George Haven Putnam

“ CHAPTER III. REGULATIONS FOR THE CONTROL AND THE CENSORSHIP OF THE PRINTING-PRESS IN FRANCE.
1500-1700.
Conflicting Authorities.—The invention of printing came into the world at a period when men’s minds were agitated by one of the fiercest contests about ideas that history had known. This new art gave voice and wings to thought at the very time when thought stood for war and when opinions, under the name of creeds, were bringing men into fierce combat with each other. ”

“ Jacob Wimpfeling, a Humanist, who was also an orthodox Catholic, writing in 1501, says (in a phrase which is curiously akin to the expressions from the Berlin or Leipzig of to-day) : “We Germans practically control the intellectual world. We use our power and our influence for the service of God, for the care of souls, and for the development of the people.... It is for this work that we owe the largest acknowledgment for the service of a man like Koberger, who employs his publishing facilities only for the production of that which is best.” ”

“ From the middle of the sixteenth century and until the time of the great disasters brought on during the revolt of the Netherlands, the “Spanish fury” of 1576, and the great siege of 1585, Antwerp was at the height of its prosperity, and in the extent and varied character of its commercial relations, it was, possibly, the leading city of Europe. While the enterprise and the genius for commerce of the Netherlanders had brought into their hands so large a proportion of the trade of the world, the people were very far from being mere traders. ”

“ It was certainly the case, however, that, taking the sixteenth century as a whole, the printing press proved one of the most effective of the influences for undermining the authority of the Papacy and for restricting the rule of the Roman Church.
Luther had been prompt to recognise the value for his work of the new art. He was equally keen in his appreciation of the fact that if the fight against Rome was to secure a popular support, it was necessary to reach with the teachings of the Reformers not only the limited circles of the educated, but the masses of the people. ”

“ In the bitter controversy which Ulrich von Hutten, in the last year of his life, carried on with Erasmus, and in the course of which the knight took pains to bring together a long series of invectives, he found no ground for criticism in the relations borne by Erasmus to various patrons for whose gifts he had been a supplicant, but thought he could say nothing more invidious of his scholarly opponent than that he had received moneys from the publisher Froben, moneys which had been earned by the sale of the works of Erasmus. ”

“ Leyden was, in 1580, next to Amsterdam, the most considerable and the most important city in Holland. The heroic resistance that its citizens had made during the long siege by the Spaniards had earned fame for the city throughout all Protestant Europe, while the University, which had been founded by William the Silent in commemoration of the glory of the struggle, had at once secured for itself a prestige among the scholars of Europe, and in making Leyden a centre for the literary activities of the Dutch provinces, had given a great incentive to its publishing and printing trade. ”

“ The edition of Theophrastus, published in 1592, is the first work with which in later years Casaubon expressed himself as satisfied. No one of the books appears to have retained for itself a literary life, that is to say, to have become a part of the world’s literature or even to have remained in demand with the scholars. It was the case with Casaubon, as with Scaliger, that his reputation has remained greater than that of his productions. The scholar was more important than his books. ”

“ The press that Gutenberg had given to the world was not allowed to rust for want of plucky and public-spirited printers to develop its full scope and usefulness. In Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and England, scholarly and capable pioneers devoted themselves to the new art until it had become “understanded of the people,” had made a place for itself in the community, and could be pursued as an industry and without the necessity of exceptional individuals for its direction. ”

“ It is evident that the King, or at least the King of this date, neither created nor extended the supervision of literature, for the idea had as yet occurred to none that the printing-press could be left free. There was also, probably, no deliberate purpose to bribe or corrupt the authors of the time. It was, however, no new idea for men of letters to be dependent upon the favour of princes, and there was, it is fair to remember, a certain direct advantage for literature as well as for the Crown in adding to the social position and general welfare of writers. ”

