THE CENSORSHIP OF THE STATE AND CENSORSHIP BY
PROTESTANTS
1. General.
2. Catholic States: Catholic Germany, France, Spain and Portugal.
3. Protestant States: Switzerland, Protestant Germany, Holland,
Scandinavia, England.
4. Summary.
=1. General.=--In this chapter, I am undertaking to present, not
any comprehensive summary of political censorship, a task which would
in fact require many volumes, but merely certain noteworthy examples of
regulations issued under civil authority which will serve to indicate
the general character of the censorship supervision of literature that
was attempted by the State.
I have grouped together here instances of Catholic censorship in which
the ecclesiastics carried out their prohibitions under the authority
of the State, or in which the State censorship regulations had been
put into shape by the ecclesiastics. In the record of the so-called
Protestant censorship, that is to say of the regulations adopted
in Protestant States for the control of theological or religious
literature, it is not practicable to separate the acts and utterances
of the theologians from those emanating from the civil authorities,
whether municipal or national. The larger number of the prohibitions
of books having to do with theology or religion were naturally
initiated by the divines, although even for this class of literature
the civil authorities frequently did not hesitate to take into their
own hands the responsibility of selecting the works to be condemned.
The chief distinction, however, between the censorship methods of
Protestant communities and those which came into force in Catholic
States was the fact that for the former the censorship authorities
were dependent for the enforcement of the prohibitions and penalties
upon the machinery of the civil authority. The Protestant divines had
at their command no such dread penalty as the ban of excommunication
by means of which the Catholic ecclesiastics were able to enforce upon
the faithful obedience to the commands of the Church. In the Protestant
States, it was necessary for the divines, first, to convince the rulers
of the essential importance of their particular creeds or forms of
“orthodoxy,” in order to secure the enactment of the necessary laws or
the issue of censorship edicts; and, secondly, to keep the magistrates
up to the mark in the enforcing of the penalties prescribed.
It is true that in Catholic States, such as France, Austria, or
Bavaria, the authority of the Crown and the machinery of the civil
power were frequently utilised to carry out censorship regulations
that had been framed by the ecclesiastics; but even with the citizens
of those States (as far at least as they were Catholics) the most
pertinent influence in insuring obedience for the prohibitions of the
Index was the dread of being deprived of the rites of the Church.
Excommunication meant that the adults were prohibited from marriage
and their children were deprived of baptism; it meant that for the
living there was no communion, for the dying, no absolution, and for
the dead, no burial in consecrated ground. Life without the sacraments
was full of fears, and with the deprival of absolution and of Church
burial, death took on new terrors. These same influences were, of
course, all-important also in securing the active co-operation even of
the most worldly and most skeptical of the civil rulers in creating
and in maintaining the machinery for controlling the operations of the
printers and booksellers and for enforcing adequate civil or criminal
penalties against heretical delinquents who were not amenable to the
authority of the Church.
In the States in which in this fashion the co-operation of Catholic
rulers could be secured in support of the censorship policy of the
Church universal, the administration of such censorship was, of course,
more consistent, and it is fair to say less arbitrary (at least outside
of Spain) than in the Protestant States in which the principles
of prohibition changed from decade to decade with the changes of
administration or as one theological faction or another secured
influence with the rulers.
In 1904, the Jesuit Father, Joseph Hilgers, published, under the title
_Der Index der verbotenen Bücher_, a treatise presenting, from
the point of view of an earnest upholder of the authority of the Roman
Church, an historical study of the Roman Index. The immediate text
for the production of this treatise of the learned Father was the
publication, in 1900, of the second Index of Leo XIII, of which Index
the Father gives a comprehensive description and analysis. Father
Hilgers takes the ground that it was impossible for the Church, without
neglecting its manifest duty, to avoid accepting the responsibility
for the supervision and control of literary production and of the
reading of the faithful. The pope, says the Father, is, as the head of
the Church on earth, the direct representative of God. It is through
him that God makes known his wishes and the principles upon which the
life of the faithful is to be guided. It is for the shepherd of the
flock to preserve the flock from poison. The shepherd is charged not
merely with the right living of his sheep during their earthly career,
but with the much larger responsibility of seeing that their lives are
so shaped that they shall secure a blessed hereafter.
In the historical sketch of the operations of the Index, Hilgers
touches but lightly upon the examples of inconsistencies or
difficulties in the enforcement by the Church of the control over
literature. He makes no mention of the many contests that arose
between the different ecclesiastical bodies. He hardly touches upon
the fact that the Index came to be from time to time an expression
of theological differences between the great Church bodies or Orders
such as, for instance, the Jesuits and the Dominicans or the Jesuits
and the Franciscans. He has nothing to say about the instances in
which the utterances of successive popes came into conflict with each
other. He also barely makes mention of the contentions, maintained in
Spain as in France, of the right of the national Church, acting in
co-operation with the national Government, to decide what principles
should be maintained for the supervision of the literature of the
nation. His big treatise, comprehensive in many respects, is very
curious in its omissions. In dwelling upon the beneficent influence of
this Church censorship, he omits altogether the record of the control
of this censorship by the Inquisition in Spain. He has nothing to say
about the imprisonment or execution of Spanish heretics whose crime
had consisted in the production, the selling, or the reading of books
classed as heretical. If the reader had no other knowledge of the Index
than that which came to him by the history as presented by Hilgers, he
would have before him simply a record of an administration of fatherly
beneficence on the part of wise advisers, of a pleading with the
perverse that they should be saved from the consequences of their own
perversity; of actions furthering all scholarship that was in itself
wholesome and sound, and of the discouragement simply of such perverted
intellectual efforts as tended to lead men away from their duty to
their Creator and to undermine the moral conduct of their own lives.
Hilgers is not prepared to admit that any of the works repressed by
the Church, or the repression of which was undertaken by the Church,
could have constituted, if permitted free circulation, or do actually
constitute as far as, in spite of the opposition of the Church, they
secure such circulation, any additions of value to the intellectual
life of mankind. He would probably, if the question had been put to
him directly, have taken the ground that no intellectual gain could
sufficiently offset the moral or spiritual loss. In maintaining the
contention that any properly ruled community must accept a supervision
of its literary activities, he naturally lays stress upon the long
series of censorship systems which were undertaken by ecclesiastics
or by the civil rulers of Protestant States. He calls attention to
the series of so-called Protestant (theological) Indexes, and he
adds a very considerable list of instances of political censorship.
He is able to point out that the number of books which have come
under condemnation through this Protestant censorship (including the
censorship undertaken directly by the civil authorities) very much
exceeds the books condemned in the whole series of Roman Indexes,
although in this comparison he omits all Indexes which came into
publication outside of Rome.
He does not take pains to present any results of the effectiveness of
these Protestant Indexes. In omitting the record of the censorship
of the Spanish Inquisition, he is able to avoid any reference to the
fact that the censorship machinery put into force by the Inquisition
was, for the territory controlled by it, thoroughly effective; so that
if a book was condemned in Spain, it was the case, for the centuries
in question, that, as far as Spanish territory was concerned, the
editions were thoroughly suppressed and the production or distribution
of copies was rendered impossible. He speaks of each of the censorship
edicts of the German States as if they had effect throughout the whole
of the territory of Germany. He omits to point out that the books
condemned in one city or in one State promptly came into print and into
circulation in adjacent territory in such manner that the circulation
was practically unchecked.
He is able, however, fairly to make out his main contention, that for
the century succeeding the Protestant Reformation, the will or desire
on the part of the Protestants to establish a censorship of literature
was just as emphatic as that of the authorities of Rome; and that if
their efforts were only partially successful, it was through no want
of conviction on their part that such efforts were required for the
maintenance of what they considered to be the true Faith. He is able
to make good the further contention that these examples of Protestant
censorship present a much larger series of inconsistencies than could
be found in the record of the Index of the Church of Rome; even though
one should for the purpose of the comparison include under the Church
Index, in addition to those printed in Rome, the Indexes that emanated
from Madrid, Louvain, and Paris. He also makes his point good in regard
to the political Index. He is able to show that, as far at least as
the edicts of the State were concerned, these were more bitter, more
comprehensive, and more regardless of literary interests than those of
the Church. What he does not emphasise is that these political edicts
were very much more spasmodic and temporary in their influence, and
that, as a fact, they had very little continued effect on the literary
development of the communities which were responsible for them.
A political censorship becomes of necessity the football of political
parties and is therefore not to be maintained with any measure of
consistency or justice. The multiplicity and changeableness of the
religious doctrines of the reformers gave to the so-called Protestant
censorship an inconsistent and contradictory character which is not
to be paralleled under any epoch of Roman supervision of literature.
A censorship of this kind is the natural product of the fissure of
creeds. Hermann Wagener, writing in Berlin in 1864, remarks that all
the measures of the State thus far attempted to protect the public
against pernicious influences from the printing-press, are open to
the criticism that their action is purely negative. On the other
hand, as he points out, the censorship policy of the Catholic Church,
while on the one hand prohibitory, on the other asserts positive and
constructive principles for the literary and intellectual development
of the community by wholesome and wise methods.
It is true, says Hilgers, that the works of great writers like Tasso,
Molière, Châteaubriand, Vondel, Goethe, Schiller, Grotius, and other
leaders of thought have come under the ban of censorship and that the
publication or use of their works had been permitted only after certain
eliminations or purgations had been made. The censorship regulations
in regard to these authors emanated however not from Rome but from
the authorities of France, Holland, Germany, and Denmark. It was the
case even with _Faust_ that its production could not be permitted
on the stage of Berlin until certain “dangerous” passages had been
eliminated.
[Sidenote: Catholic Germany]
=2. Catholic States.=--The Edict of Worms of 1521, which committed
the Emperor Charles V to the support of the contentions of the Papacy,
and threw the great weight of the Holy Roman Empire against the cause
of the Protestant reformers, constituted the beginning of an imperial
censorship, a censorship which was confirmed and extended by the Edict
of Nuremberg of 1524. In the regions under Lutheran influence, the only
effect of the imperial and ecclesiastical prohibition was, as noted,
to increase largely the circulation of the writings of the reformers.
In the districts into which the reform doctrines had only begun to
penetrate, the ecclesiastics were able, in great part at least, to stop
the further circulation of the pamphlets, by taking prompt and harsh
measures against the colporteurs. From this time and until the close
of the Thirty Years’ War, Church and State (the imperial State) worked
together (although not always in harmony) against the freedom of the
press, on the broad ground that such freedom necessarily resulted in
heresy and in treason. In 1529, the persecution of the printers and
of the Protestants in Austria was for the time relaxed because of the
peril of Vienna from the Turks, an exigency which absorbed the full
attention of the imperial authorities.
