likewise allowed to, and exercised by, all public ecclesiastic bodies, as those of the universities of the Sorbonne and of Louvain, by individual superior ecclesiastics, and even by the supreme civil magistrate-not, indeed, without some repug

* It is not necessary to my plan to trace the origin of biblical condemnations to the highest source; and therefore I am content to add what may yet be useful in a note, containing an extract from a valuable Essay on the Indexes in a late work of the Rev. Dr. Townley.

'The first instances of books printed with Imprimaturs, or official permissions, are two printed at Cologne, and sanctioned by the University in 1479 (one of them a Bible), and another at Heidelburg, in 1480, authorized by the Patriarch of Venice, &c. The oldest mandate that is known for appointing a Book-Censor is one issued by BERTHOLD, Archbishop of Mentz, in the year 1486, forbidding persons to translate any books out of the Latin, Greek, or other languages, into the vulgar tongue, or, when translated, to sell or dispose of them, unless admitted to be sold by certain doctors and masters of the university of Erfurt. In 1501, Pope ALEXANDER VI. published a Bull prohibiting any books to be printed without the approbation of the Archbishops of Cologne, Mentz, Triers, and Madgeburg, or their Vicars-General, or officials in spirituals, in those respective provinces 1. The year following, FERDINAND and ISABELLA, sovereigns of Spain, published a royal ordinance charging the Presidents of the Chancellaries of Valladolid and Ciudad-Real, and the Archbishops of Toledo, Seville, and Grenada, and the Bishops of Burgos, Salamanca, and Zamora, with everything relative to the examination, censure, impression, importation, and sale of books 2. In the Council of Lateran, held under LEO X. in 1515, it was decreed that no book should be printed at Rome, nor in other cities and dioceses, unless, if at Rome, it had been examined by the Vicar of his Holiness and the Master of the Palace; or, if elsewhere, by the Bishop of the diocese, or a doctor appointed by him, and had received the signature, under pain of excommunication and burning of the books3.' Pp. 145-7 of Essays on various Subjects of Ecclesiastical History and An- X tiquity, by the REV. J. TOWNLEY; 8vo. London, 1824.

1 Beckman's History of Inventions, vol. iii. pp. 99–115.

2 Llorente. Hist. Crit. de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, tom. i. p. 282.

3 Dictionnaire Portatif des Conciles, p. 280. Paris, 1764, 8vo.; Beckman's History of Inventions, vol. iii. p. 115.

nance and derogation. The jesuit Raynaud *, in particular, denies the authority of bishops in terms, although by allowing them a declaratory

power, he admits it in fact. But his opinion of the authority possessed by the Universities is more pointed and contemptuous. If, he argues, this power resides not in an individual doctor as such, how can it reside in a collective body of doctors? If Æsop's ass, though in a lion's skin, was still but an ass, would a whole herd of such animals form an assembly of lions?

* Erotem. Partit. iii. Erot. ii., sect. 468, 471.

CHAPTER II.

ANGLICAN Lists of Prohibited Books, from 1520 to 1558-Ordinance of Leo X. in Council of Lateran-Supposed Index at Venice, 1543-Index of John della Casa, 1549-SPANISH and BELGIC Indexes from 1539 to 1550.-GALLICAN Indexes from 1544 to 1551-ROMAN Indexes from 1549 to 1559-Bull in Cœna Domini-Index of Paul IV. 1559, with Reprints by Vergerio and Naogeorgus in the same year-SPANISH Index of 1559-Censura Generalis, 1554 and 1562.

