Bible; also writings against the King's matrimonial projects.
The Protestants on the continent followed the same system. Calvin condemned a Spanish physician, who happened to come to Geneva, to be burned at the stake, because he had written a heretical book. The Protestant princes and republics had each its special book-legislation, which was made to serve not only religious but also political purposes.
After the middle of the eighteenth century, in almost all Catholic countries, the civil power usurped the monopoly of proscribing books, and practiced it in a truly despotic way. Thus in Austria 639 books were forbidden within five years. No book was allowed to be printed without previous permission, not even on forestry or cattle-raising. Bishops were severely reproved for enforcing the prohibitions of the Roman Index in their seminaries.
Napoleon I had a publisher shot, practically without trial, for issuing a work contrary to his political plans. One book was publicly burned because it contained
