Chapter II: Preface

In these volumes, I have undertaken to present a record of the Indexes which have been issued under the authority of the Church of Rome, or which, having been compiled by ecclesiastics, were published under the authority of the State, between the year 1546 (the date of the first list of prohibited books which may properly be described as an Index) and 1900, in which year was issued the second Index of Leo XIII, the latest in the papal series.

To this record I have added a selection of the more noteworthy examples of censorship during the earlier centuries of the Church (a list which begins with a curious prohibition in 150, probably the earliest instance of censorship by a Church council); a schedule of the more important of the decrees, edicts, pastoral briefs, etc., issued under ecclesiastical authority, which had to do with the matter of censorship; and a specification of certain censorship regulations which, before the publication of the first Index, came into force in the several States of Europe. Such a schedule of decrees and regulations can, of course, lay no claim to completeness. I have attempted simply to present examples of prohibitions and condemnations, from decade to decade, which were typical or characteristic, and from which some impression could be gathered as to the nature and the extent of the censorship experiments throughout the centuries in the several communities concerned.

A brief account has been added of the organisation and of the operations of the Roman Inquisition and of the Congregation of the Index, as it was from these bodies that emanated the series of papal Indexes, and with them rested, from the middle of the sixteenth century, the responsibility for the shaping of the general policy of the Church in regard to censorship. The plan of the treatise does not render it practicable to attempt any general survey of political censorship or the censorship of the State, but I have presented a brief selection of examples of State action in censorship, in order to make the necessary comparison between the methods followed by the State and those of the Church, and to make clear that the censorship of the Roman Church was (at least outside of Spain) not so autocratic in its principles, nor so exacting and burdensome in its methods, as was the censorship which was from time to time attempted by State governments acting for the most part under Protestant influence.

I have attempted to base upon these schedules and records some conclusions as to the actual influence of the general system of censorship, as connected more particularly with the enforcement of the penalties prescribed by the Indexes, upon the production and distribution of literature in the several communities which recognised to a greater or less extent the authority of the Church. An interesting indication of the extent of this influence is given through the records of the business of the printer-publishers and booksellers of the period, in such States as Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and England.

Finally, I have attempted, in the closing chapters, to make a study of the literary policy of the modern Church as indicated in the latest of the papal Indexes and in certain utterances by representative Catholics concerning the censorship policy of the Church, which have come into print during the past quarter of a century.

In collecting the material for the several schedules of Indexes, decrees, etc., I am chiefly indebted to the treatise of Heinrich Reusch, _Der Index der Verbotenen Bücher_, published in Bonn in 1885. Dr. Reusch’s work may be described as monumental in the thoroughness and authoritativeness of its scholarship. The information presented in regard to the series of Indexes and decrees is most comprehensive and precise. The compass of Reusch’s three volumes (which comprise twenty-four hundred closely printed octavo pages) renders them, however, unavailable for the use of the general reader. I have knowledge of no work in English which presents, with any measure of completeness, the record of the Indexes, and of no book in any language which attempts a general survey of the purpose and results of the censorship of the Church. It has seemed to me, therefore, that I might render some service to the study of the conditions affecting literary production and distribution, by utilising certain portions of the material collected by Reusch in a work prepared for English-speaking readers, which should present the schedule of the Indexes and a summary of the more noteworthy of the decrees, edicts, briefs, etc., having to do with censorship, and by connecting with this a study of the results secured through this censorship policy of the Church and of the range of its influence.

I have been able to include in the catalogue of Indexes certain titles which were not listed by Reusch, and I have added the record of the Indexes which have been published since the date of Reusch’s treatise. I have not been dependent upon Reusch’s schedules for the contents of the Indexes themselves, as I have been able to make a personal examination of all of the more important Indexes in the series from examples in my own library, and in the comprehensive collection of my valued friend Mr. Archer M. Huntington. Mr. Huntington has, I may mention, rendered a most important service to students of the Index through his reprints, produced in facsimile, of five of the earlier issues as follows: Louvain, 1546; Louvain, 1550; Cordova, 1550; Cordova, 1554; Valladolid, 1559.

Certain Indexes have been selected from the long series as on one ground or another entitled to special attention. For these I have given, in addition to some analysis of the prefatory matter, the accompanying Bull and the regulations, and a specification of the more important of the literature which is represented in the lists of the books condemned. Among the Indexes that call for such fuller description and analysis are the following: Louvain, 1546, (usually classed as the first in the series of the Church Indexes); Rome, 1559, (the first in the series of papal Indexes); Trent, 1564, (the papal Index which secured the widest and most continued influence); Rome, 1607, (the only expurgatory Index in the papal series); Rome, 1664, (in which is presented the condemnation of Galileo); Rome, 1758, (the Index which marked the beginning of the wider literary policy for the Church); Rome, 1900, (the latest of the papal Indexes and the one which must, therefore, be taken as expressing the present literary policy of Rome). I have also given, with some detail, analyses of certain of the Spanish expurgatory Indexes, as these present a class of censorship quite distinct in character and not attempted outside of Spain.

Separate chapters are devoted to the treatment throughout the series of Indexes of certain subjects of continued importance, such as the relations between the Church and State, the consideration given to Erasmus and to Luther, the treatment of the monastic orders, etc.

