TheIndex Librorum Prohibitorum (English:Index of Forbidden Books) was a changing list of publications deemedheretical or contrary to morality by theSacred Congregation of the Index (a formerdicastery of theRoman Curia);Catholics were forbidden to print or read them, subject to the local bishop.[1] Catholic states could enact laws to adapt or adopt the list and enforce it.
TheIndex was active from 1560 to 1966.[2][3][4] It banned thousands of book titles and blacklisted publications, including the works of Europe's intellectual elites.[5][6][7]
TheIndex condemned religious and secular texts alike, grading works by the degree to which they were deemed to be repugnant, potentially misleading or heretical to the Sacred Congregation of the Index at the time.[8] The aim of the list was to protect church members from reading theologically, culturally, or politically disruptive books. At times such books included the works of theologians, such asRobert Bellarmine,[9] andastronomers, such asJohannes Kepler'sEpitome astronomiae Copernicanae (published in three volumes from 1618 to 1621), which was on the Index from 1621 to 1835;philosophers, such asAntonio Rosmini-Serbati[10] andImmanuel Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason (1781); and editions and translations of the Bible that had not been approved. Editions of theIndex also contained the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling, and preemptive censorship of books.[11]
In the 16th century, both the churches and governments in most European countries attempted to regulate and control printing because it allowed for the rapid and widespread circulation of ideas and information. TheProtestant Reformation generated large quantities of polemical new writing by and within both the Catholic and Protestant camps, and religious subject matter was typically the area most subject to control. While governments and the church encouraged printing in many ways, which allowed the dissemination ofBibles and government information, works of dissent and criticism could also circulate rapidly. As a consequence, governments established controls over printers across Europe, requiring them to have official licenses to trade and produce books.[13][14]
The early versions of prohibition indexes began to appear from 1529 to 1571. In the same time frame, in 1557 theEnglish crown aimed to stem the flow of dissent by chartering theStationers' Company.[15] The right to print was restricted to the two universities (Oxford and Cambridge) and to the 21 existing printers in thecity of London, which had between them 53printing presses.[16][page needed]
The French crown also tightly controlled printing, and the printer and writerÉtienne Dolet was burned at the stake for atheism in 1546. The 1551Edict of Châteaubriant comprehensively summarized censorship positions to date, and included provisions for unpacking and inspecting all books brought into France.[17][18] The 1557Edict of Compiègne applied the death penalty to heretics and resulted in the burning of a noblewoman at the stake.[19] Printers were viewed as radical and rebellious, with 800 authors, printers and book dealers being incarcerated in theBastille.[20] At times, the prohibitions of church and state followed each other, e.g.René Descartes was placed on the Index in the 1660s and the French government prohibited the teaching ofCartesianism in schools in the 1670s.[16][page needed]
TheCopyright Act 1710 in Britain, and later copyright laws in France, eased this situation. Historian Eckhard Höffner claims that copyright laws and their restrictions acted as a barrier to progress in those countries for over a century, since British publishers could print valuable knowledge in limited quantities for the sake of profit. The German economy prospered in the same time frame since there were no restrictions.[21][22][page needed]
Title page of the first Papal Index,Index Auctorum et Librorum, published in 1557 and then withdrawn
The first list of the kind was not published inRome, but in CatholicNetherlands (1529);Venice (1543) andParis (1551) under the terms of theEdict of Châteaubriant followed this example. By the mid-century, in the tense atmosphere of wars of religion in Germany and France, both Protestant and Catholic authorities reasoned that only control of the press, including a catalogue of prohibited works, coordinated by ecclesiastic and governmental authorities, could prevent the spread of heresy.[23]
Paul F. Grendler (1975) discusses the religious and political climate in Venice from 1540 to 1605. There were many attempts to censor the Venetian press, which at that time was one of the largest concentrations of printers. Both church and government held to a belief in censorship, but the publishers continually pushed back on the efforts to ban books and shut down printing. More than once the index of banned books in Venice was suppressed or suspended because various people took a stand against it.[24]
The first RomanIndex was printed in 1557 under the direction ofPope Paul IV (1555–1559), but then withdrawn for unclear reasons.[25] In 1559, a new index was finally published, banning the entire works of some 550 authors in addition to the individual proscribed titles:[25][note 1] "The Pauline Index felt that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writing."[23] The work of the censors was considered too severe and met with much opposition even in Catholic intellectual circles; after theCouncil of Trent had authorised a revised list prepared underPope Pius IV, the so-calledTridentine Index was promulgated in 1564; it remained the basis of all later lists untilPope Leo XIII, in 1897, published hisIndex Leonianus.
