Chapter I: Introductory: the Index and Censorship (2)

More than one scholar has been quoted as saying that the intellectual life and development of Europe during the centuries between 1556 and 1800 could be traced by the lists of condemned books, and that these books would in themselves constitute a fairly complete library for the thoughtful student. There might be ground for complaint that, owing to the remissness or ignorance of the censors, the lists included titles of a number of works not valuable enough to deserve condemnation, and omitted many of real value and continued importance. Irrespective of such inconsiderable exceptions in one direction or another, there can, I judge, be no question that a very large proportion, one may say by far the largest proportion, of the world’s literature that stood for intellectual activity and insight, literature which expressed the conclusions of the greatest minds of their several generations, and which stood for the development and the civilisation of the community itself, had been placed by the Church in the Index of condemned and prohibited books. Comparatively few of these books of light and leading had been omitted (and those apparently through inadvertence) and comparatively few books had been included which, apart from any questions of heresy or pernicious doctrine, would, under a standard not theological, be classed as dangerous or unwholesome for the community. In fact, the service of the Index in suppressing or in discouraging books _contra bonos mores_ may be characterised as unimportant.

I have referred to the service to literature and to the intellectual development of mankind (a service none the less important because it was so entirely unintended) brought about through the action of the Church in preparing Indexes that served to chronicle the books of the thinkers and thus to preserve and extend their teachings. It is natural to enquire to what extent this service was offset by the interference with literary production and distribution caused by the burdens of censorship and by the repressive measures of the inquisitors and other censors. To such an enquiry there can be no very satisfactory answer. The materials or data for any precise calculation do not exist. In the chapter on the Index and the Book-trade, I have however presented such general data as I have been able to secure concerning the effect of the censorship regulations upon the operations in different States of the printer-publishers and the booksellers.

It is evident that the extent of the influence of the system is not to be measured by the number of books condemned after publication or after being put into type. It is probable that the restrictions and detriments placed in the way of literary production constituted a more important influence on the intellectual life and development of the people than the cancellation or expurgation of books that had already come into existence. These latter might be reprinted, and to a considerable extent were reprinted, in other countries, in which case their authors would be able to feel that their work had not been altogether without results. But the influence of the writers who were deterred from writing, and of the lecturers who were afraid to continue to speak, was lost not only for their own community but for their own development, unless, as from time to time happened, they preferred banishment to repression and silence. Whether the leaders of thought were expatriated or were silenced, the effect in the home country on the university centres and on the so-called educated circles was the same.

At the very time when in Italy, France, Germany, and the Low Countries the intellectual activities were greater than ever before known, and minds working in new directions of research were expressing themselves in varied and suggestive literary productions, scholarship in Spain had been confined in a few fixed channels, its expression had become stilted and reiterative, and the literature of thought, imagination, and opinion had almost disappeared. It would be interesting to ascertain whether an intelligent Romanist of to-day, who believed conscientiously in the necessity, or at least in the wisdom, of ecclesiastical censorship, would be prepared to accept as satisfactory the results of such a system in the one country in which it had been carried on with any measure of consistency and thoroughness.

It must at the same time be borne in mind that this censorship was not imposed upon Spain by an authority from without. The power of Rome was never applied, either in regard to literature or to other matters controlled by the Church, with greater strenuousness or severity in Spain than in France or in Italy itself. In fact, whether from choice or from necessity, the direction of the affairs of the Church of Spain, and the regulation of the discipline of its members, were left by the Papacy to be controlled by the Spanish ecclesiastics themselves. The Inquisition, as organised in Spain, was the creation of Spaniards and, with hardly an exception, the inquisitors who during the centuries in question carried on its work were Spanish in birth and in training. The policy of placing in the hands of the Inquisition the creation and the administration of a system of censorship of literature, and the responsibility for the preparation of the Indexes, is one for which the rulers of the kingdom, acting naturally under the influence of their spiritual advisers, must be held directly responsible. The ecclesiastics succeeded in convincing not one but successive Kings of Spain that for the safety and welfare of the community literature and education, higher as well as elementary, must be placed under the supervision of the Church.