The Church and the Holy Roman Emperor finally took the ground that
every writing that came from the pen of a Protestant author, even
though it had nothing whatsoever to do with religion or politics,
must be classed as libellous. In 1548, the Emperor issued a new
series of most strenuous laws for the control of the press. The
penalties were brought to bear at one point or another with full
severity, but it proved to be impracticable to secure in the Germany
of the time any uniformity of obedience. In Austria and in Bavaria,
the penalties included the use of the rack for authors, printers,
and sellers of publications that came under condemnation. In 1567,
a _Flugschrift_ was printed in Frankfort under the title of
_Nachtigall_, which was at once interpreted as a libel on the
Emperor. Fourteen hundred copies were sold within a few hours of its
issue and there were various reprints within the next few weeks. The
Emperor ordered the punishment not only of the printer, but of the
magistrates of Frankfort. The former was placed in prison for two years
and the magistrates were fined thirty thousand gulden, an enormous sum
for those days.[58]
The Emperor Ferdinand was a more faithful, that is to say, a more
bigoted, son of the Church than Charles, but he refused to admit that
the control of the press was a Church matter. He took the ground that
censorship was a matter pertaining to the State, that is, to the Crown,
and that the bishops could take part in it only as delegates of the
authority of the State. This was the contention asserted, and finally
maintained, in France by Francis I and his successors.
In an official document of 1580, occurs the phrase, “The regulation of
books (_das Bücher-regal_) which has for many years been within
the control of the emperor.” Schurmann is of opinion that the authority
for the regulation of books was derived from, or connected with, the
rights reserved to the imperial authority under the Golden Bull. A
century after the issue of the Golden Bull, at the time namely of the
invention of printing, the reserved powers (_Reserva-rechte_) of
the empire had become materially weakened, and were being in large part
exercised by the local authorities, and the attempt of the emperor to
enforce control over literary production and distribution was from the
outset met by antagonism and protest on the part of princes and of the
municipal magistrates, and was also opposed by the contention of the
Church that such supervision properly belonged to her. The question
was raised as to whether the decrees of the imperial Diet contained
any references to the imperial control of book publishing. The
omission was explained on the ground that such control was exercised
as a personal right of the emperor. It was under such imperial
authority, for instance, that an approval or privilege was given to
the _Germania_ of Aeneas Sylvius (afterwards Pius II), originally
issued in Italy in 1464 and printed in Germany in 1515.
In 1530, there came to Vienna a group of Jesuits who did much to
strengthen the machinery of censorship. The undertakings of the
printers and of the booksellers decreased in direct proportion with
the growth of the influence of the Jesuit advisers of the emperor.
In 1523, the production and sale throughout the empire of the German
Bible is prohibited. In 1564, the Elector of Bavaria orders that the
work of the publishers must be restricted to printers whose Catholic
orthodoxy has been duly tested. In this year, the Elector begins the
issue of an annual list of books that were to be permitted. In 1569,
the use in the schools of Bavaria of certain Latin classics, including
the works of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, was prohibited. In 1616, the
Elector appointed Catholic commissioners of censorship for each town in
Bavaria. The University of Ingolstadt became the centre of the work of
the Jesuits, who, in Bavaria as in Vienna, had secured the direction of
censorship.
In 1579, under Rudolf II, the Jesuits were called upon to put into
shape a more effective censorship for the empire. Under the régime thus
established, the standard of thought for the political action and for
the religious belief of Germany was to be fixed in Rome and in Madrid.
Under the direction of the Jesuit censors in the year 1579, no less
than twelve thousand books in German and two thousand in Bohemian were
burned by the public hangman in the town of Gratz.[59]
In the same year, an imperial commission was appointed, with
headquarters at Frankfort, which was charged with the supervision of
the book production of the empire. The operations of this commission
were very largely controlled by the interests, real or imaginary,
of the Catholic Church, and the personal supervision and arbitrary
censorship of the ecclesiastics, had not a little to do with the
disintegrating of publishing undertakings in Frankfort and with
the transfer, some years later, to Leipsic of the leadership in the
business of book production and book distribution.
Hilgers, while admitting the influence of the Jesuits in the direction
of State censorship in South Germany, denies that the results of
their work were adverse to the development of literature (“sound
literature”) or to intellectual activity. Hilgers writes: “It may
at once be admitted that the Jesuit Fathers were, during the 16th
century, active in securing in Austria, Bavaria, and other States a
censorship of literature. The Holy Ignatius, Father of the Order, had
from the beginning of his active work insisted upon the responsibility
resting with the Church and with the active workers of the Church for
preserving the faithful from the poison of literature.”[60] In 1550,
and in the years following, Peter Canisius, at that time the head
of the Order in Germany, took active measures for the enforcement
throughout the empire of the regulations of the Index of Paul IV, and
after the publication, in 1564, of the Index of Trent, the Jesuit
Fathers in Germany had a large part in bringing about the enforcement
of the regulations therein presented. Hilgers points out that, under
Jesuit influence, there were issued in Bavaria during the years
succeeding 1565 not only lists of books condemned and prohibited, but
further lists of books commended for the reading of the faithful.
These catalogues had been prepared by the Jesuit Fathers at the
instance of Canisius and under the authority of Duke William V. They
were distributed chiefly through the parish priests. Against the
contention made by German historians that the influence of the Jesuits,
particularly in South Germany, had served to restrict, and in certain
instances practically to repress, literary production and publishing
activity, Hilgers insists that in Germany, as throughout Europe, the
influence of the Order had always been an intellectual influence; and
that its efforts had furthered education and had advanced the interests
of scholarly literature, of printing, and of publishing. He contends
with some ingenuity that the elimination from literary production of
activity in undesirable productions and the concentration of literary
force in the channels in which such force could be directed to the best
service of humanity, far from lessening intellectual or literary force,
could but serve to strengthen this and to render it more effective.[61]
During the first half of the 16th century, there may well have been
ground for a censorship of literature in Germany in connection with
the long series of lampoons and libellous tractates and volumes that
came into print. Even leaders of thought such as Luther and Reuchlin,
were tempted into language that became not only unscholarly, but
coarsely abusive. The more earnestly the community interested itself in
religious convictions, the more bitter became the expression of hate
and scorn for other earnest believers who had arrived at different
convictions.
It is certainly not in order to hold the Jesuits responsible for
the general censorship policy of Rome. The direction of the Roman
censorship has never been in Jesuit hands. The first secretary of the
Congregation of the Index was a Franciscan, while all the succeeding
secretaries have been Dominicans. Hilgers does not mention one detail
in regard to which this Dominican control of the Congregation has
doubtless been important: of the books on the Index which were the
work of members of the great Catholic Orders, those of the Jesuits
equal in number all of the others together. One cause for this was
probably the fact that this Order included a larger proportion of
educated workers. The literary interests of the Jesuits were greater
and so also was the number of books produced by them.
During the second half of the 18th century, the censorship commissions
instituted by the State were given powers under which the authority
of the censorship bodies of the Church was materially modified and
restricted. In Austria, a number of Indexes were compiled by these
civil commissions, and in Bavaria one such Index was published. These
Indexes have importance chiefly because they represent a claim made on
the part of the State to control certain matters which, according to
the ecclesiastics, properly belonged within the exclusive domain of the
Church.
In 1752, Maria Theresa, for the purpose of checking the distribution
throughout the Austrian dominions of Protestant writings, issued an
edict ordering all Catholics to submit to their confessors the copies
of religious books in their possession. The confessors were to retain
all doubtful works and to return the others duly certified with their
signatures and with an ecclesiastical seal. In 1756, the bookbinders
were instructed to deliver to the parish priests copies of any
Protestant writings placed in their hands for binding.
In 1753, the examination of books that were already in print, together
with the censorship of works submitted for the purpose of securing
a printing permit, was transferred from the University of Vienna
to a censorship commission which was charged with the work both of
censorship and revision. This commission was appointed under the
imperial authority and remained in existence until 1848. It issued
from time to time catalogues of prohibited books. Books were in part
prohibited unconditionally, and in part with the restriction that they
should be placed only in the hands of scholars who had secured from the
police authorities a special permission for their use.
In 1754, was published the first Austrian Index. It bears the title
_Catalogus librorum rejectorum per Concessum censurae_. After 1758,
the lists bore the title of _Catalogus librorum a Commissione Aulica
prohibitorum_.
Between the years 1758 and 1780, were issued continuations of the Aulic
catalogues. Later, the system obtained of printing fortnightly lists
of books which had failed to secure an _Imprimatur_ or _Admittetur_,
these lists being distributed to police magistrates, libraries, and
booksellers. Every two months the same were classified and reprinted.
In 1768, was published in one volume the series of catalogues covering
the prohibitions of the preceding seven years. The title reads:
_Catalogus Librorum a Commissione Caes. Reg. Aulica Prohibitorum.
Vienna mdcclxviii. Prostat. in officiana Libraria Kaliwodiana._
With this volume, are bound in supplements to a preceding Austrian
Index, numbered from I to VI, comprising annual lists for the six
years succeeding 1761. The work was reprinted in Vienna in 1774
with further annual lists. Similar issues were made, with annual
supplements, in 1776, 1777, and 1778. These volumes contain lists
only, with no prefatory matter and no reference to the authority
under which the condemnations are made. The selections presented a
much larger proportion of English books (including plays and novels)
than have received attention in any other Continental Indexes. Of
Melanchthon only two works are condemned. Mendham points out that the
Aulic Council, which was undoubtedly the authority for the preparation
of these lists of prohibitions, was at the time composed of an equal
number of Romanists and Protestants. The Aulic Indexes are probably the
only examples of prohibitions arrived at by the judgment of Catholics
and Protestants working together under the authority of the State.
In 1788, was published in Brussels an Index for use in the Austrian
Netherlands, under the title _Catalogue des livres défendus par la
Commission Impériale et Royale_.
The _Enchiridion Juris Ecclesiastici Austriaci_, edited by Rechberger
and printed in Vienna, in 1808, presents the ecclesiastical law of
Austria at that date in force. Rechberger declares in his preface that
the “Index of Trent has no force in the Austrian dominions.”[62]
In 1816, was published in Vienna a general Index of German books under
the title _Neues durchgesehenes Verzeichniss der verbotenen deutschen
Bücher_.
In the earlier Vienna Indexes, are included the titles of certain works
selected from the Roman Index, but it is difficult to arrive at the
principle on which the selection has been made.
In 1769, under Max Joseph III, was instituted in Bavaria a “College
of Censorship” comprising, in addition to the president, eight
councillors. The subjects of theology and of ecclesiastical
procedure were placed in the hands of three divines selected from
the theological faculty of the University of Munich and the other
councillors included representatives from the philosophical faculty.
_Municipal Censorship._--An early instance of the exercise of a
city censorship occurred in Nuremberg, in 1527, in the case of a volume
containing woodcuts illustrating the history of the Tower of Babel,
for which cuts a rhyming text had been supplied by the cobbler-poet,
Hans Sachs. The book had been printed without a license or permission
from the magistracy. The magistrates decided that the book must be
suppressed. They further cautioned Sachs that the writing of verses
was not his proper business, and that he should keep to his own trade
of shoemaking. The edict was simply an emphatic reiteration of the old
proverb, “Shoemaker, stick to your last.” The difficulty in this case
appears to have been due not to the Lutheran tendencies of Sachs’s
rhymes, but to the lack of respect shown to the magistrates in issuing
a book without a permit: and to the further breach of authority on the
part of a man licensed only as a shoemaker undertaking also to carry on
the avocation of a poet.
