ABSTRACT
It is no exaggeration to say that one of the most frequently discussed documents from the registers of the Stationers’ Company is also the most indicative of censorship. Known as the Bishops’ Ban, the edict is dated 1 June 1599 and signed by Archbishop John Whitgift and the Bishop of London Richard Bancroft, who were both formally in charge of press censorship. It begins with a list of books, prominently headed by a series of recent collections of verse satire, alongside orders that ‘noe Satyres or Epigrams be printed hereafter’; ‘noe English historyes be printed excepted they bee allowed some of her maiesties privie Counsell’; ‘no playes be printed except they be allowed by such as haue auchtorytie’; and ‘All Nasshes bookes and Doctor Harveys bookes be taken wheresoeuer they maye be found’. The order is clear: ‘Such bookes as can be found or are allready taken of the Argumentes aforessaid or any of the bookes aboue lett them bee presentlye broughte to the bishop of London to be burnte’ (Arber 1875, III: 677). 1 An announcement from 4 June states that a number of works have been burnt, most of which are clearly satirical works, including texts later identified by John Marston, Everard Guilpin and Sir John Davies. Three books, including Joseph Hall’s Virgidemiarum (cited as ‘Halls Satires’), are said to have been ‘stai[e]d’, that is, not burnt (Arber 1875, 678). The bishops evidently felt no need to provide a reason for their Ban, which has been considered the most far-reaching act of censorship in a century even though it does not seem to have created much of a stir at the time. 2
