701 



CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. 



CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. 



703 



marriage and betrothing came under their inspection. (Varro, ' de L.L.' 

 vi. "1, ed. Miiller.) Their acts were registered in public documents; 

 and the purity which was required in those who filled the office is 

 indicated by the circumstance, that those documents were preserved 

 in the temple of the Nymphs. (Cie. ' pro Mil' 27.) The writing was 

 probably performed by public slaves in the service of the censors. 

 (Liv. xliii. 16 ; Nieb. voL ii p. 404.) 



The censors might be tried when they acted improperly (Liv. xxiv. 

 43), and even be led to prison (ix. 34), or thrown from the Tarpeian 

 rock. (fciv. 'Epit.'lix.) 



There were also censors in many of the municipia, and in the pro- 

 vinces. (Cic. in ' Verr.' ii. 53.) 



In modern times an officer has been appointed in different countries 

 under the title of cnuor, whose business has been to examine all books 

 previous to their publication, and to see that they contain nothing 

 which the government considers immoral or heretical. In England, 

 before the revolution, there was an officer of this kind. [CENSORSHIP 

 OF THE PRESS.] 



CENSORSHIP OF THK PRESS, a regulation which has prevailed 

 in most countries of Europe, and still prevails in many, according to 

 which printed books, pamphlets, and newspapers, are examined by 

 persons appointed for the purpose, who are empowered to prevent 

 publication if they see sufficient reason. 



There are different modes of censorship; the universal previous 

 censorship, by which all manuscripts must be examined and approved 

 of before they are sent to press ; the indirect censorship, which 

 examines works after they have been printed, and, if it finds anything 

 objectionable, stops their sale and confiscates the edition, and marks 

 out the author or editor for prosecution; the optional censorship, 

 which allows an author to tender his manuscript for examination, in 

 order to be discharged from all responsibility afterwards ; and lastly, 

 by a distinction which has been very commonly made between news- 

 papers or pamphlets and works of a greater bulk, the censorship of the 

 journals, which exists even in countries where larger works are free 

 from this superintendence. All these forms of censorship imply an 

 establishment of censors, examiners, inspectors, or licensers, as they 

 have been variously called, appointed for the purpose, a provision 

 quite distinct from the laws which define the various offences which a 

 man may be guilty of by publication. These are repressive or penal 

 lawn, whilst the censorship, and especially the previous censorship, is 

 essentially a preventive regulation. 



The censorship may be said to be coeval with printing. In more 

 ancient times, those writings which were obnoxious to the prevailing 

 political or religious systems, if they fell under the eyes of men in 

 authority, were condemned to be destroyed. Thus, all the copies of 

 the works of Protagoras which could be found in Athens were publicly 

 burnt by sentence of the Areopagus, because the author expressed 

 doubts concerning the existence of the gods. Personal defamation and 

 satire were also forbidden. Nsovius at Rome was banished, some say 

 put in prison, for having, in his plays, cast reflections on several 

 patricians. Augustus ordered the satirical works of Labienus to be 

 burnt, and Ovid's alleged or probable cause of exile was his amatory 

 poetry. The senate under Tiberius condemned a work to be burnt, in 

 which Caasius was styled the last of the Romans. Diocletian ordered 

 the sacred books of the Christians to be burnt, and afterwards Con- 

 fttantine condemned the works of Arius to the flames. But even under 

 the despotism of the Roman emperors, proof of the truth of the alle- 

 gations secured an exemption from punishment. (Tacitus, ' Anna!.' 

 i. 72.) All these, however, were penal enactments, independent of any 

 censorship. The councils of the Church condemned books which they 

 judged to be heretical, and warned the faithful against reading them. 

 Afterwards the popes began to condemn certain works, and prohibit 

 the reading of them. In the time of Huss and Wycliffe, Pope Martin V. 

 excommunicated those who read prohibited books. The introduction 

 of printing having awakened the fears of the ecclesiastical authorities, 

 several bishops ordered books to be examined by censors. One of the 

 earliest instances of this is that quoted by Johann Beckmanu, in his 

 ' Book of Inventions,' of Berchthold, Archbishop of Mainz, who in the 

 year 1486 issued a mandate, in which, after censuring the practice of 

 translating the sacred writings from the Latin into the vulgar German, 

 a language, he says, too rude and too poor to express the exact meaning 

 "f the inspired text, he adverts to the translations of the books of the 

 canon and civil law, works, as the archbishop says, so difficult as to 

 require the whole life of man to be understood, a difficulty which is 

 now increased by the incompetence of the translator, which renders 

 obscurity still more obscure. His grace therefore, setting a full value 

 cm the art of printing, " which had its cradle in this illustrious city of 

 Mainz," and wishing to preserve its honour by preventing it being 

 abused, forbids all person* subject to his authority, clerical and lay, of 

 whatever rank, order, and profession, to print the translation of any 

 work from the Greek, Latin, or any other language, into German, con- 

 cerning any art, science, or information whatever, publicly or privately, 

 unless such translation be read and approved of before being printed, 

 aud, when printed, before being published, and furnished with the 

 written testimony of one of the doctors and professors of the University 

 of Mainz, named by the archbishop, one for theology, one for law, one 

 for medicine, and one for the arts. All who violated this order were 

 to lose the book, pay a fine of one hundred gold florins to the Electoral 



Chamber, and be excommunicated. There was however no general 

 system of censorship in the 15th century, which was an age of freedom 

 for printing ; and it is a curious fact that the learned scholar Merula, 

 in a letter to his friend Poliziano, dated 1480, expresses a wish that a 

 previous censorship should be established over all books, such as Plato 

 recommends for his republic, "for," says Merula, "we are now quite 

 overcome by a quantity of bad or insignificant books." 



