The pope’s birth according to an anti-Catholic pamphlet from 1545 (Public Domain)

Thanks to the printing press, the confessional wars of the Reformation become the first testing ground for political and religious memes. Europe is awash with cartoons of ridicule and (literal) demonisation. Here are a couple of examples.

The pope is depicted as a donkey with scales and breasts. The flag in the background shows the papal coat of arms (Public Domain)

Luther helps the devil stir the cauldron of heresy

Witch-burning in Saxony-Anhalt, 1555. Woodcut after original leaflet, Germanisches Nationalmusem in Nuremberg (Public Domain)

In the late 1500s, Europe is gripped with witch hysteria. An estimated 100,000 are accused. 40,000 are tortured and killed, acording to a conservative estimate.

The witch fever seems to follow the advent of print. Many of the world’s first best-sellers deal with witchcraft, demonology and witch hunting. The best selling book after the Bible is the ‘Hammer of Witches’ from 1487.

Henry VIII and his children (Royal Museums Greenwich)

The Tudors of England react to the printing press with censorship and crack down on libellers and freethinkers with harsh punishments.

Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) issues a list of proscribed books in 1529. He also declares it an act of treason to call him a ‘tyrant’ and a ‘heretic’. In the 1530s, the cuts England from the Catholic church and initiates the English Reformation to devorce his wife.

Henry’s daughter, Mary I (r. 1553-58) issues a revised list of proscribed books and punishes slanderous writings with hand amputations. She tries to make England Catholic again and burns around 300 heretics at the stake. This earns her the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’.

Henry’s second daughter, Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), finishes the Reformation and declares England a Protestant state. She makes it illegal to skip church and declares it an act of treason to call her a ‘bastard’ and a ‘usurper’.

Copper engraving of Serveto and his execution by Christian Fritzsch, c. 1740

The Spanish theologian and polymath Miguel Serveto is burned alive in Calvins’s Geneva in October 1553. Because of his anti-Trinitarian theology, he is found guilty of blasphemy and questioning the divinity of Christ. Calvin attend the trial as star witness.

The execution moves the theologian Sebastian Castellio to advocate for religious tolerance in his book Concerning Heretics:

‘Men are puffed up with knowledge or with a false opinion of knowledge and look down upon others. Pride is followed by cruelty and persecution so that now scarcely anyone is able to endure another who differs at all from him. Although opinions are almost as numerous as men, nevertheless there is hardly any sect which does not condemn all others and desire to reign alone. Hence arise banishment, chains, imprisonments, stakes, and gallows.’
– Sebastian Castellio

Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Venice, 1564 (Public Domain)

Paul IV issues the first papal Index of Forbidden Books in 1559. It bans the entire writings of 550 authors, including Erasmus, Machiavelli and Rabelais. To enforce the censorship, inquisitors scan manuscripts, erase passages with ink and cut out pages. Prohibited books are collected and burnt. The index is not formally abolished before 1966.

François Dubois, A masacre de San Bartolomé, painted between 1572-1584 (Public Domain)

On St. Batholomew’s Day in August 1572, royal troops execute the Huguenot leaders attending a wedding in Paris. Mass killings erupt and the violence spreads to the major cities of France. Thousands of Huguenots are killed or mutilated.

The Union of Utrecht in 1579. Illustration by J.H. Eichman & H. Altmann, 1856

The Dutch Republic is born in 1579, when the northern states of the Low Countries rebel against the Spanish Habsburgs. The Dutch Republic becomes the vanguard of the early enlightenment thanks to its comparatively liberal attitudes to freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.

The Union of Utrecht from 1579 – the founding document and de facto constitution of the repubic – declares that:

“… each person shall remain free in his religion and that no one shall be investigated or persecuted because of his religion.”
– The Union of Utrecht, article 13, 1579

But in practice, the document allows the individual provinces to determine the degree of religious freedom they allow for their subjects. The Dutch Reformed Church enjoys a privileged position, Catholicism is officially banned and Lutherans, Mennonites, Anabaptists and Jews suffer various restrictions.

The Dutch Republic is more liberal with regards to censorship and freedom of speech. This liberalism results in a blossoming of print, some of the world’s first newspapers and the appearance of books that are banned everywhere else. René Descartes’ revolutionary Discours de la méthode is published anonymously in Leiden in 1637, and Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1670.

Grands Documents de l’Histoire de France, Archives Nationales (Public Domain)

The Protestant Henry of Navarre converts to Catholicism in 1572, after the St. Bartholomew Massacre when he is almost killed at his own wedding. He is proclaimed King Henry IV of France in 1589.

In April 1598, the new king issues the Edict of Nantes, granting freedom of worship to his former co-religionists.

The edict remains in force for 87 years before it is revoked by Louis XIV.

“… we have permitted, and herewith permit, those of the said religion pretended Reformed to live and abide in all the cities and places of this our kingdom and countries of our sway, without being annoyed, molested, or compelled to do anything in the matter of religion contrary to their consciences…” – The Edict of Nantes, April 1598

Read the full edict here.

Engraving of the Star Chamber, published in “Old and new London” in 1873, taken from a drawing made in 1836

The Star Chamber Decree is issued in 1586, during the reign of Elizabeth I. The law puts the English print trade under stright regulation and gives the Stationers’ Company extensive measures of control and licensing.