INDEX OF PROHIBITED BOOKS

INDEX OF PROHIBITED BOOKS. The origin of the Index of Prohibited Books (Index librorum prohibitorum) dates to the 1520s, following Martin Luther's revolt in 1517, when the printing press became the principal means for the spread of the Protestant Reformation. Universities, ecclesiastical and civil authorities, and local inquisitors published many lists of condemned books and authors that paved the way for the Index.

The first printed Index of Prohibited Books was published in 1544 by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, followed by editions appearing in 1545, 1547, 1549, 1551, and 1556. The Faculty of Theology of the University of Louvain published its own catalogues in 1546, 1551, and 1558. These academic initiatives were followed by lists compiled by local and national inquisitions, especially in Italy, with Indices issued at Venice in 1549 and 1554, in Portugal, with editions appearing in 1547, 1551 and 1561, and in Spain, with Indices published in 1551 and 1559.

The Inquisition in Rome prepared the first Roman Index, issued by Paul IV in 1559. It contained more than a thousand interdictions divided into three classes: authors, all of whose works were to be prohibited; individual books that bore the names of their authors; and anonymous writings. The Index compiled by a commission established by the Council of Trent, published by Pius IV in 1564, was distinguished principally by the ten general rules it promulgated, which became the basis of Catholic censorship policy for the entire modern period. In 1571 Pius V created the Congregation of the Index as a permanent organ of government in the Church. The Index published in 1596 by Clement VIII added more than eleven hundred condemnations to those contained in the Tridentine Index.

From the early seventeenth century, the Congregation of the Index conducted the prohibition of books through the promulgation of particular decrees that combined the congregation's own condemnations with those pronounced by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and the pope. Editions of the Index appeared at intervals incorporating the new titles prohibited in these decrees. Two catalogues published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are of special significance.

For the entire modern era, the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions also issued their own catalogues, which had authority in the Iberian Peninsula as well as in their American, African, and Asian colonies. The Spanish and Portuguese Indices were at the same time prohibitory and expurgatory, while the Roman Indices, with rare exceptions, were exclusively the former.

Prefacing the different editions of the Roman Index are the papal documents and general rules proscribing in an absolute manner various categories of works and determining the modalities according to which control over the printed book must be exercised. The general rules contained in the Tridentine Index prohibit in their entirety all books by heretical authors treating religious subjects, lascivious and obscene writings, and works of astrology, divination, and the occult arts. The reading of the Bible in the vernacular was permitted only to persons holding a written license issued by an inquisitor or bishop. Other rules added to the Index in the course of the centuries prohibited other categories of books as well. The Index of Benedict XIV, published in 1758, by its constitution "Sollicita ac Provida" reorganized the condemned materials and considerably liberalized the procedures for the inclusion of new works.

The number of writers and works placed on the Roman Index from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth amounted to about four thousand.

Brought into being to prevent the circulation of Protestant writings, the Index evolved over time, always maintaining a twofold objective: to defend the Catholic Church against external attacks and to protect the homogeneity of the faith and of morality against dangers occurring from within. The defense against Protestantism always remained a major pre-occupation of Roman censors. Protection of the political and juridical rights and privileges of the church, the pope, and the hierarchy also find a notable echo in the Index. Thus, writings favoring Gallicanism and those advocating the right of civil authorities to intervene in ecclesiastical affairs appear prominently, alongside polemical works dealing with the political intervention of the Holy See, such as during its conflict with the Republic of Venice in 1606–1607, or the oath of loyalty in England during the pontificate of Paul V (1605–1621).

Writings favorable to Jansenism represent an important part of the seventeenth and eighteenth century condemnations, just as one finds a considerable number of works concerning the debates over casuistry and probabilism. Mystical literature is represented by numerous titles, such as those supporting the Quietism of Miguel de Molinos (1628–1696) and the pure love of Madame de Guyon (1648–1717) and of Archbishop Fénelon (1652–1715). The struggle against popular superstitions explains the prohibition of countless prayers, false indulgences, novenas, apocryphal histories, and legends of the saints.

