Librorum Prohibitorum

[Vennie Fireman]

Manynoteworthy authors were put on the Index librorum prohibitorum because their works were seen to cause religious, political and moral controversies. Famous names on the Roman Index include: - Greek and the Roman authors like Ovid and Petronius - religious reformers like Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and Jean Calvin - humanists like Erasmus of Rotterdam, Hugo Grotius and Nicodemus Frischlin - natural scientists like Nicolaus Copernicus, Paracelsus, and Joannes Kepler - political thinkers like Niccol Machiavelli, Jean Bodin and Montesquieu - philosophers like Ren Descartes, Francis Bacon, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, Auguste Comte and Jean-Paul Sartre - poets and novelists like Giovanni Boccaccio, John Milton, Jean de la Fontaine, Madame de Stal, Daniel Defoe, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Andr Gide, David Herbert Lawrence - and many others!

The novelist Ferrante Pallavicino experienced fierce revenge and was executed in Avignon because of his anti-papal and anti-Jesuit satires. Two notorious 17th- and 18th-century libertines and pornographers, Donatien Alphonse Franois Marquis de Sade and Nicolas-Edme Restif were in fierce personal disputes, but they appeared together on the Roman Index as well as on other censorship lists of the time.

Interested in book censorship? Read our previous blog post about it. Both posts are part of the Rise of Literacy project, where we take you on an exploration of literacy in Europe thanks to the digital preservation of precious textual works from collections across the continent.

The Index of Prohibited Books, or simply "Index", is used in a restricted sense to signify the exact list or catalogue of books, the reading of which was once forbidden to Catholics by the highest ecclesiastical authority. This list formed the second and larger part of the codex entitled "Index librorum prohibitorum", which contained the entire ecclesiastical legislation relating to books. (The "Index librorum prohibitorum", as an integrant part of the prohibition of books, has already been dealt with in the article CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS.)

A book was prohibited or put on the Index by decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Roman Inquisition, of the Sacred Office, or of the Index, which decree though approved by the pope (in form communi), always remained a purely congregational decree. It need scarcely be mentioned that the pope alone, without having recourse to any of the congregations, could put a book on the Index, either by issuing a Bull or a Brief, or in any other way. Formerly it was the rule that a book was examined by one of the Roman Congregations only after complaint had been made to Rome. With regard to the Congregation of the Index, however, Pius X, when reorganizing the Roman Curia by the Constitution "Sapienti consilio" (29 June, 1908), decreed as follows:

Henceforth it will be the task of this Sacred Congregation not only to examine carefully the books denounced to it, to prohibit them if necessary, and to grant permission for reading forbidden books, but also to supervise, ex officio, books that are being published, and to pass sentence on such as deserve to be prohibited. Its further task is to remind the bishops of their sacred duty to combat the publication of pernicious writings and give information about them to the Apostolic See, in accordance with the Constitution Officiorum ad munerum of 25 January, 1897 (Acta S. Sedis, XLI, 432).

The first printed catalogues of forbidden books did not appear at Rome, and, even after the institution of civil censorship, lists of books and writings prohibited by the State continued to appear. The first Roman "Index of Prohibited Books" (Index librorum prohibitorum), published in 1559 under Paul IV, was very severe, and was therefore mitigated under that pontiff by decree of the Holy Office of 14 June of the same year. It was only in 1909 that this "Moderatio Indicis librorum prohibitorum" (Mitigation of the Index of Prohibited Books) was rediscovered in "Codex Vaticanus lat. 3958, fol. 74", and was published for the first time in the "Zentralblatt fr Bibliothekswesen" (Leipzig, 1909-10). Concerning the curious indexes of 1590 and 1593, which were printed but never promulgated see Hilgers, "Der Index der verbotenen Bcher", 12 sq., 524 sqq., 529 sqq.

Some of the earliest examples date to the time of the Protestant Reformation. In 1559, Pope Paul IV drew up a list of authors guilty of heresy, ranging from Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and King Henry VIII, to more obscure figures. The Council of Trent took further action in 1562, forming a special commission to address the problem of heretical literature. Two years later, the commission published its own list of banned books, the famous Index librorum prohibitorum, a work that exerted a strong influence even outside the Catholic world until 1966, when it was officially abolished.

Special Collections owns a copy of a sixteenth-century edition of the decrees of the Council of Trent, in which the council announces its plans to crack down on writers who questioned or opposed Church doctrine. The volume, shown above, also contains a list of authors whose works had been banned, as well as the ten rules that the council established to guide censors in their work.

