The responsibility for the policy pursued during the centuries since the advent of printing for a censorship control of literature does not rest alone with the Catholic Church. In all of the Protestant States, attempts were made from time to time to control and to restrict the operations of the printing-press. In the Protestant States of Germany, the preparation of the local Indexes or lists of books condemned, and the issue of the decrees for the separate condemnation of any individual work, were in part placed in the hands of the Protestant ecclesiastics and in part managed directly by the civil authorities. The authority, however, under which the orders were issued and the penalties were enforced was always that of the State. The edicts were given out in Dresden, or in Berlin, as in Brussels, Madrid, or in Paris, in the name of the ruler. The series of such decrees or censorship actions is long and complex. There can, of course, be no question that from the outset the leaders of the Protestant Reformation believed as thoroughly in the necessity and in the rightfulness of the censorship of literature as did the ecclesiastics of Rome or of Spain. The duty of protecting the minds of the faithful against the insidious and wrong doctrine was just as clear to Calvin, to Zwingli, and to Luther, as it was to Loyola or to Brasichelli. The Protestant ecclesiastics were, however, not in a position to enforce or even to threaten any such penalties as could be imposed by the authorities of Rome, and as in fact were imposed most consistently and effectively by the Inquisition in Spain. They had under their control no such dread penalty as excommunication. The leaders of the Protestant faith were compelled to rely upon the civil authorities of their several States for carrying out the provisions of such censorship policy as might be decided upon, and concerning the wisdom of which they had been able to convince the civil rulers. Irrespective of the censorship initiated by the divines, which had for its purpose the maintaining of a specific creed and the preservation from attack of “sound theology,” there is record of a long series of attempts (attempts which have in fact continued into the 20th century) to enforce what may be called political censorship,--that is to say, the control of literary production in the interests of the State and in support of the authority of the State, against opinions believed to be inimical to such authority. It may at once be admitted that the series of Protestant prohibitions, whether ecclesiastical or political in their origin, do not compare favourably with the similar prohibitions issued under the authority of the Church of Rome. There is far less consistency of purpose, and, at least as far as the political edicts are concerned, there are more examples of bitter and brutal oppression than can be matched anywhere in the States controlled by the Roman Church outside of Spain.