In Chapter IX of the second volume, is presented a study of the influence of the Index upon the book-trade in the several States of Europe. While there are in existence no trustworthy statistics for such a record, certain general results can be determined from the history of the printer-publishers and from the transfer of the centres of book production and distribution from the States which were under the direct control of the Index regulations to territories in which the action of censorship was less effective, or, as in Holland, non-existent.

The titles of the works utilised or cited as authorities from which quotations have been made will be found in the bibliography. I have thought it desirable, for the convenience of later students of the subject, to include also in this bibliography the titles of certain other important works having to do with the subject of censorship, from which I did not have occasion or opportunity to make citations.

I desire to express special acknowledgment to Dr. Mendham, whose _Literary Policy of the Church of Rome_ was published in London in 1834. The author made a thorough study of such of the Roman and Spanish Indexes as were within his reach, and he has been able to throw no little light upon the methods adopted in Church censorship. His vivacious treatise, which may be said fairly to bristle with controversial opinions and conclusions, constitutes a curious antithesis to the volumes of Reusch, who hardly permits himself to connect with his comprehensive catalogues and records any opinions whatsoever.

For matters connected with the Inquisition, the authorities are the well-known _Histoire de l’Inquisition_ of Llorente, and the monumental _History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages_ by Henry C. Lea. The first volume of Lea’s _History of the Inquisition in Spain_ comes into publication just as my own work is completed. For the history of the operations of the Church in Spain, operations which were largely conducted under the authority of the Spanish Inquisition, I have, however, been able to utilise Lea’s _Religious History of Spain_, which for this division of the subject-matter is the book most frequently cited. (In the Spanish chapters, in order to avoid the repetition of the full title, the reference has been made simply to “Lea,” and is to be understood as connected with the above volume.)

For matters connected with the book-trade and with the influence on the work of the publishers of the regulations of the Index, the chief citations are from Kapp’s _Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels_ and from Putnam’s _Books and their Makers in the Middle Ages_.

The leading authority for the modern Catholic view of the literary policy of the Church is the treatise on the Index by the Jesuit Father Hilgers, which was published in Freiburg as recently as 1905, and which is certainly a most forcible and effective example of controversial writing.

A little volume by the Paulist Father Searle entitled _Plain Facts for Fair Minds_, published in New York in 1895, is valuable for its statement of the present policy of the Church in regard to the relation of faith with science and as to the rightful influence of the authority of the Church upon intellectual action.

A treatise by Charles Dejob, a French Catholic, which came into print in Paris in 1885, has been found interesting for its effective presentation of the Gallican point of view, both of the present date and of the earlier centuries, in regard to controversial matters.

I have occasion to render a cordial personal acknowledgment to the well-known scholar the Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, of the Catholic University of America, for most friendly service and valuable suggestions. I owe thanks also for friendly counsel received from the Rev. A. A. Lambert, of the Paulist Fathers.

With the expectation that these volumes will be used chiefly for purposes of reference, it has seemed desirable to arrange the material according to the cyclopaedia method, under certain main headings with sub-headings for the special divisions of each subject. Such an arrangement involves, of necessity, some repetition, but it is hoped that the convenience of securing for the presentation of each subject division a larger measure of completeness, may outweigh the annoyance, from the literary point of view, of an occasional reiteration.

G. H. P.

NEW YORK, October, 1906.

ERRATA.

_Page._ _Line._
XVIII. 27. _For_ Bibliotheca, _read_ Bibliothecae.
XXI. 24. „ erudita, „ eruditae
161. 28. „ Ferdinand, „ Ferdinandi
166. 23. „ Diologis, „ Dialogis
180. 3. „ Tridentinae, „ Tridentina
201. 32. „ Expurgatur, „ Expurgatae
201. 33. „ Prodierunt, „ Prodierint
217. 21. „ Selectissimum, „ Selectissimorum
236. 21. „ Imamorato, „ Inamorato
241. 15. „ Venito, „ Veneto
242. 2. „ Aliquot, „ Aliquod
242. 2. „ Placatum, „ Peccatum
242. 5. „ Indictis, „ in dictis
243. 9. „ Emendationis, „ Emendatioris
245. 13. „ Regularam, „ Regularum
252. 21. „ Hominis, „ Hominibus
253. 20. „ Dèque, „ Deque
268. 9. „ Indices, „ Indicis
290. 14. „ Expurgatae, „ Expurgati
290. 14. „ Permittentur, „ Permittuntur
292. 6. „ Fidelitas, „ Fidelitatis
292. 7. _After_ nunc, a _comma_.
292. 8. _For_ Principo, _read_ Principe
294. 2. „ Veribus, „ Viribus
299. 20. „ Indici, „ Indice
308. 22. „ Siu, „ Sui
320. 19. „ Sine, „ Sive
331. 35. „ Erasimana, „ Erasmiana
336. 4. „ Haes, „ Haec
345. 19. „ quorumdam „ quorundam
352. 5 and 12. „ Bailliet, „ Baillet
352. 13. „ Veritatum, „ Veritatem

CONTENTS

PAGE