A Brief History of Printing. Part II: The Economic History of Printing

by Frederick W. Hamilton

(c) New books which were first treatments of some specific subject, generally scientific, technical, or practical.

The granting of a privilege often carried with it exemption from taxation.

Conditions in France were not greatly different from those in Italy and Germany, although France dealt with the problem by means of privileges only and had her problem somewhat simplified by unified administration over a large territory. The first privilege to be issued in France was granted Antoine Verrard in 1507 for an edition of the Epistles of Paul with a French commentary. French privileges were sometimes issued to printers for a single work and sometimes for all the works which they might print. They ran from two to ten years. They might be general, covering the whole kingdom, or they might be local, covering a single province or district. For example, one might have the exclusive privilege of printing certain books or the books of a certain author for ten years, or another might have the privilege of printing anything of a certain sort in the city of Lyons for five years.

It is understood, of course, that a privilege implied prohibition. If a man had a privilege for the works of an author throughout France that meant that no one else in France could print the same books. If he had the privilege for all that he wanted to print in Lyons it meant that nobody else in Lyons could print those books, although anybody outside of Lyons could print them freely. The French law contained one provision which does not appear elsewhere, namely that licenses could be revoked before they expired. They were occasionally issued to persons not residents of France, another provision which appears to have been peculiar to the French law. A third peculiarity is that privileges were occasionally given to authors for the control of their works, but without the right to print them or to sell them. In such a case as that the printer would have to get another privilege to print and sell the books. He would have to pay the author for the right to do so. The question of privilege in France, like the question of censorship, which we shall soon take up, was greatly complicated by the multiplication of authorities and consequent conflict and confusion. Privileges might be issued by the king, by the Parliament of Paris (a misleading name, as the Parliament of Paris was a judicial and not a legislative body), by the University of Paris, and by the Provost of Paris. The tendency in all things French, however, from early in the 15th century to the French Revolution was toward the concentration of power, so that the right to issue privileges was gradually concentrated in the hands of the king.

CHAPTER III
Censorship

To the mind of the fifteenth or sixteenth century man the protection of church and state and of the public was a very much more important matter than the protection of the printer or the author, and it was seen that the printing press might easily distill a venom which would poison the minds of men and threaten the health of institutions. Measures to prevent this occurrence went hand in hand with the granting of privileges. It was only natural that they should do so as they might well be regarded as conditions upon which the privilege should be granted, or, as the idea developed, upon which the trade should be exercised. France early decreed that every piece of printing put out in the kingdom must be certified as “containing nothing contrary to faith, good manners, public peace, and the royal authority.” Theoretically, nothing could be more admirable. Doubtless many of us today would like to be assured that all printed matter should meet these requirements. It is obvious, however, that such regulations were liable to work very badly in practice. What constitutes faith, good manners, public peace, and the royal authority? These are, to a considerable extent, matters of opinion. It may happen that the royal authority becomes tyranny and ought to be opposed rather than supported. In the hands of the narrow-minded, ignorant, and unscrupulous, censorship laws may easily open the way to intolerable abuses. As a matter of fact, they have only too often done so, and it is for that reason that we in the United States today insist upon freedom of the press.

Possible injury to the faith was very early perceived by the church. As guardian of the faith and morals of the people, the church felt constrained to see that nothing with heretical or immoral tendencies should be placed in the hands of the faithful. Just as Venice led the way in laws relating to privilege, so she was prominent in the matter of censoring books. Usually the body which issued licenses had charge of the censorship as well. It might not distrust the ecclesiastical examination and censoring of the books, but it made the censorship effective by its refusal of privilege. Later, as we shall see, when this procedure did not prove entirely effective other methods were taken to punish the printers and the authors of books which were deemed injurious. The first book which appeared with the approval of the ecclesiastical authorities was printed in 1480. This approval at first had nothing to do with the privilege to print, but was rather a commendation to the attention of the faithful.

In 1487, however, the Pope (Innocent VIII) issued a bull against objectionable books. This bull was addressed to the States of the Church, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, England, and Scotland. As a result, probably, of this bull, Venice enacted a requirement in 1508 that the approval of the Church should precede the granting of any privilege to print. In 1515 the Lateran Council established the principle of strict censorship. The religious troubles of the sixteenth century had much to do with the application of this principle. In the Protestant countries it was applied much less vigorously than in the Catholic countries. It must not be understood, however, that the Protestants had any broader or more intelligent views on the subject of censorship than the Catholics had. They were just as ready to recognize the principle of censorship and apply it, but the occasions for applying it were, or seemed to be, less frequent. Venice, although always a Catholic country, was careful to keep herself as independent of Rome as possible. The Venetians consequently kept the reins in their own hands with regard to the censorship of books as well as in other matters, although they co-operated with the church authorities and offered no hindrances to the work of the Inquisition.

In 1503 Venice extended the scope of censorship to cover the literary quality of books and translations, the political effect of books, and their effect upon morals. The political and moral censorship appears to have been less effective than the religious and literary. In 1547 the Inquisition took charge of the censorship of books and the punishment of those who offended against the press laws, and continued to exercise those functions until 1730. It is interesting to note that the greatest activity of the Inquisition was in the first half century of its work, a period when religion was still the subject of bitter controversy and bloody warfare. The Inquisition took cognizance of 132 cases between 1547 and 1600. Between 1600 and 1700, however, it only dealt with 55, while from 1700 to 1730 it dealt with only four.

In 1571 Pope Pius V started the Index Expurgatorius. This Index was and is a list wherein are registered books and other publications which are condemned by the Commission in charge of it, called the Congregation of the Index, as being immoral and unsound either in religion or politics. By this means the church undertakes to protect its members from the reading of books calculated to injure their morals or to unsettle their faith.