A further responsibility, however, for this abandonment to ecclesiastical control of the intellectual life of the community must rest with the people themselves. If the literary productions of Spain were restricted and hampered to the point of crushing out altogether, if the men of active minds were banished or made dumb, if the business of the printer-publishers was brought to a close, and if the few enterprising readers who, notwithstanding the instructions of their confessors, might still venture to interest themselves in current literature, were obliged to depend for their supplies upon the chance of securing copies of the prohibited books smuggled in with bales of merchandise, it was because the people of Spain had decided for themselves that such methods were necessary for their spiritual safety. It may well be a matter of surprise that, under the conditions of censorship obtaining during the 16th and 17th centuries, it should have been possible to bring into existence any such national literature as that which is described by Ticknor and other historians. With a censorship which, in form at least, differed very little in the several great Catholic States of Europe, the fact that the Spaniards were willing to accept and to give obedience to a series of regulations, of penalties, and of prohibitions such as it proved to be impossible to enforce in Italy, in France, or in Germany, is evidence of some special quality in the Spanish nature.

In Italy, the fulminations of the Church in regard to heretical or dangerous literature were, in form at least, as severe in their penalties and as sweeping in their prohibitions as those which emanated from the inquisitors in Spain. There appears, however, to have been no period during which there was any consistent consecutive system applied throughout the entire Italian peninsula in carrying out the regulations that had been formulated by the Inquisition of Rome or by the Congregation of the Index. The successive papal Indexes were produced at considerable and very varying intervals. There is no evidence in the series of these Indexes of any definite policy in regard to the terms of years to be covered or the extent or the classes of the literature which was to be considered. From time to time, as successive popes assumed the papal chair, there would come one possessing a larger measure of literary interests or a clearer perception of the influence of literature upon the religious conditions of the community. Instructions would then be given for the production of a new papal Index, the lists in which would include, in addition to the more important of the titles in the preceding Indexes, the works of the later period the use of which was to be forbidden.

As will be made clear in the detailed record of the papal Indexes, the attempt was made but once in Rome to produce an _Index Expurgatorius_. The popes and the members of the Congregation, who had the immediate responsibility for the work, appear to have shrunk from a task with which the Spanish inquisitors had charged themselves without hesitancy, namely the reshaping of books which had already come into circulation and influence, in such manner as to eliminate heretical passages or expressions which might in any way conflict with sound doctrine. The fact that through such eliminations and interpolations the purpose and character of the work might be materially altered and the author might be made responsible for utterances or opinions which were not his own, or the further fact that through any such reshaping the literary form, and sometimes even the actual sense of the narrative, was practically sacrificed, did not trouble the minds of the revisers selected by the Spanish inquisitors.

The effectiveness of the prohibitions and regulations instituted in Rome by the Congregation of the Index varied materially in the different Italian States. The printer-publishers of Rome were naturally obliged to give respect to the papal ordinances concerning literature, but even in Rome itself it was usually not difficult to secure through the booksellers, in Venetian, Florentine, or foreign editions, copies of prohibited books. It was in Venice that, as far at least as the territory of Italy was concerned, the smallest measure of attention was paid to the prohibitions of the Roman Index. The contest instituted, about 1580, by Paolo Sarpi against the authority of Rome to control the printing-presses of Venice, was not the beginning but really the culmination of a long series of active protests on the part not only of the printers, but of the government of the republic itself. In fact, the conflict in which Sarpi took place as leader was brought about immediately by a renewal of attempts on the part of the Curia to secure for Rome the control of censorship in Venice.

In the Catholic States of South Germany, the record of the censorship of Rome is very similar to that which has been noted in the case of the Italian States. There were times in which very strenuous censorship regulations were issued, under the authority of either emperor or prince, in such cities as Vienna, Basel, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, etc. The immediate result of such ordinances was to check the operations and to curtail the undertakings of the local printers, but the effect on the final circulation of the books condemned was but inconsiderable.

