Title page of the Index (1564) |
The concern of the Catholic Church over
books, which are considered dangerous to the faith or morals of the Church
dates back a long time. But in 1559 the first catalog of banned books was
actually published. The Index or at full length Index Librorum
Prohibitorum (Latin for “Index of Forbidden Books”) was drawn up by order
of Pope Paul IV and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Roman
Inquisition. The list specified books as unholy, heretic or dangerous to the
Catholic religion and included writings of Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Erasmus,
Machiavielli, the Koran etc. Some works were prohibited because of the words
the author used or for the life of the author himself; sometimes for both. The
Index was an implementation of the Roman Catholic Church to prevent the
contamination of the faith or the corruption of morals through the reading of
theologically flawed books.
With
the invention of the printing press in Europe in the middle of the 15th
Century, the problem of control increased. As more books were written, copied
and increasingly widely disseminated, subversive and heretical ideas were
spread beyond control. Therefore, the purpose of the Index was on the one hand
to guide censors of what publications to authorize because printers were not
free to publish books without official permission. On the other hand it
condemned published books that were judged to be harmful regarding the Catholic
believes. It is important to understand, that the Index was never a complete
catalog of forbidden reading but those that ecclesiastical authority was asked
to act upon. It is still unclear in which way the Index limited the spread of
Protestant doctrines since they were already known and shared in Europe. Zophy
claims that it at least “had a chilling effect on the freewheeling exchange of
ideas that had been such a stimulating part of the Renaissance” (Zophy 264).
Fact
is the last and 20th edition of the Index appeared in 1948. The complete
publication of the list was suppressed not until 1966 under Pope Paul VI. Today
the Index has the status of a historic document.
Sources:
Zophy 264
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/285220/Index-Librorum-Prohibitorum
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/indexlibrorum.asp
Interesting blog. I had no idea that the last edition of the Index appeared in 1948
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