In England, even prior to the schism under Henry VIII, the Church of Rome never secured any control over the censorship of the press. The responsibility for the production of books had, with special reference to the convenience of supervision, been concentrated at an early date in the Stationers’ Company. The supervision of the operations of this company was retained under the direct control of the Crown and was carried out by officials appointed under royal authority. These supervisors or censors were for the most part not ecclesiastics. Such censorship as took place in England was in fact more largely political than ecclesiastical. The perils guarded against had to do with assaults upon the authority of the Crown rather than with opinions classed as heretical by the Church. It was also the case that while the book-trade of the realm had, very conveniently for the censors, been centred in London and organised under the Company of Stationers, there were from time to time presses in activity outside of the capital, presses the work of which very largely escaped supervision. Either through such county town issues or by means of supplies imported from Holland, it is probable that English readers who were prepared to interest themselves in heretical literature met with no serious or continued difficulties in the way of securing the desired material. For England as for Holland and North Germany, the Indexes published at Rome and elsewhere served also as convenient guides for the book-buying and the reading of the more active-minded members of the community. As before stated, it is not easy to arrive at any trustworthy net result concerning the final effect upon the literary conditions of Europe of the work of the ecclesiastical censors. The preceding brief summary gives my impression as to the more immediate effect of the censorship in the more important States which were within reach of the supervision of the Church. It would appear as if the literary conditions of each community had been hampered or interfered with in almost direct proportion to the efficiency of the censorship machinery. To the extent to which the prohibitions and restrictions of the Indexes were carried out consistently, literary activity was checked, the production of higher literature was lessened, and the intellectual capacities of the people were stunted. It seems hardly possible that the indirect service, to which reference has been made, that was rendered by the work of the censors in emphasising for communities not within the control of their prohibitions the distinctive interest and abiding importance of the prohibited books, could make an adequate offset for the sterilising influence exerted within the communities that were under thorough supervision and control.