Editing Index Librorum Prohibitorum (section)

===European restrictions on the right to print===
[[File:Handtiegelpresse von 1811.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|left|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]] {{circa|1440}} changed the nature of book publishing, and the mechanism by which information could be disseminated to the public.<ref>McLuhan, Marshall (1962), The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1st ed.), University of Toronto Press, {{ISBN|978-0-8020-6041-9}} p. 124</ref> 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 the 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 the church encouraged printing in many ways, which allowed the dissemination of [[Bible]]s 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.<ref name="MacQueen 2007 34">{{cite book |last1=MacQueen |first1=Hector L. |last2=Waelde |first2=Charlotte |last3=Laurie |first3=Graeme T. |title=Contemporary Intellectual Property: Law and Policy |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Iwcn4pT0OoC&q=contemporary+intellectual+property |isbn=978-0-19-926339-4}}</ref><ref name="de Sola Pool 1983 14">{{cite book |last=de Sola Pool |first=Ithiel |title=Technologies of freedom |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1983 |page=[https://archive.org/details/technologiesoffr00ithi/page/14 14] |url=https://archive.org/details/technologiesoffr00ithi/page/14 |isbn=978-0-674-87233-2}}</ref>

The early versions of prohibition indexes 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]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers|url=https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/worshipful-company-stationers-and-newspaper-makers|website=Shakespeare Documented|access-date=2020-05-30}}</ref> The right to print was restricted to the two universities (Oxford and Cambridge) and to the 21 existing printers in the [[city of London]], which had between them 53 [[printing presses]].<ref name=":0" />{{pn|date=June 2022}}

The French crown also tightly controlled printing, and the printer and writer [[Étienne Dolet]] was burned at the stake for atheism in 1546. The 1551 [[Edict of Châteaubriant]] comprehensively summarized censorship positions to date, and included provisions for unpacking and inspecting all books brought into France.<ref>''The Rabelais encyclopedia'' by Elizabeth A. Chesney 2004 {{ISBN|0-313-31034-3}} pp. 31–32</ref><ref>''The printing press as an agent of change'' by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein 1980 {{ISBN|0-521-29955-1}} page 328</ref> The 1557 [[Edict of Compiègne]] applied the death penalty to heretics and resulted in the burning of a noblewoman at the stake.<ref>Robert Jean Knecht, ''The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France: 1483–1610'' 2001, {{ISBN|0-631-22729-6}} p. 241</ref> Printers were viewed as radical and rebellious, with 800 authors, printers and book dealers being incarcerated in the [[Bastille]].<ref name="de Sola Pool 1983 15">{{cite book |last=de Sola Pool |first=Ithiel |title=Technologies of freedom |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1983 |page=[https://archive.org/details/technologiesoffr00ithi/page/15 15] |url=https://archive.org/details/technologiesoffr00ithi/page/15 |isbn=978-0-674-87233-2}}</ref> At times, the prohibitions of church and state followed each other, e.g. [[René Descartes]] was placed on the Index in the 1660s and the French government prohibited the teaching of [[Cartesianism]] in schools in the 1670s.<ref name=":0">''A companion to Descartes'' by Janet Broughton, John Peter Carriero 2007 {{ISBN|1-4051-2154-8}}</ref>{{pn|date=June 2022}}

The [[Statute of Anne|Copyright Act 1710]] in Britain, and later copyright laws in France, eased this situation. Historian Eckhard Höffner 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. The German economy prospered in the same time frame since there were no restrictions.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html|title=No Copyright Law: The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion?|first=Frank|last=Thadeusz|newspaper=Der Spiegel|date=18 August 2010|via=Spiegel Online}}</ref><ref>''Geschichte und Wesen des Urheberrechts'' (History and nature of copyright) by Eckhard Höffner, 2010 (in German) {{ISBN|3-930893-16-9}}</ref>{{pn|date=June 2022}}