by Henry Kamen
The 1559 Index had set out to identify and prohibit suspicious books in their entirety. Subsequent Indexes started from a completely different perspective. The next Index was not issued for a quarter of a century, and in the interim the Inquisition proceeded by cartas acordadas, issuing some forty-three orders affecting a total of fifty books.61 The single most important influence on Catholic thinking about censorship at this period was the Index of Prohibited Books issued by the Council of Trent in 1564. Its premises were accepted as authoritative by all the theologians and inquisitors who helped to prepare the next Spanish Index. Meanwhile, Philip II had arranged for the Tridentine Index to be published in Flanders in 1570, and sponsored the preparation there by Benito Arias Montano, the distinguished Hebraist, of a special “expurgatory” Index (1571). Montano’s Index was novel because it adopted the practice of excising offending passages from otherwise orthodox books, which thereby escaped blanket prohibition. Philip II felt that there were lessons to be learned from the method of censorship adopted in Flanders, for he informed the duke of Alba at the end of 1569 that Montano’s draft index “will be a model for making one like it here, and to this effect a copy has been given to those of the Inquisition.”62
The Indexes of 1564 and 1571 played a fundamental part in the elaboration of Spain’s new Index, first discussed at a committee meeting in Salamanca in the latter year. Very little progress was made, possibly in part because of profound disagreements among the professors of Salamanca, some of whom (as we shall see) were in 1572 arrested by the Inquisition as a result of intrigues within the professorial body. Only after the end of this affair, in 1578, were the plans to prepare an Index resumed.63 Juan de Mariana devoted considerable time to helping the compilers: “I worked on it as much as anybody, and for a long time had four secretaries together helping me.”64 The Index which emerged consisted of two volumes—one of prohibited books (1583), the other of expurgated (1584)—issued by Inquisitor General Gaspar de Quiroga. There was an impressive increase in items compared with the previous Index. Valdés had prohibited some 700 items; the 1583 Index included 2,315, three times as many.65 Of these, 74 percent were in Latin, 8.5 percent in Castilian and 17.5 percent in other languages.
The scope of the 1583 Index was, in appearance, staggering. By its sheer size it drew into its ambit the whole of the European intellectual world, both past and present. Editions of classical authors and of fathers of the Church, the collected works of Peter Abelard and of Rabelais, selected works by William of Ockham, Savonarola, Jean Bodin, Machiavelli, Juan Luis Vives, Marsiglio of Padua, Ariosto, Dante and Thomas More (whose Utopia was banned until expurgated, although the Index conceded that he was vir alius pius et catholicus) were among the casualties. At first glance it would appear that the Inquisition was declaring war against the whole of European culture.
We would be wrong to accept the impression, because the Quiroga Index was much less aggressive than appears. For the most part it simply took over existing condemnations in the Catholic world. It integrated almost wholesale the previous Index of 1559, the Tridentine Index of 1564, the Antwerp Index of 1570 and items from other sources.66 The result was a big increase in titles, but as far as peninsular items were concerned there was very little change. About forty further books of Spanish origin were added to those in the Valdés list. Some were uncorrected editions of works that were otherwise now permitted, such as the Lazarillo and the Audi, Filia. In general, none of the new prohibitions was readily identifiable as a work of creative literature. Though it is possible, then, to criticize the Valdés Index for the harm it may have done to elements of Spanish literature, the Quiroga Index did virtually nothing to affect the literary or reading habits of Spaniards. The overwhelming bulk of books it prohibited was unknown to Spaniards, had never entered Spain, and was in languages that Spaniards could not read. The 215 books prohibited in Dutch and German, for example, featured in the Index simply because the Quiroga compilers copied the Antwerp Index wholesale. It is consequently misleading to regard the 1583 Index as directly repressive. It affected only in part the daily reality of readers, students or booksellers. More directly relevant may have been the expurgations listed in the 1584 Index.67 Authors and printers may have been irritated by these, but they were hardly a blow to creativity.
Among the influences behind the Quiroga Index were Montano, Mariana and other intellectuals. All were zealous upholders of the Counter-Reformation who saw in the machinery of censorship a golden opportunity not to repress freedom of learning but actively to form the culture of the society in which they lived. The vast borrowing of prohibitions from the Tridentine Index was their gesture to papal authority, but of more direct interest to them than the obvious struggle against heresy was the problem of educating Spaniards. A contemporary of theirs, the Toledo humanist and poet Alvar Gómez de Castro, left a memoir detailing principles of censorship.68 He divided harmful works into two categories: those in Latin and those in the vernacular. Harmful books in the first category may be kept by instructed persons, he stated, but should not be used in schools. Of those in the second category, some, such as Boccaccio, should be carefully expurgated. As for Spanish books in the second category, some are books of romance and chivalry, and “since they are without imagination or learning and it is a waste of time to read them, it is better to prohibit them, except for the first four books of Amadis.” Others in this class are books on love, of which some, such as the Celestina, are serious and good, while others are of such poor quality that they should be banned. Also in this class are works of poetry, again including both good and bad: the bad should be expurgated or eliminated. The interesting criterion employed was obviously that of literary merit.
