Censorship in Portugal - Inquisitorial Censorship

Inquisitorial Censorship

With the start of the Inquisition in Portugal following the papal bull Cum ad nihil magis of May 23, 1536, teaching Judaism to "New Christians", and the use of vernacular translations of the Bible were prohibited. Three types of censorship thus became evident: ecclesiastical, royal, and ordinary.

The earliest existing documentation of publication licences refer to the works of Baltasar Días in 1537 as well as to the Cartinha, an introduction to João de Barros' "Grammar", in 1539.

On November 2, 1540, Henry I, who had been named Grand Inquisitor by John III, gave to the prior of the Dominicans the authority to verify the type of books sold in both public and private libraries, as well as to prohibit the granting of the Imprimatur, the Church's permission, to any book without prior examination. In 1598, the General Inquisitor António de Matos Noronha conceded this privilege to other clerical orders, as the Dominicans had a monopoly on the review of books.

On July 16, 1547, the restrictions were lessened somewhat due to the directives in the bull Meditatis cordis, although the first edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in Portugal appeared in 1515, as a consequence of the Fifth Council of the Lateran. The Index virtually reproduced the lists of books proscribed by the Sorbonne in 1544 and by the Université catholique de Louvain (Catholic University of Leuven) in 1546.

As a consequence of the Inquisition's discovery that foreign-born professors were in possession of prohibited books, monitoring of books was extended to customs. They began to verify the orthodoxy of books entering the country in greater detail. A second edition of the Index was published on July 4, 1551, in which the Portuguese censors expanded the list of works prohibited by the theologians of Leuven to include the books catalogued by the Swiss scholar Conrad Gesner in their Bibliotheca Universalis, in addition to other works, seven folios of Gil Vicente among them. This would be the first Portuguese Index to be created, and would be published in all national territories by the Inquisitors who had, according to Inquisition order, to take in and note all found books and report their owners to the Inquisition itself.

In 1557, Pope Paul IV, due to pressure from the University of Leuven and Charles I of Spain, ordered the creation of the Roman Index, where owners of forbidden books were sentenced to 'latae sententitae' excommunication (implying automatic excommunication) and "perpetual infamy". Such severity, even for those times, brought a wave of panic to European booksellers, dealers, and intellectuals. Portugal was no exception.

In 1561, the Dominican Francisco Foreiro signed a new Portuguese Index, by order of then-Cardinal Henry I, who wrote as introduction to it a letter in which, while not being as hostile as the one by the Holy See, proclaimed the need for "preventive Censorship".

On October 21, 1561, the Grand Inquisitor defined the duties of the "Carrack inspectors", who would inspect the works brought from foreign lands by sea.

Censorship efforts in Portugal were openly recognized by Pope Pius IV, who appointed Friar Francisco Foreiro to head the commission of the Council of Trent, responsible for reviewing Paul IV's Index.

The Portuguese friar was the author of the rules that preceded the Synod's Index, published by Pope Paul V, and that would later be used in all upcoming Indexes. The Index of Trent was published in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in the same year, with an addendum called Rol dos livros que neste Reino se proibem (Roll of the books which in this Kingdom are forbidden - List of banned books). This list would be added to all subsequent editions of the Index in Portugal.

King Sebastian of Portugal, enacting a law on June 18, 1571, had an important role in censorship legislation defining the civil penalties for Index infractors. He defined a fine of from a fourth to a half of the infractors' legal possessions, plus the penalty of exile in Brazil or an African colony. Death sentences were also not uncommon. Apprehended books were burned and burnings were supervised by clerics.