In France, the prohibitions of the papal Indexes and the censorship regulations instituted by the Roman Congregation of the Index were not accepted as binding unless and until they had been confirmed by the rulers of the Gallic Church, and there were but few instances in which the French bishops attempted to take action in regard to censorship excepting under instructions emanating from the Crown. There was, under the successive kings, not a little variety of policy in connection with censorship, and of method in carrying out the policy adopted. With certain monarchs the influence of the ecclesiastics was much stronger than with others, and during such reigns, the decisions concerning the acceptance of the Roman Indexes and the work of preparing the Indexes originating in France were left in the hands of the bishops. From reign to reign, however, the precedent became more firmly established that the final authority in the matter rested with the Crown, and that even when the immediate direction of censorship was left with the bishops, their power to act came to them not from the pope, but from the king.

Any jealousy that may have existed with the ecclesiastics against interference on the part of the State with functions elsewhere held as belonging to the control of the Church, appears in France to have been more than offset by the determination of the Gallic Church to maintain its full independence against Rome. Censorship in France remained, therefore, a matter kept under the direct control of the Crown, to an extent which was paralleled in no country excepting England. The Kings of France, during the two centuries succeeding the invention of printing, were for the most part more keenly interested in furthering the operations of the printer-publishers, than in protecting the doctrines of the Church and the faith of believers against the risks of heretical literature. The undertakings of the printers had been made part of the work of the royal university, and the literary achievements of the Paris press brought prestige to the rulers of France.

Censorship was, of course, exercised, and in the case of theological works, the supervision of which was confided to the divines of the Sorbonne, the prohibitions and restrictions were not infrequently narrow and burdensome. It was the case, however, that the press of Paris was on the whole less seriously interfered with during the censorship period than that of any other Catholic State. It was further true, also, that while the prohibition of a book by the Sorbonne did from time to time block the sale of the Paris edition, bringing serious loss to the original publisher, it could not prevent the distribution of copies even among French readers. A work that had proved of sufficient importance to be placed on a Paris Index was pretty sure to be promptly printed in Lyons or in Tours, and if or when the authority of the censors had succeeded in stopping the operations of the provincial printers, the presses of Geneva, Cologne, and Amsterdam were always ready to supply the demand that was quite certain to continue for a work classed as heretical or dangerous. The total circulation and final influence of the book was, therefore, likely to be furthered rather than restricted by the action of the censors.

In the Low Countries, and particularly in Holland, the operations of the censors and Index-makers of Italy, Spain, and France constituted a factor of not a little importance in furthering the development of the book-trade. The printer-publishers of Holland kept themselves promptly informed of the operations of the various authorities which had taken upon themselves the task of supervising the literature of the world. Early copies of all the original Indexes found their way, as soon as produced, to Leyden, Amsterdam, and Utrecht, and were promptly utilised by the enterprising Dutch publishers as guides for their publishing undertakings. Within a few months of the time when the censors of Rome or of Paris had completed, as they supposed, the cancellation of the local editions of the condemned books, copies of the Holland issues would begin to find their way, more or less surreptitiously, into the hands of the readers of the country of origin. Literature is, in this respect, like water; whatever the intervening obstacles, it is pretty sure to find its level, or, like air, to find its way under the pressure of the mass of the intellectual atmosphere to the points where there exists an intellectual vacuum or need.

It is certain that at a time when, in the absence of journals, there were but limited means of information as to the existence or the character of literary productions, the Indexes proved to be most serviceable guides concerning books for which communities were waiting. The restrictions and prohibitions of the censorship system brought serious and sometimes crushing difficulties upon publishing undertakings in certain centres, but proved of invaluable service as suggestions for active-minded readers throughout Europe, and also for the undertakings of publishers in countries like Holland, who, free from restrictions at home, were very ready to utilise their presses for the profitable work of distributing abroad literature for which the Church, in advertising it as heretical, had taken pains to prepare the way and to provide a public. However great were the difficulties brought through the Church censorship upon the book-trade in other communities, it was certainly the case that for the printer-publishers and book-distributors of Holland it secured very direct and considerable advantages.

In England, even prior to the schism under Henry VIII, the Church of Rome never secured any control over the censorship of the press. The responsibility for the production of books had, with special reference to the convenience of supervision, been concentrated at an early date in the Stationers’ Company. The supervision of the operations of this company was retained under the direct control of the Crown and was carried out by officials appointed under royal authority. These supervisors or censors were for the most part not ecclesiastics. Such censorship as took place in England was in fact more largely political than ecclesiastical. The perils guarded against had to do with assaults upon the authority of the Crown rather than with opinions classed as heretical by the Church.