“ Property in an intellectual production is the creation of statute, and is subject to limitations depending not upon any natural rights of the producer, but upon the convenience or advantage of the community.
Of these several theories or conceptions, it is the fourth which represents in substance the survival of the discussions of two centuries, and which has formed the basis of the copyright legislation of both Europe and America. ”

“ Secondly, we may admit that an intellectual production is from its special character much more exposed to appropriation or invasion than is material property, and that an adequate protection of the property-rights of a literary producer can be secured only by means of a very considerable measure of special legislation, and that even this legislation would often prove inadequate for the purpose unless it were seconded or supported by public opinion and by the good will of the community. ”

“ One of the results of the antagonism of the Church to critical scholarship was to drive into the ranks of sympathisers with the Reformers, if not into Protestantism itself, very many of the scholars who were not at the outset Reformers and who were not keenly interested in the theological issues of the period, but who were naturally indignant at the reiterated interference, often on the part of very ignorant men, with scholarly undertakings. The men engaged in preparing for the public critical editions of the world’s literature, asked to be let alone, but they asked in vain. ”

“ To a man like Robert Estienne, who was seeking for a place where the production of good literature could be carried on freed from the blighting interference of ecclesiastical bigotry, the death of Servetus may well have served as a warning that Protestant Geneva was no more ready than was Catholic Paris to tolerate free speech or a free press. ”

“ It is somewhat surprising, in consideration of the great wealth of the Flemish capital, the large measure of literary interest shown by its noblemen and its merchants, the extensive collections of beautiful and accurate manuscripts available for the use of the printers, and the exceptional trade facilities and connections possessed by a city which was at the time the commercial capital of North Europe, that the art of printing should not at once have secured an assured foothold, and that some printer should not have built up in the Flemish capital a successful publishing concern. ”

“ In teaching Greek, it is for us to decide what literature is best suited for our purpose. In teaching Hebrew, if, for various reasons, we find the Hebrew Scriptures best adapted for our classes, what right have you to complain? What other Hebrew book, indeed, would you select for us?” It is to be borne in mind that for the texts used for these lectures, the professors of the Collége Royal were largely dependent upon the presses of Estienne, and that in defending their right to teach Greek and Hebrew, they were also contending for his right to print and to sell the books required. ”

“ Paolo Sarpi, who became the champion of the cause of the independence of the State against ecclesiastical domination, comes into the history of literature as the upholder of the rights of authors and of publishers against the crushing censorship of the Inquisition. The problem presented to the Venetian Government was: whether the Venetian Press, supported in its liberty by the Government, should continue to maintain its character as the freest Press in Europe (and therefore one with the most active production) ”

“ New men took the lead in the publishing business of Germany. The first period in the age of printing, the period in which its service had been rendered almost exclusively to scholars, came to a close. German replaced Latin, and the Press became the servant of the people at large.
In the general course of Koberger’s publishing undertakings, the question of compensation for authors, or at least for original work of authors, could have arisen but very seldom, and in this respect his experience was identical with that of publishers generally in his generation. ”

“ The detail of smallest importance that occurs in thinking of the career of a Casaubon, a Scaliger, or an Erasmus, is the place of his birth. Even the places selected by such a scholar for a sojourn of greater or less length, are of much smaller moment in fixing his place or his influence in the history of his generation or of the world, than the particular school of thought with which he associated himself, or the special undertakings to which he gave his coöperation. ”

“ He was, further, also the first publisher to associate with typography on any large scale the work of the engraver, and the series of copper plates produced under his direction for his great series of illustrated works, constituted an enormous advance in artistic publishing. While Plantin cannot take rank with Aldus as a great man, he may fairly be described as a great publisher. He possessed imagination, courage, high ideals, and public spirit, and he showed himself not infrequently more ambitious to do important work for literature than to amass wealth. ”

“ Erasmus writes in 1508: “If some deity friendly to literature will but favour the truly royal vows of Aldus, I can promise that within a few years the studious will possess, by his work alone, all the good authors there are in the four languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee, in a complete and accurate form, and no one need have any lack of literary material. ”

