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The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

D. M. Loades
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A student of the sixteenth century is always tempted to represent his period as being one of unprecedented change and new departures. In the case of my present subject the temptation is particularly strong, because printing was a new invention, and the technical problems and opportunities which it presented to governments were also new. Nevertheless it would be most misleading to begin a discussion of Tudor censorship with Sir Thomas More's restrictive proclamation of 1530, or even with the introduction of printing to England in 1476. The concept of society, and of the duties and responsibilities of government, which censorship was to reflect was deeply rooted in the past, and was not fundamentally challenged until the puritan revolution of the seventeenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , January 1974 , pp. 141 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1974

References

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