[Sidenote: France]
In France, the first State regulations for the control of the press
date from 1521, and were directed against the works of the writers of
the Protestant Reformation. While it was the case that the theologians
of the University and the bishops put into action certain measures
against works of heresy, the larger proportion of the censorship
regulations came directly from the Crown or from the Parliament. In
1735, Duplessis d’Argentré published, in three volumes, a _collectio
judiciorum_ which contained the most important of the acts and edicts
in regard to censorship from the faculty of the Sorbonne, from the
bishops, from the Parliament, and from the king up to the year 1735.
In 1757, the King (Louis XV) issues an edict prohibiting, under
penalty of death, the publication and distribution of writings against
religion.[63] There appears to be no record of the enforcement of this
penalty. The policy of Malesherbes, who was director of censorship from
1750 to 1768, was lenient. One of the first acts of the revolutionary
Government of 1789 was the repeal of the censorship laws of the old
monarchy, but the new regulations, established by the revolutionists
themselves for the control of the press, were still more severe and
exacting than those that they replaced. It may be remembered, however,
that these regulations, while in form universal, were as a matter of
fact in force only in Paris and one or two other of the larger cities.
Dupont, in his _History of Printing_, published in Paris in 1854, says
that the press had been less seriously burdened under the persecutions
of monarchical government than when it came under the control of the
so-called “liberty” accorded to the community by the revolutionists of
1789. In form at least these revolutionists had shown themselves keenly
interested in freeing the press from all burdens or restrictions. Under
the Act of August, 1789, it was decreed as follows: “Article Two. Full
exchange of thought and of opinion is one of the rights most precious
to mankind. Every citizen is to be at liberty to speak, write, and
print as he will, with the sole restriction that if the liberty be
abused, he will be liable for any injury caused through such abuse.” It
appears that certain inconveniences resulted from this cancellation of
all restrictions. In March, 1793, the convention decrees as follows:
“Whoever shall be convicted of having written or brought into print
books or writings of any kind that assail the authority of the national
representatives or that shall advocate the reëstablishment of royalty
or that attempt to antagonise in any way the sovereignty of the people,
shall be brought to trial before the special tribunal and shall, if
convicted, be punished by death.” As a result of this decree, there
were brought to the scaffold within the next year twenty journalists
and fifty other writers.
The “rights of man” continued, however, to be maintained, at least by
decree, as unassailable. The constitution of the Jacobins, published in
September, 1793, declares that there must be no interference with the
right of expression of thought and of opinion whether by word of mouth
or in printed documents. In the constitution of the year III (1795)
it is ordered that no censorship shall be imposed on writings before
publication and that no author shall be hindered from bringing into
print what he will. By September, 1797, the pendulum had again swung in
the other direction. Under a decree issued in the name of the Senate
and of the Five Hundred it was ordered that sixty journalists and other
writers and printers who had been charged with conspiracy against the
Republic should be brought to trial. Bailleul, speaking in the name of
the Council of the Five Hundred, declared that “the mere existence of
writers of this class is a crime against Nature ... they constitute
a disgrace for mankind. The star of freedom must be freed from their
presence. Not only these writers but the printers who have aided them
in bringing their infamies into print must be banished into the penal
colonies.” Fifty-five writers and printers were so banished.[64] In
1799, a new press law was enacted which brought the printing-press
formally under the control of the police department. This system
remained in force until the régime of the First Consul, when it was
strengthened and the regulations were carried out more thoroughly. The
censorship established under the empire is a part of the history of
Europe. Fouché carried out with full measure of thoroughness the policy
of Napoleon in regard to the operations not only of the journalists but
of the printers, the book publishers, and the booksellers. The shops of
the latter were placed under reiterated examination in order to avoid
the risk that they might bring into the territory of France pernicious
literature. The policy of the imperial censors concerned itself almost
exclusively with works of a political character or which might, through
criticisms of persons, by any possibility exert a political influence.
The production and distribution of works in theology and religion had
in any case been very much lessened, and during the consulate and the
empire, there was but very little ecclesiastical censorship. But little
attention seems during these years to have been paid to the protection
of the morals of the community. Criticism of a book as _contra bonos
mores_ does not find place in any of the French censorship lists
of the time. In June, 1806, it was ordered by an imperial edict that
the director-general should instruct all the booksellers and printers
to place with the minister, in advance of any sales, a copy of every
book whether it was printed in France or was an importation. They were
at liberty to accept books which belonged without question to the
divisions of science and art. This was the time in which the battle of
Jena was being fought and one might perhaps suppose that the attention
of the Emperor would have been sufficiently engaged with affairs in
Germany.
Under the imperial censorship, occurred instances of expurgations
which recall the expurgatory Indexes of the Spanish Inquisition. In
the _Athalie_ of Racine, before a new edition was permitted to be
printed, certain passages had to be cancelled because they contained
allusions to “tyranny.” Chénier had permitted himself in his drama
_Cyrus_ to present the following lines:
“_Je ne commande point, j’obéis à la loi;
Et je suis à l’État, l’État n’est point à moi._”
These lines had to be cancelled before the performance of the play was
permitted.[65] Kotzebue’s _Souvenir d’un Voyage_ was prohibited because
the author had permitted himself certain favourable references to the
late Queen of Naples and to the English Admiral, Sidney Smith (“that
pirate,” said Napoleon). Madame de Staël’s _Corinne_ was prohibited in
1807 and a bitter criticism of the work, printed in the _Moniteur_, is
ascribed to the pen of Napoleon himself. Chateaubriand’s _Les Martyrs_
was, before being published, severely handled by the censors. After
suffering a large amount of elimination, it was brought into print,
but even then proved unacceptable and was prohibited. A reference to
the court of Diocletian was held by the police to constitute a _lèse
Majesté_. In November, 1809, Napoleon specified as the responsibilities
of censorship, _Le droit d’empêcher la manifestation d’idées qui
troublent la paix de l’État, ses intérêts et le bon ordre_. In the
same year, Napoleon says: _Qu’on laisse donc écrire librement sur la
religion, pourvu qu’on n’abuse pas de cette liberté pour écrire contre
l’État_.[66] In 1810, the Emperor instituted the post of _directeur
general de l’imprimerie et de la librairie_, with Portalis as the first
incumbent. The system of inspection and repression established under
this bureau continued until the close of the empire and was, in fact,
renewed with no great change after the return of the Bourbons.
Peignot, writing in 1806, during the “strenuous” years of the First
Empire and at a time when political censorship in France and in
the great territories outside of France that were under Napoleonic
control was most severe, is prepared to speak with full measure of
respect of the importance and the necessity of censorship. He finds
ground for criticism, however, in the cases in which the Roman Church
has undertaken to interfere with the control over French literature
which properly belonged to the bishops and to the civil government of
France, but he is quite prepared to accept the judgments of the Church
in regard to pernicious books provided that these judgments are kept
subordinated to the authority of the State.
Peignot speaks of “the happy Europe of his time” (the Europe controlled
by Napoleon),
“in which governments now rest on foundations conformed to
natural law. Individual liberty maintains itself through nearly
all the civilised world. The princes recognise that they command
not themselves but men and that their own authority is so much
more to be respected when they submit themselves to the laws of
their State. The rapid progress of science and art has developed
the human spirit and has freed it from the prejudices and from
the immorality, the tyranny and anarchy which had in the last
years of the preceding century shaken and confused Europe.”[67]
Peignot includes in his lists of books condemned to be burnt not only
the books which he finds recorded as condemned but certain further
works which in his judgment ought to have been suppressed.
_The Results of Jansenism in France._--The Jesuit Hilgers places
upon the Jansenists the responsibility for the wave of heresy, of free
thought, and of unrestricted passion which at the close of the 18th
century undermined in France, Church, State, and the foundations of
society. Hilgers writes (in substance) as follows:
During the 18th century, through the Jansenism which affected a
large part of the community in France, place was being made for the
free thought philosophy which later became responsible for the great
Revolution, and the result was the burst of a storm of public opinion
against the Jesuits. In 1761, the Parliament of Paris prohibited
twenty-four works by Jesuit writers and a year later, in a fresh
prohibition, condemned a hundred and sixty-three Jesuit treatises.
The contention was made in these edicts that the prohibited works
had had an exciting and pernicious effect, had served to undermine
Christian morality, and had tended to demoralise the life and to impair
the safety of the citizens; and it was further contended that the
opinions presented in these writings constituted an assault against
the persons of the princes. These pernicious and godless heresies of
the Jansenists continued to gain strength; the Jesuit Order in France
became one of the first victims of the heresy; the Revolution gathered
strength and the Parliament issued a fresh series of orders; the
sacred persons of the king and queen fell victims on the scaffold
and the best of the citizens lost property and in many cases life;
the moral law of Christianity was replaced by the law of man and the
goddess of Reason was accepted as the divinity of the community, and
at her feet were burned as sacrifices the books of religion and the
pictures of the saints. History has recorded how extreme became the
tyranny of this world of so-called reason under the laws of men. This
tyranny naturally extended itself to the censorship of all literature.
The Jacobins controlled with an iron hand journals and journalists;
the censorship instituted by them enforced the strictest supervision
over their printed and spoken words; and when the rule of the mob was
replaced by that of the despot Napoleon, the regulations controlling
the press became still more burdensome and the penalties still more
severe. Under the rule of Napoleon, it was not only the press of France
of which the freedom was crushed, but throughout the broad territories
of Germany and Italy, under the hand of the despot, every utterance of
the people was checked and repressed. No censorship ever attempted or
established by the Church had equalled in severity, in arbitrariness,
in its crushing influence that instituted first by the so-called people
of France (or to speak more accurately, by the mob of Paris) and later
that continued and developed by the product of the mob revolution,
Napoleon the despot.
The above is a summary of the forcibly presented contention of the
Jesuit Hilgers. He traces back to the unrestrained utterances of the
Jansenists what he terms the free-will riot of opinion that took
possession of France. He makes this the natural causation of the
excesses of the Revolution and of the oppressions of Napoleon. It is
easy to point out that the causation is not adequate. The fact that
the teachings of Port Royal preceded the Revolution is not in itself
sufficient to make Port Royal responsible not only for the Revolution
but for Napoleon. As the response of a disputant to the criticism of
Church censorship, the parallel presented by Hilgers is, however,
deserving of consideration if only as indicating the state of mind
under which a loyal Romanist interprets history.
“If,” says Hilgers, “there is to be a sound and safe rule for the
community, it is not possible to permit for men, whose understanding
is at best but limited, an unrestricted freedom of investigation or
of expression. To God alone, whose understanding is unrestricted and
unlimited, can there be absolute freedom from limit for thought or for
action. For man the sole safety lies in control.”[68]
Voltaire was obliged in 1716 to make sojourn for a number of weeks
in the Bastile on the ground of certain of his ribald _pasquilles_.