Mariana conceded in 1579 that otherwise excellent books by Borja and others should continue to be banned because of “the evil times,” and was even firmer than Gómez de Castro in his views on the educative role of books.69 He recommended that the Spanish Index should include the Tridentine rule banning “absolutely those books that narrate or teach lascivious and obscene things” (his advice was not followed). Mariana also urged that “in particular one should ban such books both in Latin and in Castilian, to wit Celestina, Diana de Montemayor, and books of chivalry, even if it were only to force people to read good books and genuine histories.” His full list of unworthy literature also included selected works by Virgil, Ovid, Catullus, Propertius and other classical authors. Not all these suggestions were adopted by the compilers of the 1583 Index.
The inquisitors very seldom went looking for books to censor. They already had long lists to guide them, and further items were brought to their attention by zealous members of the public. They had to rely heavily on expert calificadores (censors), usually theologians from the religious orders.70 In the earlier period these tended to be mostly Dominicans;71 by the seventeenth century many were Franciscans and Jesuits.72 The system, if it can be called such, was (like all censorship systems) haphazard. Completely arbitrary decisions were made, and censors frequently contradicted each other. Judgments were made that had nothing to do with religion. The resulting confusion can be seen in the case of Bodin’s Republic, a Spanish translation of which suffered so many different criticisms in 1594 from the censors that it was decided to ban it totally.73 Fortunately, subsequent inquisitors reversed the decision and let the book through after expurgations. The example demonstrates that there was seldom any official criterion of “inquisitorial” censorship. The inquisitors and their censors simply put into effect the ideas prevailing among those who controlled the system. The fact that prominent intellects like Juan de Mariana and Melchor Cano were employed as censors did not affect—or improve—the criteria applied.
The Spanish Index was controlled only by the Spanish authorities and had no connection with that of Rome, which began in the sixteenth century to draw up its own list of prohibited books. While Spain often had on its list works which Rome had prohibited, there was no rule that one Index should follow the lead of the other
, and several authors were astonished to find that Spain had forbidden books of theirs which circulated freely in Italy. Alternatively, Rome would ban books which circulated freely in Spain.74 There was one other important difference between the two. The Roman Index was exclusively one of prohibition: that is, it banned books without regard to the number of errors in it, and without specifying whether a book could be published if it were expurgated. The Spanish Index, on the other hand, both expurgated and prohibited books, so that some works could circulate if the relevant passages cited in the Index were excised. In this respect the Spanish system was more liberal. When the Indexes clashed, reasons were invariably political, as in the case of the Italian cardinal Baronio, who some years later, in 1594, complained that although the pope had sanctioned his writings there were moves to put him on the Spanish Index. Baronio was certainly not in favor in Spain, but the relevant work by him was banned only by the state and not by the Inquisition.75
The Indexes of the seventeenth century were those of 1612 (with an appendix in 1614), 1632 and 1640. A prominent part in their compilation was played by the Jesuit Juan de Pineda, aided among others by Francisco Peña, the editor of Eimeric. Over twenty years after Quiroga’s Index, the Suprema in 1605 began preparation of a new one.76 It took seven years to draw up. The Index of 1612, issued under Inquisitor General Sandoval y Rojas, departed from previous practice. Instead of publishing separate volumes for prohibited and expurgated books, as was done in 1583–84, the cardinal published both together in an Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgatorum. The volume departed in another way from previous practice. Instead of dividing the material simply into Latin and vernacular books, it now divided the material into three classes. Into the first went authors who were completely prohibited; into the second went books that were prohibited, regardless of author; and into the third went books not bearing the names of their authors. For example, all heresiarchs would go into the first class, whereas Dante’s Monarchia would go into the second. Even this classification, however, was not strictly adhered to. Though Erasmus fell into the first class, and all his works without exception were banned in Spanish translation, several of his Latin works which were clearly beyond suspicion were permitted.
The Index of 1632 was issued by Inquisitor General Zapata, and that of 1640 by Inquisitor General Antonio de Sotomayor. Similar to the 1612 compilation in scope and content, Sotomayor’s Index offered a general survey of the intellectual advances of the seventeenth century, and complemented the efforts of the Quiroga Index to oversee aspects of European thought. It is not surprising to find Francis Bacon and other major writers condemned in the first class as heretics. Like the Quiroga Index, that of 1640 had little impact on native literature, apart from the surprising appearance of Mariana, who had to endure expurgations in seven of his works as well as in his De mutatione monetae (on the coinage) and his Treatise on Death and Immortality; and the well-known case of Cervantes, who lost by expurgation a sentence in book two, chapter thirty-six, of his Quixote, concerning works of charity. Despite its coincidence with the early period of the Scientific Revolution, moreover, the 1640 Index was tolerant towards some aspects of science. Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe, as heretics, were classified as auctores damnati and therefore appeared in class one; but virtually all their works were permitted in Spain after very minor expurgations. Some were allowed without any expurgation, but with the proviso that a note on the book should state that it was by a condemned author. Into this category fell Kepler’s Astronomia nova of 1609, his Epitome astronomiae copernicanae of 1618, and his Chilias logarithmorum, published at Marburg in 1624.