El Index librorum prohibitorum (en espaol, ndice de libros prohibidos) fue una lista de aquellas publicaciones que la Iglesia catlica catalog como herticas, inmorales o perniciosas para la fe y que los catlicos no estaban autorizados a leer. Adems, estableca las normas de la Iglesia respecto a la censura de los libros.

Para el mantenimiento del Index despus de la primera edicin se instituy en 1571 la Sagrada Congregacin del ndice, que produjo numerosas ediciones a lo largo de los cuatro siglos siguientes, cuando se produjo su suspensin, en 1966.

El ndice se nutri con materiales que se fueron agregando tanto por la Congregacin como por el Papa de turno. Otras congregaciones, como el Santo Oficio, pasaban a la anterior sus propias correcciones, para que las incorporara. Al final, la lista deba ser aprobada por el papa, que poda indultar a algn autor o aadir otro, como ocurri en el caso de Flicit Robert de Lamennais. Durante la mayor parte de su existencia, la Congregacin examin y censur los libros que eran denunciados por alguien; a partir de la reforma de 1908 por Po X, la Congregacin del ndice tena la obligacin de examinar de oficio los libros publicados y dictaminar cules deban ser prohibidos.

Los autores notables por su atesmo, como Schopenhauer, Marx o Nietzsche, o por su hostilidad a la Iglesia catlica no figuraron en el ndice, puesto que tales lecturas estn prohibidas ipso facto. Se incluye, ms bien, a aquellos autores y obras de los que los fieles pueden no ser inmediatamente conscientes de que sus posiciones son gravemente contrarias a la doctrina de la Iglesia, como Erasmo de Rterdam, Michel de Montaigne, La evolucin creadora, de Henri Bergson o, por ejemplo, las actas del Congrs d'histoire du christianisme (Congreso de historia del cristianismo) de 1933. Llama la atencin que no aparezca mencionado un autor como Voltaire ni su obra Cndido.

Los efectos de este ndice se sintieron por todos lados, ms all del mundo catlico. Durante muchos aos, en lugares como Quebec (Canad), Espaa, Italia y Polonia (territorios catlicos), fue muy difcil encontrar copias de estos libros, especialmente fuera de las grandes ciudades.

Este tipo de edicto tambin funciona como un registro de los libros existentes, segn Gmez lvarez y Tovar de Teresa, son un inventario de los libros con los que se contaban en esa poca, aunque muchos de los libros que hay dentro de los listados ya son completamente legales para leer e incluso ya son clsicos de la literatura actual, probablemente no nos hubiramos enterado de su existencia de no ser por los registros en los edictos.

Todas estas ideas revolucionarias nacieron en Francia con la Ilustracin, para que llegaran al Nuevo Mundo, era necesaria su difusin a travs de los libros, y aunque desde el siglo XVII la Corona espaola se haba preocupado por vigilar y examinar lo mejor posible cada libro y cada cargamento que parta para Amrica, el contrabando de libros sirvi como herramienta para difundirlo.

Las bibliotecas particulares tambin jugaron un papel importante dentro de la difusin. Las bibliotecas personales eran examinadas por los inquisidores una vez que el dueo falleca; en ellas se han encontrado una extensa variedad de temas, siendo el religioso el menos comn, pero se puede observar una gran tendencia a la laicizacin, y esas bibliotecas pertenecan a personas de diferentes estratos, desde comerciantes hasta polticos, por lo que no solo se deja entrever la cultura de esta gente, sino tambin el hecho de que, en realidad, se lea mucho ms de lo que se crea.

Post Litteras Apostolicas, a verbis incipientes Integrae servandae Motu Proprio datas die VII mensis decembris anno 1965, non paucae pervenerunt ad S. Sedem percontationes de Indicis librorum prohibitorum conditione, quo Ecclesia ad integritatem fidei et morum, iuxta divinum mandatum, tuendam hucusque usa est.

Ut memoratis petitionibus respondeatur, haec S. Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei, facto verbo cum Beatissimo Patre, nuntiat Indicem suum vigorem moralem servare, quatenus Christifidelium conscientiam docet, ut ab illis scriptis, ipso iure naturali exigente, caveant, quae fidem ac bonos mores in discrimen adducere possint; eundem tamen non amplius vim legis ecclesiasticae habere cum adiectis censuris.

Quam ob rem Ecclesia fidelium maturae conscientiae confidit, praesertim auctorum et editorum catholicorum atque eorum qui iuvenibus instituendis operam navant. Firmissimam autem spem collocat in vigili sollicitudine et singulorum Ordinariorum et Conferentiarum Episcopalium, quorum ius et officium est libros noxios tum inspiciendi tum praeveniendi atque, si res tulerit, reprehendendi et improbandi.

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