In 1556 the government commanded that no work relating to the affairs of America should be published without a permission from the council of the Indies, and that those already printed should not be sold unless they were examined and approved, which obliged all those who possessed any to submit them to the council. The officers of the customs in America were also obliged to seize all the prohibited books which might be imported, and remit them to the archbishops and bishops, who, in this case, possessed the same powers as the inquisitors of Spain.
Lastly, Philip II. in 1560 decreed new measures, and the surveillance was afterwards as strictly observed in the colonies of the New World as in the Peninsula.
Although Charles V. and Philip II. neglected nothing that could prevent the introduction of prohibited books into Spain, several which were favourable to the Lutheran heresy penetrated into the kingdom. In 1558 the inquisitor-general published an edict more severe than any of the preceding; and also drew up an instruction for the use of the inquisitors; importing, that all books mentioned in the printed catalogue should be seized; that a public auto-da-fé should be made of those tending to heresy; that the commentaries and notes attributed to Melancthon should be suppressed in all the treatises on grammar where they were introduced; that the bibles marked as being suspected should be examined; that no books should be seized except those mentioned in the list; that all the books printed in Germany since 1519 without the name of the author should be examined; that the translation of Theophylact by Œcolampadius should be seized; likewise some volumes of the works of St. John Chrysostom, which had been translated by that arch-heretic and Wolfang Nusculus; that the commentaries by heretics on works composed by catholics should be suppressed; and that a book on medicine might be seized, although it was not mentioned in the index.
When this edict was published, Francis Sanchez, professor of theology in the university of Salamanca, wrote to inform the Supreme Council, that he had occupied himself for several years in examining dangerous books, and gave his opinion on the course which ought to be pursued.
The council, in consequence, decreed that those theologians in the university who had studied the Oriental languages, should be obliged, as well as other persons, to give up their Hebrew and Greek Bibles to the commissaries of the holy office, on pain of excommunication; that the proprietors of Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew books, not mentioned in the list, should not be molested; that the order concerning the books printed without the name of the author, related only to modern productions; that the request made by some persons to be allowed to keep Pomponius Mela, with the commentary of Nadicano, should be refused; that these books should be remitted to the council to be examined; that the order to seize all works containing errors should only be applied to modern books; and that the Summa Armata of Durand, of Cajetan, Peter Lombard, Origen, Theophylact, Tertullian, Lactantius, Lucian, Aristotle, Plato, Seneca, and other authors of that class, should be allowed to circulate; that the council, being informed that several catalogues of prohibited books existed, would unite them, and compose one general catalogue.
In the year 1558 the terrible law of Philip II. was published, which decreed the punishments of death and confiscation for all those who should sell, buy, keep, or read, the books prohibited by the holy office; and, to ensure the execution of this sanguinary law, the index was printed, that the people might not allege ignorance in their defence.
A bull of 1559 enjoins confessors to interrogate their penitents on this subject, and to remind them that they were obliged to denounce the guilty on pain of excommunication. A particular article subjects the confessors to the same punishment if they neglected this duty, even if their penitents were of the highest rank.
This severe law was however mitigated in 1561, when the Cardinal of Alexandria, inquisitor-general of Rome, published a decree, announcing, in the name of Pius. IV., that some of the prohibitions of books had been withdrawn. This decree also granted permission to read and possess some books which had been suppressed only because they were written by heretics.
Valdes, the inquisitor-general of Spain, immediately wrote to the inquisitors of the provinces, to suspend the execution of the edict, until he had received the orders of the king, to whom he had represented the danger arising from a measure which annulled the punishment of excommunication; but Valdes had another motive in the proceeding.
In 1559, this inquisitor had published a printed catalogue of prohibited books, which was much more extended than that of 1558, and in which, according to the advice of Francis Sanchez, he had introduced all the works mentioned in the catalogues of Rome, Lisbon, Louvain, and those of Spain of an earlier date. He divided them into six classes. The first consisted of Latin books; the second of those written in Castilian; the third of those in the Teutonic language; the fourth of German books; the fifth of French; and the sixth of Portuguese. Valdes, in a note at the end of his index, gave notice that there were many books subject to the prohibition, not mentioned in the list, but that they would be added. He appointed the punishment of excommunication, and a penalty of two hundred ducats, for those persons who should read any of these books, and in this number were included some which were permitted to be read by the last edict of the Pope.