Chapter III (6)

149. In these exclusive privileges, the printer was forced to call in the magistrate for his own benefit. But there was often a different sort of interference by the civil power with the press. The destruction of books, and the prohibition of their sale, had not been unknown to antiquity; instances of it occur in the free republics of Athens and Rome; but it was naturally more frequent under suspicious despotisms, especially when to the jealousy of the state was superadded that of the church, and novelty, even in speculation, became a crime.[511] Ignorance came on with the fall of the empire, and it was unnecessary to guard against the abuse of an art which very few possessed at all. With the first revival of letters in the eleventh and twelfth centuries sprang up the reviving shoots of heretical freedom; but with Berenger and Abelard came also the jealousy of the church, and the usual exertion of the right of the strongest. Abelard was censured by the council of Soissons in 1121, for suffering copies of his book to be taken without the approbation of his superiors, and the delinquent volumes were given to the flames. It does not appear, however, that any regulation on this subject had been made.[512] But when the sale of books became the occupation of a class of traders, it was deemed necessary to place them under restraint. Those of Paris and Bologna, the cities, doubtless, where the greatest business of this kind was carried on, came altogether into the power of the universities. It is proved by various statutes of the university of Paris, originating, no doubt, in some authority conferred by the crown, and bearing date from the year 1275 to 1403, that booksellers were appointed by the university, and considered as its officers, probably matriculated by entry on her roll; that they took an oath, renewable at her pleasure, to observe her statutes and regulations; that they were admitted upon security, and testimonials to their moral conduct; that no one could sell books in Paris without this permission; and that they could expose no book to sale without communication with the university, and without its approbation; that the university fixed the prices, according to the tariff of four sworn booksellers, at which books should be sold, or lent to the scholars; that a fine might be imposed for incorrect copies; that the sellers were bound to fix up in their shops a priced catalogue of their books, besides other regulations of less importance. Books, deemed by the university unfit for perusal were sometimes burned by its order.[513] Chevillier gives several prices for lending books (pro exemplari concesso scholaribus) fixed about 1303. The books mentioned are all of divinity, philosophy, or canon law; on an average, the charge for about twenty pages was a sol. The university of Toulouse exercised the same authority; and Albert III., archduke of Austria, founding the university of Vienna about 1384, copied the statutes of Paris in this control over bookselling as well as in other respects.[514] The stationarii of Bologna were also bound by oath, and gave sureties, to fulfil their duties towards the university; one of these was, to keep by them copies of books to the number of one hundred and seventeen, for the hire of which a price was fixed.[515] By degrees, however, a class of booksellers grew up at Paris, who took no oath to the university, and were consequently not admitted to its privileges, being usually poor scholars, who were tolerated in selling books at a low price. These were of no importance, till the privileged, or sworn traders, having been reduced by a royal ordinance of 1488 to twenty-four, this lower class silently increased, at length the practice of taking an oath to the university fell into disuse.[516]

[511] Id.

[512] Hist. Litt. de la France, ix. 28.

[513] Chevillier, Origines de l’Imprimerie de Paris, p. 302, et seq.
Crevier, ii. 66.

[514] Chevillier, ibid.

[515] Savigny, iii. 540.

[516] Chevillier, 334-351.

|Restraints on sale of printed books.|

150. The vast and sudden extension of the means of communicating and influencing opinion which the discovery of printing afforded, did not long remain unnoticed. Few have temper and comprehensive views enough not to desire the prevention by force of that which they reckon detrimental to truth and right. Hermolaus Barbarus, in a letter to Merula, recommends that, on account of the many trifling publications which took men off from reading the best authors, nothing should be printed without the approbation of competent judges.[517] The governments of Europe cared little for what seemed an evil to Hermolaus. But they perceived that, especially in Germany, a country where the principles that were to burst out in the Reformation were evidently germinating in this century, where a deep sense of the corruptions of the church pervaded every class, that incredible host of popular religious tracts, which the Rhine and Neckar poured forth like their waters, were of no slight danger to the two powers, or at least the union of the two, whom the people had so long obeyed. We find, therefore, an instance, in 1480, of a book called Nosce Teipsum, printed at Heidelberg with the approving testimonies of four persons, who may be presumed, though it is not stated, to have been appointed censors on that occasion.[518] Two others, one of which is a Bible, have been found printed at Cologne in 1479; in the subscription to which, the language of public approbation by the university is more express. The first known instance, however, of the regular appointment of a censor on books is in the mandate of Berthold, archbishop of Mentz, in 1486. “Notwithstanding,” he begins, “the facility given to the acquisition of science by the divine art of printing, it has been found that some abuse this invention, and convert that which was designed for the instruction of mankind to their injury. For books on the duties and doctrines of religion are translated from Latin into German, and circulated among the people, to the disgrace of religion itself; and some have even had the rashness to make faulty versions of the canons of the church into the vulgar tongue, which belong to a science so difficult, that it is enough to occupy the life of the wisest man. Can such men assert, that our German language is capable of expressing what great authors have written in Greek and Latin on the high mysteries of the Christian faith, and on general science? Certainly it is not; and hence they either invent new words, or use old ones in erroneous senses; a thing especially dangerous in sacred Scripture. For who will admit that men without learning, or women, into whose hands these translations may fall, can find the true sense of the gospels, or of the epistles of St. Paul? much less can they enter on questions which, even among catholic writers, are open to subtle discussion. But since this art was first discovered in this city of Mentz, and we may truly say by divine aid, and is to be maintained by us in all its honour, we strictly forbid all persons to translate, or circulate when translated, any books upon any subject whatever from the Greek, Latin, or any other tongue, into German, until, before printing, and again before their sale, such translations shall be approved by four doctors herein named, under penalty of excommunication, and of forfeiture of the books, and of one hundred golden florins to the use of our exchequer.”[519]

[517] Beckmann, iii. 98.

[518] Beckmann, 99.

[519] Beckmann, 101, from the fourth volume of Guden’s Codex
Diplomaticus. The Latin will be found in Beckmann.

|Effect of printing on the Reformation.|

151. I have given the substance of this mandate rather at length, because it has a considerable bearing on the preliminary history of the Reformation, and yet has never, to my knowledge, been produced with that view. For it is obvious that it was on account of religious translations, and especially those of the Scripture, which had been very early printed in Germany, that this alarm was taken by the worthy archbishop. A bull of Alexander VI., in 1501, reciting that many pernicious books had been printed in various parts of the world, and especially in the provinces of Cologne, Mentz, Treves, and Magdeburg, forbids all printers in these provinces to publish any books without the licence of the archbishops or their officials.[520] We here perceive the distinction made between these parts of Germany and the rest of Europe, and can understand their ripeness for the ensuing revolution. We perceive, also, the vast influence of the art of printing upon the Reformation. Among those who have been sometimes enumerated as its precursors, a place should be left for Schœffer and Gutenberg; nor has this always been forgotten.[521]

[520] Id. 106.

[521] Gerdes, in his Hist. Evangel. Reformati, who has gone very
laboriously into this subject, justly dwells on the influence of
the art of printing.