It was also the case that while the book-trade of the realm had, very conveniently for the censors, been centred in London and organised under the Company of Stationers, there were from time to time presses in activity outside of the capital, presses the work of which very largely escaped supervision. Either through such county town issues or by means of supplies imported from Holland, it is probable that English readers who were prepared to interest themselves in heretical literature met with no serious or continued difficulties in the way of securing the desired material. For England as for Holland and North Germany, the Indexes published at Rome and elsewhere served also as convenient guides for the book-buying and the reading of the more active-minded members of the community.

As before stated, it is not easy to arrive at any trustworthy net result concerning the final effect upon the literary conditions of Europe of the work of the ecclesiastical censors. The preceding brief summary gives my impression as to the more immediate effect of the censorship in the more important States which were within reach of the supervision of the Church. It would appear as if the literary conditions of each community had been hampered or interfered with in almost direct proportion to the efficiency of the censorship machinery. To the extent to which the prohibitions and restrictions of the Indexes were carried out consistently, literary activity was checked, the production of higher literature was lessened, and the intellectual capacities of the people were stunted.

It seems hardly possible that the indirect service, to which reference has been made, that was rendered by the work of the censors in emphasising for communities not within the control of their prohibitions the distinctive interest and abiding importance of the prohibited books, could make an adequate offset for the sterilising influence exerted within the communities that were under thorough supervision and control.

The system of organised Church censorship had its origin during the time of the Reformation in the necessity under which the Church felt itself of protecting the faithful, and perhaps more particularly the doubtful, from the influence of heretical arguments presented in printed form. The earlier history of the Indexes is therefore closely associated with the record of the conflict of the centuries between Protestantism and the Church. This relation has, however, a confusing effect in the attempt to estimate the direct influence of the censorship upon literature, for the reason that the direction of literary activities and the character of literary production were, during the two centuries succeeding the first protests of Luther, very materially affected, outside entirely of the influence of the censorship, by the theological and controversial tendencies of the time. The Reformation was an intellectual revolution, and the contest was carried out on both sides with intellectual weapons. These controversies had the effect of sharpening men’s minds and of cultivating the capacity for thought, for analysis, and for reasoning power. In reading the controversial literature which proceeded on the one hand from such Protestant centres as Wittenberg and Geneva, and on the other from Rome, Cologne, or Louvain, it may well be to-day a matter of surprise that the writers were able to count upon circles of readers likely to be interested in their dissertations and capable of understanding the class of arguments presented. It was the case during the 16th and 17th centuries not only that long series of controversial works were prepared by scholars for the reading of scholars, but that great masses of material, mainly in the form of pamphlets, were placed upon the market for the instruction or the influencing of what we should to-day call the common people. The tracts, “flyleaves” (_flügschriften_), which were distributed from the presses of Wittenberg were addressed directly to artisans, farmers, and peasants. For a few years, the controversial literature of this class was monopolised by the Protestants. The arguments of the defenders of the Church were addressed to the scholars and preachers with the idea of reaching through them the understanding of the common people. Before the middle of the 16th century, however, Catholic writers also began to give attention to the production of controversial literature addressed directly to the common people. The historian who to-day examines the files of this Reformation literature is struck by the high estimate placed by the writers on both sides upon the understanding of these readers among the people. It would be difficult to find to-day among the peasants of Germany, or in the same classes of other countries, any body of readers who would be prepared to interest themselves in thoughtful literature of such a standard, or who would be competent to follow the reasoning and the arguments of these controversialists of the Reformation period. It may be borne in mind, as a credit to the educational influence of the Roman Church, that these communities, the common people of which were sufficiently intelligent to be influenced to the point of revolution by the arguments of the Protestant leaders, must have owed their education almost entirely to the priests of the Church of Rome.