Before this experience, he had already endured banishment on the ground
of other rash utterances. Rousseau’s _Émile_, which finds place in
successive Indexes, was prohibited also by the civil authorities in
Paris in 1762. The condemnation in Geneva was somewhat more serious;
the book was burned by the hangman and the author was condemned to
imprisonment.
In 1827, was printed in Paris (under Charles X) a State Index, under
the title: _Catalogue des Ouvrages condamnés depuis 1814 jusqu’à
Septembre, 1827, suivi du texte des jugemens et arrêts insérés au
Moniteur_. The censures are specified as _conformément à l’article 26
de la Loi du 26 Mai, 1819_. The books condemned are for the most part
classed as immoral.
Hilgers refers to the name of Mirabeau which stands on the Roman
Index connected with the godless and immoral essay on the Bible that
was printed anonymously, but the authorship of which was identified.
He points out that this same book, when later reprinted in Paris, was
condemned in 1829, and again in 1868, and on these two occasions not by
Rome, but by the censorship of the State.
Among the books which secured the distinction of condemnation by the
civil authorities, may be cited the following:
d’Aubigné, Sieur, _Histoire Universelle_. This book was condemned
and burned in 1667 immediately after its publication, under a decree
of the Parliament and a sentence of the Provost of Paris. The ground
for the condemnation was certain satirical references contained in the
history concerning Charles IX, Henry III, and Henry IV.
Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, _Mémoire_. The book was
condemned and ordered to be burned by the public hangman under a
decree of the Parliament of Paris, February, 1774. It was described as
containing scandalous charges against the magistracy and the members of
the Parliament.[69]
To France had been accorded, since the time of Pepin, the title of
“eldest son of the Church.” It is France, however (or perhaps one
should say consequently), that has found occasion to repudiate or to
annul the greatest number of papal Bulls. I cite as follows certain of
the more noteworthy of these acts of protest or of rebellion against
the authority of Rome.
_Papal Bulls Repudiated in France._--1300. Boniface VIII. A Bull
was issued by the Pope against Philip the Fair in connection with
the injunction imposed by the Pope upon the King to make a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, and more immediately as a result of the treatment
accorded by Philip to the papal emissary, who had been imprisoned for
threatening interdict against the King. The Bull of excommunication
was replied to with a decree from the King headed: _Philippe, par le
grâce de Dieu roi des Français, à Boniface prétendu pape, peu ou point
de salut_.
1407. Benedict XIII (classed as an anti-pope). In this Bull the Pope
excommunicates all those who undertake to prevent the peaceable
settlement for which he was working and who opposed themselves to his
designs as the University of Paris had already done. The Pope places
under interdict the kingdom of France and the domains of the empire.
Charles II, the Parliament, the clergy, and the University of Paris
issued in general council a decree stating that Benedict was not only a
schismatic but a heretic.
1510. Julius II excommunicates Louis XII because the King had refused
to deliver to the Pope certain cities over which the Curia claimed
to have rights. Louis is reported to have said when learning of his
excommunication: _Saint Pierre avait bien autres choses à faire que
se mêler des affaires des empereurs sous lesquels il vivait_. The
King appealed to the General Council of Pisa. The Pope, in confirming
the interdict on the kingdom, relieved the subjects of Louis from their
oath of allegiance. Louis in his turn excommunicated the Pope and
caused to be struck certain pieces of money which bore on the reverse
_perdam Babylonis nomen_. The Council of Pisa refused to confirm
the interdict of the Pope, who thereupon called the Council of the
Lateran, but he died before this council had given a decision.
1580. The Bull _In Coena Domini_, issued by Gregory XIII, was
publicly burned in Paris under decree of Parliament. This burning was
the result of an attempt of the Pope to have the Bull published in
France.
1585. Sixtus V issues a Bull against the King of Navarre, later Henry
IV. The Pope declares the King, together with the Prince of Condé,
to have been convicted of heresy and to be enemies of God and of
religion. He decrees that the King shall be deposed from all rights
in the kingdom of Navarre and in the principality of Berne, and shall
forfeit his claim to the throne of France. This Bull gave satisfaction
to the League in France, but had no political effect. The reply of
Henry, copies of which were placed on the doors of the palace of the
cardinals in Rome and even on the door of the Vatican, takes the ground
that the declaration and excommunication on the part of Sixtus V,
_soi-disant_ Pope of Rome, are false and are based on falsehood.
The Pope is declared to be anti-Christ.
1591. Gregory XIV publishes in Rome two Bulls by the first of which
he declares Henry IV to be a heretic and to be excommunicated and
deposed from his kingdom; by the second, he places under interdict
all ecclesiastics who may render homage to the King. Henry replies by
ordering the Bull of Gregory to be burned before the gate of his palace
and declares this _soi-disant_ Pope to be an enemy of the King,
an enemy of France, and an enemy of peace and Christianity.
March, 1809. Pius VII issued a Bull of excommunication against his
adversaries, this Bull being directed more particularly at Napoleon.
Napoleon forbids the publication of the Bull in France and in the
territories controlled by the French Empire and causes the Pope to be
seized and taken from Rome to Savona and later to Fontainebleau. For
a term of four years, during which he was practically a prisoner, the
Pope refused to accept the instruction of the Emperor to cancel the
Bull, but in January, 1813, he yielded, the Bull was recalled, and the
_Concordat_ was signed. This _Concordat_ remained in force,
at least in substance, up to 1906, in which year it was cancelled by
the French Republic.
January, 1860. Pius IX issued a Bull (also described as an anathema)
against those who had abetted the invasion of his dominions. This
Bull was directed at Victor Emmanuel, who had, after the successful
conclusion of the war with Austria, annexed the papal States, and at
Napoleon III, through whose co-operation this annexation had proved
possible. The Bull was, as far as France was concerned, suppressed by
Napoleon III, who also suppressed the Paris journal (_Le Monde_)
in which the Bull had been published.
[Sidenote: Spain and Portugal]
The law of 1558, which continued in force until the publication, in
1812, of the Constitution of Cadiz, rendered the supervision of the
press a process as cumbrous as it was thorough. Every manuscript for
which a license was desired had to be passed upon by an examiner
appointed by the Royal Council. After such examination, it was
delivered to the corrector general, and when it had passed through
the press, the manuscript as annotated by this official was returned
to him with the printed copy for comparison. If the author was an
ecclesiastic, a preliminary examination and approbation by his superior
were also required. The book as printed carried on its front page a
long series of official certificates, and the same process had to be
repeated for each succeeding edition. The fees were provided by the
author or printer and constituted, of necessity, an additional charge
on the actual cost of production. As the system grew more complex, the
fees and the fines were multiplied so that the total charge became for
each publication a very serious matter indeed. The interests of the
readers were guarded by accompanying the license with a _tassa_
or specification of the price at which the book was to be sold, which
price was determined by the Royal Council. This _tassa_ was not
abandoned until 1762, when it was taken off all books excepting what
are called books of necessity, that is to say books of instruction,
either secular or religious.[70] The charge assumed by the Spanish
censors brought upon them, as was the case with the censors of other
countries, an unavoidable responsibility for the soundness, orthodoxy,
and morality of everything that, having succeeded in passing the
official examination, was permitted to come into print.
In 1682, it was ordered that books on the several subjects “affecting
the interests of the State” (a definition which was of course
capable of a very wide range of application) should be submitted to
a special council or the department to whose affairs they related.
The approbation of such department must be secured before the license
could be issued. For instance, a book in regard to the colonies called
for the approval of the Colonial Department, and one in regard to
commerce or metals had to be submitted to the Department of Commerce.
As late as 1757, a law issued by Ferdinand VI, and repeated in 1778
by Carlos III, ordered that all books on medical science must, before
being published, secure the approval of a physician selected by the
president of the _Protomedicato_. Printers and publishers, under the
close supervision of the host of officials who had charge of the
printing-offices and bookshops, were practically outlawed. The only
printers who had any measure of freedom of action were those who
carried on the printing-offices in the religious houses. The Crown
could deprive its subjects of their civil rights, but it dared not
meddle with ecclesiastical privileges. In 1752, under a royal decree,
it is prohibited to import or to sell any books in Spanish written
by Spaniards and printed abroad without special royal license; the
penalty is death and confiscation. The death penalty could, however,
be commuted to four years of _presidio_. With this varied series of
obstacles in the way of printing and burdensome charges increasing
the cost of publication, it is by no means surprising that the
production of books in Spain was, for the three centuries after
1560, inconsiderable as compared with that of the other States of
Europe. As Lea says, Spain fell absolutely behind in the development
of literature, science, arts, and industry, when human thought
seeking expression was surrounded and rendered ineffectual by so many
impediments. Carlos III, realising the disadvantage to the community
of the hampering of the work of the printing-press, undertook, in
1769, to remove certain of the restrictions. In 1778, he was able
to congratulate himself on the increased prosperity of the printing
business.
In 1782, the Inquisitor-General Bertram, following the instructions
given in the Index of Benedict in 1756, recalled the prohibition of the
printing and reading of Spanish versions of the Bible, a prohibition
which had endured for two hundred and fifty years. This action brought
out sharp antagonism on the part of many of the ecclesiastics and after
the revolutionary events of 1789, the Inquisition re-established the
larger number of the old-time prohibitions and included in these a
fresh prohibition for the reading of the Scriptures. The censorship
activity of the five years succeeding 1789 was, however, particularly
directed against the importation of political and so-called
philosophical publications from France. After the restoration of the
Spanish monarchy under Ferdinand VII, the old regulations of the Index
were again confirmed under an edict of July 22, 1815. There were,
later, certain modifications in these regulations, but in June, 1830,
an elaborate law re-established the entire censorship system with its
cumbrous machinery; every work contrary to the Catholic Faith or to the
royal prerogative was forbidden under pain of death, and provision was
made for the most elaborate supervision of books imported from abroad.
In 1768, Joseph I of Portugal declared that the _Bulla Coena_ and the
other Bulls of the Church having to do with censorship, and the series
of Roman Indexes were not to be held as binding upon his subjects
excepting in so far as they had been specifically confirmed by the
State Government. Joseph instituted a commission to take charge of
the matter of censorship; but this body did not produce any Index. In
1771, however, it issued a list of sixty books prohibited under the
authority of the Church, this list being made up chiefly of treatises
by Jesuits, Escobar, Mariana, Saintarella, etc. Fourteen further works
were to be sold only when containing a printed notice in which were to
be specified the condemned passages.
[Sidenote: Switzerland]
=3. Protestant States.=--The Roman procedure in censorship in
Switzerland, and particularly in Geneva, presents close analogies to
the methods in force in Rome.
In 1525, the magistracy of Zurich established a so-called State Church.