In 1501, Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia) issued a bull, in which he 

 strictly forbids all printers, their servants, and all who exercise the 

 art of printing in any manner in the above provinces, to print hereafter 

 any books, treatises, or writings, without previously applying to the 

 respective archbishop, or his vicar and officials, or whomsoever they 

 may appoint for the purpose, and obtaining their licence free of all 

 expense, under pain of excommunication, besides a pecuniary fine at 

 the discretion of the respective archbishops, bishops, or vicars-general. 

 The bull provides for the books already printed and published, which 

 are to be examined by the same authorities, and those containing any 

 thing to the prejudice of the Catholic faith are to be burnt. 



At last, in 1515, the Council of the Lateran decreed that in future 

 no books should be printed in any town or diocese unless they were 

 previously inspected and carefully examined, if at Rome by the 

 vicar and the master of the sacred palace, and in the other dioceses by 

 the bishop or those by him appointed, and by the inquisitor of that 

 diocese or those by him appointed, and countersigned by their own 

 hands gratis and without delay. Any book not so examined and 

 countersigned was to be burnt, and the author or editor excom- 

 municated. 



Here, then, was the origin of the principle of a general censorship 

 of the press, which has been ever since maintained by the Church 

 of Rome in all countries where it had power to enforce it. The 

 bishops were the censors in their respective dioceses ; but the tribunal 

 of the Inquisition, wherever the Inquisition was established, were the 

 censors ; they examined the MS. of every work previous to its being 

 printed, and granted or refused an " Imprimatur," or licence at their 

 pleasure. In countries where the inquisition was not established, such 

 as France, England, and Germany, the bishops acted as censors and 

 licencers of books, which they examined or caused to be examined 

 previous to printing, as to all matters concerning religion or morality. 



The censorship continued for a long time to belong to the ecclesi- 

 astical power ; and even afterwards, when the civil power in various 

 countries began to appoint royal censors to examine all kinds of works, 

 the episcopal approbation was still required for all books which treated 

 of religion or church discipline. 



The Reformation greatly modified the censorship and reduced its 

 powers, without however abolishing it : the power passed into other 

 hands. In England the practice seems to have been to appoint 

 licensers for the various branches of learning ; but the bishops mono- 

 polised the principal part of the licensing power, as we find at the 

 beginning of the reign of Charles I., in a petition of the printers and 

 booksellers to the House of Commons complaints against Bishop Laud 

 that the licensing of books being wholly confined to him and his chap- 

 lains, he allowed books which favoured Popery to be published, but 

 refused licensing those which were written against it. The system of 

 previous licensing, however, did not always secure an author from 

 subsequent responsibility. Thus Prynne's ' Histriomastix ' was con- 

 demned, in 1633, to be burnt by the hangman, for being a satire on 

 the royal family and government, and the author to have his ears cut 

 off, and to be imprisoned aud heavily fined, although the book had 

 actually been licensed, but it was alleged on the trial that the licenser 

 had not read the whole of the work. 



A decree of the Star Chamber concerning printing and licensing, 

 dated llth of July, 1637, was issued, in order to establish a genera! 

 system on the subject. The preamble refers to former decrees and 

 ordinances for the better government and regulating of printers and 

 printing, and particularly to an order of the 23rd of June, in the 

 28th year of Elizabeth. It then goes on to provide that all books 

 concerning the common laws of the realm shall have the special appro- 

 bation of the Lords Chief Justices and Lord Chief Baron for the time 

 being, or one or more of them, or by their appointment ; that all books of 

 history or any other book of state affairs shall be licensed by the prin- 

 cipal secretaries of state, or one of them, or by their appointment ; and 

 that all books concerning heraldry, titles of honour and arms, or 

 otherwise concerning the office of earl marshal, shall be licensed 

 by the earl marshal, or by his appointment ; and that all other books 

 whether of divinity, physics, philosophy, poetry, or whatsover, shall be 

 allowed by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London 

 for the time being, or by the chancellors or vice-chancellors of either 

 of the universities of this realm, for such books that are to bo printed 

 within the limits of the universities respectively, not meddling either 

 with books of the common law or matters of state. All books coming 

 from beyond the seas were to be reported by the merchant or con- 

 signee to the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, and 

 to remain in custody of the custom-house officers until the archbishop 

 or bishop sent one of his chaplains or some other learned man, to be 

 present with the master and wardens of the Company of Stationers or 

 one of them, at tho opening of the bale or package, for the purpose of 

 examining the books therein contained. And if any seditious, achis- 

 matical, or offensive book was found among them, it was to be 