While, in this direction of controversy, the Reformation had a stimulating effect on the intellectual interests of a number of the European States, it may be admitted that in certain respects its influence upon literature was hampering and restricting rather than elevating. In the countries in which the Protestant opinions secured control there was, for a considerable period at least, a decided setback to the study of the classics and to all literary production outside of the domain of theology or religion. The interest in classical literature which had been initiated in Italy under the so-called Renaissance and in connection with the rediscovery of the great works of Greece, was for the time lost sight of in the Protestant States of Germany and of the Netherlands and among the Calvinists of France and of England. Classic writers were classed as “pagans” and their works were discouraged as likely to have a worldly influence on the minds of the faithful. The work in the universities in these States was, outside of the theological faculties, more and more restricted to what might be called utilitarian channels. The textbooks planned by Melancthon and his associates were of distinctive service for elementary education and undoubtedly represented a material advance over the books of the same grade which had been utilised for the elementary Catholic school. For a considerable period, however, the educational advance stopped with this elementary work; and in the universities there was a lack of higher grade teaching and a narrowing of the whole course of training.

The letters of Erasmus emphasise the conviction that took shape in his mind as to the essential injury brought upon the cause of higher scholarship by the absorption of so large a proportion of the active-minded thinkers in matters purely controversial. He believed strongly in the necessity for radical reforms in the Church. He recognised as clearly as did the Protestant leaders the enormity of the evils which had been permitted to creep into the administration of the affairs of the Church and to corrupt both the teachers and the hearers. He looked with dismay, however, upon the operations of the reformers when these took the shape of antagonism to the final authority of pope or council and thus constituted an assault upon the very existence of the Church Universal.

To Erasmus and to other scholarly readers in the Church whose devotion to the religious purposes of the Church organisation was possibly purer minded and more consistent than his own, men like Sir Thomas More, and Dean Colet, it seemed essential for the wise management of the Church upon which depended the maintenance of the true faith, that the leadership and authority should be left in the hands of scholars. They dreaded lest the establishment of the doctrine of individual interpretation, of the right of believers to a direct relation with their Creator, and the shaping of creeds and of rules of action apart from the counsel and guidance of trained ecclesiastics, must of necessity lead to such excesses as were evidenced in the performances of the Anabaptists in Westphalia, or in the utterances of the fanatics who incited the peasant revolt in Saxony.

It may be concluded, therefore, that while the machinery of ecclesiastical censorship remained in force only in the countries which the Reformation had not succeeded in detaching from the control of the Church, there was no such immediate advantage, at least during the half-century succeeding the work of Luther, in the production and distribution of literature in the Protestant countries as might have been expected to result from the freedom secured from the interference of the ecclesiastics. By the close of the 16th century, however, when the Protestant control of the States which have since remained Protestant seemed to be fairly assured (an assurance which was, to be sure, rudely interrupted twenty years later, by the opening of the “Thirty Years War”), there came a reaction in the educational centres in these States in favour of the work of higher education. The study of Greek, and to a smaller extent that of Hebrew, was taken up in certain of the Protestant colleges. A wide circulation was secured for the text of the Greek Testament, which had been issued by Erasmus through the presses of Froben in Basel, and in connection more particularly with this Testament the study of Greek was carried on with increasing interest in Wittenberg, Erfurt, and other of the educational centres of North Germany. The introduction, for the purpose of Greek study, of the editions of the great Greek classics, prepared by Aldus and one or two other of the more enterprising printers, naturally brought with it a renewed interest in the works of the Latin writers. These were no longer classed as pagan frivolities but were accepted as belonging to the intellectual property of the world.

This revival of letters, untrammelled by Church censorship, was, of necessity, seriously interfered with during the ravages of the “Thirty Years War.” A considerable period elapsed after the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, before the disasters and destructions of this long contest were sufficiently made good to enable the natural interests and activities of the people to resume their course. By the beginning, however, of the 18th century, the larger intellectual activities of the Protestant States of Europe had made themselves clearly apparent. The literary production of these States not only greatly exceeded in mass that of the Catholic States, but included a very much larger proportion of what might be called the world’s books, that is to say, of books which exerted a continued and increasing influence from generation to generation. The great works of imagination, the records of noteworthy scientific discoveries, the histories accepted as authoritative, the treatises in higher metaphysics, were produced, of course not exclusively, but in very much greater proportion, in the countries which had either thrown off altogether the authority of Rome, or which, as was the case with France, while still classed as faithful to the Church, had practically refused to accept the supervision of the Roman Church over their national literature. It may be concluded that the theory upon which the censorship of the Church was based is incompatible with the natural and complete development of the literary potentialities of a people and interferes with the production of higher literature in direct proportion to the effectiveness with which it may be applied.

