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.