With these Indexes ended the first great period in the censorship of the Inquisition. The great compilations of 1583 and 1640 were not by their nature repressive weapons, and served more to dissuade Spaniards from reading foreign authors whom none but a few could have read anyway. The real weight of censorship in the country operated, it must be stressed, outside the scope of the Indexes: in the various systems of control at the disposal of both state and Inquisition, and in the formative restrictions that the Counter-Reformation introduced into Spain.
Any evaluation of the role of the Indexes also needs to take into account the practical question of whether they were put into effect. We may consider the situation in Catalonia. Twelve copies of the Quiroga Index arrived in Barcelona in October 1584; they were at once redistributed, a copy being sent to each bishop in Catalonia. The bishop was asked to collaborate with the comisarios (local clergy who helped the Inquisition) of that area. The comisario in his turn had to communicate the contents of his single copy to the leading persons of his district, and to the main booksellers. The booksellers for their part refused to buy copies of the Index “because they say they are very expensive.” In this instance, it appears that a single copy of the Index had to serve for an entire bishopric. If the example is typical, it would appear that in many parts of Spain the Index remained scarce and unknown. “There must be a great many books that are not corrected,” the inquisitors of Barcelona mused in 1586, when they commented on the lack of available copies. Certainly, unavailability of the Index was an excuse given by some booksellers in the city in 1593 when they were accused of selling prohibited books.77
The first concern of the Inquisition in matters of book control was over the entry of foreign books. The successful activities of Julián Hernández, who perished in the auto at Seville in December 1560, were a fraction of the effort made by Protestants to bring books into the country. In 1556 Margaret of Parma, Philip II’s regent in the Netherlands, informed the Spanish council of State that heretics “intend to send to Spain through Seville thirty thousand books of Calvin, and I hear that Marcus Pérez, who is here in Antwerp, is charged with this task.”78 Seaports were inevitably the center of inquisitorial scrutiny, and foreign sailors were vulnerable to arrest if they happened to be carrying Protestant devotional literature. Diplomats abroad sent back regular information on any unusual activity by printers or traders. The Inquisition began to claim the right to be the first to visit foreign ships when they entered territorial waters, but that provoked continual conflicts with local officials. In Bilbao the corregidor was ordered by the crown to give precedence to the Inquisition; in the Canaries the diocesan vicars were similarly told to give way.79
From the beginning of the Protestant scare, the inquisitors were aware that a rigid control of book imports had to be exercised. By early 1521 Lutheran books, translated into Spanish by conversos in Antwerp, were entering Spain via the Flanders trade route. The first ban on them was issued by Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, regent of Spain and inquisitor general, on 7 April 1521. In view of the Comunero revolt, the political no less than the religious implications of Luther were taken seriously. Books continued to arrive at all the major ports in the peninsula, but the Inquisition was vigilant: a vessel seized at Pasajes had its hold full of books “of writings by Luther and his followers.” In Burgos Bernardino Tovar was able to purchase Lutheran books imported from Flanders. By 1524, it was reported from the court, “there is so much awareness of Luther that nothing else is talked about.”80
The flow of books was impossible to stop completely, since Spain depended on imports for much of its literature. “From one hour to the next,” the Inquisition commented in 1532, “books keep arriving from Germany.” Its officials were ordered to keep a watch at seaports. Special attention was paid to the Basque coast. In 1553, for perhaps the first time,81 detailed instructions were issued to inquisitors about how to carry out visits to foreign ships in Spanish ports. But few heretical books were ever found. The real victims of vigilance were booksellers. From 1559, when a shipment of three thousand books destined for Alcalá was seized on a French vessel in San Sebastián,82 booksellers in Spain had to put up with wholesale embargoes of their precious imports. In general, the shipments were neither confiscated nor censored. They were simply delayed until the bureaucracy had decided that no illegal imports were taking place. In 1564 the Inquisi
tion ordered its officials in Bilbao and San Sebastián to send on to booksellers in Medina 245 bales of books imported from Lyon. Three years later the books were still in the ports. Embargos apart, books continued to enter freely. “Every day,” the inquisitors of Catalonia reported in 1572, “books enter both for Spain and for other parts.”83
Although commercial cargo was the usual hiding place for illegal books, the ever-zealous Inquisition insisted in 1581 that “the packages and the beds of the sailors” should also be examined.84 The searching of ships was always subject to diplomatic agreements. The peace treaty between England and Spain in 1604, for example, gave English ships protection, and in 1605 inquisitors in the ports were ordered not to visit English or Scottish vessels.85 In general, the operation to control book imports was riddled with inefficiency.86 The inquisitors of Barcelona in 1569, unable to process the great number of books entering, reported that “to entrust the work to friars and experts is not enough to keep people happy, and annoys the booksellers.” They therefore proposed “a commission of two persons to look at the books, paid by the booksellers, whose suggestion it is.”87 Orders were sent out periodically by the Suprema for books to be seized; but, the council complained in 1606, “it is reported that many of the books ordered to be picked up are not being collected.”88