It may further be concluded that, excepting in the case of Spain, the ecclesiastical censors did not succeed in hampering very largely the literary production even in Catholic States, although, as before pointed out, the general influence of the Church appears always to have worked against the full intellectual development of the communities that remained in the faith and that accepted the ecclesiastical authority.

The wider enquiry as to the extent of the influence of the Church censorship, during the three centuries of its greatest activity, upon the literary production of Europe, that is to say, the question as to how far, in case no censorship had been attempted, this literature would have been different in character from or greater in importance than, that which actually came into existence, must, I judge, remain unanswered.

The responsibility for the policy pursued during the centuries since the advent of printing for a censorship control of literature does not rest alone with the Catholic Church. In all of the Protestant States, attempts were made from time to time to control and to restrict the operations of the printing-press. In the Protestant States of Germany, the preparation of the local Indexes or lists of books condemned, and the issue of the decrees for the separate condemnation of any individual work, were in part placed in the hands of the Protestant ecclesiastics and in part managed directly by the civil authorities. The authority, however, under which the orders were issued and the penalties were enforced was always that of the State. The edicts were given out in Dresden, or in Berlin, as in Brussels, Madrid, or in Paris, in the name of the ruler. The series of such decrees or censorship actions is long and complex.

There can, of course, be no question that from the outset the leaders of the Protestant Reformation believed as thoroughly in the necessity and in the rightfulness of the censorship of literature as did the ecclesiastics of Rome or of Spain. The duty of protecting the minds of the faithful against the insidious and wrong doctrine was just as clear to Calvin, to Zwingli, and to Luther, as it was to Loyola or to Brasichelli. The Protestant ecclesiastics were, however, not in a position to enforce or even to threaten any such penalties as could be imposed by the authorities of Rome, and as in fact were imposed most consistently and effectively by the Inquisition in Spain. They had under their control no such dread penalty as excommunication. The leaders of the Protestant faith were compelled to rely upon the civil authorities of their several States for carrying out the provisions of such censorship policy as might be decided upon, and concerning the wisdom of which they had been able to convince the civil rulers.

Irrespective of the censorship initiated by the divines, which had for its purpose the maintaining of a specific creed and the preservation from attack of “sound theology,” there is record of a long series of attempts (attempts which have in fact continued into the 20th century) to enforce what may be called political censorship,--that is to say, the control of literary production in the interests of the State and in support of the authority of the State, against opinions believed to be inimical to such authority. It may at once be admitted that the series of Protestant prohibitions, whether ecclesiastical or political in their origin, do not compare favourably with the similar prohibitions issued under the authority of the Church of Rome. There is far less consistency of purpose, and, at least as far as the political edicts are concerned, there are more examples of bitter and brutal oppression than can be matched anywhere in the States controlled by the Roman Church outside of Spain.

The list of books which came into condemnation under such Protestant censorship during the centuries in question was very much more considerable than the aggregate of all the lists of the Indexes issued in Rome or issued under the authority of the Roman Church. The censorship policy of the Protestants was more spasmodic, and may be admitted to have been directed on the whole by a less wholesome, dignified, and honourable purpose. It represented very much more largely the spirit of faction or of personal grievance, while the political censorship was, of necessity, influenced by the action of the party which happened for the moment to be in control or of the minister who had for the time the ear of the ruler.

While in form this Protestant censorship may, therefore, be considered as less defensible than that of the Church of Rome, it may be contended that in fact it has proved on the whole much less serious in its effect upon intellectual activities. In nearly all of the Protestant States, the attempts on the part of the divines to exclude religious and theological literature which was not in accord with their own dogmas and opinion, were given up in the century succeeding the Reformation. The censorship action of the State has, as we know, continued in certain divisions of literature to the present day, but even under this political censorship, it cannot be contended that literature has been seriously repressed or even largely influenced. It is not practicable, under the conditions obtaining in modern States and with the active intercourse between the residents of such States, to repress any literary productions for which a circle of readers is waiting. The books condemned and prohibited in Berlin come into print in Leipsic, or if the Imperial authority is sufficient to control conditions in Leipsic, are produced without difficulty in Amsterdam or Leyden. It is impossible to prevent the books so printed from finding their way back even into the territory in which their production and distribution has been absolutely forbidden.

