censors preferred to frame their own Indexes and to adapt these to the requirements and conditions of their own country.

The State was still less ready than the Church to accept as authoritative instructions emanating from Rome in regard to the character of the books that should be produced or should be permitted in France. Successive kings took the ground that the final authority in regard to censorship was vested in the State, that is to say in the Crown. The divines of the Sorbonne were instructed or permitted to pass upon the applications for privileges for books belonging to the department of theology, but even for these, their dicta were not always accepted and (as in the case of the Bibles of Estienne) were sometimes entirely set aside by the Crown.

And finally, the University of Paris, for centuries the most important in Europe, contended through a long series of years that the supervision and control of the book-trade of the kingdom was a university matter, and it succeeded for a series of years, with occasional exceptions and set-backs, in maintaining this contention very largely until, with the gradual extension of the powers of the Crown, the direction of censorship and of privileges had been, with nearly all other divisions of government, brought directly under royal authority.