The History of Censorship

1. “I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner and on my knees, and before your Eminencies, having before my eyes the Holy Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse, and detest the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.” Galileo, Italian astronomer, mathematician and physicist (1564–1642)

2. The History of Censorship Censorship Timeline ? 2004

3. The earliest examples of censorship 1352 BC-1336 BC Pharaoh Akhenaten Pharaoh Horemheb 1352

4. “This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, /----/, photographs – to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every predication made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.“ (George Orwell 1984)

5. Timeline of early communication 200.000 BC Thoughts Mime, Action, Sounds Speech Pictographs 4000BC-3500BC 2000-1000BC development of Phoenician script 1000-400BC development of Greek script 403BC standardisation of Ionian script (the basis of the Roman/Latin alphabet as we know it)

6. “Knowledge is Power” (Francis Bacon 1561-1626)

7. ‘Censor’ – ‘censure’ – to assess Censor’s Office in Rome - 443BC

8. Plato ‘The Republic’ 360BC “The poet shall compose nothing contrary to the ideas of the lawful, just, or beautiful or good, which are allowed in the State; nor shall he be permitted to show his compositions to any private individual, until he shall have shown them to the appointed censors and the guardians of the law, and they are satisfied with them.”

9. Aesop ‘Fables’ the 6th Century BC • Socrates 470-399BC • Arius 333AD Method: Physical distruction of individuals or/and their ideas

10. “Wherever they burn books, they will in the end, burn human beings” (Heinrich Heine, 1823)

11. Heresy Belief contrary to the authorised teaching of ones’s natural religious community or an opinion opposed to the usual or conventional belief.

12. Processes for Prosecuting Heresy 2-stage: A trial – re-affirmation of the Christian faith 3-stage version 1: A trial – Excommunication- re-affirmation of the Christian faith 3-stage version 2: A trial – Excommunication – Atonement Burning at the Stake

13. Methods of ‘thought control’: 1314: Jacques Molay, Grand Master Templars, burnt at the stake; 1431: Jean d’Arc, burnt at the stake; 1415: Jan Hus, theologian, burnt at the stake; 1498: Savonarola, preacher, burnt at the stake; 1528: Hubmair; Austria Anabaptist, burnt at the stake; 1536: Tyndale, reformer & translator of New Testament, burnt at the stake; 1543: First Protestants burnt at the stake by Spanish Inquisition. 1612: last recorded burning of heretics in England; 1633: Galileo, scientist, forced by Inquisition to recant Copernicus’ theories.

14. 500 years of censorship 1467 Decree of Pope Innocent VII sanctioned examining and licencing of all books by the Church authorities; 1479 Pope Sixtus IV granted the fullest powers of censorship to the University of Cologne; 1486 The Archbishop of Mainz put the responsibility for censorship on the Professors of Mainz University; 1501 the first censorship organisation included Cologne, Mainz, Trier and Magdeburg provinces; 1515 Censorship Decrees of the Lateral Council for the entire Church;

15. 1520 Pope Leo X forbade all writings of Martin Luther; 1542 Reorganisation of the General Inquisition and establishing of the Universal Roman Inquisition – the Congregation of the Holy Office with its Inquisitional Tribunal; 1545 first catalogue of prohibited books and authors 1555 confiscation of all Talmudic books from Jews 1559 Index Librorum Prohibitorum 1564 Index Tridentius & the Congregation for the Indexes of Prohibited Books 1948 the last issue of the Index 1965 decree of Pope Paul VI that abolished the Indexes.

16. “Fear is the origin of all censorship, fear of losing undisputed authority and control” (Anonymous) “Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, novelist 1803-1897)

17. Methods of Censorship • Pre-printing age (before the 1440s) - erasure of all past reference to an individual - book burning - verbal counter-argument - excommunication - execution of the individual

18. Methods of Censorship Post Printing age (from the 1440s onwards): - Two main types of censorship prescribed in The Church decrees: pre-publication censorship and publishing licenses; and condemnation of already published books (post publication censorship); • Church designated censors • Printed lists of banned publications – the Indexes.

19. 2000 BC 1600s 2000-1000BC Phoenician Script 1000-400BC Development of Greek Scripts 443BC Roman Office of Censor created 403 BC Standardisation of Ionian script (the basis of the alphabet as we know it). 399BC Socrates’ death 360BC Plato’s rationale for censorship 1231AD Inquisition begun 1440s Inventing of Printing 1540s Reformation began 1559 Index Librorum Prohibitorum and the other printed lists of prohibited books 1600s Emergence of State censorship