Under the regulations of this Church, no preaching could be permitted
within the territory of the city other than the pure Gospel of Zwingli
and his associates. The books of worship of the Catholics were ordered
to be delivered and burned and a similar course was taken with the
Lutheran Bibles and the Lutheran works of instruction of Melanchthon. A
similar action was taken in Geneva under the direction of Calvin. The
altars and altar pictures were destroyed and the Catholics were ordered
to deliver for like destruction their books of worship, of song, and
their catechism. The Inquisition established in Geneva assumed the
authority to visit houses and shops and to confiscate for destruction
all heretical books. In 1539, the magistrates ordered that no book
should be printed until it had received a license from the authorities.
This decree was renewed in 1556 and in 1560. The burning of Servetus,
under the authority of the court instituted by Calvin, occurred in
1553.
In 1554, Calvin published his _Defensio Orthodoxi et Fidei de S.
Trinitate contra Prodigiosos Errores Mich. Serveti Hispanii_, etc.
This “Defence” bears, in addition to the name of the author, the
subscriptions of fifteen of the divines of the Geneva Church. Later,
Calvin called the theologians of Basel to account for permitting the
publication of an anonymous monograph written as an answer to his
“Defence,” and demanded that the publishers of the same should be duly
punished. Even after the death of Calvin (1564), the censorship system
was renewed and continued.[71]
In 1580, Henricus Stephanus (whose father Robert had migrated to
Geneva in order to free his printing-press from the censorship of the
Catholic divines) was brought before the city council and formally
reprimanded because, in a certain volume of _Dialogues du Nouveau
Langage Français_, he had made additions to the text after this had
been passed upon by the censors. He was reminded that he was already
under reprimand in connection with his _Apologia Herodoti_, and
was cautioned that, if he did further printing without securing a
permit for the text as finally worded, he would lose his license.
It was decided finally by the Consistorium that Stephanus was not
obeying the regulations, and he was declared to be excommunicated,
while the magistrates condemned him to a week’s imprisonment. In 1559,
knowledge came to the Church authorities in Basel that a certain
heretical writer named David Joris had for some little time lived in
the city unrecognised, and had died there in 1556. A formal process was
entered into against the disinterred remains of Joris, and he was duly
condemned (we may say _in absentia_) for heresy. His portrait and
his books were burned by the public hangman. In 1563, in the process
held in Zürich against Ochinus, it was made a charge that, without
first securing permission from the city censors, he had brought into
print, in Basel, a monograph on the Lord’s Supper.[72] In 1562, Beza
brought before the Synod of Geneva a book of Morelli de Villiers which
he described as heretical. The synod, accepting Beza’s view, orders the
book to be prohibited and existing copies to be burned. One copy was
burned in public by the hangman.
In 1566, Jo. Val. Gentilis was, in consideration of his repentance,
spared from death but sentenced to walk through the street of Geneva
in his shirt, barefooted, and with a burning candle in his hand, and,
after doing penance in the church, he was, with his own hands, to burn
his books. His march was to be preceded by trumpeters who were to
specify his crime. Afterwards he was to be confined in Geneva for an
apparently indefinite period. He escaped but was recaptured and was
decapitated and burned.
In Basel, the first decree having to do with censorship emanated from
no less an authority than Erasmus. In 1542, the magistrates issued an
order prohibiting, under a penalty of a hundred dollars, the printing
of any book until it had been examined and approved by the municipal
censors.
An example is presented in Geneva, in 1645, of a prohibition
or suppression of a book with a payment made to the author as
consideration for his loss. The name of the author was Brios; the book
was entitled _L’homme hardi à la France_. The amount paid was ten
crowns. I do not find record of another instance of compensation in
connection with the cancelling of a book.[73]
[Sidenote: Protestant Germany]
In certain of the States which had accepted Protestantism, attempts
were made at an early date to institute a censorship over the
productions of the printing-press. There was, however, no central
authority through which a permanent censorship organisation could
be maintained and it was not practicable to enforce any penalties
for the possession or the reading of condemned books that could be
considered the equivalent of excommunication. No Protestant rulers
took the ground that the reading of false or of erroneous doctrine
constituted a mortal sin. The responsible authority for such censorship
as came into existence rested with the State. Action was taken by the
State most frequently at the instance of the theological faculties
of the universities, and it was to these bodies that was as a rule
committed the task of supervising and examining the books that came
into question. In the case, however, of works that were charged with
assailing the rulers of the State or with any utterances _contra
bonos mores_, the civil officials were accustomed to take the
direction of the matter into their own hands. The German princes
sometimes also assumed the authority to supervise matters of theology,
a weakness that has been paralleled as late as the 20th century by
a German Emperor. Duke Ludwig of Würtemberg, in 1585, announced for
instance that in his duchy no work of theology should come into print
that had not been passed upon and approved by himself. He made no
exception even for the writings of the divines of his own principality,
the soundness of whose orthodoxy might, one should suppose, have been
already tested.
In 1561, the Duke of Weimar appointed a consistorium, comprising four
divines and four laymen, which was charged with the duty of examining
all books offered for sale in the duchy, whether these were printed
within the confines of Weimar or were importations. A book offered
for sale without the approval of the consistorium (whose meetings
took place only four times a year) was ordered to be confiscated. For
a serious offence, such as a repeated disregard of the regulation,
the printer or dealer was subject to a fine. The theologians of Jena
promptly made protest against such a censorship, particularly in the
case of imported books. They took the broad ground that the writing of
books was a necessary responsibility of learning or of knowledge, and
that any attempt to restrict the use of men’s thinking power or the
expression of their opinions was an attempt to place restrictions upon
the Holy Ghost himself.[74]
The chief difficulty in the application of any censorship regulation
within the Lutheran States was the existence of different schools of
belief, the controversies between which soon became active. The control
of the censorship machinery for any one State fell into the hands
first of one set of controversialists and then of another, according
to the activity of the respective leaders and to the influence brought
to bear upon the local ruler. In the Lutheran States, such as Saxony,
the prohibition against papistical writings was accompanied by an
equally sweeping condemnation of the writings of the Calvinists;
while the Calvinistic authorities of States like Brandenburg were
prompt on their side to take similar measures for the protection
of their own special tenets. This continued conflict between the
several groups of reformers had the necessary effect of bringing into
disrepute and ineffectiveness the larger portion of the attempts at
censorship control. Some attempts were made towards a more tolerant
and a more practicable policy. Zwingli, for instance, insisted that
his fellow-believers in Essling should follow the Christian example of
the church in Zürich, which refused to interfere with the sale even of
Anabaptist writings; but in Zürich itself this tolerant spirit was not
long permitted to control.
The Elector of Saxony[75] prohibited, under a penalty of three thousand
gulden, the printing of the _Corpus Doctrinae_ of Melanchthon,
and Frederick II of Denmark prohibited preachers and instructors,
under penalty of the loss of their positions and (for persistency
in misdoing) of further punishments, the use of the formula of the
_Concordia_. Again, in 1574, the Elector of Saxony compelled the
members of the University of Wittenberg to subscribe to an oath that
they would neither purchase nor read the writings of the Sacramentists
or of the Vermigli.
In 1439, Nicholas Wohlrab, who had, under the instructions of Duke
George of Saxony and the Magistracy of Leipsic, brought into print the
_Postille_ of Wicels, was put into prison by Duke Henry, acting
at the instance of the Elector John Frederick. Before he could secure
his release, Wohlrab was obliged to take oath to bring no further
works into print or into sale until these had received the censorship
and the approval of the magistrates. The three other book-dealers of
Leipsic were forbidden to print or to sell any books that had not
secured approval of the censor appointed by the magistrates, and two
deputy magistrates were detached to make a weekly inspection of
the printing-offices and assure themselves that nothing was printed
antagonistic to the teachings of the Gospel.[76]
There were from time to time schemes for a Protestant Index. In 1579,
Duke Julius of Brunswick brought out a scheme for charging a general
synod with the duty of compiling an Index of heretical books and of
instituting measures for the censorship of the press; but the plan was
not put into execution.
In 1593, Duke Louis of Würtemberg issued an instruction to the
University of Tübingen which reads as follows:
“Book-dealers must be cautioned under sufficient penalties,
neither to print, to possess, nor to sell, heretical or
pernicious books, such as the abominable writings of the
Jesuits. The preachers are directed to warn their hearers
against the unclean literature. In order, however, that the
instructors and preachers should be able to secure knowledge of
the arguments of their adversaries and of the nature of their
calumnies, printer George Gruppenbach is ordered to secure two
copies of each of such books as are available and to deliver
the same to the university. The preachers whose erudition and
good judgment can be trusted to keep them from being led astray
by pernicious doctrines, are to be permitted to read these
heretical and sectarian writings, in order that they may be in a
position to defend the true Faith. The superintendent appointed
for the purpose is to keep a record of the pernicious books so
distributed and is to secure reports as to the use made of them.
The copies themselves are in any case to be returned to the
university authorities, so that they may not be used to pervert
the people. All this is done ‘In order that the assaults of the
hateful Satan (who in these last days has been permitted to work
much evil upon the Church of God) shall be withstood, and that
for the people in this principality the true Faith shall be
preserved and their souls shall be kept clean.’”[77]
Luther was, it should be remembered, thoroughly in accord with pope
and with emperor in the belief that it was the duty of the faithful to
destroy heresy. He only differed from the pope as to what constituted
heresy. In 1525, we find him invoking the aid of the censorship
regulations of Saxony and of Brandenburg for the purpose of stamping
out the “pernicious doctrines” of the Anabaptists and of the followers
of Zwingli. The Protestant princes were for the most part more than
willing to establish and to maintain a censorship for the presses of
their several localities, as such a system served in more ways than one
to strengthen their authority, while it could be utilised also to head
off undesirable criticism.
In 1525, Luther decides that a censorship ought to be established in
the Protestant States. He asks the Protestant princes to co-operate in
instituting the machinery for the purpose. The regulations established
by the princes interfered seriously with the operations of the
printers in the larger places, but proved ineffectual for securing
any uniformity of religious publishing throughout the States of North
Germany.
In 1532, Luther calls upon Duke Heinrich of Mecklenburg, for the
sake of the Gospel of Christ and for the saving of souls, to prevent
from coming into print a translation of the Gospels that had been
prepared by the Catholic priest Emser. Melanchthon was fully in accord
with Luther as to the necessity of repressing with sharpest and most
effective censorship all books that were not in accord with the
Protestant faith.