The presence in the Index of works by the great philosophers is quite remarkable, such names as Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, Nicolas de Male-branche, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, George Berkeley, and of the greatest French writers of the Enlightenment, Pierre Bayle, Denis Diderot, Jean d'Alembert, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The interdiction of the writings of Nicolaus Copernicus in 1616 and of Galileo Galilei in 1634, not removed from the Index until 1822, is the most glaring example of the chasm separating the church and science.

The moral obligation to submit to the Index has unfailingly been opposed by heterodox and progressive groups, and especially by intellectuals. But if one examines the attitudes of Catholics as a whole, it would appear that the constraints imposed on the written word gradually came to be considered acceptable practices in the pastoral mission of the church.

Censorship and the Index have undoubtedly hindered literary productivity and the expression of original ideas. Many Catholic authors, Pascal among them, practiced self-censorship and renounced embarking on some projected works. It can also be maintained that the close surveillance imposed by the Index over printing and the book placed a brake on the growth of publishing in the Catholic world, and we can query the effect that censorship and the Index exerted on the religious, cultural, and social development of the modern world. But it is also possible to ask whether the Church of Rome could have succeeded in neutralizing the many centrifugal forces pulling against it, maintained religious unity within Catholicism, and reaffirmed its authority without the weapons of censorship and the Index.

See also Censorship ; Copernicus, Nicolaus ; Enlightenment ; Galileo Galilei ; Gallicanism ; Inquisition, Roman ; Inquisition, Spanish ; Jansenism ; Papacy and Papal States ; Printing and Publishing ; Quietism .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Bujanda, Jésus Martinez de. Index des livres interdits. 10 vols. Sherbrooke, Canada, and Geneva, 1984–1996. Vol. 1, Index de l'Université de Paris, 1544, 1545, 1547, 1549, 1551, 1556. Vol. 2, Index de l'Université de Louvain, 1546, 1550, 1558. Vol. 3, Index de Venise, 1549, et de Venise et Milan, 1554. Vol. 4, Index de l'Inquisition portugaise, 1547, 1551, 1561, 1564, 1581. Vol. 5, Index de l'Inquisition espagnole, 1551, 1554, 1559. Vol. 6, Index de l'Inquisition espagnole, 1583, 1584. Vol. 7, Index d'Anvers, 1569, 1570, 1571. Vol. 8, Index de Rome, 1557, 1559, 1564. Vol. 9, Index de Rome, 1590, 1593, 1596. Vol. 10, Thesaurus de la littérature interdite au seizième siècle. Historical surveys, analyses of the expurgations, and critical editions of all sixteenth-century Indexes of Prohibited Books.

——. Index librorum prohibitorum (1600–1966). Montreal and Geneva, 2002. This volume offers succinct biographical information on approximately 3,000 authors as well as a brief description and the location of the editio princeps for more than 5,000 forbidden books.

Secondary Sources

Fragnito, Gigliola. La Bibbia al rogo: La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1471–1605). Bologna, 1997. Based on assiduous research in civil and ecclesiastical repositories, especially the Archive of the Holy Office in Rome, presents a detailed history of the prohibition and control of vernacular biblical translations and commentaries.

Fragnito, Gigliola, ed. Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge, U.K., 2001. Collaborative volume containing nine studies devoted to ecclesiastical censorship activity in Italy.

Grendler, Paul F. The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540–1605. Princeton, 1977. Influential study based on the large collection of Venetian Holy Office trials and other primary documents. Examines the impact of Inquisition and Index on the book trade and the reactions on all fronts to the invasive controls and prohibitions.

Rozzo, Ugo, ed. La censura libraria nell'Europa del secolo XVI. Udine, Italy, 1997. Conference volume containing thirteen studies devoted to the Indexes, the activities of the congregations of the Inquisition and Index, and ecclesiastical censorship activity in various European countries.

J. M. De Bujanda