Protestant Censorship
Early Church Censorship: Protestant Censorship
The Protestant Reformation did not itself erect a change in the practice of censorship. Its leaders-among them John Calvin, John Knox, and Martin Luther-claimed liberty of conscience and toleration only for themselves and their followers. When in power, they too attempted to suppress all deviation from their own brands of orthodoxy; they persecuted Protestant heretics and Roman Catholics.
In England King Henry VIII supplanted the pope as head of the Church of England. The Act of Supremacy (1534) vested in the king power to declare and punish heresies. He persecuted both papists and reformers, and he burned copies of the English translation of the New Testament.
Henry VIII established a licensing system that resembled the prepublication censorship of Pope Innocent VIII. It required printers to submit all manuscripts to church authorities for their approval prior to publication. This licensing system continued in England until 1695. The English poet John Milton protested against such censorship in his classic essay Areopagitica (1644). Many English people associated licensing by church censors with ecclesiastical supervision, the Inquisition, and restraints on religion, education, and intellectual pursuits. (1)
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