Title page of theIndex Librorum Prohibitorum (1711)
In 1571, a specialcongregation was created, theSacred Congregation of the Index, which had the specific task to investigate those writings that were denounced inRome as being not exempt of errors, to update the list of Pope Pius IV regularly and also to make lists of required corrections in case a writing was not to be condemned absolutely but only in need of correction; it was then listed with a mitigating clause (e.g.,donec corrigatur ('forbidden until corrected') ordonec expurgetur ('forbidden until purged')).[citation needed]
Several times a year, the congregation held meetings. During the meetings, they reviewed various works and documented those discussions. In between the meetings was when the works to be discussed were thoroughly examined, and each work was scrutinized by two people. At the meetings, they collectively decided whether or not the works should be included in the Index. Ultimately, the pope was the one who had to approve of works being added or removed from the Index. It was the documentation from the meetings of the congregation that aided the pope in making his decision.[27]
This sometimes resulted in very long lists of corrections, published in theIndex Expurgatorius, which was cited byThomas James in 1627 as "an invaluable reference work to be used by the curators of theBodleian Library when listing those works particularly worthy of collecting".[28] Prohibitions made by other congregations (mostly the Holy Office) were simply passed on to the Congregation of the Index, where the finaldecrees were drafted and made public, after approval of thePope (who always had the option to condemn an author personally—there are only a few examples of such condemnation, including those ofLamennais andHermes).[citation needed]
An update to the Index was made by PopeLeo XIII, in the 1897 apostolic constitutionOfficiorum ac Munerum, known as theIndex Leonianus.[7] Subsequent editions of the Index were more sophisticated; they graded authors according to their supposed degree of toxicity, and they marked specific passages for expurgation rather than condemning entire books.[29]
TheSacred Congregation of the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church later became theHoly Office, and since 1965 has been called theCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Congregation of the Index was merged with the Holy Office in 1917, by themotu proprio Alloquentes Proxime of Pope Benedict XV; the rules on the reading of books were again re-elaborated in the newCodex Iuris Canonici. From 1917 onward, the Holy Office (again) took care of the Index.[citation needed]
While individual books continued to be forbidden, the last edition of the Index to be published appeared in 1948. This 20th edition[31] contained 4,000 titles censored for various reasons:heresy, moral deficiency,sexual explicitness, and so on. That someatheists, such asSchopenhauer andNietzsche, were not included was due to the general (Tridentine) rule thatheretical works (i.e., works that contradict Catholic dogma) areipso facto forbidden. Some important works are absent simply because nobody bothered to denounce them.[32] Many actions of the congregations were of a definitepolitical content.[33]
Among the denounced works of the period was the Nazi philosopherAlfred Rosenberg'sMyth of the Twentieth Century for scorning and rejecting "all dogmas of the Catholic Church, and the fundamentals of the Christian religion".[34] Markedly absent from the Index was Adolf Hitler's bookMein Kampf. After gaining access to theVatican Apostolic Archive church historianHubert Wolf discovered thatMein Kampf had been studied for three years but the Holy Office decided that it should not go on the Index because the author was a head of state.[30] The Holy Office justified that decision by referring to chapter 13 ofPaul the Apostle'sEpistle to the Romans regarding state authority coming from God.[30] However, somewhat later, the Vatican criticizedMein Kampf in the encyclicalMit Brennender Sorge (March 1937) about the challenges of the church in Nazi Germany.[30]
On 7 December 1965,Pope Paul VI issued themotu proprioIntegrae servandae that reorganized the Holy Office as theSacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.[35] The Index was not listed as being a part of the newly constituted congregation's competence, leading to questioning whether it still was. This question was put to CardinalAlfredo Ottaviani, pro-prefect of the congregation, who responded in the negative.[36] The Cardinal also indicated in his response that there was going to be a change in the Index soon.