Zwingli and Calvin, acting each from his own point of view, established
in their respective cities a censorship that was much more bitter
and strenuous than anything as yet attempted under the authority of
Rome. Hilgers points out that the Lutherans with their schools and
their cliques, the Zwinglians, the Calvinists, the Anabaptists, the
Mennonites, the Schwenckfeldians, the Weigelians, and the Socinians,
contended with each other with full use of the weapon of censorship,
and in censorship as in religion it was always the brutal power of
the strongest that came into control. The princes, establishing with
readiness a censorship machinery, changed the application of their
penalties as they changed their faith, but the penalties themselves
became, with each change, more severe.[78]
According to Gretser, the first article of the Calvinistic theologian
stated that “the writings of Luther must be stamped out from the Church
of God.”[79] In Saxony, in the Palatinate, in Baden, in Würtemberg,
in Brandenburg, and in Prussia after 1550, we find in full force a
series of Protestant censorships directed sometimes spasmodically, but
usually with no little bitterness, under the authority of the political
power.[80]
The Jesuit Hilgers, who naturally makes use of Luther as a
characteristic example of Protestant intolerance in censorship, writes:
“Luther, who characteristically enough began his notorious
career with the burning of books, was by no means prepared to
accept with patience any Catholic literature that stood in his
way. What, nevertheless, made the Lutheran movement a radical
revolution was the acceptance of the right of individual freedom
of inquiry, a right that was to make each man the authority for
his individual views of faith and doctrine against the accepted
Catholic principle that the authority for the interpretation
of doctrine and for the guidance of faith must rest with the
Church.... Luther accepted as authoritative the teaching of the
Scriptures, but it was his contention that this teaching could
be ascertained by the individual understanding and without the
guidance of the Holy Church. This very principle, however, of
individual interpretation was almost immediately set to one
side by Luther himself. He found that what he propounded as
the true Faith could be maintained only through the protection
of his faithful from the influence of pernicious literature;
and he instituted promptly, to the extent of his own power,
a censorship against not only the writings of the Catholics
from whom he had broken away, but still more sharply against
those of fellow-Protestants whose views of interpretation
differed in any manner from his own. Luther became himself the
first censor of the Word of God, and set up his individual
understanding as a guide not merely for himself but for the
misguided who were ready to accept the word of a single man
rather than the authority of the Church universal.... Under
the divine government, men have been placed in dependence
upon each other. It is only through full recognition of this
interdependent relation that State and Church can come into
existence and can be maintained. No reasonable man will deny for
a father the right and the duty to preserve son and daughter
from the influence of pernicious companionship. One could more
reasonably contend against the authority of the Lord in Heaven
to impose upon Adam and Eve in Paradise certain prohibitions.
That a still more seriously pernicious influence can be
brought about by bad books than even by evil companionship can
be denied by no thoughtful man. The evil is none the less
because it may be brought about under the name of freedom and
enlightenment. No father, with a proper consciousness of his
own responsibilities, will permit a son who is still a youth
to receive without restriction teachings, whether religious,
philosophical, medical, or scientific, which have been shaped
for the understanding only of older men.... The father must on
his own authority restrict, direct, and select the literature
upon which is based the instruction of his children. The
authority of the State makes necessary a supervision of the
action and influence of the printing-press. The Church includes
in its responsibilities the relation of the father to the child
and of the Government to the citizen. Its rulers must watch
not only the matter of morality but that of sound doctrine and
wholesome influence. If the ruler of a modern State finds it
impossible to permit the circulation of writings which assail
the character or the person of king or emperor, how much less is
it possible for those who direct the government of the Church
to permit the circulation of writings which assail the wisdom
and the authority of the Lord of Hosts or of his Son. The realm
of the Church is that of faith and of conduct, a realm which is
of necessity directly influenced by the spoken word and still
more by the word circulated in print. It is this realm that must
be defended and protected against the invasion of the poison
of pernicious and unsound writings. As in the modern State, a
special system is required for the organisation of the defensive
power represented by such bodies as the army and the police, so
is it necessary for the Church, with the organisation of its own
ecclesiastical army of bishops, priests, deacons, and soldiers
of the Faith, to establish regulations for discipline, for
defence, and, when the time comes, for assault upon the powers
of evil. This system of the Church is expressed most logically
through its control of thought and of literature, for the Church
works through the mind with spiritual forces. The authorities of
a city are prepared to prohibit, under the severest penalties,
miscellaneous disturbances or a careless handling of dynamite;
such precautions in regard to personal harm as the mayor finds
necessary for the safety of his community, the bishop is under
similar necessity of adopting for the preserving of his flock
against spiritual assaults.”[81]
In 1595, the astronomer, Johann Kepler, completed his first
astronomical treatise, the _Mysterium Cosmographicum_, which was
to be printed in Tübingen. Before the book could come into print, it
was necessary to secure the approval of the senate of the university.
The theological faculty gave permission for the printing only after
cancelling the chapter in which the author undertook to bring the
Copernican system into accord with the Scriptures. In Leipsic, the
printing of the book was prohibited.
The great Elector of Brandenburg, in 1670, ordered that, for the
purpose of avoiding religious strife and controversy, there should be a
thorough censorship of all books, whether printed within his territory
or imported from without, which were concerned with matters of theology
or religion.
An order issued in Cologne in 1662 prescribes that the preachers shall
engage in no disputations or conferences and shall bring into print no
controversial writings, without the specific permission of the Elector
himself.
In 1772, a Cabinet order prescribes that theological books for
which privileges are demanded must be examined and, if necessary,
revised by a consistorial commission comprised of certain Protestant
ecclesiastics. The penalties imposed upon an ecclesiastic for printing
any volume for which special permission had not been secured were
particularly severe.
The persecution of Christian Wolff, who held for a series of years
a professorship in Halle, is cited as a characteristic example of
Protestant censorship and intolerance. The philosophic doctrines
taught by the professor excited the indignation of Frederick II and in
1773, under a Cabinet order, Wolff was deprived of his post and was
ordered to leave Prussian territory within forty-eight hours. Other
instructors who had accepted the so-called Wolffian philosophy, such as
Gabriel Fischer of Königsberg, were in like manner deprived of their
offices and banished from the country. The various operations of royal
censorship under the great Elector and his several successors, up to
and including Frederick the Great, present examples of tyrannical
inconsistency, inconsequence, unreasonableness, ignorance, and
narrowness which have not been surpassed, and have possibly hardly been
equalled, under any of the regulations of the Roman Index.
Frederick the Great developed the political censorship of Prussia
into a system the influence of which persists under the German Empire
of to-day. His censorship was directed more particularly against
literature affecting the interests of the State, but it included the
full control of theological utterances.
After the occupation of Silesia, an order was issued directing the
Bishop of Breslau to submit for the approval of the royal censors,
before publication, all edicts or utterances on the part of the
Catholic Church.
In 1775, the King prohibited the publication in his dominions of the
Bull of Clement XIV.
In 1784, Frederick the Great issued an edict prohibiting under serious
penalties the acceptance by any of his subjects of Catholic doctrines.
This edict being contrary to the conventions in force, he was obliged,
however, to withdraw it.
In 1792, Frederick William issues an order for the systematising of the
censorship of the kingdom. It is directed that all printing-offices,
publishing concerns, and bookshops be placed under the strictest
supervision, that no work shall come into print until it has secured
the approval of the royal censors. The penalties included, in addition
to fines, the cancellation of the editions, and in case of a persistent
disobedience, the banishment of the delinquent. The university
professors are also brought under close supervision for their
utterances in lectures.
In 1794, in which year censorship in England was practically abandoned,
the censorship system in Prussia under Frederick William II. became
more severe and exacting than ever before.
In 1794, the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_ is prohibited in
Prussian dominions as constituting an influence against the Christian
religion. This is an example of a long series of similar prohibitions.
In 1816, the _Rheinische Merkür_ of the poet Görres, who had done
so much to arouse public opinion against Napoleon, was suppressed under
a Cabinet order. The royal censorship was ameliorated under Frederick
William but was again strengthened in 1848 and during the years
immediately succeeding.
In 1844–5 was published at Jena a catalogue entitled _Index Librorum
Prohibitorum_, giving the titles only of books prohibited in Germany.
In 1882, was published in Berlin what is probably the latest of the
State Indexes. It is devoted to a list of works maintaining the
principles of the Social Democrats, which works had been condemned and
prohibited under the authority of an act of the Reichsrath of 1878. The
list includes several hundred publications, chiefly pamphlets.
The political censorship existing to-day throughout Prussia and the
German Empire under the imperial control is of course familiar to all
readers of the 20th century. Between 1878 and the close of the century,
a very long list of Social Democratic writings, pamphlets, books, and
journals came under condemnation and suppression. This policy was
continued into the 20th century, although under present conditions its
thorough enforcement is a matter of increasing difficulty.
Hilgers points out that the instances of Protestant political
censorship against works which are purely literary or intellectual
in their character, that is to say, which had no direct concern with
either religion or politics, are far more numerous than under the
action of the censorship authorities of Rome. Among other examples, he
points out the action of Luther against the works of Erasmus and the
writings of a number of the Humanists; the decree of the Duke of Weimar
(acting at the initiative of Goethe) against _Isis_, and for the
suppression of the epoch-making writings of the philosopher Fichte; the
acts of Frederick the Great against Voltaire, and the measures taken by
Bismarck against a long series of writings that came into print during
the _Kulturkampf_.
An order issued in January, 1903, by the rector of the University of
Berlin, prohibits the delivery of a lecture on Proudhon and Lasalle
on the ground that it was necessary to take “all possible precautions
for the protection of young souls from the pernicious and poisonous
influence of sociological errors.”[82]
In November, 1902, in a convention held at Hamburg of the teachers
of Germany, it was proposed to prohibit the use in schools of the
catechism of Luther and of the Protestant Scriptures.[83]
The German _Goethe-bund_ finds occasion to make protest, in 1903,
against the _lex Heinze_: “In Berlin, we are not only under the
burden of dramatic censorship which never sleeps and which causes
perpetual irritation, but we have to endure the exacting regulations of
the general press law under which are controlled not merely journals
but publications of all kinds. For instance, in the three months from
October to December, 1902, no less than seventy-seven works were
condemned and their further publication prohibited; that is to say,
in these three months the civil authority condemned more books than
had been placed in the prohibitory Index of Rome during the ten years
preceding.” With such experience under the State control of the press,
it is, claims Hilgers, absurd to make reference to “the pernicious
interference with literature on the part of the Church censors.”
Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_, prohibited, in its Italian
translation, in the Roman Index since 1827, had, years before that
date, come under the condemnation of the royal authority of Prussia. In
October, 1792, a Cabinet order contains a bitter characterisation of
the work: “Our sacred person you have with your so-called philosophy
attempted to bring into contempt ... and you have at the same time
assailed the truth of Scriptures and the foundations of Creed belief
(_mich und Gott_).... We order that henceforth you shall employ
your talents to better purpose and that you shall keep silence on
matters which are outside of your proper functions.” The further
circulation of the book was prohibited, but it is fair to remember that
this prohibition proved entirely ineffective to suppress the book, even
in Prussia.
[Sidenote: Holland]
The States General of Holland issued in 1581, and again in 1588, edicts
prohibiting the printing, the reading, and the possession of certain
condemned books, the lists of which were given with the edicts. These
books were described as presenting “papistical superstitions.” In
1598, certain Socinian books which had been printed in Amsterdam were
condemned as heretical by the theological professors of Leyden. The
editions were confiscated and the books were publicly burned in The
Hague.
