The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 2 (of 2)Putnam, George Haven
History
The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 2 (of 2)
Putnam, George Haven
Freedom of the press; Liberty of conscience; Prohibited books
The regulations for the control of the press in England were more
strenuous under the Commonwealth and the later Stuarts than before the
death of Charles I. Between the years 1637–1681, more than two hundred
books came upon the condemnation lists. Among the works condemned
and prohibited by Cromwell was the _Areopagitica_ of Milton,
published in 1644. In 1646, was condemned the book by John Biddle
(known as the father of modern Unitarianism) which bore the title:
_Twelve Arguments from Scripture in regard to the Divinity of the
Holy Ghost_. The author was imprisoned and the copies of the book
burned. The censor of the press under the last two Stuarts was Roger
L’Estrange. The penalties in force at the time he assumed the office
providing for the destruction of books, the imprisonment and in certain
cases the death of the authors and printers, were, in his judgment, not
sufficiently severe. He beseeched Parliament to give him authority to
add to these penalties stocks, public whipping, the cutting off of the
hand, the cutting out of the tongue, etc. A printer named Trogan, who
came under the disapproval of the censor, was executed in 1686, with
various revolting details.
In 1642, the Parliament condemned and ordered burned by the hangman
five publications written by Royalists. In each succeeding year,
similar action was taken with publications (mainly pamphlets) written
in opposition to the control of Parliament. A more serious matter for
the authors than the burning of the books was that of the fines. Joseph
Primatt, for instance, in 1652, was fined five thousand pounds for the
publication of a petition to Parliament, and Lilburne was in the same
year fined seven thousand pounds. The first theological work dealt
with by Parliament was a treatise by John Archer entitled _Comfort
for believers about their Sinnes and Troubles_. This was published
in 1645 and in the same year was, under the order of Parliament,
publicly burned in four places. In September, 1650, a monograph by
Lawrence Clarkson entitled _Single Eye, All light, no darkness_,
was condemned to be burned by the hangman and Clarkson, after being
imprisoned for a month, was sentenced to banishment for life. These
instances are selected from a long series of similar condemnations
merely in order to make clear that the theory of the Parliament in
regard to the right and the duty of the Government to prevent the
circulation of pernicious literature (that is to say, literature the
opinions of which were not in accord with those of the existing
authorities) differed in no way from that of the supporters of royalty.
A similar series of condemnations, with burning of the books and fining
of the authors, together with an occasional exposure in the pillory,
was continued through the Restoration. In the year 1690, a treatise by
Arthur Bury, rector of Exeter College, Oxford, issued under the title
of the _Naked Gospels_, was ordered burned under the authority of
the University of Oxford.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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