Father Hilgers, whose work on the history of the Index of the Roman Church constitutes the latest, and probably the best, authority on the orthodox Catholic view of the purpose and the influence of the Roman censorship, is able to make a very formidable indictment against the operations of Protestant censorship, ecclesiastical and political. Certain of the statistics collected by him are presented in the chapter on Protestant censorship. He does not undertake to explain, however, why it is that the literary activities repressed from the time of the Reformation in the Catholic States have continued to develop and to be strengthened in all the States which were outside of the control of Roman censorship. He makes no reference to the very specific example presented in his own German country of the transfer of literary leadership and of publishing activities from the States of the South to the States of the North, a transfer which went on in direct connection with the success of the Church in controlling the printing-presses in the territory of such States as remained Catholic.

The concentrated attention given during the period of the Reformation and by the generations immediately succeeding the Reformation to controversial issues had an important influence on the intellectual development of the people. The effects produced upon general education, and particularly upon primary education, were also important. The students who had secured from the higher grade schools, established by the reformers throughout North Germany, a common school education such as prior to Melanchthon’s time had not been attainable anywhere in Europe, were, in great part at least, not satisfied to let the work of education be brought to a close with the end of their school course. They pressed into the universities which had remained in existence after the withdrawal of the Catholic instructors. New universities were speedily required in many of the North German States to meet the growing demand for higher instruction. The organisation of a number of the important universities of North Germany dates from the century succeeding the Reformation. These universities speedily became the centres of literary activity and of publishing production. With the relaxation of Catholic censorship, the publishers were free to prepare for the public reprints of such old-time literature as was now being called for. The study of Hebrew, discouraged and almost brought to a close in the Catholic universities after the long persecution of Reuchlin and his followers, was taken up with earnestness by Protestant scholars who had so largely based their creed and their conduct on the teaching of the Old Testament. The study of Greek, discouraged at least for a time in Catholic France, after the banishment from Paris of Robert Estienne with his printing-presses, was pressed with fresh energy in Leipsic, in Leyden, and in Oxford.

It is not easy in this 20th century fully to realise the state of mind of the individuals, whether ecclesiastics or civilians, whether of Rome, of Paris, or of London, who have not hesitated to assume for themselves the wisdom requisite to pass upon all divisions of knowledge and who have been willing to take the responsibility for the direction, the restriction, and the continued control of intellectual activity in all realms of thought. I may recall the eloquent argument in behalf of the freedom of the press which was made three centuries back by one great thinker, who was at the time (as it is fair to remember) protesting against the oppressive action not of the Church of Rome, but of the Parliament of Protestant England. John Milton writes in the _Areopagitica_:

“For Bookes are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a
potencie of life in them to be as active as that Soule was whose
progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a violl the purest
efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bread
them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive
as those fabulous Dragons’ teeth; and, being sown up and down,
may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand,
unlesse warinesse be used, as good almost kill a Man as kill a
good Booke; who destroyes a good Booke, kills Reason itselfe;
Kills the image of God as it were in the eye. Many a Man lives a
burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood
of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasured but on purpose to a
Life beyond Life. ’Tis true, no age can restore a Life, whereof
perhaps there is no great losse; and revolutions of ages doe not
often recover the losse of a rejected Truth, for want of which
whole Nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what
persecution we raise against the living labours of publick men,
how we spill that seasoned life of Man preserved and stored
up in Bookes; since we see a kinde of homicide may be thus
committed, sometimes even a martyrdom; and if to extend to the
whole impression, a kinde of massacre, whereof the execution
ends not in the slaying of an elementalle Life, but strikes at
that etherialle and first essence, the breath of Reason itselfe
and slaies an Immortality rather than a Life.”[11]