THE catalogue of prohibited books by Pope Gelasius I. at the close of the fifth century, to be found in the Decretals of Gratian, and appealed to by some writers on the subject before us, does not deserve to be considered as an instance of the prohibitory Index, in the proper sense of the term; as being applicable, not to private and universal, but to public reading *. Indeed the origin of the genuine Roman Indexes is to be assigned to the formidable attack upon the Roman superstition by MARTIN LUTHER and others, in Germany, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It may appear a matter of surprise to any one who reads the reflections and even invectives against the Roman church by her

* AS CATALANI himself acknowledges. De Secret, &c. l. i. c. iii.

own members, in MORNAY'S Mystery of Iniquity, or the Testes Veritatis by FLACIUS ILLYRICUS, that the publication could ever have been endured, or the authors continued, as was the fact, not only in safety but in favour*. The truth, however, is, that the church of Rome cared nothing about the infamy, while her dominion was safe. But when Luther and his adherents endangered that dominion, the case was altered. And perhaps our own country may have the credit, such as it is, of being among the first in endeavouring to repel the attack in a literary way †. In 1520, Cardinal

* What, to adduce but one out of numberless instances, are we to think of the following passage of N. MACHIAVELLI, in the Twelfth Chapter of the First Book of his Discourses on the Decads of Livy? He had just observed that, were religion maintained by the princes of the Christian republic, as it was delivered by its founder, Christian states and republics would be more united and happier than they are. He immediately adds: Ne se può fare altra maggiore conjettura della declinatione d' essa, quanto è vedere come quelli popoli che sono più propinqui alla Chiesa Romana, capo della Religione nostra, hanno meno Religione. Et chi considerasse i fondamenti suoi, e vedesse l'uso presente quanto è diverso da quelli, giudicherebbe esser propinquo senza dubbio, ò la rovina ò il flagello. Habbiamo adunque con la Chiesa e co i Preti noi Italiani questo primo obligo, d' essere diventati senza Religione e cattivi. The English of which is, The more of Rome, the less of religion.

It may not be improper to notice, although I do not know what to make of it, a work mentioned by PANZER in his Annales Typ. tom. vii. p. 258, under the place Lovanii and the year MDX. Die Catalogen of inventaryen van den quaden verboden bouken: na advis der Universiteyt van Louen. Met een edict oft mandement der Keyserlyeker Majesteyt. Te Louen deprint, by servaes van Sassen. MCCCCCX. 4. Gesner, 1. c. p. 34. It is very much in the style of the catalogues which soon after issued from the same University, and by the same printer. The heresies, how

WOLSEY, in consequence of the Brief of LEO X., dated 13 Kal. Julii*, of that year, directed the English bishops to require that all the books and writings of one Martin Luther (cujusdam M. L.) should be brought in and delivered up to them, from all persons whatsoever possessing them, under pain of the greater excommunication†. however, refers simply to the writings of Luther, and does not even enumerate any specific articles. In 1526, the Archbishop of Canterbury, WARHAM, sent a Mandate to VOYSEY, Bishop of Exeter, or

This,

ever, which existed at that time, are not very obvious: fortunately for them, the reformers were not then moving. In the edition of Dr. MARTIN LUTHER'S Briefe, &c., Erster Theil, Berlin, 1825, No. VIII., pp. 15, 16, there is a letter of the date of Feb. 8, 1516, which has this observationNec cessant Universitates bonos libros cremare et damnare, rursum malos dictare, imo somniare. As concerns this eminent and formidable individual, in 1519 issued condemnations to the flames (it hardly signifies of what work of his) by the Doctors of Louvain, and, following them, of Cologne, both printed at Wittemberg, in copies before me, 1520. The printer's name is remarkable, MELCHIOR LOTTHERUS. There followed, in 1521, Determinationes Theologica Facultatis Parisien. super Doctrina Lutheriana, Wittemberg, 1521, condemning a number of Propositions from the book de Captivitate Babylonica. The original edition is that from which I copy, although the pieces are likewise included in Luther's works. Cologne, in like manner, issued a censure against an Epitome of Abuses bý a Reformed Monastery, 1532, of which the original account is in C. D'ARGENTRE'S Collectio Judiciorum, Tom. iii., Part ii., pp. 82, &c.; but my information is from the valuable Miscell. Groning. of GERDES, Tom. i., p. 418, &c.

* The celebrated Bull against Luther is dated xvii. Kal. Julii.

It is to be found in STRYPE's Memorials of the Reformation, among the Records, under HENRY VIII. Numb. ix. e Regist. Booth, Ep. Heref.

C