The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 1 (of 2) — John Shaqi
The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 1 (of 2)Putnam, George Haven
History
The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 1 (of 2)
Putnam, George Haven
Freedom of the press; Liberty of conscience; Prohibited books
The titles of the works utilised or cited as authorities from which
quotations have been made will be found in the bibliography. I have
thought it desirable, for the convenience of later students of the
subject, to include also in this bibliography the titles of certain
other important works having to do with the subject of censorship, from
which I did not have occasion or opportunity to make citations.
I desire to express special acknowledgment to Dr. Mendham, whose
_Literary Policy of the Church of Rome_ was published in London
in 1834. The author made a thorough study of such of the Roman and
Spanish Indexes as were within his reach, and he has been able to
throw no little light upon the methods adopted in Church censorship.
His vivacious treatise, which may be said fairly to bristle with
controversial opinions and conclusions, constitutes a curious
antithesis to the volumes of Reusch, who hardly permits himself to
connect with his comprehensive catalogues and records any opinions
whatsoever.
For matters connected with the Inquisition, the authorities are the
well-known _Histoire de l’Inquisition_ of Llorente, and the monumental
_History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages_ by Henry C. Lea. The
first volume of Lea’s _History of the Inquisition in Spain_ comes
into publication just as my own work is completed. For the history of
the operations of the Church in Spain, operations which were largely
conducted under the authority of the Spanish Inquisition, I have,
however, been able to utilise Lea’s _Religious History of Spain_, which
for this division of the subject-matter is the book most frequently
cited. (In the Spanish chapters, in order to avoid the repetition of
the full title, the reference has been made simply to “Lea,” and is to
be understood as connected with the above volume.)
For matters connected with the book-trade and with the influence on
the work of the publishers of the regulations of the Index, the chief
citations are from Kapp’s _Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels_ and
from Putnam’s _Books and their Makers in the Middle Ages_.
The leading authority for the modern Catholic view of the literary
policy of the Church is the treatise on the Index by the Jesuit Father
Hilgers, which was published in Freiburg as recently as 1905, and which
is certainly a most forcible and effective example of controversial
writing.
A little volume by the Paulist Father Searle entitled _Plain Facts
for Fair Minds_, published in New York in 1895, is valuable for its
statement of the present policy of the Church in regard to the relation
of faith with science and as to the rightful influence of the authority
of the Church upon intellectual action.
A treatise by Charles Dejob, a French Catholic, which came into
print in Paris in 1885, has been found interesting for its effective
presentation of the Gallican point of view, both of the present date
and of the earlier centuries, in regard to controversial matters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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