From the 16th century until well into the 20th, the Index librorum prohibitorum was an authoritative list of books and pamphlets to guide Catholic Church censorship. As an instrument of censorship after the fact (of publication), it listed printed material which Catholics were forbidden to trade, purchase, own, or read, usually on pain of excommunication. The Reformation employed the still relatively new technology of printing to propagate its ideas, using books and printed ephemera, primarily in the vernacular, efficiently and in large print runs as communic…
Index librorum prohibitorum(822 words)
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Schneider, Ute, “Index librorum prohibitorum”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 28 November 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_021294>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20180915
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