Among the noteworthy names included in the list of condemned authors
may be cited those of Vondel, Grotius (who was certainly not to be
ranked either as a Socinian or as an unbeliever, but whose form of
Calvinism was not in accord with that of the authorities), Hobbes, and
Spinoza. The poet Vondel, in 1641, went back into the Catholic Church
and thereupon came under the proscription of the Synod of Delft as
well as of the State. Before he accepted the Catholic Faith, he was
accused of being an Arminian and a supporter of Olden-Barneveld. Later,
his tragedy _Maria Stuart_, in which he declaimed against the
murder of the Catholic queen, brought him again into trouble with the
authorities.
Grotius suffered much more severely from the persecution of his
fellow-historians than from any action on the part of censors of the
Roman Church. His friend Olden-Barneveld had lost his life largely
because of differences on theological matters with certain of his
fellow-Calvinists. The same fate would probably have befallen Grotius
if he had not succeeded in escaping from prison.
Hobbes, when instructor in the University of Cambridge, having
undertaken to defend certain propositions concerning the law of
nature, was prohibited from further teaching and was driven from
the university. He betook himself to Amsterdam, but even here, the
_Leviathan_, (printed in London, in 1651,) came under condemnation. The
Roman censors are criticised (and with justice) for their prohibition
of the writings of Spinoza, but the condemnation of Spinoza was much
more severe among his own people than anything that had been proposed
by the authorities of Rome. The ban uttered in the Jewish temple on the
27th of July, 1656, closes with the words:
“We order hereafter that no one shall have communication with
Baruch Espinoza either by word of mouth or in writing, that no
one shall render him any service, that no one shall remain under
the same roof with or even accost him, that no one shall in any
manner have communication with him.”
The works of Spinoza and the _Leviathan_ of Hobbes were brought
under a series of condemnations under the authority of the Prince of
Orange, the States of Holland, the synods of the Church, the local
magistrates, the university authorities, and the Burgomaster of Leyden.
In 1668, Adrian Coerbach, a doctor of medicine of Amsterdam, was
charged with having accepted the opinions of Spinoza and with having
defended these before others. He gave evidence that he had never spoken
with Spinoza and had not spoken publicly of his theories. He was,
however, sentenced to be imprisoned for ten years and thereafter to
be banished from Holland for ten years. In 1678, the Synod of South
Holland, in session at Leyden, gave fresh judgment concerning the
pernicious writings of Spinoza. Between the years 1650–1680, there
were in all no less than fifty similar edicts or judgments, in some
instances accompanied by severe punishments, against the reading or
circulation of the works of Spinoza. In many cases, under the same
judgment was placed the _Leviathan_ of Hobbes.
[Sidenote: Scandinavia]
In Denmark, between the years 1537 and 1770, a severe censorship was
maintained not only against works upholding the Catholic Faith, but
against all books which were not in accord with the Lutheran doctrines
that the Crown had established as the orthodox faith of the kingdom.
Among books other than theological which came under condemnation, may
be noted the _Werther_ of Goethe, condemned in 1776. The severe
prohibitions of the censorship law were not repealed until 1849 and
1866. In Sweden also, where the Lutheran creed had been established
as the faith of the kingdom, a censorship was maintained against
publications which were not in accord with the creed of Luther. In
1667, under a royal ordinance, the booksellers were directed to present
from year to year to the censors a precise catalogue of all the books
carried in stock and to secure permission for the sale of such books.
The penalty was loss of license.
In 1764, was printed, at Upsala, an Index presenting a list of certain
books which are held as prohibited in Sweden. It is to be classed as
an historical tract and not strictly as an Index. The title reads as
follows: _Historia librorum prohibitorum in Suecia; cujus specimen
primum, consensu Ampl. Senat. Philos. Upsal. publica disputatione,
submittunt Samuel J. Alnander, Philos. Magister, et Petrus Kendal,
Stipend. Reg. Ostrogothi, Anno mdcclxiii, Upsaliae._ The thesis
recognises three sources of the power of prohibiting books, the royal
Senate, specified in the title-page; the royal authority by edict; and
the theological faculty of the University of Upsala. The lists are
devoted mainly to works of the 17th century but there are a few titles
from the 16th century. The books condemned are chiefly political. The
volume has value chiefly as an indication of a system of censorship
in a Protestant country and also (in connection with the meagreness
of the lists) of the fact that such system was apparently neither
comprehensive nor exacting.
In 1856, was printed in Gothenburg, in an edition comprising but
sixteen copies, an Index bearing the title, _Elenchus Librorum in
Suecia prohibitorum, saeculorum XVII et XVIII_.
[Sidenote: Censorship by the State in England]
The first censorship in England appears to have been made as a matter
of Church discipline; the bishops assumed in these earlier cases the
sole jurisdiction and the punishments were ecclesiastical--penance and
excommunication. In 1382, the State began to take action in matters of
censorship. The occasion arose from the circulation of the doctrines
of Wyclif, which, together with the teachings of the Lollards, were
assumed to have had influence in bringing about the insurrection of Wat
Tyler. The authorities decided that the bishops did not have the power
required to suppress the inflammatory doctrines, because the preachers
kept moving from one diocese to another and denied at the same time
the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. In 1382, therefore, the
Parliament passed an act directing the civil authorities to arrest
all such preachers and to “hold them in arrest and strong prison until
they will justify themselves to the law and reason of Holy Church.”
The mischief, however, continued and, in 1401, the more severe act
known as “_de haeretico comburendo_” was passed. Dr. Shirley says
that the first victim of this statute was W. Sawtree, preacher at
St. Osyth’s in the City of London. Sawtree was convicted of denying
transubstantiation. Milman points out that the writ for the execution
of Sawtree appears on the Rolls of Parliament before the act itself.
It is possible, therefore, says Milman, that Sawtree suffered under
a special act which had perhaps been proposed for the purpose of
ascertaining, in advance of the consideration of the larger measure,
the feeling of Parliament.
The last instances of execution for heresy in England occurred in 1612,
in which year Bartholomew Legate was burned at Smithfield for holding
Unitarian opinions, and Edward Wightman was burned at Litchfield for
holding no less than nine “damnable heresies.”
The papal Bull issued on June 19, 1520, for the destruction of the
publications of Luther, Wolsey declined to enforce in England. It is
probable that if the Cardinal had been left to himself, the cruel
proceedings which characterised the reign of Henry VIII would not have
been instituted. It is the opinion of Froude that with Wolsey, heresy
was an error, while with More it was a crime.
A prohibitory Index was published in England in 1526, nearly
twenty-five years before the issue of the first Index on the Continent,
and thirty-three years before the first issue in the series of the
Roman Indexes. In March, 1527, Tunstal, Bishop of London, gave to
Thomas More a privilege for the reading of heretical books in order
that, following the example of the King (Henry VIII), More might be
enabled to make good defence of the Catholic Faith against the new
heresies. In June, 1539, the King gave his approval to an act of
Parliament which was concerned particularly with the articles of faith.
The first of these articles had to do with the real presence of Christ
in the Sacrament. The act reads: “If any person writes, preaches, or
disputes against this first article, he shall be punished with death as
a heretic and his property shall be confiscated to the Crown.”
In 1564, Queen Elizabeth issued an instruction to the Bishop of London
to provide for an examination of the cargoes of all the vessels
arriving, in order that pernicious and heretical books should be
secured and destroyed. In 1571, an act of Parliament provided the
punishment of treason against all who should secure from the Bishop of
Rome any bull, brief, or other instrument or should undertake to make
distribution of copies of the same. Under Elizabeth, it was ordered
that any person should be treated as guilty of high treason and should
be liable to sentence of death if he had in his possession a Catholic
book in which was taught the doctrine of the supremacy of the pope.
In 1582, an act of Parliament declared it to be felony to write,
print, sell, distribute, or possess books, rhymes, ballads, letters,
or writings of any kind which contained matter against the fame of
the Queen or in any way injurious to the repute of the Government.
Under this law, two ministers belonging to the sect of the Brownists,
Thacher and Copping, were tried and executed. In 1575, Elizabeth
approved a new act directed against the Anabaptists, the Puritans,
the Brownists, and the Catholics, under the provisions of which act a
number of people were condemned and burned. Among the books prohibited
under the same law, were certain writings of Henry Nicholas of Leyden
which had been translated from the German. It was ordered that any
persons possessing or distributing these writings should be punished.
In 1583, a proclamation was issued by the Queen against the publishers,
booksellers, or possessors of pernicious and schismatic literature. The
Star Chamber, under the law of 1585, prescribed that each university
should keep in activity but one press and prescribed from year to
year the number of presses permitted for London. In 1593, Barrow and
Greenwood, both Brownists, were executed as heretics. It is the view of
the Jesuit historian Hilgers that throughout the whole of the reign of
Elizabeth there was a persistent and bloody persecution against freedom
of thought of any kind. In 1594, Adfield and Carter suffered death
because the former had brought into England a Catholic book and the
latter had had the same in his possession.
A sect that fell under the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth was the
“Family of Love.” The founder was a Dutch Anabaptist, born at Delft,
called David George, but the leader whose influence was of the most
importance was Henry Nicolai of Münster. Nicolai gave out that his
writings were of equal authority with Holy Scripture. “Moses,” he says,
“taught mankind to hope, Christ to believe, but Nicolai taught man to
love, which last is of more worth than both the former.” The Queen
ordered (in 1575) that all books and writings maintaining this doctrine
should be destroyed and burned and that possessors of such books should
be duly punished. In 1608, James I, in a proclamation concerning the
supervision of literature, says: “For better oversight of books of all
sortes before they come to the presse, we have resolved to make choice
of commissioners that shall looke more narrowly into the nature of all
those things that shall be put to the presse, either concerning our
authoritie royall or concerning our government, or the lawes of our
Kingdom.”[84]
In July, 1637, the Star Chamber published an act for the regulation of
literature which in the severity of its censorship can be compared only
with a procedure under Napoleon. It was prohibited to import or make
sale of any books the influence of which was opposed to sound faith or
to the authority of the Church or to the authority of government or
to any rulers or to the interests of the community, or in which there
should be libels or attacks against any corporation or any individual
person. The penalties prescribed included fines, imprisonment, and
bodily punishment, the decision to be made under the authority of the
Chamber. The printing of any book which had not secured the approval
of the Chamber was forbidden under heavy penalties. Books in the
department of jurisprudence must be approved by the Chief Justice or by
some authority appointed by him; books on history and statecraft were
to be approved by the Secretary of State; those on morals by the Lord
Marshal; works on theology, philosophy, natural science, poetry, and
general literature, by the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London
or by the chancellor of one of the two universities. Licenses were to
be issued for but twenty master printers outside of those appointed
directly by the Crown and those allotted to the universities. No
printer was to operate more than two presses or was to have more than
two apprentices. Should anybody undertake to operate a press without
securing a license from the Chamber, he was liable to be placed in the
stocks, to be flogged through the city, and, after judgment, to further
penalties.