“ While other causes also contributed to the extinction of the prestige of the Venetian Press, and to the very great decline in its business, the chief responsibility for such decline must rest with the Church for its persistent hostility to the smallest measure of freedom of the Press, and for its insistence upon restrictive measures of censorship which were absolutely incompatible with publishing activity and with literary production. ”

“ I am indebted to Froben for many favours and am also under great obligations to yourself because you are at such pains to provide me and my flock with the things of value to us which appear from time to time. Will you be so kind (for what will one not ask of a patron of letters?) as to put into the press, if Froben is not thereby inconvenienced, some dialogue of Lucian annotated by Erasmus, yet not so annotated as to become an interpretation, for that would induce laziness in the boys. He may, if he will, take in its place the first book of Aristotle on animals.... ”

“ Henry’s complaints concerning futile and troublesome correspondence might, of course, be repeated in many a publishing office to-day, but the modern publisher is helped out of the difficulty to some extent by his stenographers and typewriters. It remains a marvel how it was possible, without any time-saving appliances, for the publishers of the fifteenth century to conduct a complicated business, to give personal labour to preparing for the press works calling for original scholarship and detailed labour, and to carry on, in autographic letters, literary and theological correspondence. ”

“ The Estiennes.—The history of the production of books during the first century after the invention of printing is, of necessity, in the main a record of the lives and of the work of certain typical printer-publishers upon whom fell the responsibility of initiating and of shaping the literary undertakings of their time. ”

“ I am inclined to think that the actual status of an intellectual production and the relation of its producer to the community would be more accurately expressed by a combination of the first and fourth of these theories. We may assume in the first place that the right of the producer to the complete and unrestricted control of an intellectual production has been accepted as no less binding upon the community than the rights of the producers of material property. ”

“ The characteristic feature of all the editions of the Scriptures preceding the Reformation was the long series of notes and commentaries. Luther took the ground that the words of God in Holy Writ had been so overlaid and overweighted with the comments of men that their true purport was in danger of being lost sight of or not properly apprehended. In Luther’s Bible, therefore, the bold innovation was adopted of printing the text of the Scriptures without note or commentary. ”

“ During the troublous times in which the new nation was still struggling against the power of Spain for the right to exist, the number of students in the University was at best but limited, and in Leyden as in Heidelberg, Erfurt, and other of the German universities of the time, the practice of hiring or borrowing text-books, or of arranging in some manner to make one or two volumes serve for the requirements of an entire class, must have interfered not a little with the possibility of securing a living from the post of University bookseller. ”

“ While the reissue of the accepted classics of previous generations remained (and must always remain) an important division of the business of publishing, an ever increasing proportion of the work of the publishers came to be given to the comparatively routine work of distributing among readers the literature of the day, in the production of which literature the authors have, in part, led and directed, and, in part, simply followed and supplied the tastes and the demands of their readers. ”

“ The Reformation was an intellectual revolution, and the immediate work of the Reformers was carried on by argument, presented in part by preaching, but very largely by means of printed material, books and pamphlets. It is difficult to conceive of the accomplishment of the Reformation without the aid of the printing-press, and it is probably, in fact, not too much to say that, without the printing-press, the work done by the Reformers could not have been brought about at all. ”

“ While the imperial and the Saxon privileges are, in connection of course with their influence upon the book-trade of Frankfort and of Leipzig, the best known and the most frequently referred to in the history of literary production in Germany, the encouragement given to the trade of printing and publishing by certain so-called “particular” privileges must not be lost sight of. ”

“ The comparatively secluded position of Venice preserved it from many of the interruptions of foreign invasions and interstate strifes to which nearly all the other cities of Italy were subject. All classes of business were of necessity seriously interfered with, and often for the time entirely destroyed by the desolating influence of war in the form either of defensive campaigns against Germany, France, or Spain, or of the many little contests of the cities with each other; while for literary activity and for the production and distribution of books, conditions of warfare were nearly fatal. ”