Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:41:48.748Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

D. M. Loades
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

A student of the sixteenth century is always tempted to represent his period as being one of unprecedented change and new departures. In the case of my present subject the temptation is particularly strong, because printing was a new invention, and the technical problems and opportunities which it presented to governments were also new. Nevertheless it would be most misleading to begin a discussion of Tudor censorship with Sir Thomas More's restrictive proclamation of 1530, or even with the introduction of printing to England in 1476. The concept of society, and of the duties and responsibilities of government, which censorship was to reflect was deeply rooted in the past, and was not fundamentally challenged until the puritan revolution of the seventeenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , January 1974 , pp. 141 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1974

References

1 Public Record Office, State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 4, no. 52.

2 Wilkins, D., Concilia (London, 1737), iii, p. 317: 2 Henry V, 1, c. 7Google Scholar.

3 Public Record Office, King's Bench Plea Rolls, KB27/760, r. Rex3.

4 3 Edward I c. 34; Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810–28), i, p. 35Google Scholar.

5 2 Richard II st. 1 c. 5: 12 Richard II c. 11.

6 1 and 2 Philip and Mary c. 3.

7 ‘Chronicle of the rebellion in Lincolnshire, 1470’, ed. Nichols, J. G., Camden Miscellany, i (London, 1847), p. 22Google Scholar.

8 James, M. E., ‘The Lincolnshire rebellion of 1536’, Past and Present, 48 (1970), pp. 1–70Google Scholar; Loades, D. M., Two Tudor Conspiracies (Cambridge, 1965)Google Scholar.

9 British Museum, Cotton MSS, Titus B 11, f. 104.

10 Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, Edward VI and Mary (London, 1861), ii, p. 119Google Scholar.

11 See particularlyElton, G. R., Policy and Police (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar, concerning the activities of Cromwell and his agents.

12 5 Elizabeth c. 15. Another interesting case is that of William Oldenall, tried in King's Bench in 1557 for declaring, ‘That the Queen's Majesty was baseborn, and that in St Paul's Churchyard a twopenny book might be had which would prove his saying to be true’. Public Record Office, KB27/1184r. Rex. 12d.

13 Bennett, H. S., English Books and Readers, 1475–1557 (Cambridge, 1952)Google Scholar.

14 Actors, Peter, ‘Stationer to the King’ from 1485Google Scholar.

15 The first man to take that title was William Faques. The Royal Printers were the official agents of government propaganda.

16 Greg, W. W., A Companion to Arber (Oxford, 1967), pp. 28–29Google Scholar: Public Record Office, State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 15 nos. 38–40.

17 Foxe, J., Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, G. (London, 1844), iii, p. 720Google Scholar.

18 Hughes, P. L. and Larkin, J. F., Tudor Royal Proclamations, i (New Haven, Conn., 1964), pp. 181–86Google Scholar: for the date, see Elton, , Policy and Police, p. 218 n. 5Google Scholar.

19 Loades, D. M., ‘The Press under the Early Tudors’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, iv, i (1964) p. 32Google Scholar.

20 Elton, Policy and Police.

21 Tudor Royal Proclamations, i, pp. 235–37.

22 Siebert, F. S., The Freedom of the Press in England, 1476–1776 (Urbana, Ill., 1965), pp. 35–36Google Scholar.

23 Tudor Royal Proclamations, i, pp 270–76. It is clear from the original draft of this proclamation, amended in the king's hand, that many of the important changes introduced were Henry's own ideas. Elton, , Policy and Police, p. 256 n. 1Google Scholar.

24 Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, iv, i, p. 33 and n.

25 34/35 Henry VIII c. 1.

26 Gardiner's tract against William Turner; The Letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. Muller, J. A. (Cambridge, 1933), p. 480Google Scholar.

27 Huggarde, Miles, The Displaying of the Protestants (London, 1556), f. 114vGoogle Scholar.

28 Latimer, Hugh, Sermons, ed. Corrie, G. E. (Parker Society, 1844), p. 132Google Scholar.

29 Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, J. (London, 1890–1907), ii, p. 312Google Scholar.

30 Tudor Royal Proclamations, i, pp. 514–18Google Scholar.

31 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Hatfield, i, pp. 83–84Google Scholar.

32 Tudor Royal Proclamations, ii (New Haven and London, 1969), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

33 For the consideration of this work see my note in the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, iii, ii (1960), pp. 155–60Google Scholar.

34 1 and 2 Philip and Mary c. 3: 1 and 3 Philip and Mary c. 10.

35 Tudor Royal Proclamations, ii, p. 90Google Scholar.

36 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Philip and Mary (London, 1936–1939), iii, p. 24Google Scholar.

37 Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, iv, i, p. 44Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., p. 45. All these men were established printers and among the original 97 members of the Chartered company.

39 Cal. Pat. Rolls, Philip and Mary, iii, p. 480.

40 British Museum, Cotton MSS, Titus B II, f. 249; quoted by Read, Conyers, Queen Elizabeth and Lord Burghley (London, 1960), p. 117Google Scholar.

41 Carter was a persistent offender, but the government had some difficulty in securing his conviction; Siebert, , The Freedom of the Press in England, pp. 89–90Google Scholar.

42 Public Record Office, King's Bench Plea Rolls, KB27/1325 r. Rex 3.

43 Public Record Office, State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 44 no. 52.

44 Visitation Articles and Injunctions, ed. Frere, W. H. and Kennedy, W. P. M. (Alcuin Club, London, 1910), iii, p. 24Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., p. 25.

46 Public Record Office, State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 190, no. 48.

47 Albright, E. M., Dramatic Publication in England, 1580–1640 (New York, 1927)Google Scholar.

48 A Transcript of the Registers of the Stationers' Company, 1554–1640, ed. Arber, E. (London and Birmingham, 1875–1894)Google Scholar.

49 British Museum, Lansdowne MSS, 48/83 f. 195; Greg, , A Companion to Arber, p. 91Google Scholar.

50 This was also laid down in the Star Chamber decree of 1586. Siebert, , The Freedom of the Press in England, p. 70Google Scholar.

51 Public Record Office, State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 244, no. 4.

52 Ibid., vol. 170, no. 48.

53 For a full examination of the implications of this image, see Walzer, M., The Revolution of the Saints (London, 1966)Google Scholar.