A June 1966 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faithnotification announced that, while theIndex maintained its moral force, in that it taught Christians to beware, as required by the natural law itself, of those writings that could endanger faith and morality, it no longer had the force ofecclesiastical positive law with the associated penalties.[37]
Thecanon law of theLatin Church still recommends that works should be submitted to the judgment of the localordinary (typically, the bishop) if they concern sacredscripture,theology, canon law, orchurch history, religion or morals.[38] The localordinary consults someone whom he considers competent to give a judgment and, if that person gives thenihil obstat ('nothing forbids'), the local ordinary grants theimprimatur ('let it be printed').[38] Members of religious institutes require theimprimi potest ('it can be printed') of their major superior to publish books on matters of religion or morals.[38]
TheIndex was not simply a reactive work. Roman Catholicauthors had the opportunity to defend their writings and could prepare a new edition with necessary corrections or deletions, either to avoid or to limit aban. Pre-publication censorship was encouraged.[citation needed]
TheIndex was enforceable within thePapal States, but elsewhere only if adopted by the civil powers, as happened in several Italian states.[39] Other areas adopted their own lists of forbidden books. In theHoly Roman Empire, book censorship, which preceded the publication of theIndex, came under the control of the Jesuits at the end of the 16th century, but had little effect, since the German princes within the empire set up their own systems.[40] In France it was French officials who decided what books were banned[40] and the Church'sIndex was not recognized.[41] Spain had its ownIndex Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgatorum, which corresponded largely to the Church's,[42] but also included a list of books that were allowed once the forbidden part (sometimes a single sentence) was removed or "expurgated".[43]
On 14 June 1966, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to inquiries it had received regarding the continued moral obligation concerning books that had been listed in the Index. The response spoke of the books as examples of books dangerous to faith and morals, all of which, not just those once included in the Index, should be avoided regardless of the absence of any written law against them. The Index, it said, retains its moral force "inasmuch as" (quatenus) it teaches the conscience of Christians to beware, as required by the natural law itself, of writings that can endanger faith and morals, but it (the Index of Forbidden Books) no longer has the force of ecclesiastical law with the associated censures.[44]
The congregation thus placed on the conscience of the individual Christian the responsibility to avoid all writings dangerous to faith and morals, while at the same time abolishing the previously existing ecclesiastical law and the relative censures,[45] without thereby declaring that the books that had once been listed in the various editions of the Index of Prohibited Books had become free of error and danger.
In a letter of 31 January 1985 to CardinalGiuseppe Siri, regarding the bookThe Poem of the Man-God, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (then Prefect of the Congregation, who later becamePope Benedict XVI), referred to the 1966 notification of the Congregation as follows: "After the dissolution of the Index, when some people thought the printing and distribution of the work was permitted, people were reminded again inL'Osservatore Romano (15 June 1966) that, as was published in theActa Apostolicae Sedis (1966), the Index retains its moral force despite its dissolution. A decision against distributing and recommending a work, which has not been condemned lightly, may be reversed, but only after profound changes that neutralize the harm which such a publication could bring forth among the ordinary faithful."[46]
The content of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum saw deletions as well as additions over the centuries. Writings byAntonio Rosmini-Serbati were placed on the Index in 1849 but were removed by 1855, andPope John Paul II mentioned Rosmini's work as a significant example of "a process of philosophical enquiry which was enriched by engaging the data of faith".[47] The 1758 edition of the Index removed the general prohibition of works advocatingheliocentrism as a fact rather than a hypothesis.[48]
Some of the scientific theories contained in works in early editions of theIndex have long been taught atCatholic universities. For example, the general prohibition of books advocating heliocentrism was removed from theIndex in 1758, but twoFranciscan mathematicians had published an edition ofIsaac Newton'sPrincipia Mathematica (1687) in 1742, with commentaries and a preface stating that the work assumed heliocentrism and could not be explained without it.[49]
In many cases, an author'sopera omnia (complete works) were forbidden. However, the Index stated that the prohibition of someone'sopera omnia did not preclude works that were not concerned with religion and were not forbidden by the general rules of the Index. This explanation was omitted in the 1929 edition, which was officially interpreted in 1940 as meaning thatopera omnia covered all the author's works without exception.[57]
Cardinal Ottaviani stated in April 1966 that there was too much contemporary literature and the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith could not keep up with it.[58]
^Adriányi, Gabriel; Dolan, John; Jedin, Hubert (1981).The Church in the Modern Age. History of the Church. Vol. 10. New York: Crossroad. p. 168.ISBN978-0-8245-0013-9.
