PRESS, CENSORSHIP OF, a regu lation which has prevailed in most coun tries of Europe, and still prevails in many, according to which printed books, pamph lets, and newspapers, are examined by persons appointed for the purpose, who are empowered to prevent publication if they see sufficient reason.
There are different modes of censorship; the universal previous censorship, by which all MSS. must be examined and approved of before they are sent to press ; the indirect censorship, which examines works after they have been printed, and, if it finds anything objectionable, stops their sale and confiscates the edition, and marks out the author or editor for pro secution ; the optional censorship, which allows an author to tender his MS. for examination in order to be discharged from all responsibility afterwards ; and lastly, by a distinction which has been very commonly made between newspapers or pamphlets and works of a greater bulk, the censorship of the journals, which exists even in countries where larger works are free from this superintendence. All these forms of censorship imply an establishment of censors, examiners, in spectors. or licensers. as they have been variously called, appointed for the pur pose, a provision quite distinct from the laws which define the various offences which a man may he guilty of by publi cation. These are repressive or penal laws, whilst the censorship, and especially the previous censorship, is essentially a preventive regulation.
The censorship may be said to be coeval with printing. In more ancient times, those writings which were obnoxious to the prevailing political or religious sys tems, if they fell under the eyes of men in authority, were condemned to be de stroyed. Thus, all the copies of the works of Protagoras which could be found in Athens were publicly burnt by sentence of the Areopagus, because the author ex pressed doubts concerning the existence of the gods. Personal defamation and satire were also forbidden. Naevius at Rome was banished, some say put in prison, for having, in his plays, cast re flections on several patricians. Augustus ordered the satirical works of Labienus to be burnt, and Ovid's alleged or probable cause of exile was his amatory poetry. The senate under Tiberius condemned a work to be burnt, in which Cassius was styled the last of the Romans. Diocletian I
ordered the sacred books of the Christians to be burnt, and afterwards Constantine condemned the works of Arius to the flames. All these, however, were penal proceedings independent of any censorship. The councils of the Church condemned books which they judged to be heretical, and warned the faithful against reading them. Afterwards the popes began to condemn certain works and prohibit the reading of them. Iu the time of Huss and Iv ycliff, Pope Martin V. excommu nicated those who read prohibited books. The introduction of printing having awakened the fears of the ecclesiastical authorities, several bishops ordered books to be examined by censors. One of the earliest instances of this is that quoted by Johann Beckmann, in his 'Book of In ventions,' of Berchthold, Archbishop of Mainz, who in the year 1486 issued a mandate, in which, after censuring the practice of translating the sacred writings from the Latin into the vulgar German, a language, he says, too rude and too poor to express the exact meaning of the in spired text, he adverts to the translations of the books of the canon and civil law, works, as the archbishop says, so difficult as to require the whole life of man to be understood, a difficulty which is now in creased b7 the incompetence of the trans lator, which renders obscurity still more obscure. His grace, therefore, setting a full value on the art of printing, " which had its cradle in this illustrious city of Mainz," and wishing to preserve its honour by preventing it being abused, forbids all persons subject to his authority, clerical and lay, of whatever rank, order, and profession, to print the translation of any work from the Greek, Latin, or any other _anguage, into German, concerning any art, science, or information whatever, publicly or privately, unless such transla tion be read and approved of before being printed, and, when printed, before being published, and furnished with the written testimony of one of the doctors and pro fessors of the University of Mainz, named by the archbishop, one for theology, one for law, one for medicine, and one forthe arts. All who violated this order were to lose the book, pay a fine of one hundred I gold florins to the Electoral Chamber, and be excommunicated.