1. =The Institution of the Roman Inquisition, 1542.=--The year 1542 marks the beginning of formal regulations framed in Rome itself for the suppression of heretical literature and for the supervision and control of the work of the printers. The English catalogues of 1542 and later, and the edicts of Charles V, published between 1526 and 1540, while having for their expressed purpose the maintenance of the doctrines of the Church, were issued under the authority of the State. These earlier censorship measures do not appear even to have been the result of any direct initiative or suggestion from Rome. It may be remembered, indeed, that the _Bulla Coenae_ presents, in its successive forms, a very forcible expression of the policy of the Church in regard to the spread of heresies through literature and of the intention of controlling the production and distribution of books, and this Bull in its original form (as issued by Urban V in 1364) antedates the operation of the printing-press by nearly a century. But the formulation of the measures by which the fight against this perilous ally of heresy was to be carried on, had to wait for the reorganisation, in 1542, of the Roman Inquisition, which reorganisation was the direct result of the revolt of Luther and his associates. In the present study, I am concerned with the Inquisition only in so far as this was brought into direct relations with the work of censorship. The Inquisition as an institution was not brought into existence at any one date but had a gradual development. Lea refers to the “gradual organisation of the Inquisition as being the result of an evolution arising from the mutual reaction of certain social forces. The triumph of the Church in the suppression of the Albigensian crusades had increased its responsibilities, while the imperfection of the means at its command for discharging these responsibilities was evidenced by the enormous spread of heresy during the 12th century.”[94]