The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (English: List of Prohibited Books) was a list of publications

deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Catholic Church.[1]
The 9th century witnessed the creation of what is considered to be the first index, called
the Decretem Glasianum, but it was never officially authorized.[2] Much later, a first version
(the Pauline Index) was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, which Paul F. Grendler believed
marked "the turning-point for the freedom of enquiry in the Catholic world", and which lasted less
than a year, being then replaced by what was called the Tridentine Index (because it was authorized
at the Council of Trent), which relaxed aspects of the Pauline Index that had been criticized and had
prevented its acceptance.[1]
The 20th and final edition appeared in 1948, and the Index was formally abolished on 14 June 1966
by Pope Paul VI.[3][4][5]
The aim of the list was to protect the faith and morals of the faithful by preventing the reading
of heretical and immoral books. Books thought to contain such errors included works by astronomers
such as Johannes Kepler's Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae, which was on the Index from 1621
to 1835, and by philosophers, like Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The various editions of
the Index also contained the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and pre-emptive
censorship of bookseditions and translations of the Bible that had not been approved by the
Church could be banned.[6]
Catholic canon law still recommends that works concerning sacred Scripture, theology, canon law,
church history, and any writings which specially concern religion or morals, be submitted to the
judgment of the local ordinary.[7] The local ordinary consults someone whom he considers competent
to give a judgment and, if that person gives the nihil obstat ("nothing forbids") the local ordinary
grants the imprimatur ("let it be printed").[8] Members of religious institutes require the imprimi
potest (it can be printed) of their major superior to publish books on matters of religion or morals. [9]
Some of the scientific theories in works that were on early editions of the Index have long been
routinely taught at Catholic universities worldwide; for example the general prohibition of books
advocating heliocentrism was only removed from the Index in 1758, but already in 1742 two Minims
mathematicians had published an edition of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) with
commentaries and a preface stating that the work assumed heliocentrism and could not be
explained without it.[10] The burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno,[11] whose entire works were
placed on the Index in 1603,[12] was because of teaching the heresy of pantheism, not for
heliocentrism or other scientific views.[13][14][15] Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, one of whose works was on
the Index, was beatified in 2007.[16] The developments since the abolition of the Index signify "the
loss of relevance of the Index in the 21st century."[17]
A complete list of the authors and writings present in the successive editions of the Index is given in
J. Martnez de Bujanda, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 16001966.[18] A list of the books that were on
the Index can be found on the World Wide Web.[19]

Contents
[hide]

1Background and history

o 1.1European restrictions on the right to print

o 1.2Early indexes (15291571)

o 1.3Sacred Congregation of the Index (15711917)

 o 1.4Holy Office (19171966)

o 1.5Abolition (1966)

2Scope and impact

o 2.1Censorship and enforcement

o 2.2Continued moral obligation

o 2.3Changing judgments

3Listed works and authors

4See also

5Notes

6External links

Background and history[edit]

European restrictions on the right to print[edit]

Printing press from 1811, Munich, Germany.

The historical context in which the Index appeared involved the early restrictions on printing in
Europe. The refinement of moveable type and the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around
1440 changed the nature of book publishing, and the mechanism by which information could be
disseminated to the public.[20] Books, once rare and kept carefully in a small number of libraries,
could be mass-produced and widely disseminated.
In the 16th century, both the churches and governments in most European countries attempted to
regulate and control printing because it allowed for rapid and widespread circulation of ideas and
information. The Protestant Reformation generated large quantities of polemical new writing by and
within both the Catholic and Protestant camps, and religious subject-matter was typically the area
most subject to control. While governments and church encouraged printing in many ways, which
allowed the dissemination of Bibles and government information, works of dissent and criticism could
also circulate rapidly. As a consequence, governments established controls over printers across
Europe, requiring them to have official licenses to trade and produce books. [21][22]
The early versions of the Index began to appear from 1529 to 1571. In the same time frame, in 1557
the English Crown aimed to stem the flow of dissent by chartering the Stationers' Company. The
right to print was restricted to two universities and to the 21 existing printers in the city of London,
which had between them 53 printing presses.
The French crown also tightly controlled printing, and the printer and writer Etienne Dolet was
burned at the stake for atheism in 1546. The 1551 Edict of Chteaubriant comprehensively
summarized censorship positions to date, and included provisions for unpacking and inspecting all
books brought into France.[23][24] The 1557 Edict of Compigne applied the death penalty to heretics
and resulted in the burning of a noblewoman at the stake.[25] Printers were viewed as radical and
rebellious, with 800 authors, printers and book dealers being incarcerated in the Bastille before it
was stormed in 1789.[26]At times, the prohibitions of church and state followed each other, e.g. Ren
Descartes was placed on the Index in the 1660s and the French government prohibited the teaching
of Cartesianism in schools in the 1670s.[27]
The 1710 introduction of Statute of Anne in England (and later copyright laws in France) eased this
situation. However, historian Eckhard Hffner claims that copyright laws and their restrictions acted
as a barrier to progress in those countries for over a century, since British publishers could print
valuable knowledge in limited quantities for the sake of profit; while the German economy prospered
in the same time frame since there were no restrictions. [28][29]

Early indexes (15291571)[edit]

Title page of the first Papal Index, Index Auctorum et Librorum, published in 1557 and then withdrawn.

The first list of the kind was not published in Rome, but in
Catholic Netherlands (1529); Venice (1543) and Paris (1551) under the terms of the Edict of
Chteaubriant followed this example. By mid-century, in the tense atmosphere of wars of religion in
Germany and France, both Protestant and Catholic authorities reasoned that only control of the
press, including a catalog of prohibited works, coordinated by ecclesiastic and governmental
authorities could prevent the spread of heresy.[30]
The first Roman Index was printed in 1557 under the direction of Pope Paul IV (15551559), but
then withdrawn for unclear reasons.[31] In 1559, a new index was finally published, banning the entire
works of some 550 authors in addition to the individual proscribed titles: [31][32]"The Pauline Index felt
that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writing."[30] The work of the censors
was considered too severe and met with much opposition even in Catholic intellectual circles; after
the Council of Trent had authorised a revised list prepared under Pope Pius IV, the so-
called Tridentine Index was promulgated in 1564; it remained the basis of all later lists until Pope Leo
XIII, in 1897, published his Index Leonianus.
The blacklisting of some Protestant scholars even when writing on subjects a modern reader would
consider outside the realm of dogma meant that, unless they obtained a dispensation, obedient
Catholic thinkers were denied access to works including: botanist Conrad Gesner's Historiae
animalium; the botanical works of Otto Brunfels; those of the medical scholar Janus Cornarius;
to Christoph Hegendorff or Johann Oldendorp on the theory of law; Protestant geographers and
cosmographers like Jacob Ziegler or Sebastian Mnster; as well as anything by Protestant
theologians like Martin Luther, John Calvin or Philipp Melancthon.[33] Among the inclusions was
the Libri Carolini, a theological work from the 9th century court of Charlemagne, which was
published in 1549 by Bishop Jean du Tillet and which had already been on two other lists of
prohibited books before being inserted into the Tridentine Index.[34]

Sacred Congregation of the Index (15711917)[edit]

In 1571 a special congregation was created, the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which had the
specific task to investigate those writings that were denounced in Rome as being not exempt of
errors, to update the list of Pope Pius IV regularly and also to make lists of required corrections in
case a writing was not to be condemned absolutely but only in need of c