by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
books for the students depended on them, the Universities of Paris, Oxford, and elsewhere deemed it
their duty to keep them under control, having in view the maintenance of pure texts and the interests of
the students, at whose expense the booksellers were not to be permitted to fatten. By the rules of the
University of Paris the bookseller was required to be a man of wide learning and high character, and to
bind himself to observe the laws regarding books laid down by the University.
He was forbidden to offer any transcript for sale until it bad been examined and found correct; and were
any inaccuracy detected in it by the examiner, he was liable to a fine or the burning of the book,
according to the magnitude of his error. The price of books was also fixed by the University, and the
vendor forbidden to make more than a certain rate of profit on each volume. Again, the bookseller could
not purchase any books without the sanction of the University, for fear that he might be the means of
disseminating heretical or immoral literature. Later, it was made obligatory on him to lend out books on
hire to those who could not afford to buy them, and to expose in his shop a list of these books and the
charges at which they were to be had.
The poor booksellers, thus hedged about with restrictions, often joined some other occupation to that of
selling manuscripts in order to make both ends meet, but when this practice came to the notice of the
University they were censured for degrading their noble profession by mixing with it "vile trades." But
presumably no such rules as the above hampered the booksellers of non-university towns, such as
London.
The control assumed by the Universities over the book trade presently extended to interference with
original writings and a censorship of literature. With the introduction of printing and the consequent
increase of books and of the facilities for reproducing them this censorship was taken up by the Church.
Ecclesiastical censorship, however, was not the outcome of the Universities' assumption of control over
the book trade. It sprang from the jealousy of the clergy, who opposed the spread of knowledge among
the people-some, perhaps, because they knew that knowledge in ignorant hands is dangerous, and
others because they feared their own prestige might suffer.
This feeling existed before printing, though printing brought it to a head. For instance, in 1415 the
penalty in this country for reading the Scriptures in the vernacular was forfeiture of land, cattle, body,
life, and goods by the offenders and their heirs for ever, and that they should be condemned for heretics
to God, enemies to the Crown, and most errant traitors to the land. They were refused right of
sanctuary, and if they persisted in the offence or relapsed after a pardon were first to be hanged for
treason against the King and then burned for heresy against God.
Thus the clergy upheld and encouraged a censorship of the press. As early as 1479 Conrad de
Homborch, a Cologne printer, had issued a Bible accompanied by canons, etc., which was" allowed and
approved by the University of Cologne," and in 1486 the Archbishop of Mentz issued a mandate
forbidding the translation into the vulgar tongue of Greek, Latin, and other books, without the previous
approbation of the University. Finally, in ISIS, a bull of Leo X. required Bishops and Inquisitors to
examine all books before they came to be printed, and to suppress any heretical matter.
The Vicar of Croydon, preaching at St. Paul's Cross about the time of the spread of the art of printing, is
said to have declared that" we must root out printing or printing will root out us." But an ecclesiastical
censorship over the English press was not established until 1559, when an Injunction issued by Queen
Elizabeth provides that, because of the publication of unfruitful, vain, and infamous books and papers,
"no manner of person shall print any manner of bake or paper except the same be first licensed by her
maiestie . . . or by .vi. of her privy counsel, or be perused and licensed by the archbysshops of
Cantorbury and Yorke, the bishop of London," etc. The Injunction extended also to "pampheletes,
playes, and balletes," so that" nothing therein should be either heretical, sedicious, or vnsemely for
Christian eares." Classical authors, however, and works hitherto commonly received in universities and
schools were not touched by the Injunction.