"Heresy and Error": The Ecclesiastical Censorship of Books, 1400–1800

Title

"Heresy and Error": The Ecclesiastical Censorship of Books, 1400–1800

Description

Sixty-two books and broadsides that were either prohibited or assisted the Catholic church in its battle against heresy and error.

Creator

Bridwell Library Special Collections

Publisher

SMU Libraries

Date

Originally exhibited September 20 – December 17, 2010

Collection Items

Prothro B-478
This commentary on the New Testament by the Catholic theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam, contains numerous passages that were inked out or excised by a censor because they were considered inconsistent with traditional interpretations of the scriptures.…

BRA0050
Throughout the history of Christianity, various ecclesiastical authorities have argued that their jurisdiction over the censorship of books has a scriptural basis. To that end, the Index librorum prohibitorum published by the Catholic Church in 1758…

06314
The first papal decree to list forbidden writings was the Decretum Gelasianum, attributed to Pope Gelasius (d. 496). While this list canonized the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and other "orthodox fathers," it also enumerated which Christian…

ACZ7178
This catalogue of heretical writings was compiled during the first years of the Protestant Reformation by Bernard of Luxemburg, a Dominican theologian and Inquisitor of Cologne. It was among the first publications to identify the "heretical" works of…

BRA0326
The second edition of the Catalogus haereticorum includes an allegorical woodcut of the "statua hereticalis" ("effigy of the heretic"). While the heretic listens to the hot air bellowed into his ear by a winged demon, two other monsters below prepare…

BRB0242
The Catholic Church actively defended its suppression of controversial literature. This collection of seven essays by the Bishop of Roermond in the Netherlands includes one concerning the need for censorship of the press. Praising the essential role…

Prothro B-281
The first widely circulated English version of the Bible, translated from St. Jerome's Latin by followers of John Wycliffe, was outlawed in 1408 by Archbishop Thomas Arundel of Canterbury. Arundel's council ruled that the use of unauthorized…

Prothro B-212
This magnificently illuminated Missal was censored in the sixteenth century by order of Henry VIII (1491–1547). Unable to resolve his religious, political, and personal conflicts with Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, the king broke with the Roman…

06401
This translation of the Legenda aurea by William Caxton (c. 1422–1491) is the first English edition of Jacobus de Voragine's highly popular compendium of saints' lives. In Bridwell Library's copy, as in several others that survive, several leaves…

Prothro B-97
William Tyndale's essay on Christ's parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16) was 1 of 18 works prohibited in England by mandate of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1526. Influenced by Martin Luther's tract in 1522, Tyndale's version likely was in print…

00753
This pamphlet on the proposed marriage between Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) and Francis, Duke of Anjou (1555–1584), argued that English sovereignty, religion, and morality would be undermined by the queen's union with this Catholic French suitor.…

01802
In 1643, church authorities ensured that the poet John Milton was refused a license to publish a controversial essay in favor of the right to divorce. In response, Milton composed the pamphlet entitled Areopagitica (after the ancient Athenian court…

BRB0116
The Catholic theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam continued to modify his Annotationes on the New Testament for many years following their first publication in 1516. In 1526, however, the Annotationes were condemned by the Faculty of Theology at the…

BRB0020
In this three-part work, the most conservative of the theologians at the University of Paris outlined his objections to the commentaries of two leading biblical scholars, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (c. 1455–1546) and Erasmus of Rotterdam. Béda's…

BRA0001
The anonymous Lyon edition of the "Dance of Death," the first to be illustrated with woodcuts designed by Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1498–1543), was banned by the Faculty of Theology in 1551 because it parodied the morals of the clergy and all…

BRB0162
The 1546 French Bible translated by Pierre Robert Olivétan and revised by Jean Calvin was listed in the Sorbonne's catalogue of censured books in 1551. This copy is a rare variant issued for surreptitious circulation in France. Its title page omits…

AFD2103
In 1546 the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne condemned this edition of the Bible, declaring that it was "scattered with things that are erroneous, conducive to scandals, favoring Lutherans, and breathing heresies long ago condemned." Zurich…

AER6426
In 1552, in an unprecedented action by a printer, Estienne published this response to the Sorbonne's condemnations, offering an introductory account of his two decades of conflict with the Parisian censors and a point-for-point defense of his Bible.…

19461
In the first edition of the official decrees of the Council of Trent the necessity of an organized approach to censorship was clearly stated in the summary of the eighteenth Tridentine session.

ACY3341
A direct outcome of the Council of Trent, the Index librorum prohibitorum ("Index of Prohibited Books") provided a list of authors and works that were banned by the Catholic Church. The first Tridentine Index prohibited the complete writings of 610…

AFH7502
The Tridentine Index of 1564 presented ten rules that were established by the Council of Trent to control the censorship of texts. In the Index librorum prohibitorum that accompanies this 1664 edition of the Council's decrees, the ten rules were…

AET7905
The Council of Trent broke prohibited books into three classes: books by heretical authors, individual prohibited books, and anonymous protected books. They were listed in these three categories until 1664 when books were listed in a single…

BRB0147
For the compilers of the Index librorum prohibitorum, Martin Luther was the most significant heretic of the first class. This book is the only surviving copy of the Dutch translation of Luther's principal work on the Eucharist, Vom Abendmal Christi,…

BRA1441
This prohibited book by Jacob Otther of Speyer was compiled from the unpublished sermons of his controversial teacher, the Catholic preacher Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg (1445–1510). This copy of the book reflects the prohibited status of its author…

BRA0851
Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican" remains one of the most significant books in the history of science. Controversy arose over Galileo's proof of the Copernican cosmology, which placed the sun, not…
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