^Lenard, Max (2006). "On the origin, development and demise of theIndex librorum prohibitorum".Journal of Access Services.3 (4):51–63.doi:10.1300/J204v03n04_05.S2CID144325885.
^Anastaplo, George."Censorship".Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved5 April 2022.
^"The entanglement of Church and state power in many cases led to overtly political titles being placed on the Index, titles which had little to do with immorality or attacks on the Catholic faith. For example, a history of Bohemia, the Rervm Bohemica Antiqvi Scriptores Aliqvot[...] by Marqvardi Freheri (published in 1602), was placed on the Index not for attacking the Church, but rather because it advocated the independence of Bohemia from the (Catholic) Austro-Hungarian Empire. Likewise, The Prince by Machiavelli was placed in the Index in 1559 after it was blamed for widespread political corruption in France (Curry, 1999, p. 5)" (David Dusto,Index Librorum Prohibitorum: The History, Philosophy, and Impact of the Index of Prohibited Books).Archived 20 October 2012 at theWayback Machine
^Richard Bonney;Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity: the Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936–1939; International Academic Publishers; Bern; 2009ISBN978-3-03911-904-2; p. 122
^Paul VI, Pope (7 December 1965)."Integrae servandae".vatican.va. Retrieved10 July 2016.
^L'Osservatore della Domenica, 24 April 1966, p. 10.
^"Haec S. Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei, facto verbo cum Beatissimo Patre, nuntiat Indicem suum vigorem moralem servare, quatenus Christifidelium conscientiam docet, ut ab illis scriptis, ipso iure naturali exigente, caveant, quae fidem ac bonos mores in discrimen adducere possint; eundem tamen non-amplius vim legis ecclesiasticae habere cum adiectis censuris" (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 58 (1966), p. 445). Cf.Italian text published, together with the Latin, onL'Osservatore Romano of 15 June 1966)
^McMullin, Ernan, ed. The Church and Galileo. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2005.ISBN0-268-03483-4. pp. 307, 347
^John L.Heilbron,Censorship of Astronomy in Italy after Galileo (in McMullin, Ernan ed.,The Church and Galileo, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 2005, p. 307, IN.ISBN0-268-03483-4)
^Stead, William Thomas (1902)."The Index Expurgatorius".The Review of Reviews.26: 498. Retrieved8 February 2017.
^Gifford, William (1902)."The Roman Index".The Quarterly Review.196:602–603. Retrieved8 February 2017.
^Hilgers, Joseph (1904).Der Index der verbotenen Bücher. In seiner neuen Fassung dargelegt und rechtlich-historisch gewürdigt. Freiburg in Breisgau: Herder. pp. 145–150.
^Rafael Martinez, professor of the philosophy of science at the Santa Croce Pontifical University in Rome, in speech reported onCatholic Ireland netArchived 7 June 2009 at theWayback Machine Accessed 26 May 2009
J. Martínez de Bujanda'sIndex Librorum Prohibitorum, 1600–1966 lists the authors and writings in the successive editions of theIndex,[1] while Miguel Carvalho Abrantes'sWhy Did The Inquisition Ban Certain Books?: A Case Study from Portugal tries to understand why certain books were forbidden based on a Portuguese edition of theIndex Librorum Prohibitorum from 1581.[2][page needed]
"Index of Prohibited Books", TheCatholic Encyclopedia (Volume VII, 1910): "The first RomanIndex of Prohibited Books (Index librorum prohibitorum), published in 1559 underPaul IV, was very severe, and was therefore mitigated under that pontiff by decree of the Holy Office of 14 June of the same year. It was only in 1909 that thisModeratio Indicis librorum prohibitorum (Mitigation of the Index of Prohibited Books) was rediscovered inCodex Vaticanus lat. 3958, fol. 74, and was published for the first time."