In 1638, Alexander Leighton was, under a judgment of the Star Chamber,
condemned in connection with a book entitled: _An Appeal to the
Parliament or Sion’s Plea against the Prelacie_. He was sentenced to
a fine of ten thousand pounds, to degradation from the ministry, and
to be publicly whipped in the palace yard; he was made to stand two
hours in the pillory, one ear was cut off, a nostril slit open, and
one of his cheeks branded with the letters S.S. (Sower of Sedition).
A week later, he underwent a second whipping and a repetition of the
mutilation. He was then left in prison for three years but, in 1641,
had the satisfaction of having his sentence reversed by the House of
Commons. The book had declared the institution of Episcopacy to be
anti-Christian and satanical and it accused the king with having been
corrupted by the bishops to the undoing of himself and his people.
In 1633, Prynne was condemned by the Star Chamber to be fined five
thousand pounds, to be placed in the pillory, to be deprived of his
ears, and to perpetual imprisonment. The book on the ground of which
this punishment was administered was entitled: _The Histriomastix,
the player’s scourge or actor’s tragedies_. Lord Cottington, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, says in his judgment: “I do in the first
place begin censure with Prynne’s book. I condemn it to be burned by
the hangman,” etc. This is said to be the first instance in England in
which a condemned publication was burned by the hangman. Prynne came
again under condemnation, in 1637, in connection with a book called the
_Flagellum Pontificis et Episcoporum Latinorum_, which was said to
have been written in co-operation with J. Bastwick and H. Burton. I do
not find the record of Prynne’s punishment in this case, but Bastwick
was condemned by the High Commission court to pay a fine of one
thousand pounds, to be excommunicated, to be debarred from the practice
of his profession (medicine), and to remain in prison until he recanted
(and that is, he says, “until domesday in the afternoone”).
The practice of burning books was continued by the Puritans, who also
utilised for the purpose the services of the common hangman. One book
so burned (in 1619) was the King’s _Book of Sports_, issued by
James in 1618, on the advice of Morton, Bishop of Chester. It had been
ordered to be read in all churches throughout England. Copies were
publicly burned in a number of the Puritan counties.
The regulations for the control of the press in England were more
strenuous under the Commonwealth and the later Stuarts than before the
death of Charles I. Between the years 1637–1681, more than two hundred
books came upon the condemnation lists. Among the works condemned
and prohibited by Cromwell was the _Areopagitica_ of Milton,
published in 1644. In 1646, was condemned the book by John Biddle
(known as the father of modern Unitarianism) which bore the title:
_Twelve Arguments from Scripture in regard to the Divinity of the
Holy Ghost_. The author was imprisoned and the copies of the book
burned. The censor of the press under the last two Stuarts was Roger
L’Estrange. The penalties in force at the time he assumed the office
providing for the destruction of books, the imprisonment and in certain
cases the death of the authors and printers, were, in his judgment, not
sufficiently severe. He beseeched Parliament to give him authority to
add to these penalties stocks, public whipping, the cutting off of the
hand, the cutting out of the tongue, etc. A printer named Trogan, who
came under the disapproval of the censor, was executed in 1686, with
various revolting details.
In 1642, the Parliament condemned and ordered burned by the hangman
five publications written by Royalists. In each succeeding year,
similar action was taken with publications (mainly pamphlets) written
in opposition to the control of Parliament. A more serious matter for
the authors than the burning of the books was that of the fines. Joseph
Primatt, for instance, in 1652, was fined five thousand pounds for the
publication of a petition to Parliament, and Lilburne was in the same
year fined seven thousand pounds. The first theological work dealt
with by Parliament was a treatise by John Archer entitled _Comfort
for believers about their Sinnes and Troubles_. This was published
in 1645 and in the same year was, under the order of Parliament,
publicly burned in four places. In September, 1650, a monograph by
Lawrence Clarkson entitled _Single Eye, All light, no darkness_,
was condemned to be burned by the hangman and Clarkson, after being
imprisoned for a month, was sentenced to banishment for life. These
instances are selected from a long series of similar condemnations
merely in order to make clear that the theory of the Parliament in
regard to the right and the duty of the Government to prevent the
circulation of pernicious literature (that is to say, literature the
opinions of which were not in accord with those of the existing
authorities) differed in no way from that of the supporters of royalty.
A similar series of condemnations, with burning of the books and fining
of the authors, together with an occasional exposure in the pillory,
was continued through the Restoration. In the year 1690, a treatise by
Arthur Bury, rector of Exeter College, Oxford, issued under the title
of the _Naked Gospels_, was ordered burned under the authority of
the University of Oxford.
In 1698, a Scotchman named Aikenhead, who was at the time a student
of but eighteen years of age, was hanged at Edinburgh, not on account
of any heresies brought into print, but simply because in some wild
talk he had referred to Christianity as a delusion. Under one of the
statutes of Scotland, it was a capital crime to revile or to curse
the Supreme Being or any person of the Trinity. The words used by the
young man were not strictly within the definition of the statute, but
this statute was, under the direction of James Stuart, Lord Advocate of
Scotland, used to bring the boy to execution.[85]
The censorship laws were not repealed as an immediate result of the
Revolution of 1688 but endured until 1695. The regulations then
established maintained for the Crown the full authority to control the
operations of the press, but the penalties were made much less severe.
Among the books condemned under the new legislation were _Christianity
not Mysterious_, by John Toland, _Thoughts concerning Human Souls_, by
William Coward, and the _Fable of the Bees_, by Mandeville, in 1723.
(The last had been published as far back as 1706). Mandeville’s volume
was made the subject of a presentment by the Grand Jury of Middlesex.
The book was described as “a public nuisance, having a tendency to the
subversion of all religion, the undermining of civil government, and
the impairment of our duty to the Almighty.” No penalty was inflicted,
or ordered, upon the author, nor was the book itself suppressed.[86]
Among the books condemned in the succeeding years were _The Doctrine
of the Trinity_, by Samuel Clark, and the _Miracle of Our Saviour_, by
Thomas Woolston. The author of the latter was fined twenty-five pounds
and was then imprisoned until he could raise two thousand pounds. He
died after four years’ imprisonment.
In 1701, a treatise by John Asgill on the _Covenant of Eternal Life_
was burned by the order of two Parliaments, English and Irish. In 1702,
the famous essay by Defoe, _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_, was
burned by the hangman under order of Parliament and Defoe was sentenced
to three days’ punishment in the pillory, to a ruinous fine, and to a
long imprisonment. The trial of Saccheverell brought about the burning,
in 1710, of a long series of books, including his own sermons and
works by both his supporters and adversaries. In 1707, the Grand Jury
of Middlesex made a presentment characterising as a public nuisance
the essay by Matthew Tyndale entitled the _Rights of the Christian
Church_. Tyndale reflects that this proceeding will further “the wider
circulation of one of the best books that have been published in our
age among many people that would not otherwise have heard of it.” It
was burned by the hangman in 1710. In 1722, the Commons agreed with
the resolution of the Peers to have burned at the Royal Exchange the
declaration of the Pretender issued as the declaration of James III.
In 1763, numbers of the _North Briton_, of John Wilkes, who was then
himself a member of the House, were, under an order of the two Houses,
condemned to be burned at the Royal Exchange. The author was expelled
from the House, but secured, after a long contest, a re-election. A
volume issued without name in 1775, under the title of _The present
Crisis in regard to America considered_, was burned on the 24th of
February of that year and is referred to as the last book which the
English Parliament has condemned to the flames.
In 1795, Sheridan proposes to have publicly burned a treatise by Reeve
entitled _Thoughts on English Government_, but his proposal was not
supported. The press law, passed as late as December, 1819, imposed a
penalty of transportation on the writers or printers of godless and
revolutionary works. This law was repealed in 1837, and the legislation
of 1869 finally secured an assured freedom for the press. It is the
conclusion of Catholic writers, in summing up the history of what they
call the exceptionally fierce and brutal censorship of England, that
the responsibility for this rests with the original crime committed
by the State against the Church universal; and with the continued and
demoralising wrong caused by transferring the control of the Church to
the civil authorities.
The history of political censorship, or of censorship by the State in
England, is a large and complex subject to which in a work like this it
is of course, possible only to make reference.
In 1877 was printed (privately) in London a catalogue which from
the title has been classed with the Indexes: _Index librorum
prohibitorum_; being notes bio-, biblio-, and icono-graphical and
critical on curious and uncommon books, compiled by Pisanus Fraxi. This
is, however, simply a list, probably prepared for commercial purposes,
of obscene books.
=4. Summary.=--The instances cited are sufficient to show that
the spirit of Protestantism, in each and all of the sects that came
into power or influence in the State, has through the past centuries
held it to be the right and duty of the Church, and of the State
under the influence of the Church, to supervise and to control the
productions of the printing-press and the reading of the people. The
fact, however, that within the Protestant communion there were so
many points of view, rendered it not only difficult but impossible to
establish any consistent and continuing policy of censorship. There
was also a lack of any effective machinery for carrying out, within
these Protestant territories, such regulations as the censors of the
Church might establish. In certain places and at certain times the
civil authorities, like the magistrates of Geneva or the Elector of
Saxony, were ready to utilise the force of the State for carrying out
the decrees of the Church, but such co-operation and support were
at best (or at worst) but intermittent and spasmodic. In Germany or
in Switzerland, the authority of the State covered but a limited
territory. If the censorship pressure became burdensome in one city,
there was no essential difficulty in moving the composing-room and the
press to some other place where the faith of the magistrates was not
so “orthodox” or so strenuous. As a result, the Protestant writers,
representing all schools of protest, found no continued difficulty in
bringing their productions into print and in circulating these among
sympathetic readers.
The Jesuit historian, while admitting that the condemnation of the
Catholic Church has fallen upon certain works of unquestioned scholarly
value, insists that the Protestant censorship of authors and books
of similar standing has been, to say the least, no less severe. He
maintains, further, that the Catholic policy and methods have been more
consistent, more discriminating, more intelligent, and more moral in
purpose and in effect than those of the Protestants. He emphasises the
importance of distinguishing between the circles of readers for which
different books are fitted, either to do service or to work injury. He
writes: “The works of Grotius, Gibbon, and Guicciardini have a deserved
repute with the scholars. We may admit, that scholars can derive from
such works valuable instruction, but this does not make them suitable
for the reading of the untrained or the half trained. The Church
undertakes always to maintain this distinction.”
The Father sums up his arraignment of the censorship of the State by a
bitter reference to the methods pursued by the Protestant Government
of Prussia with its Catholic subjects in Poland. What answer can an
instructor make in a school in Posen when a child asks why he is
forbidden to read the Polish Catechism? The instructor can only say
that the modern State is all powerful, and that in the execution of its
self-imposed task of crushing out nationality, it is willing to take
the responsibility not only for the interpretation of science, but for
the shaping of belief.[87]
“Whence,” says Hilgers, “do the civil authorities secure the right to
compel Catholic children to accept instruction from heretical books;
and to prohibit the use in Catholic families, outside even of the walls
of the official institutions, the use of Catholic books and documents?
Here is a censorship tyranny with which in the history of Rome there is
nothing to be compared.”